[MCD] Wishes

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Jemolk
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Post by Jemolk » 2 years ago

onering wrote:
2 years ago
I mean, just run the thematic/flavorful cards instead of the wishes.
Yeah, sure, lemme just stick Cower in Fear and also Blood Reckoning into the maindeck of my Nicol Bolas theme deck, despite the fact that I can't even fit all the actually strong flavorful and thematic cards, and the fact that I'm running Mastermind's Acquisition as on-flavor Diabolic Tutor anyway. ...You get the point, right? Do you really think games would be worse if it was just generally accepted that you could grab an outside-the-game Blood Reckoning with a Mastermind's Acquisition in a Nicol Bolas theme deck, or something similar? How about Burning Wish (because "burning" sounds like pyromancy to me) for Chandra's Revolution, Devour in Flames, or Furious Reprisal in a Chandra deck? And if not, then what's the real objection here?

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Post by onering » 2 years ago

Jemolk wrote:
2 years ago
onering wrote:
2 years ago
I mean, just run the thematic/flavorful cards instead of the wishes.
Yeah, sure, lemme just stick Cower in Fear and also Blood Reckoning into the maindeck of my Nicol Bolas theme deck, despite the fact that I can't even fit all the actually strong flavorful and thematic cards, and the fact that I'm running Mastermind's Acquisition as on-flavor Diabolic Tutor anyway. ...You get the point, right? Do you really think games would be worse if it was just generally accepted that you could grab an outside-the-game Blood Reckoning with a Mastermind's Acquisition in a Nicol Bolas theme deck, or something similar? How about Burning Wish (because "burning" sounds like pyromancy to me) for Chandra's Revolution, Devour in Flames, or Furious Reprisal in a Chandra deck? And if not, then what's the real objection here?
There's no objection to someone playing like that. Now figure out how to craft the rule so it results in people actually playing like that, I'll wait.

I'm not sure why its so difficult for people to understand that its much easier to rule 0 something being allowed than to rule 0 something away. You can make your case to your playgroup that they should let you use wishes for those flavorful, narrow, mediocre cards. If they don't let you, too bad, but most playgroups will let you. I've said earlier in the thread that my own playgroup allows outside the game effects, because we're a small group that knows each other and can make it work by setting our own guidelines. Now imagine the flip side, that outside the game effects are allowed by default, and in addition to your fun little Bolas deck people are running wish packages to hit hard hate cards. The game is made worse for most people. Tight playgroups could adapt, but that doesn't translate into stores, online, or pick up games.

Does it suck that you can't do what you want to do with your Bolas deck? Yeah, it does a little. Its a neat concept and probably the most fair thing you could be doing with wishes. What sucks more, though, is all the crap making wishes work would bring to the format. That's part of why something like Dirk's 3 wishes rule is preferable, as it limits how many things you could wish for, which hurts the "Wish for narrow hard hate" strategy a lot worse because it can't cover all its bases and without hurting what you want to do as much.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

There is literally no evidence about wishes in commander other than that they were problematic enough to get the entire effect banned early on afaik

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Post by Legend » 2 years ago

onering wrote:
2 years ago
I'm not sure why its so difficult for people to understand that its much easier to rule 0 something being allowed than to rule 0 something away.
Because it's the opposite of reality? Ruling things away is the primary use if not purpose of Rule 0. It's normal and infinitely easier to "Rule 0" a taking turns deck, or a wheel deck, or a cEDH combo deck than it is to "Rule 0" WISHING into a game. But if it were true, such an onus shouldn't be on players to begin with. Besides, nobody wants to hear "You only won because we allowed you to cheat."

Better than all of that would be the Rule 0 scenario of "Are we playing sanctioned or unsanctioned?".
pokken wrote:
2 years ago
There is literally no evidence about wishes in commander other than that they were problematic enough to get the entire effect banned early on afaik
I'm considering evidence to the contrary from the other Magic formats. The problem the RC had two decades ago was that the lines between "outside of game" and "removed from game" were blurry. And the (gaming) world wasn't as informed and homogenized as it is today thanks to technology. There's no evidential reason against WISHING in Commander, unless we count

"Two decades ago, back in 2001, before toddlers had smart phones and before many of today's Commander players were born, WISHING was complicated even for level 5 judges." - an RC member, probably

Wizards has had an impeccable rule about "outside of game" effects for over a decade that will work for Commander. It's time for Commander to get in sync with the rest of the game.
“Comboing in Commander is like dunking on a seven foot hoop.” – Dana Roach

“Making a deck that other people want to play against – that’s Commander.” – Gavin Duggan

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Jemolk
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Post by Jemolk » 2 years ago

onering wrote:
2 years ago
I'm not sure why its so difficult for people to understand that its much easier to rule 0 something being allowed than to rule 0 something away.
I think this might actually be one of the major points of contention. For individual cards, it is, but for an entire mechanic? I'm not so sure. Nobody objects to me running Old Fogey in Dinosaur tribal, and even fewer are inclined to do so after I offer to swap it for Vorinclex if they do have a problem with it, strangely enough, but depending on the wish setup, it could be a much bigger ask at least psychologically for a lot of people, even if the wishboard is casual jank. On the other hand, "that deck is too powerful for this group, could you use a different one, or borrow one?" generally works quite well, and similar objections could be raised to a deck with a wishboard.

