[MCD] Wishes

[Legend]

Reply to tarotplz

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The wishboard would be filled with stuff that hoses very specific strategies … and other things that stop players from playing the game with their very specific gameplan.

Though that would not always be the case (Spoiler 12), when it is the case, it could be a good thing (Spoiler 13), not a bad thing. There are plenty of broken decks in Commander making the lives of many players miserable. Those decks need to be put in their place and Wishes just might be able to do that.

Karn would have to be banned for sure.

It is possible that a Wish or two would become banned. But there's no way to know without revising Rule 13 because Wishes have always been de facto banned (Spoiler 4).

certain colors have access to significantly stronger wish effects than others

That's the nature of the game. Not really an argument for or against any card.

there's also nothing stopping you from allowing wishboards in your own playgroup via houserule.

There's nothing stopping players from banning Wishes in their playgroup via houserule either. In fact, it's more reasonable to do so than to de facto ban Wishes. (Spoiler 3)

I'm taking into account the wild west of the lgs or gp,

Same here.

All it takes is for a couple of people to absue their wishboard and that'll ruin the fun for everyone.

Trolls don't need Wishes to ruin the fun for everyone. There's already plenty of tools in Commander for trolls to work with. Should those cards be banned / de facto banned? Of course not, because the trolls would just use the next tier of grief inducing cards. "Bad people do bad things in Magic." is not an argument against Wishes in Commander any more than it is an argument against any other effect in Commander.

At that point we might aswell unban Time Vault since not everyone is going to combo out with it, right?

That is correct. There is no difference between going infinite with Time Vault and going infinite with any other card in Commander. Let Rule 0 handle it.

Let's unban Tinker, because most people are just going to get some cool big artifact dude, right?

This is a false equivalency. Effects that bypass the stack to put a select card onto the battlefield from another zone are completely different from effects that put a card from outside the game (or from a library) into hand from where they must still be cast.

You simply say players wouldn't break the card. I think they would. In fact most cards that can be broken have been broken in the format. I believe that if you want to claim a special exception for wishes in that regard you're going to have to be more convincing.

I'm not trying to convince anyone that they aren't potentially powerful. I am trying to convince everyone that they should not be de facto banned by Rule 13. And that they should be given a chance to function correctly in Commander, even if that means some of them get banned as a result.

You should be trying to convince people as to why your position holds merit instead of shaming them for not agreeing with you.

Would you please PM me quotes in which I've shamed anyone so that I can publicly apologize to them?

You say you don't need to defend your position. This makes it seem like your position is infallable, which it most certainly is not. If it truely was, I think most of us would've come around by now, no?

No. Because even highly intelligent persons tend to accept what has always been, justify it, and defend it, even after it's been proven wrong. Things like cognitive dissonance, honor, spite, loyalty, and jealousy are powerful internal influencers. That being said, though I am certain that no card should be de facto banned, I'm not certain that my arguments are infallible, which is why I dropped them into the crucible of MTGNexus.

If we don't allow the singleton rule to be broken, cheating could become a problem as people might wish up a card that still remains in their deck undrawn

Cheaters don't need Wishes to cheat. There's nothing stopping anyone from putting more than one copy of a given card their deck.

Wishes can provide the most effective answers for every strategy players face, this could lead to massively unfun playpatterns

Where is the evidence for this very popular hypothesis? Is this what happens in formats in which Wishes are legal? Has it ever happened?

Just claiming they're all worthless because of your interpretation of the rules makes all your points seem unreasonable and paints your position in a childish light.

I didn't claim they're worthless. I proved it. Seriously, if any of my points are erroneous, then someone please prove it. I welcome the challenge. Continuously rephrasing arguments that have already been debunked or negated does not somehow legitimize them. Rhetoric, while entertaining and even therapeutic, does not constitute a real argument.

Reply to MRHblue

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Wishes absolutely should only be used by Rule 0 interaction prior to a game starting.

Wishes absolutely should only be banned by Rule 0 interaction prior to a game starting. (Spoiler 3)

he wants people to agree with him

You say that like it's a bad thing. Show me the person that doesn't want people to agree with them. I mean, that's why I started the thread in the first place.

That is 100% not how the ban list works.

This thread is 100% not about the ban list. It's about Rule 13.

Frame the conversation any way you like, you have to convince the RC they made a mistake. Some logic trap isn't going to do that.

I'm not trying to trap the RC+CAD in a logic trap.
I'm trying to extricate the Wishes from an illogical trap.

Reply to Hermes

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this read more like an article than an actual discussion.

Articles have been known to start discussions.

