Subformat: Adventurer

[pokken]

So I had a brainchild when I first saw classes, and it's entirely possible someone else had this same thought - not like it's that un-obvious of an idea. But basically:

What if these classes could be commanders?

This one in particular is immensely flavorful and has all the hallmarks of a cool commander - strong but not overly strong signposts, etc.

Based on the article from Wizards, I think Adventurer is an extremely obvious name for this format and cool as heck: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2021-07-02

The first principle I came up with is below, but possible there are more!

1. Compatible Subformat

Adventurer is a 100% compatible subformat of Commander. It's additive, it adds things you can do, but nothing prevents you from playing commander decks in Adventurer or vice-versa as long as people agree (Rule 0). There are no rules changes, banlist changes, or any divergence from the rules that create incompatibility.

Because Classes are not all that powerful they shouldn't create any power level imbalances either.

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What do we need to do other than "Class enchantments can be your commander" from a rules standpoint? I can't think of anything offhand.

[pokken]

(Some "going-ham" ideas that probably add too much power and complexity but I'm going to get them down anyway)

* Uncommon Classes have "Partner With Commanders who have Partner"

* All classes have "Partner With one legal commander"

* Uncommon Classes have "Partner with Uncommon Classs" (so you can multiclass with basic classes)

[Wallycaine]

Hmm... yeah, my first thought is that with only 12 options, and it looks like a significant chunk of those being mono colored, a major limitation is going to be color restriction. Some variation on "parter" seems reasonable as a way to help alleviate that, but partner is a strong mechanic that's going to be necesscary to be careful with, so I'm really skeptical the second one wouldn't get broken fast. The first one doesn't need the "with" part, you could just say "Uncommon Classes have Partner", but that still leaves classes like Ranger Class out in the cold/mono color.

One *flavorful* restriction you could explore is restricting the partners to commanders with the 'same' creature type. So Barbarian Class could partner with any legendary Barbarian.

[Sanity_Eclipse]

Hmm... yeah, my first thought is that with only 12 options, and it looks like a significant chunk of those being mono colored, a major limitation is going to be color restriction. Some variation on "parter" seems reasonable as a way to help alleviate that, but partner is a strong mechanic that's going to be necesscary to be careful with, so I'm really skeptical the second one wouldn't get broken fast. The first one doesn't need the "with" part, you could just say "Uncommon Classes have Partner", but that still leaves classes like Ranger Class out in the cold/mono color.

One *flavorful* restriction you could explore is restricting the partners to commanders with the 'same' creature type. So Barbarian Class could partner with any legendary Barbarian.

On that second point, something like a Companion mechanic is what it sounds like. Somewhat Rule-0 ish, but for like Bard that doesn't have a direct MtG comparison, the Classes can partner with / Class a Legendary that could be argued to be that class? (wording might be off, if needed I can try to re-explain).

Barbarian Class
Bard Class
Cleric Class
Druid Class
Fighter Class
Monk Class
Paladin Class
Ranger Class
Rogue Class
Sorcerer Class
Warlock Class
Wizard Class

[Wallycaine]

The nice part, at least so far, is that the ones like Bard and Fighter that don't have an MTG analogue (at least among legendaries) have seemed to be the dual color ones, so there's less "need" for them to have a partner. That said, It's probably reasonable to pick analogous classes, for example Fighter could be easily said to pair with Warrior or Soldier.

[chetoos]

Bard as a class is coming to MTG, and Fighter is basically just warrior.

[pokken]

Man the Rogue Class is just the most beautiful flavorful work of design art I've seen in a while heh. I do like the idea of analog classes but I think that might be a bit overly restrictive and has a limitations; if all the monocolored ones wind up having an analog in the magic world, that does seem pretty clear cut cool (e.g. Ranger Class can partner with Drizzt Do'Urden or Varis, Silverymoon Ranger theoretically - That said, ones like Ranger that have no direct lines to Magic creature types are something of an issue in consistency?

I'm somewhat torn on the idea of allowing classes to partner with creatures at all, or just allowing any of the mono-colored or uncommon ones to partner with each other.

Because the multicolored ones are just so complete on their own (Rogue Class Bard Class) I don't think they really need anything, and introducing creatures at all creates the potential for unforeseen balancing problems.