Perhaps the solution that feels most right to me, then, is this: you need to reveal your wishboard before the game begins, like with a commander, and also offer people a chance to make pregame decisions depending on the contents (like choosing a different deck). A five to seven card set seems relatively appropriate for the high end unless more is agreed on, as well, particularly if people know what options are there before the game starts. I'm not trying to take away all the tough decisions on what flavorful jank to include in a deck, after all. And of course, if you reveal a Flashfires and a bunch of other color hosers in your wishboard, you can expect to get targeted, because multiplayer can be somewhat self-regulating like that.
39 Commander decks and counting. I'm sure this is fine, and not at all a problem.

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Post by Sharpened » 2 years ago

Legend wrote:
2 years ago
pokken wrote:
2 years ago
There is literally no evidence about wishes in commander other than that they were problematic enough to get the entire effect banned early on afaik
I'm considering evidence to the contrary from the other Magic formats. The problem the RC had two decades ago was that the lines between "outside of game" and "removed from game" were blurry. And the (gaming) world wasn't as informed and homogenized as it is today thanks to technology. There's no evidential reason against WISHING in Commander, unless we count

"Two decades ago, back in 2001, before toddlers had smart phones and before many of today's Commander players were born, WISHING was complicated even for level 5 judges." - an RC member, probably

Wizards has had an impeccable rule about "outside of game" effects for over a decade that will work for Commander. It's time for Commander to get in sync with the rest of the game.
This strawman argument is dead wrong and incredibly insulting to the rules committee.

Also, the rules surrounding "outside of game" effects have only changed once since 2002, when the removed-from-game zone becoming the exile zone, and no longer accessible to "outside the game" effects.

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Post by onering » 2 years ago

That guy uses strawmen more than The Reaper King.

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Post by Jemolk » 2 years ago

onering wrote:
2 years ago
That guy uses strawmen more than The Reaper King.
Given how most Reaper King lists rely heavily on Changelings, that's probably not saying as much as you think. Regardless, it looked more like hyperbole to me. The point, which doesn't seem that obscure from where I'm sitting, appears to be that wishes are a lot less complicated than certain groups in this discussion are portraying them to be, but also the reason that they seemed complicated at earlier dates but not anymore might be related to the increased ease of access to information. Though, if you ask me, the real reason would be that there is more of a social framework for this sort of thing in place now that a casual format has been rather prominent for a good number of years as one of the prime ways to play Magic.
39 Commander decks and counting. I'm sure this is fine, and not at all a problem.

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Post by Sharpened » 2 years ago

Jemolk wrote:
2 years ago
onering wrote:
2 years ago
That guy uses strawmen more than The Reaper King.
Given how most Reaper King lists rely heavily on Changelings, that's probably not saying as much as you think. Regardless, it looked more like hyperbole to me. The point, which doesn't seem that obscure from where I'm sitting, appears to be that wishes are a lot less complicated than certain groups in this discussion are portraying them to be, but also the reason that they seemed complicated at earlier dates but not anymore might be related to the increased ease of access to information. Though, if you ask me, the real reason would be that there is more of a social framework for this sort of thing in place now that a casual format has been rather prominent for a good number of years as one of the prime ways to play Magic.
It was a clear strawman. He presented a false argument ("The problem the RC had two decades ago was that the lines between "outside of game" and "removed from game" were blurry.") and then proceeded to argue against it. He even created a fake quote. It's a textbook strawman.

And since we have papa_funk (an actual member of the rules committee) already posting the actual reasons for the current rule and discussion of it in this very message board thread, it's particularly egregious to make up garbage about the rules committee's reasoning.

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Post by Jemolk » 2 years ago

Sharpened wrote:
2 years ago
Jemolk wrote:
2 years ago
onering wrote:
2 years ago
That guy uses strawmen more than The Reaper King.
Given how most Reaper King lists rely heavily on Changelings, that's probably not saying as much as you think. Regardless, it looked more like hyperbole to me. The point, which doesn't seem that obscure from where I'm sitting, appears to be that wishes are a lot less complicated than certain groups in this discussion are portraying them to be, but also the reason that they seemed complicated at earlier dates but not anymore might be related to the increased ease of access to information. Though, if you ask me, the real reason would be that there is more of a social framework for this sort of thing in place now that a casual format has been rather prominent for a good number of years as one of the prime ways to play Magic.
It was a clear strawman. He presented a false argument ("The problem the RC had two decades ago was that the lines between "outside of game" and "removed from game" were blurry.") and then proceeded to argue against it. He even created a fake quote. It's a textbook strawman.

And since we have papa_funk (an actual member of the rules committee) already posting the actual reasons for the current rule and discussion of it in this very message board thread, it's particularly egregious to make up garbage about the rules committee's reasoning.
I went back and found the comments by papa_funk, and yeah, you're right about this one actually, at least for the most part -- though it's also worth stating that I can sort of see how Legend came to that conclusion. The line "The CR is incredibly nebulous about what wishes do; even more so with a format that applies other restrictions. 108.3 is pretty much all you get, and that's just there to set in-game ownership rules." warped over time by memory, could easily enough become "the RC thought wishes were too complicated rules-wise." That doesn't excuse using it, though, especially not when you can go back and check, so overall you're correct about it being a strawman, primarily because it is deliberately weak. Whether it's incredibly insulting... well, that depends on how much better the actually presented reasoning is, and as I'm going to get into, I don't think the real reasoning is a significant improvement. But you are correct, and I was in the wrong there to be sure.

I will say, also, I find it a little weird to say he made a fake quote, though, when it's pretty clearly not functioning as a quote, even if it's formatted as one. That one's probably the least important point here, though.

