Thought Exercise: Changing the Commander Tax

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cryogen
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Post by cryogen » 2 years ago

The commander tax is meant to act on a check against recasting your general over and over, but it seems like as time goes on this gets easier and easier to bypass. From Derevi who laughs at it, Karador who may as well not have one, and green ramp decks who never lack for pay the extra mana, it feels like there are just some generals you can't get a breather from.

It seems pretty likely that the command tax is highly unlikely to change due to inertia, but I was wondering what alternatives you can come out with, as well as pros and cons for them. Remember, the goal isn't to lock the commander out of the game, just to make them slower to come back out.

I was thinking about time counters. Basically, like giving it suspend 2, but something new that doesn't have any rules baggage associated with it. So it goes back to the CZ and then two turns later you can recast it. Unlike the command tax, this wouldn't be cumulative -- you just have to wait two turns. The upsides are that its easier to track since you don't have to worry about how many times you've cast it, and it would actually slow a player down because they couldn't recast their general no matter how much mana they had. The downside is that they can't cast their general, and this could produce feel bad moments.

Anyway, thoughts? Ideas?
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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

I had a bunch of ideas on this a while back and I lost most of them to the ether, buried in threads

One of them was similar to your suspend thing, basically any time a commander dies it goes into {intermediate space} until your next end step. This fixes all of the stupid commander infinite loops like Maelstrom Wanderer and Food Chain related stuff handily, as well as creating ways to get rid of generals for a while.

The other one was scaling the tax, something like:
1,3,6,10,15
vs the current
2,4,6,8,10

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Post by kraus911 » 2 years ago

I actually like the suspend 2 idea, represents two land drops which without ramp would be about when you'd cast your commander again. Other possibilities might be only being able to cast your commander once per turn.

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Post by Sporegorger_Dragon » 2 years ago

cryogen wrote:
2 years ago
I was thinking about time counters. Basically, like giving it suspend 2, but something new that doesn't have any rules baggage associated with it. So it goes back to the CZ and then two turns later you can recast it. Unlike the command tax, this wouldn't be cumulative -- you just have to wait two turns. The upsides are that its easier to track since you don't have to worry about how many times you've cast it, and it would actually slow a player down because they couldn't recast their general no matter how much mana they had. The downside is that they can't cast their general, and this could produce feel bad moments.
I like the idea of having commanders on cooldown, as it were.

How about, instead of a fixed two turns of cooldown, have the penalty be linked to how many times the Commander is cast in a single turn?

Although I'm not sure how to keep track of it.
kraus911 wrote:
2 years ago
Other possibilities might be only being able to cast your commander once per turn.
This could work too.
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Post by Mookie » 2 years ago

Hmmmmm..... I like this idea, or at least the possibility of testing it out. The current implementation of commander tax - requiring additional mana each time - is yet another aspect of the format that encourages ramp strategies. Decks that do a ton of ramping are able to always have access to their commander, even through repeated removal. On the flip side, losing access to your commander entirely after it dies enough times is sort of obnoxious - at the very least, it's likely to cost you your entire turn, which is a hefty price as the game goes on. If we were to say that the ideological reason for commander tax is to put them in a time-out box, this would be a much more direct implementation.

....the extra bookkeeping is definitely a real cost though.

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Post by Gamazson » 2 years ago

I like the timer idea. Once per turn disproportionately favors commanders with a low CMC like Skullbriar, the Walking Grave.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

Once per turn is kind of the simple low common denominator that would be easily implemented and templated. "You may cast your commander" becomes "You may cast your commander up to once per turn."

I kind of prefer the templating of "move your commander to the command zone face down" and then "at the beginning of your end step you may flip your commander face up" or something like that to make sure that if your commander dies to a sweeper or removal in another player's turn or at your end step it doesn't immediately come back.

I do not like Suspend because it allows commanders to be Trickbind'd and such, creates weird interactions. Also do not like it interacting with Jhoira's Timebug or Clockspinning

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Post by cryogen » 2 years ago

Yeah I mentioned suspend because it is something we are all familiar with, but wouldn't actually use the mechanic. I should have mentioned not wanting to be able to interact with it, since that was another concern. You'd have to ban Clockspinning, which would suck.
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Post by Mookie » 2 years ago

"When your commander dies / is exiled / etc, you may put it into your commander into the command zone with two time counters on it. You can't cast it while it has time counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter from your commander."?