I'm thinking the simplest might be to just allow any mono-colored class to Partner With another class, which would allow 3 color decks to be built. It has some disadvantages of making it the default position to multiclass but hey, welcome to D&D

An advantage of having the 'partner' ability tied to legendary creatures is 1) closer relationship with commander, and 2) less of the loaded 'it's strictly better to multiclass' from a tone/feel perspective.

Lots of good thoughts so far

[pokken]

That said, It's probably reasonable to pick analogous classes, for example Fighter could be easily said to pair with Warrior or Soldier.

Maintaining a type dictionary of which classes can align with which creature types would be a gigantic pain in the buttocks (e.g. is an Artificier a Wizard? What about a Spellshaper?) but could also be quite rewarding and distinctive.

so I'm really skeptical the second one wouldn't get broken fast.

Not restricting at all is probably hugely problematic as it creates a scenario where it's strictly better for your commander to have a class so I think that should probably be avoided, you're probably right.

Allowing *some* commanders with aligned types to be partnered with a class has some of that problem flavor as well (e.g. can Golos, Tireless Pilgrim partner with Ranger Class ? Yuck, why does the saddest robot need anything?:).

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More brainstorming that probably won't work:
All classes have Partner with another class. Mono-classed adventurers have (some advantage - cost reductions, can activate their abilities additional times, create a treasure token when they activate their ability, receive a discount on their commander tax, have Hexproof)

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And a problem note:

Classes exaggerate the power of enchantment targeting abilities. Is possible that needs to be corrected for.

[Wallycaine]

Bard as a class is coming to MTG, and Fighter is basically just warrior.

Ahh, you are right on bard. I had thought there wouldn't be any legends for it (cause the big face 'legend' of the class is Ellywick Tumblestrum, and that's a planeswalker), but there's at least Kalain, Reclusive Painter as an option, and we could certainly see others.

I think Ranger, at least, is a class that's likely to get added to over time, now that they've gotten it into the creature type library. And I think the added options are a good thing, as a format with only 12 options (or even combos of 12 options) is likely to risk getting stale very fast. Adding creatures is definitely a balance concern, but one worth exploring, I think.

Oh, and for clarity: I definitely don't think we should create piles of classes for *each* one. I think anything that has a specific creature type that exists in MTG (Rogue, Druid, Warlock, Wizard, Cleric, Barbarian, possibly Ranger, Bard, Monk) should be restricted to exactly that class. It's just the classes that *don't* have direct equivalents (Paladin, Fighter, Sorcerer) that should get an alternate class, and I'd probably recommend keeping each of those to 1 (so either Warrior or Soldier for fighter, not both).

[Wallycaine]

Thinking on it a bit more, I think the 3 equivalents needed are fairly simple, if a bit weird on one of them:

Paladin - Knight. Fairly simple, fits with the paladin's we've seen so far, makes sense.

Fighter - Warrior. Mostly, this is because of the Party Mechanic basically coming out and saying "Warriors are your fighter type creatures".

Sorcerer - Shaman. This is the weird one, but Shaman has, for a long time, been red's default "this is a magic user". And on cards like Brazen Dwarf and Chaos Channeler, we can see that they're sticking to that, even when the cards in question are pretty clearly representing Sorcerers. Red seems pretty likely to be where they'll stick the Sorcerer class, so it flows with that end of things as well.

[Rumpy5897]

I don't feel that the class situation merits anything more than being rule zero'd in as eligible commanders. People should be accommodating, especially as the decks are unlikely to be extremely potent (the one time I regretted allowing a nonstandard commander was when the game ended turn five by the hands of Ink-Treader Nephilim). I wouldn't make trouble if someone partnered together two crummy uncommon classes either. However, anything more than that feels like a stretch in terms of complexity of what you're trying to pull off. All of a sudden it becomes optimal to shoehorn in the matching class if your commander has the correct type. Druid Class is hardly anything to write home about, but if I got to run it for free because Gilanra happens to be a druid? Sure, I guess.