One comment that I found by papa_funk, incidentally due to your comment there (so I wanted to bring it up, naturally), all the way back on page 2, was that there weren't apparently explicit rules on this until Spawnsire of Ulamog became a thing, and they decided it made the most sense to just block these effects by saying that the outside-the-game area contains nothing. Which... seems a little silly, honestly, to the point where I have some amount of trouble taking it seriously as a reason to just keep the rule in place exactly as it is now. Yes, we probably want to hash out some of the limitations and ways to keep people from doing stupid things like jamming their wishboards with all the color hoser MLD spells, but also, if that and Spawnsire are somehow the biggest potential hazards we can think of, we shouldn't be in too much of a pickle for coming up with some fairly concise, easily understood rules for how to make wishes work that aren't just "they don't." Yet, based on papa_funk's posts, he seems to think (or have thought at the time, at least) that "they just don't work by default" is the only functional rule they could make here without it becoming a problem. It can be a little frustrating to have what you feel are genuine reasons to want a change, only to run into the status quo being held up as "the only way," particularly when you're familiar with the tendency to claim that the status quo is "the only way" for reasons that amount to "just because it's the status quo" from other sorts of discussions. *cough* I'm sure we're better off here without me going off on that last kind of tangent, though.
39 Commander decks and counting. I'm sure this is fine, and not at all a problem.

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Post by Sharpened » 2 years ago

Jemolk wrote:
2 years ago
One comment that I found by papa_funk, incidentally due to your comment there (so I wanted to bring it up, naturally), all the way back on page 2, was that there weren't apparently explicit rules on this until Spawnsire of Ulamog became a thing, and they decided it made the most sense to just block these effects by saying that the outside-the-game area contains nothing. Which... seems a little silly, honestly, to the point where I have some amount of trouble taking it seriously as a reason to just keep the rule in place exactly as it is now. Yes, we probably want to hash out some of the limitations and ways to keep people from doing stupid things like jamming their wishboards with all the color hoser MLD spells, but also, if that and Spawnsire are somehow the biggest potential hazards we can think of, we shouldn't be in too much of a pickle for coming up with some fairly concise, easily understood rules for how to make wishes work that aren't just "they don't." Yet, based on papa_funk's posts, he seems to think (or have thought at the time, at least) that "they just don't work by default" is the only functional rule they could make here without it becoming a problem. It can be a little frustrating to have what you feel are genuine reasons to want a change, only to run into the status quo being held up as "the only way," particularly when you're familiar with the tendency to claim that the status quo is "the only way" for reasons that amount to "just because it's the status quo" from other sorts of discussions. *cough* I'm sure we're better off here without me going off on that last kind of tangent, though.
I'm pretty sure they are well aware that they could make other functional rules. It boils down to this:

All of sanctioned magic has "solved" the wishing problems by limiting wishes to the sideboard. Legacy, Standard, whatever format you wish - wishes can only see cards in the sideboard (It used to include the Removed-from-game zone, but with the rebranding to exile in Magic 2010, that was no longer "outside the game" and no longer wishable). Wishes being able to function by only seeing the sideboard cards solves pretty much all the logistical issues around wishes.

Commander decks don't have sideboards. So in Commander, by default, wishes see nothing.

Now, the rules committee could absolutely change the rules so that there are sideboards/wishboards/whatever. But they've stated they don't want to. Sideboards and sideboarding is a more competitive construct and goes against what they see as the spirit of the format. That wishes are a casualty of the lack of sideboards is either a feature (If you think wishing sucks) or a regrettable side-effect (If you think wishing would be fun).

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Post by onering » 2 years ago

Jemolk wrote:
2 years ago
Sharpened wrote:
2 years ago
Jemolk wrote:
2 years ago


Given how most Reaper King lists rely heavily on Changelings, that's probably not saying as much as you think. Regardless, it looked more like hyperbole to me. The point, which doesn't seem that obscure from where I'm sitting, appears to be that wishes are a lot less complicated than certain groups in this discussion are portraying them to be, but also the reason that they seemed complicated at earlier dates but not anymore might be related to the increased ease of access to information. Though, if you ask me, the real reason would be that there is more of a social framework for this sort of thing in place now that a casual format has been rather prominent for a good number of years as one of the prime ways to play Magic.
It was a clear strawman. He presented a false argument ("The problem the RC had two decades ago was that the lines between "outside of game" and "removed from game" were blurry.") and then proceeded to argue against it. He even created a fake quote. It's a textbook strawman.

And since we have papa_funk (an actual member of the rules committee) already posting the actual reasons for the current rule and discussion of it in this very message board thread, it's particularly egregious to make up garbage about the rules committee's reasoning.
I went back and found the comments by papa_funk, and yeah, you're right about this one actually, at least for the most part -- though it's also worth stating that I can sort of see how Legend came to that conclusion. The line "The CR is incredibly nebulous about what wishes do; even more so with a format that applies other restrictions. 108.3 is pretty much all you get, and that's just there to set in-game ownership rules." warped over time by memory, could easily enough become "the RC thought wishes were too complicated rules-wise." That doesn't excuse using it, though, especially not when you can go back and check, so overall you're correct about it being a strawman, primarily because it is deliberately weak. Whether it's incredibly insulting... well, that depends on how much better the actually presented reasoning is, and as I'm going to get into, I don't think the real reasoning is a significant improvement. But you are correct, and I was in the wrong there to be sure.