Using suspend directly would probably not be the best idea, since it interacts with too many things (ex: Teferi, Time Raveler). But you could do something similar. It may make Paradox Haze too strong though. :P

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Post by Legend » 2 years ago

Mookie wrote:
2 years ago
The current implementation of commander tax - requiring additional mana each time - is yet another aspect of the format that encourages ramp strategies.
Exactly!
pokken wrote:
2 years ago
I kind of prefer the templating of "move your commander to the command zone face down" and then "at the beginning of your end step you may flip your commander face up" or something like that to make sure that if your commander dies to a sweeper or removal in another player's turn or at your end step it doesn't immediately come back.
And no extra game pieces required. Brilliant! Oh how I wish this were the rule currently.
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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

Legend wrote:
2 years ago
pokken wrote:
2 years ago
I kind of prefer the templating of "move your commander to the command zone face down" and then "at the beginning of your end step you may flip your commander face up" or something like that to make sure that if your commander dies to a sweeper or removal in another player's turn or at your end step it doesn't immediately come back.
And no extra game pieces required. Brilliant! Oh how I wish this were the rule currently.
Actually occurred to me that my phrasing sounds like a trigger, so it'd probably need to be something like "During your cleanup phase you may flip your commander face up as a special action" but whatever, close enough :)

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Post by cryogen » 2 years ago

But now you can't run flipwalker commanders!
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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

cryogen wrote:
2 years ago
But now you can't run flipwalker commanders!
You can. Flip walkers can be face down in exile can't they?

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Post by RxPhantom » 2 years ago

I wonder if you could use something like suspend while borrowing from Out of Time. You could have the commander phase out on ETB with a number of counters on it equal to the number of times it was previously cast from the command zone. You can see where I'm going. Remove a counter every upkeep then it phases back in when there are no counters on it. Not sure if it would work or if it could be templated in a way that isn't extremely clunky.
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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

RxPhantom wrote:
2 years ago
I wonder if you could use something like suspend while borrowing from Out of Time. You could have the commander phase out on ETB with a number of counters on it equal to the number of times it was previously cast from the command zone. You can see where I'm going. Remove a counter every upkeep then it phases back in when there are no counters on it. Not sure if it would work or if it could be templated in a way that isn't extremely clunky.
Problem with phasing is too many things interact with it--not a lot, but enough.

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Post by illakunsaa » 2 years ago

How about a limit on how many times you can cast your commander (from the command zone) per game?

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Post by Dunharrow » 2 years ago

I vote for you can only cast the commander once per turn, but would still keep some kind of tax.
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Post by cryogen » 2 years ago

pokken wrote:
2 years ago
cryogen wrote:
2 years ago
But now you can't run flipwalker commanders!
You can. Flip walkers can be face down in exile can't they?
I didn't think dual faced cards could ever be turned face down?
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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

cryogen wrote:
2 years ago
I didn't think dual faced cards could ever be turned face down?
I mean you can manifest them too right?

https://blogs.magicjudges.org/rules/cr711/

711.11 A double-faced card that is exiled face down remains hidden, using either a face-down checklist card or opaque sleeves. See rule 713.

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Post by Dunharrow » 2 years ago

DFCs can be face down. Either you are using checklist cards or you are using sleeves. Either way, they can still be face down.
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Post by cryogen » 2 years ago

Well then. Did that change because I thought stuff like Ixidron didn't affect them.
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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

Ixidron doesn't affect them. The difference is whether or not the permanent is being turned face down (which can't happen) or whether it starts face down (which can). So, Manifest works and they can be put into exile face down. However, once on the battlefield they cannot be turned face down.

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Post by Crazy Monkey » 2 years ago

The way I've understood DFC sides since their expansion post-Innistrad was that it was another mode. So a default mode for a card is face up (morph/manifest/Ixodron), untapped, phased in, and on side #1. The only weirdness is face up and side #1 both change by flipping the physical card over; the difference being whether the sleeve flips with it.
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Post by Sinis » 2 years ago

cryogen wrote:
2 years ago
Anyway, thoughts? Ideas?
The commander tax could be a "discard 1 card" after the first cast, and it doesn't increment.

Realistically, though, I think is just right. The rule was probably fine before green got a billion more ramp cards and the designs for Derevi, Yuriko, etc. I don't think we can ever really expect a rule that will work okay simultaneously for Derevi and for Ur-Dragon.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

Making tax apply to derevi and yuriko would be pretty easy (if an ability on your commander would cause it to leave the zone...) I'd consider halving the tax for that.

Man do I hate playing against yuriko.

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