Reply to pokken

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It's time to learn that logic is a rhetorical tool and can only really prove a few things (when all the premises are self-evidently true, and sometimes people will argue those!). Beyond that it's about convincing people not about proof.

How convenient that every time someone addresses this subject rhetorically, they're shut down for not being logical enough and when someone addresses this subject logically, they're shut down for not being rhetorical enough.

Reply to tstorm823

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While comparing to most cards that do nothing isn't right, I believe there is a worthwhile comparison in Battle of Wits. Why does BoW work in other formats but not commander? Because commander has a format restriction that other formats dont: a fixed deck size.

Limited deck size is a general rule of Commander without which the format has no identity. It's also a rule that applies to all cards equally. It's just that other cards don't care if there's more than 100 cards in a deck. Battle of Wits isn't subject to a special rule that was created to invalidate it. Wishes are. Commander doesn't have to be changed in order for Wishes to work in it.

Of course that doesn't mean wishes logically have to not work, but this format built on strict restrictions can certainly add one more if its deemed to better the format.

Agreed that it can, but I wouldn't agree that it should not - not when there is a better way. Commander used to have a "banned as Commander" rule that was done away with. There was a "can't add colors of mana outside of Commander's color identity" that was done away with. Magic used to have "mana burn" that was done away with. There was a rule that if an untapped blocked or blocking creature became tapped before damage, the tapped creature would not deal combat damage, it was done away with. Etc.

Rule 13 is superfluous. It's inelegant. It's confusing. It's frustrating. And it needs to be done away with.

[Hermes_]

Reply to Hermes

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this read more like an article than an actual discussion.

Articles have been known to start discussions.

Have you thought about submitting it as an article for the site?

[tstorm823]

Agreed that it can, but I wouldn't agree that it should not - not when there is a better way. Commander used to have a "banned as Commander" rule that was done away with. There was a "can't add colors of mana outside of Commander's color identity" that was done away with. Magic used to have "mana burn" that was done away with. There was a rule that if an untapped blocked or blocking creature became tapped before damage, the tapped creature would not deal combat damage, it was done away with. Etc.

Rule 13 is superfluous. It's inelegant. It's confusing. It's frustrating. And it needs to be done away with.

You're ignoring the elephant in the room. Sometimes rules are eliminated, but only based on the intention of making the game better. The vast majority of rules stay in place. Sometimes rules are added to make the game better: there wasn't always a 4-of limit in Magic, you didn't always pass priority around while spells resolved from the stack. Once upon a time the got rid of the word "cast" and used "play" instead thinking extra words were confusing and inelegant and had to change it back. The rules change one way or another, but always with the intention of making the game better.

That's the case you have to make. You have to make the case that wishes would make the format better. I know you want to just think that there's no reason to pick on wishes over every other card and give them their own rule, but there is an obvious reason: the people making the format think it's better without them. They've even affirmed this decision with a stronger stance against wishes. If your suggestion to allow wishes would not improve the format, they are perfectly justified in adding the extra rule, it isn't superfluous. If your suggestion would improve the format, that's the only case you need to make and everything else you're saying is noise.

[MRHblue]

I didn't claim they're worthless. I proved it. Seriously, if any of my points are erroneous, then someone please prove it. I welcome the challenge. Continuously rephrasing arguments that have already been debunked or negated does not somehow legitimize them. Rhetoric, while entertaining and even therapeutic, does not constitute a real argument.

This is why people think you dont want to have a real discussion. You said yourself you have difficulty toning this down in forums, but its really off-putting. These are all opinion, one cannot be logically correct. You can't prove something is or is not worthless, only that you believe it is with reasoning.

You say that like it's a bad thing. Show me the person that doesn't want people to agree with them. I mean, that's why I started the thread in the first place.

You purpsoely clipped the part that's a bad thing : not wanting an actual discussion.

This thread is 100% not about the ban list. It's about Rule 13.

Absolutely fair point. That's not how EDH rules get changed. The rules for wishes have gotten more restrictive of late, not less. You have to be able to show they add value to the format overriding whatever negatives the RC thinks they bring. That means making a logical argument, AND allowing for the fact opinions get mixed into that discussion that require resoltion

I'm trying to extricate the Wishes from an illogical trap.

That's a distinction without a difference. You think the reassoning is illogical, the people who made that decision clearly disagree. You think logic flips that switch, but it does not.

[tarotplz]

Alright, let me try to speak your language, maybe that'll help you understand: What you're doing here is a gish gallop,

Now I say I'm right and you're wrong.

(That's usually where your "arguments" end.)