I will say, also, I find it a little weird to say he made a fake quote, though, when it's pretty clearly not functioning as a quote, even if it's formatted as one. That one's probably the least important point here, though.

One comment that I found by papa_funk, incidentally due to your comment there (so I wanted to bring it up, naturally), all the way back on page 2, was that there weren't apparently explicit rules on this until Spawnsire of Ulamog became a thing, and they decided it made the most sense to just block these effects by saying that the outside-the-game area contains nothing. Which... seems a little silly, honestly, to the point where I have some amount of trouble taking it seriously as a reason to just keep the rule in place exactly as it is now. Yes, we probably want to hash out some of the limitations and ways to keep people from doing stupid things like jamming their wishboards with all the color hoser MLD spells, but also, if that and Spawnsire are somehow the biggest potential hazards we can think of, we shouldn't be in too much of a pickle for coming up with some fairly concise, easily understood rules for how to make wishes work that aren't just "they don't." Yet, based on papa_funk's posts, he seems to think (or have thought at the time, at least) that "they just don't work by default" is the only functional rule they could make here without it becoming a problem. It can be a little frustrating to have what you feel are genuine reasons to want a change, only to run into the status quo being held up as "the only way," particularly when you're familiar with the tendency to claim that the status quo is "the only way" for reasons that amount to "just because it's the status quo" from other sorts of discussions. *cough* I'm sure we're better off here without me going off on that last kind of tangent, though.
You're new here, so you can be forgiven for not knowing that that guy always does stuff like that. Whenever whatever rad point he thought he was going to make falls flat, he just goes straight to strawman arguments, ad hominin, gaslighting, and other weak ass behavior. That's just who he is.


Back on topic, the RC prefers keeping things status quo for a really good reason. They recognize that stability is itself a virtue and helps strengthen the format. Thus, they don't make changes unless the evidence suggests the change will be a positive. If it looks like it may be a wash, or the outcome is in doubt, the status quo wins. Making a change on wishes and outside the game effects could make the format slightly better, if every potential positive plays out and none of the negatives do. Its a really low ceiling though, and on the other hand if both the positives and negatives play out the negatives are more salient and significant. Its simply not worth the risk for the small potential gain, even if the better scenario were more likely to play out. Its just as niche an effect as you can get, with limited upside for the format.

Spawnsire wasn't a worry for them, it was just a new version of the effect and thus necessitated that they spell out the rule better. Previously, all the spells that cared about pulling stuff from outside the game were Wishes. Spawnsire was a flashy new card that was a big fat creature with a big mana ability that pulled in other big fat creatures. Its a fun, fair card, but its big ability wouldn't work in commander, so they spelled that out. Because it was something new, without the clarification some players would want to argue it was different enough from wishes to be treated differently, because some people try to argue the rules in their favor no matter how wrong they are. It was also famous in 60 card casual for grabbing a pile of titans and other colorless eldrazi onto the board. This did raise a new wrinkle in the outside the game question, as decks that would want to run the Spawnsire would also probably want to main deck the eldrazi titans, and to make the most of the ability they'd probably want to bring multiples of the few colorless eldrazi, especially the two commons that they would have had piles of lying around from draft. That clashes with a singleton format, yet people could argue that since the cards weren't in the game, and thus not in their deck, that they could bring in multiples of the cards. Its pretty clear at this point that allowing outside the game effects isn't anywhere near as simple as Legend is suggesting, and requires more curating to make work within the rules of the format. Using sideboards would help a bit, as they could extend the deckbuilding requirements to the sideboard, but sideboards themselves present problems, both from their association with tournament play signaling a more competitive format (no casual format uses sideboards), to the reduced number of wishable cards (compared to just being able to grab anything) creating the incentive to min max their sideboards to get the most out of their options (specifically to hard hose decks), to the size of the sideboard combining with the singleton nature to make it possible for players to craft the sideboard to cover a much broader slice of the metagame that players can in competitive formats (as sideboards usually contain multiples of cards, reducing the number of unique cards they an fit and thus the number of strategies they can counter).

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Post by Legend » 2 years ago

Sharpened wrote:
2 years ago
Legend wrote:
2 years ago
I'm considering evidence to the contrary from the other Magic formats. The problem the RC had two decades ago was that the lines between "outside of game" and "removed from game" were blurry. And the (gaming) world wasn't as informed and homogenized as it is today thanks to technology. There's no evidential reason against WISHING in Commander, unless we count

"Two decades ago, back in 2001, before toddlers had smart phones and before many of today's Commander players were born, WISHING was complicated even for level 5 judges." - an RC member, probably

Wizards has had an impeccable rule about "outside of game" effects for over a decade that will work for Commander. It's time for Commander to get in sync with the rest of the game.
This strawman argument is dead wrong and incredibly insulting to the rules committee.

Also, the rules surrounding "outside of game" effects have only changed once since 2002, when the removed-from-game zone becoming the exile zone, and no longer accessible to "outside the game" effects.
My argument is neither incorrect nor a straw man. It's based on an evidential timeline of Wishing in Commander that extends beyond PaPa's vague comments in this thread. I already shared some of that timeline in a previous post. In my post you've quoted, I spoke of lack of clarity concerning the rule 20 years ago (and even as recently as 10 years ago) and of accessibility to that clarity by the average player, a point also made in the timeline post. Everyone knows damn well that the RC has made it clear that one reason Wishing was cancelled is because it was confusing to the average player, which is demonstrated thoroughly on my timeline post. (So that is not a straw man on my part.) But that's no longer the case. If the RC has a reason to keep Rule 11, other than personally not liking them due to personal experiences from 20 years ago, then I'd love to hear it.
onering wrote:
2 years ago
You're new here, so you can be forgiven for not knowing that that guy always does stuff like that. Whenever whatever rad point he thought he was going to make falls flat, he just goes straight to strawman arguments, ad hominin, gaslighting, and other weak ass behavior. That's just who he is.
You're literally doing the things you're accusing me of. Whenever the cracks in the Rule 11 start widening, we can always count on someone to show up and fill them with more crap.

