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by Venedrex » 2 months ago
Nice article.
I am inclined to agree with what you said about UB stuff, every set that comes out further reinforces my belief that there should be a format without it. I mean, I said it before, but I love Marvel stuff in a vacuum but I don't feel any joy over the idea of showing up to my LGS and seeing someone whip out their Hulk deck. The way I see it, the buffet analogy goes both ways, and players should start a format without Universes Beyond. In my mind, its no different from how we sort ourselves into modern or standard or pioneer players, those formats were made because people wanted to play with certain cards and not others, why should this be any different?
If I walk into my LGS with a modern deck and say anyone playing Modern people might say haha no this is only Commander but they won't get nearly as offended as if I sit down to play Commander and then I ask that we don't play with UB cards. By having an official format without Universes Beyond, we turn it from an imposition on people we play with to a personal preference indicated before even sitting down at the table, which I think is what is needed to avoid hurt feelings and arguments.
One thing I have been looking into in addition to just a straight ban of UB cards is the idea of Pioneer Commander (Homestead?) which would eliminate all supplemental products. But unfortunately there would be almost as many downsides as upsides.
On the plus side, there would be no Dockside, Fierce Guardianship, or UB cards. On the the other hand you'd lose a gigantic amount of cards to play with.
So, I think the best option I can see moving forward is a close variant of Commander with UB cards banned, everything else the same. I don't want to stop people from playing UB cards if they like that, I just want a format so that I can go to my LGS and say I want to play Epicurean and skip having to awkwardly explain to people that no, its not a personal attack on them, but I just want to play cards from one IP because that's the way I'm wired. I don't see why we can't have a situation where half the LGS is playing with UB and the other half isn't.
If players want they can swap pods at any time, but for people who are just looking to not play with Captain Kirk (It is coming) and Iron Man we don't have to rule 0 our way into antagonizing everyone who likes UB, we just say, anyone want to play Format Name and if no one wants to then we go somewhere else or resign ourselves to playing with UB that day.
Last edited by
Venedrex 2 months ago, edited 1 time in total.