But I'm not you, so let me actually take the time to go through them point by point. I don't really know why I'm still trying to get through to you, at this point I'm pretty much convinced you're trolling, but whatever.

I won't bother with quotes, as this thread is unwieldy as it is.

1.) Of course it wouldn't always be the case, but it definitly is the best way to use wishes. Tutors already have a bad reputation for letting people access combo pieces and hosers far too easily, but with wishes, the deckbuilding cost of such things is drasticly reduced (you don't have to put those cards into your deck after all). This means, that it's very easy to put one or two wishes into a deck which would under nomal circumstances never play something like graveyard hate (just one of many examples), but now has a card in its deck that could be grave-hate if necesary, but it could also be storm-hate, or artifact-hate or a boardwipe, or a pillowfort card it could be whatever situational card you'd need in exactly that situation but without the downside of having to put a card that might be dead in a certain matchup into your deck. This is why wishing for answers is particularily powerful. wishing for a wincon is nice and will happen on occasion, but you're already runing those in your deck. You already have ramp, card draw, creatures that synergize. There really isn't that much left to get from outside of your deck. Exept of course for narrow answer that are better outside of your deck. Other formats do this via sideboarding, which simply doesn't exist in EDH, which is also a big reason why wishes are not as powerful in other formats as they would be here in commander.

Another reason why wishes would lead to staxy gameplay is because the best wish aka Karn, the Great Creator is by himself also a stax piece.

You also say that giving people access to more answers could be a good thing, with which i generally agree. However, be aware that this also comes at the cost of perfect answers vs narrow but absolutely fine and balanced decks that you really wouldn't want nor should hate on. You could wish for a Fracturing Gust vs a friends harmless enchantress deck. I'd argue that you often would. Is it really fair to allow this when in the game vs another friends harmless graveyard deck that same Glittering Wish is used to get a Wheel of Sun and Moon? Next up you're in a bit more of a powerful playgroup. Your wish is now a Saffi Eriksdotter and you combo off out of nowhere, because you were low on life and would've otherwise lost next turn. Would those situations really be the kind of fun you want in commander? I'd say no.

2.) Great, we agree. If you'd have said something like this sooner, I'm sure you woud've sounded a lot more reasonable if you had come out with something like this when you originally replied to my arguemts. Why you didn't even though you agree here is beyond me.

Imo Karn's case is pretty obvious and in order to get me anywhere near accepting wishes in the format he'd have to be banned prior to allowing them. That one card would completely ruin the format. This however is a topic worth discussing on its own, so I'll leave it at that for now.

3.) True, not an argument for or against any single card. Instead an argument against a group of cards. That's why it's relevant. It would instantaneously buff certain colors and would unbalance the game. Perhaps it would be fine, perhaps not. Difficult to know without testing, but an undeniable risk and therefore a resason not to allow wishes.

4.) I think this is a question about what the majority of players want. If significantly more people wanted wishes in the format, you're right, it would be more reasonable to ban them via houserule. However that is not the case. In fact you haven't even been able to convince a single person in this thread that wishes are desirable in the format. Let alone has a single voice aside from your own been raised in favor of wishes at all.

Looking at that, I think it is more reasonable to have "no wishes" be the standard rather than the exception, as it's clearly what the playerbase wants.

5.) I assume you meant the GPs and events such as them should enforce house rules banning wishes? At events of this kind clearly you'd use the most official rules possible, so that every player has a way of knowing them, no?

If wishes were allowed by the official rules, there's no chance that they woudn't be allowed in GPs, which are exactly the kind of environment where wishes could frequently lead to very toxic gameplay.

6.) Even though that's essentially the argument that got Iona, Shield of Emeria banned so recently?

And even though " Bad people do bad things in Magic" is really weak imo, it does hold more merit when talking about an effective unban. If you couldn't do degenerate things with the unban candidate clearly the case is a lot stronger than if it is possible for people to break the card(s).

7.) It's been a while since I've actually come across a person that actually put the words "unban Time Vault" in their mouth. In my opinion there's 100% a difference between a janky multi piece infinite combo that's easily disruptable and an entirely colorless 2 card combo that requires almost no mana, is easily tutored and utilizes only good cards. But hey, if the game ends on turn 2 or 3 (for example vault key combo) instead of turn 12 (some janky combo) that's basically the same, right?

8.) Is it really though? I didn't mean to equate Tinker to a wish, but instead wanted to show the absurdity of your argument that people would just not break wishes because they're nice.

If people wouldn't break wishes they also wouldn't break Tinker. The fact that Tinker is clearly a much stronger card doesn't matter here.