The willful ignorance you guys feign in this thread is comical. Too bad for y'all this debate can no longer be ended with Lingchi. I'll just be ignoring anymore insults, slanders and non sequitur replies. Cheerio!
Please be careful of language/references that you choose to use. As Lingchi is a reference to a form of torture, this is unacceptable and produces uncomfortable responses in other users.
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Post by Jemolk » 2 years ago

So, to address the points that @Sharpened and @onering raised here, as concisely and reasonably as I can --

First, stability. Yes, stability is generally a positive, at least in relative terms, but stability doesn't need to mean lack of new options. I at least would take it to mean that the old is not invalidated and cast aside completely. This isn't a problem that would be caused by allowing wishes, really, but it is one that's actively being caused by power creep. I'm not really sure how allowing wishes would destabilize things -- I'm sure you have your reasoning, but it's not reasoning that I intuitively follow, so I would appreciate it being spelled out. From my perspective, wishes would allow cards that are pushed out of main decks by power creep to still see some amount of play even before a group decides that the arms race is going too far and they want to dial things back. In that sense, it might even increase stability to allow wishes, and quite frankly, this is exactly one of the core reasons I would like them to work -- I'm tired of tossing aside old cards invalidated by power creep and new, more efficient cards just to keep up with everyone else at the LGS. Yeah, I don't technically have to, and often I do stubbornly cling to older, less efficient, weaker cards, but I can't really do that for everything, or even in every case that I'd really like to, without kneecapping my decks.

I'm not really arguing that wishes should be able to ignore everything else, either. Clarifications like "you still have to adhere to the singleton rule, including across cards in the deck and gotten by wishes" and "no, obviously you cannot get banned cards" are pretty reasonable. So is "please pick a limited number of cards (say, <insert whatever number the RC feels is appropriate here>) before the game to grab with your wish effects so that you don't waste everyone else's time going through a dozen binders when you cast your spell/activate your ability" also seems pretty fair to ask, and not necessarily like a comparison to competitive formats' sideboards. Simply asking for you to know generally what you're doing before you do it as a matter of common courtesy. Wishboards and sideboards don't need to be treated as the same thing, after all. Those, I would argue, are the actual logistical problems with wishes, and they're all relatively easily resolved by setting some baseline parameters. And if you're worried about the guy that's going to stuff his wishboard full of color-hate MLD and similar, I refer you to my suggestion above that I still think is pretty reasonable -- you have to show people the contents of your wishboard before the game starts. I think this would also set a positive precedent in other ways, actually, such as normalizing open, honest pregame discussions of what your deck is capable of. This isn't just important because of wishes -- wishes simply bring the problem into sharper relief, and bring greater demand for an actual solution. I think this forced discussion is the actual solution, while barring wishes is simply shoving the most egregious part of the problem under a rug, but with collateral damage.
39 Commander decks and counting. I'm sure this is fine, and not at all a problem.

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Post by Sharpened » 2 years ago

Jemolk wrote:
2 years ago
I'm not really arguing that wishes should be able to ignore everything else, either. Clarifications like "you still have to adhere to the singleton rule, including across cards in the deck and gotten by wishes" and "no, obviously you cannot get banned cards" are pretty reasonable. So is "please pick a limited number of cards (say, <insert whatever number the RC feels is appropriate here>) before the game to grab with your wish effects so that you don't waste everyone else's time going through a dozen binders when you cast your spell/activate your ability" also seems pretty fair to ask, and not necessarily like a comparison to competitive formats' sideboards. Simply asking for you to know generally what you're doing before you do it as a matter of common courtesy. Wishboards and sideboards don't need to be treated as the same thing, after all. Those, I would argue, are the actual logistical problems with wishes, and they're all relatively easily resolved by setting some baseline parameters.
Every reasonable definition of a wishboard that I have seen, including yours, is basically - a sideboard, except for wishes. Now, there's nothing wrong with that. But if you want to maintain the deck construction rules (color identity, singleton nature, banlist), your going to be making a sideboard, whether you call it by a different name or not.

Could the rules be changed so we have a side/wishboard as part of deck construction? Sure. But Sheldon and the Rules Committee has been pretty clear that they don't like all the things that come along with sideboards for this, a casual format.

Should they change it? Should they make the rules specify sideboard/wishboard? No idea. I've consistently taken the position that for wishes to work without problems, you need to have one, and they can't just get "anything" as written, as was the original argument in this thread. I've stayed away from discussions of whether it would be a good idea, as those are far more subjective.

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Post by DirkGently » 2 years ago

I will take this opportunity to point out that the BO1 "lessonboards" in Arena kind of pave the way for a non-sideboard wishboard.