[pokken]

I don't feel that the class situation merits anything more than being rule zero'd in as eligible commanders. People should be accommodating, especially as the decks are unlikely to be extremely potent (the one time I regretted allowing a nonstandard commander was when the game ended turn five by the hands of Ink-Treader Nephilim). I wouldn't make trouble if someone partnered together two crummy uncommon classes either. However, anything more than that feels like a stretch in terms of complexity of what you're trying to pull off. All of a sudden it becomes optimal to shoehorn in the matching class if your commander has the correct type. Druid Class is hardly anything to write home about, but if I got to run it for free because Gilanra happens to be a druid? Sure, I guess.

As a long term D&D player I find them really enticing from a mechanical and aesthetic perspective, though I find lots of doubts about the idea of marrying them with creatures at all. Giving powerful creature types additional tools just feels like a can of worms to open.

I do really like the potential for multiclassing though if I could find a somewhat balanced and elegant way to reward single-classing.

Being able to say "my planeswalker is a fighter-rogue" or whatever sounds super cool (and that would be an insanely fun four color combat deck anyway:P).

That said, just simply rule-zeroing "You can play one of these as your commander" is probably going to achieve the best format penetration - it's clean, easy and something you don't need to show a rules document to enable cross-play with Commander.

[Rumpy5897]

Fighter rogue is a lovely example of why asking for partner on top of classes is a dodgy idea for the good classes. Fighter alone is a dream Sunforger enabler, to the point of tutoring it out for you, and then rogue adds more colours to the toolbox and extra strategic avenues. A bit too good for an unofficial deck you're trying to get rule zero'd into a game, I feel

[pokken]

Fighter rogue is a lovely example of why asking for partner on top of classes is a dodgy idea for the good classes. Fighter alone is a dream Sunforger enabler, to the point of tutoring it out for you, and then rogue adds more colours to the toolbox and extra strategic avenues. A bit too good for an unofficial deck you're trying to get rule zero'd into a game, I feel

I don't know that it's really any different from other commanders where the power level is high - fighter/rogue would be possibly the strongest most synergistic pairs of the classes released thus far, and still significantly weaker for the mana investment than any of the top 20 commanders.

The issue is that as is, only 3 or 4 of them are a deck and most of them are hot garbage. Allowing them to pair up makes all the mono-colored ones kinda interesting?

It's possible you restrict it to only mono-colored classes as partnering with each other, but complexity creep is a real thing.

[Mookie]

Theoretically, you could have a penalty for multiclassing - something like 'you can't have more than 3 levels'. If you pick up a second class, that means you won't be able to reach level 3 in your main class.

That said, I'd probably lean towards just allowing the mono-colored classes to partner, and not allowing you to multiclass with a multicolored class.

[Rumpy5897]

That's a fair point - if banned as commander is too complex, then so is "partner with other uncommon classes" And yeah - fighter rogue might not be the most busted deck ever, but if you're asking to bend the rules of the format then you should field something weaker than average. Alternately, you're opening yourself up to being whined at how your deck is illegal and shouldn't have been allowed

[pokken]

That's a fair point - if banned as commander is too complex, then so is "partner with other uncommon classes" And yeah - fighter rogue might not be the most busted deck ever, but if you're asking to bend the rules of the format then you should field something weaker than average. Alternately, you're opening yourself up to being whined at how your deck is illegal and shouldn't have been allowed

I'll just carry a Golos deck around with me and offer to play that instead =P

I do think that 'monocolored classes partner with each other' seems pretty fine and maybe not overwhelming from a complexity standpoing personally, so I might try just writing that for the draft.

I think allowing any sort of partnering with creatures is just too much abuse potential. But really anyone who cares about Barbarian Wizard being too powerful is drunk so I think the multiclassing is probly fine amongst the monocolored ones.

[cryogen]

Moved to variant subforum

[onering]

I don't think these need partner. Some of them are pretty weak, but some are cool enough to justify running on their own. The fact that they are enchantments means that they're a lot more resilient than creatures, and so can be more reliably built around. This offsets some of the downsides of being mono or bi colored. Not everything needs to be competitive at a high powered casual table.

[Cyberium]

Maybe it can be done like a RPG game, where you can choose to "multi-class", but level up would cost you 1 or 2 more mana each?