9.) But in order to do that you'll need to convince people that wishes would be fine in the format and not just show them that in your opinion they shouldn't even have been excluded in the first place.

10.) We both know that was a hyperbole and we both know what I meant with it. It's referring to your attitude while answering the peole in this thread.

11.) I'm sure you've convinced yourself that your reasoning about wishes leaves no doubt and you act like that makes you the authority on how the format should be played. You come across as if you think you have some sort of higher understanding of the rules as written that you have now deemed to share with us lowly peasants.

Ultimately though, nothing has been proven wrong. Your original post is simply an opinion piece. That's all it is. Noting more, Just your opinion. If you were part of the CAG or even the RC, that would change things, but you aren't. Your opinion has no authority over the format. Your opinion does not prove or disprove anything about how the rules should've been in the first place.

12.) True, but it would likely make cheating easier and might possibly motivate more people to do it, since there are now more opportunities. That's not something we want, right?

13.) We effectively covered that in the first point, For the sake of completion let's just go over it again really quick. Wishes do narrow answers significantly better than other tutors, because they don't have to be in your deck. This reduces the chance of completely dead cards in certain matchups. You can therfore go for completely narrow hoser without downside.

This tends not to happen in other formats with wishes, because those usually have sidebaording, which does that exact job, without even having to put a wish into your deck.
However, recent developments show that if a wish is strong enough even this doesn't hold true, as Karn, the Great Creator sees tons of play in Modern and Legacy and has in fact turned the sidebaords of for example Modern Tron decks into toolboxes of narrow answers and one wincondition in Mycosynth Lattice.

14.) You "proved" that all our arguments are worthless? Really? I'm not sure if I should be impressed by how conceited you are or if I should feel sorry for you as you're clearly delusional if you actually think that. Again, your original post is an opinion piece. it states your personal opinion. it doesn't prove anything, it doesn't disprove anyting and it certainly has no authority to actually change anything.

[pokken]

[

It's time to learn that logic is a rhetorical tool and can only really prove a few things (when all the premises are self-evidently true, and sometimes people will argue those!). Beyond that it's about convincing people not about proof.

How convenient that every time someone addresses this subject rhetorically, they're shut down for not being logical enough and when someone addresses this subject logically, they're shut down for not being rhetorical enough.

Consider perhaps that the arguments are not convincing or on particularly sound logical footing

[darrenhabib]

I think the wishes would make deck building a little bit more interesting.

My only concern is that sideboards and sideboarding come at costs normally. For example in Modern when you play Karn, the Great Creator and have Mycosynth Lattice in your sideboard, this takes up a real slot that could have significance during sideboarding when it could have been a graveyard hate card or whatever in your second or third games. Commander does not actually have sideboarding.
The problem when you don't actually use a sideboard other than wishes, is that there is no cost to what you put in really. Thus Karn, the Great Creator and Mycosynth Lattice is an pretty easy attempt at a win with no real cost to that attempt.

I definitely think that it's something that the RC should test and gather data on. They have the resources to do this right and publish results?

[Hermes_]

well i posted a link to this over at Reddit : as to if they choose to come here and comment or if you [mention]Legend[/mention] want to address the comments there, I just thought you'd like more views to talk with.

[papa_funk]

I answered this on the Commander Summit like two weeks ago. It's one of the first questions in the episode.

[Legend]

The following EDIT has been added to the Preamble Spoiler in the OP and dated.
"I apologize in advance for my obtuse writing style and lack of linguistic elegance. Please try to see past me, the messenger, to the message. I will do my best to reply to every post in this thread with the exception of ad hominem attacks."

Reply to Hermes

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Have you thought about submitting it as an article for the site?

No, because my writing isn't eloquent enough.

Reply to tstorm823

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You have to make the case that wishes would make the format better.

Why? Such a case has never been made for any other effect in the history of the game.
Imagine that the default value of all effects legal in Commander is 1. Rule 13 has artificially -1'd Wishing, giving it an adjusted value of 0. It shouldn't be required to artificially +1 Wishing by explaining its merits in Commander any more than it's required to do so for other effects in Commander. All that is required is a revision of Rule 13 to remove the -1 brand on the effect, thereby restoring Wishing to its proper value and place among other effects.

Put another way, if Wishes require a special explanation why they should be in the format, then so do tutors, extra turns, ramp, life gain, direct damage, removal, infinite combos, mill, evergreen keywords – in short – every effect and combination of effects that there is. Of course, that's an absurd notion, but no less absurd when applied to Wishes.