Maybe future use of wishboards in safe ways like lessons, and the normalization of wishboards outside of BO3 sideboarding will eventually make the idea more palatable to the RC.
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Post by onering » 2 years ago

Jemolk wrote:
2 years ago
So, to address the points that @Sharpened and @onering raised here, as concisely and reasonably as I can --

First, stability. Yes, stability is generally a positive, at least in relative terms, but stability doesn't need to mean lack of new options. I at least would take it to mean that the old is not invalidated and cast aside completely. This isn't a problem that would be caused by allowing wishes, really, but it is one that's actively being caused by power creep. I'm not really sure how allowing wishes would destabilize things -- I'm sure you have your reasoning, but it's not reasoning that I intuitively follow, so I would appreciate it being spelled out. From my perspective, wishes would allow cards that are pushed out of main decks by power creep to still see some amount of play even before a group decides that the arms race is going too far and they want to dial things back. In that sense, it might even increase stability to allow wishes, and quite frankly, this is exactly one of the core reasons I would like them to work -- I'm tired of tossing aside old cards invalidated by power creep and new, more efficient cards just to keep up with everyone else at the LGS. Yeah, I don't technically have to, and often I do stubbornly cling to older, less efficient, weaker cards, but I can't really do that for everything, or even in every case that I'd really like to, without kneecapping my decks.

I'm not really arguing that wishes should be able to ignore everything else, either. Clarifications like "you still have to adhere to the singleton rule, including across cards in the deck and gotten by wishes" and "no, obviously you cannot get banned cards" are pretty reasonable. So is "please pick a limited number of cards (say, <insert whatever number the RC feels is appropriate here>) before the game to grab with your wish effects so that you don't waste everyone else's time going through a dozen binders when you cast your spell/activate your ability" also seems pretty fair to ask, and not necessarily like a comparison to competitive formats' sideboards. Simply asking for you to know generally what you're doing before you do it as a matter of common courtesy. Wishboards and sideboards don't need to be treated as the same thing, after all. Those, I would argue, are the actual logistical problems with wishes, and they're all relatively easily resolved by setting some baseline parameters. And if you're worried about the guy that's going to stuff his wishboard full of color-hate MLD and similar, I refer you to my suggestion above that I still think is pretty reasonable -- you have to show people the contents of your wishboard before the game starts. I think this would also set a positive precedent in other ways, actually, such as normalizing open, honest pregame discussions of what your deck is capable of. This isn't just important because of wishes -- wishes simply bring the problem into sharper relief, and bring greater demand for an actual solution. I think this forced discussion is the actual solution, while barring wishes is simply shoving the most egregious part of the problem under a rug, but with collateral damage.

So there's a couple of points here I'll address separately.

First, the impact of allowing wishes isn't going to be allowing cards that have been pushed out by power creep to see play again. A wish has an opportunity cost, so if you are just trying to use it to functionally have more cards in your deck, it sucks. Your basically paying a Mana premium over the cost of the card AND takes up a card slot in your main deck, when you could just cut the wish and run the card. And let's face it, the only way a wish doesn't just go for the same card all the time is if the wishboard is made up of narrow cards that are situationally really good but usually not worth it, and these generally aren't cards pushed out of decks due to power creep. Jam 15 good stuff cards and former stars into your sideboard, and your usually going to end up wishing for the best one, and eventually realize that you should just be running that instead of the wish. At least with the Bolas theme deck guy, he wants to run some narrow cards that kind of suck, but it's clear that he wouldnt be wishing for the same thing every time and would actually be getting full value out of the wish as a modal spell, which like I said before is pretty sweet and the coolest use for wishes.


If you go back in the thread, you'll see Dirk's suggestion for a 3 wishes wishboard. It solves a lot of the potential problems that wishes can bring to the format while allowing the positive uses for wishes to thrive. There's a lengthy discussion on it, and I like the idea and think it's better than the status quo. It may be slightly too small, so there's room for experimentation to see what the best size would be, balancing functionality against wishboards being able to devolve into covering too much of the meta with hard hate spells. Three wishes is flavorful, which is why Dirk picked it, and would allow for two narrow (or not so narrow) answers and a generic good card for when the other two aren't relevant. I'd say 5 could probably work, as it's most likely not enough to allow someone to just jam in enough narrow hard hate to cause problems. They could try, but too often the wish would end up being either a dead card or a Mana tax on the failsafe generically good card in the board. Smaller wishboard sizes encourage players to include broader answers, like a wrath, a solid creature, a disenchant, a spot removal spell, and gy hate, rather than a slew of Flashfires style cards in addition to that sensible pile. The problem in this discussion is that some people don't want to consider any nuance or alternative options, and so repeatedly degenerate into strawmen and wishing harm on others. This thread really isn't Wishes vs No Wishes, its a more nuanced discussion of whether it's better to allow wishes as is or disallow them entirely like the status quo, and then further what alternatives could work and how if unlimited wishing is a no go. The "no wishes ever" side is pretty small. While I am ok with the status quo, I like the 3 wishes idea more and think the RC should experiment with it.

I also want to note again that my own playgroup has allowed wishes, and I think that even unlimited wishing, with a time limit, can work in the right playgroup. We all know each other and know that we're not going to be reaching for Flashfires type cards, so allowing Spawnsire to work or a wish to grab a wrath is NBD. That's rule 0 at work. Its safer for the format for playgroups to allow wishing as a house rule than to make it the default, because the negatives outweigh the positives. If the RC adopted a more sensible wishboard approach, like Dirk's suggestion, that would be better enough than the status quo to justify a change.

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Post by Myllior » 2 years ago

onering wrote:
2 years ago
the wish as a modal spell
Seeing the discussion over time on the appropriate number of cards to include in a wishboard, this is actually the thought I had when trying to come up with a number for myself: If we think of a wish as a regular modal spell, what relationship would we expect between the number of available modes (number of cards in the wishboard) and the premium paid for it being modal (the mana cost of the wish being considered)? Burning Wish, Living Wish and Glittering Wish are the cheapest wish effects available and, despite their individual restrictions, still allow for very powerful "build-your-own-modal-spell"s to effectively be created. For a two mana premium, being able to select from three type-restricted modes feels reasonable to me, as does three mana for three unrestricted modes (Death Wish, Wish). I like Dirk's suggestion.

I do wonder a little about how the number of cards in the wishboard might encourage or discourage running multiple wishes to get your self-built modal spell (where multiple wishes may find the components), but I haven't thought it through yet. Certainly, a smaller number discourages the use of multiple type-specific wishes, since at a point you may as well just replace the wishes with the individual cards they can find.
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Post by Jemolk » 2 years ago

@onering -- To be clear, I am in fact the Bolas theme deck guy, and all of the cards in the wishboard that I ask to use -- save for one -- used to be in the main deck, but as other flavorful cards with broader applications got printed, they got pushed out. Despite that, I still want to play with them, but they're just not particularly great cards, either because there are lots of better options, or because of the way I built the deck. (It's draw-go control with the OG Bolas as the commander, and its primary wincon is hitting each player in the face with an Elder Dragon three times, though it has a few others as well.) It's generally pretty strong, actually, but also goes heavy enough on the flavor that I'm running Hour of Glory as one of my removal spells, and one of my draw spells is Eternal of Harsh Truths. Make of that what you will.

I'd like to explain with something of a story of my experiences why I'm arguing that wishes should be allowed within limited parameters by default, though. I play at an LGS. I'm one of the regulars, and the other regulars know me and what to expect from me. Even then, though, rule 0 discussions on this matter are consistently awkward, to the point where sometimes I just opt not to have them at all and exclude the wishboard, even though it's right there in the box with the deck and I really think it's fine for power and excellent for flavor. I have rule 0 discussions on the inclusion of a silver-bordered card in one of my other decks fairly regularly, and that always goes smoothly, by contrast. Which brings me ultimately to my point: rule 0 discussions involving tweaking existing parameters are far easier to have than rule 0 discussions on allowing a class of effect that nobody really fully grasps (because for the most part it's excluded completely from the format). Something like Dirk's 3 wishes rule is, I think, too limiting, but I'd still vastly prefer that, because it would make it not completely awkward to have rule 0 discussions around wishes. If the official rule is 3, and I have 5, and I show everyone what I've got and it's all totally nonthreatening, it's not unlikely to go over fine. If the official rule is "no" and I have even one (because the wish card in question is Mastermind's Acquisition, remember), the discussion is far more of a problem to navigate, and that's something I'd really like to see change.
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Post by onering » 2 years ago

I think that's a reasonable argument, but I also think that the potential for abusing wishes makes having them not work by default still be the preferable status when weighing the status quo vs allowing unlimited wishing or even a 15 card sideboard.

That's why I prefer the 3 wishes option, or even a 5 wishes option. I'm sorry I lost track of who had the Bolas deck, but yeah, I think a 5 card wish board would help people like you do what you want while preventing the worst possibilities from coming to fruition. You wouldn't be able to, for instance, stuff in 3-5 wish spells and cast each for a piece of narrow hate to take out each deck at the table. Removing that possibility removes the incentive to play those hosers in the first place, as if you did too many times the wishes would be dead draws. With what you're doing, though, you'd still be getting most of the intended value out of it. I agree with you that having something like that be the default would be better than the status quo. I see it as a sort of best of both worlds.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

I just really do not understand how anyone could look at this format and be like...

You know what this needs? More ways to bypass the singleton nature of the format!

re: three wishes

I think Duke has nailed the perfect fair implementation of wishes. 3 keeps the number of wishes down so you can't really play more than one or two of the effects in your deck.,

It doesn't make me think it's a good idea and I wouldn't like it. Not being broken doesn't mean it's a good thing to do. It just means now you can play one fewer actual card in your deck and now it's whatever of these three things is best.

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Post by onering » 2 years ago

It doesn't go around the singleton nature of the format. Obviously, in order to implement it, the RC would have to state that cards in wishboards can only be 1 ofs and not present in the deck itself. It WOULD subvert the exactly 99 cards plus commander rule, but companion already does that. It doesn't mean you can pay one fewer actual card in your deck, it means you can swap playing a particular card for playing one of 3 particular cards at a Mana premium, and with more chances to be disrupted (like if you play living wish, it can be countered by negate or swan song while anything you'd be grabbing with it would have been safe).

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

onering wrote:
2 years ago
It doesn't go around the singleton nature of the format. Obviously, in order to implement it, the RC would have to state that cards in wishboards can only be 1 ofs and not present in the deck itself. It WOULD subvert the exactly 99 cards plus commander rule, but companion already does that. It doesn't mean you can pay one fewer actual card in your deck, it means you can swap playing a particular card for playing one of 3 particular cards at a Mana premium, and with more chances to be disrupted (like if you play living wish, it can be countered by negate or swan song while anything you'd be grabbing with it would have been safe).
It does bypass the singleton nature of the format in the same way that tutors do.

If a card can act like an extra copy of multiple cards it bypasses the singleton nature of the format by allowing people to play additional functional copies of multiple cards.

Suppose I run Burning Wish and then in my deck I run Akroma's Vengeance and Hour of Revelation as sweepers, and then I run Recurring Insight as a card draw spell.

In my wishboard I play Aminatou's Augury and Devastating Mastery (and maybe some other class of useful sorcery like Creeping Corrosion).

Sure, I could just play those cards in my deck, but Burning Wish acts like playing an additional sweeper *and* an additional bomb card draw spell, thereby functionally reducing the variance in my deck over if I had played just one of those cards.

In the exact same sense as if you play Vampiric Tutor which can find any card in your deck (although to a much lesser extent) playing wishes reduces the variance by providing additional copies of whatever you need right now.

(The three wish mode reduces the impact of this but it still creates a net reduction in variance)

...And once the number of wishes in the board goes beyond 5 or so, Burning Wish becomes functionally indistinguishable from Demonic Tutor. At 10 I think it's a stronger card in objective power level (although Rule 0 might constrain this).

The absolute last thing we should ever consider is adding more frigging tutors to the game, just as a matter of principle.

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Post by DirkGently » 2 years ago

This seems like a really hard position to argue, but hey if you wanna live life on hard mode I'm not gonna try to stop you.

I'm pretty sure when most people complain about tutors reducing variance, they're generally concerned with tutors giving access to functional duplicates of repetitive wincons, like combo pieces or craterhoof behemoth or what-have-you. When someone is using a tutor as a mana-premium split card between an answer or a draw spell, I'm pretty sure most people think that's totally fine. For the same reason no human being has a problem with a modal spell like a charm that has multiple uses, but the downside that each one of them is slightly overcosted. Obviously flexibility between such powerful an disparate effects as devastating mastery and aminatou's augury is stronger than Bant Charm, but you also pay a more significant premium for it, where most modes of bant charm are only overcosted by 1 mana or so. Hiding one of your best wincons under a wish makes it harder to access in most cases, so I doubt people would be throwing craterhoof in the side and then running the small handful of wishes that can hit it, rather than just playing regular tutors.

I also think the ship has basically sailed on trying to prevent tutors from giving players the ability to reduce variance. There are so many tutors available in the game, if you wanted to build your deck 100% around some dumb combo it would be trivial. I mean, just in mono-black, just in terms of reliable+unrestricted tutors, we've got:
But, y'know, adding one more "tutor" that can't even hit the cards good enough to be in your deck and only has three options instead of 98? That would be a bridge too far xD
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Post by onering » 2 years ago

pokken wrote:
2 years ago
onering wrote:
2 years ago
It doesn't go around the singleton nature of the format. Obviously, in order to implement it, the RC would have to state that cards in wishboards can only be 1 ofs and not present in the deck itself. It WOULD subvert the exactly 99 cards plus commander rule, but companion already does that. It doesn't mean you can pay one fewer actual card in your deck, it means you can swap playing a particular card for playing one of 3 particular cards at a Mana premium, and with more chances to be disrupted (like if you play living wish, it can be countered by negate or swan song while anything you'd be grabbing with it would have been safe).
It does bypass the singleton nature of the format in the same way that tutors do.

If a card can act like an extra copy of multiple cards it bypasses the singleton nature of the format by allowing people to play additional functional copies of multiple cards.

Suppose I run Burning Wish and then in my deck I run Akroma's Vengeance and Hour of Revelation as sweepers, and then I run Recurring Insight as a card draw spell.

In my wishboard I play Aminatou's Augury and Devastating Mastery (and maybe some other class of useful sorcery like Creeping Corrosion).

Sure, I could just play those cards in my deck, but Burning Wish acts like playing an additional sweeper *and* an additional bomb card draw spell, thereby functionally reducing the variance in my deck over if I had played just one of those cards.

In the exact same sense as if you play Vampiric Tutor which can find any card in your deck (although to a much lesser extent) playing wishes reduces the variance by providing additional copies of whatever you need right now.

(The three wish mode reduces the impact of this but it still creates a net reduction in variance)

...And once the number of wishes in the board goes beyond 5 or so, Burning Wish becomes functionally indistinguishable from Demonic Tutor. At 10 I think it's a stronger card in objective power level (although Rule 0 might constrain this).

The absolute last thing we should ever consider is adding more frigging tutors to the game, just as a matter of principle.
Except, and here's the important part, wishes can't get copies of cards that are in your deck. The point stands with tutors. If I want to play two copies of my combo piece, I run Demonic Tutor to grab it. Tutors actually give you multiple chances to draw into a particular card, as drawing into the tutor gets you the card you want. Wishes can't do that, they can only grab similar, but different, cards from outside the game. That's essentially the same as just running that card in your deck. Your also paying a premium in the form of the Wish's mana cost, AND you're most likely putting the best version of the card in your main deck and saving the weaker version for your sideboard. In practice, the Wish becomes a worse version of the card already in your library, and you'd have rather drawn either the card that's actually in your deck or a tutor to grab it with. Yeah, there's the flexibility aspect like you mentioned, where in your example it functions as either mass removal or draw depending on what you grab, but so does a tutor, and the tutor grabs the better version of the effect that's actually in your deck.

More simply, Wishes becoming tutors, but not as good, is a pretty fair use and I'd be happy if that's how they played out. As Dirk pointed out, there's already a critical mass of tutors and so wishes are wholly unnecessary to anyone who wants to build tutors.dek, so if someone is using wishes that way they're either using them in place of tutors (which I see as an absolute win), or they're going full {deleted} and just cramming in card search effects well beyond the point of diminishing returns.

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