Nonetheless, I do have a supposition in favor of Wishes in Commander. A great and relevant one which is they would bring balance to the format. It's become clear that some opponents to Wishes have pet decks that they are afraid will be put in their place by the Wishes and that they are not actually as concerned about the overall health of the format as much as they pretend.

Reply to MRHblue

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I'm trying to extricate the Wishes from an illogical trap.

That's a distinction without a difference. You think the reassoning is illogical, the people who made that decision clearly disagree. You think logic flips that switch, but it does not.

There may be a logical fallacy somewhere in my statement, but it isn't a distinction without a difference. A distinction without a difference would be more of something like, "Wishes aren't too strong for Commander. Commander is just too weak for Wishes." Also, your appeal to authority is a logical fallacy. (Spoiler 15)

Reply to tarotplz

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14.) You "proved" that all our arguments are worthless? Really?

Yes, except I prefer the terms "fallacious" and "erroneous" over "worthless", which you first used. I find the term a bit too insensitive, even for me. That being said, fallacious arguments do lose a little more worth every time they're repeated, so I suppose they could eventually become contextually worthless.

Reply to pokken

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Consider perhaps that the arguments are not convincing or on particularly sound logical footing

If they weren't, you'd have harpooned them on sight. In fact, every time you post an ad hominem attack, I become a little more confident in their veracity.

Reply to Dunharrow

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Wishes: Yes because they would bring balance to the format. Just revise Rule 13 to make them work according to the rules of Magic and the spirit of Commander.

Balance to the format?
You mean kill all graveyard decks, cascade, storm, commanders with activated abilities, artifact decks, blue decks, multicolour decks, ... and on and on and on.
Wishes push people to including narrow hate cards because there is no downside. In any given game, drawing Rest in Peace can be bad, but if you put all the hate cards in your sideboard when you wish you will always have a narrow effect that knocks someone out of the game.
Every commander deck would also be able to run Karn, the Great Creator and Mycosynth lattice. It would be wrong not to.

People talk of wishes remembering a time when they searched their binder for a card and picked a cool timmy card they wish could fit in the deck.
But the truth is that wishes push people towards not including answers in their decks and gets them to search up hate cards and lockout pieces.
It makes the format spikier.
Everyone would have to get wishes because of how powerful they would be.

More Chicken Little rhetoric that's rife with fallacies. See Spoiler 12. I really wish the RC would stop listening to this bullcorn.

Reply to darrenhabib

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I think the wishes would make deck building a little bit more interesting.

Thank you.

My only concern is that sideboards and sideboarding come at costs normally.

This is a great point in favor of Wishboards, but I'm sure you understand I'm obligated to add, not against Wishing.

I definitely think that it's something that the RC should test and gather data on.

The only way to attain enough data would be to revise Rule 13.

[tstorm823]

Why? Such a case has never been made for any other effect in the history of the game.
Imagine that the default value of all effects legal in Commander is 1. Rule 13 has artificially -1'd Wishing, giving it an adjusted value of 0. It shouldn't be required to artificially +1 Wishing by explaining its merits in Commander any more than it's required to do so for other effects in Commander. All that is required is a revision of Rule 13 to remove the -1 brand on the effect, thereby restoring Wishing to its proper value and place among other effects.

Put another way, if Wishes require a special explanation why they should be in the format, then so do tutors, extra turns, ramp, life gain, direct damage, removal, infinite combos, mill, evergreen keywords – in short – every effect and combination of effects that there is. Of course, that's an absurd notion, but no less absurd when applied to Wishes.

Nonetheless, I do have a supposition in favor of Wishes in Commander. A great and relevant one which is they would bring balance to the format. It's become clear that some opponents to Wishes have pet decks that they are afraid will be put in their place by the Wishes and that they are not actually as concerned about the overall health of the format as much as they pretend.

Every card ever unbanned has had that case made for it, so yes, other effects have had that case made for them in the history of the game. And its not as though wishes are unique in an entire effect being banned, dexterity cards and ante cards are all blanket banned from every format. They're listed individually rather than in the rules, sure, but you could just as easily write a rule saying "gambling and card throwing are not allowed" and reach the same outcome.

You can't just act as though wishing is just like flying or trample. An effect that has people digging through their binder for cards mid-game has different baggage than every other effect in the game. There's nothing unreasonable about saying "we don't want that specific baggage." And there are plenty of other effects that routinely get the same sort of consideration, most notably people wanting to have format specific rules for infect. If the rules committee decided to remove infect as a win condition, would you say that it's absurd that a case was made against that one effect and not every other mechanic in the game? No, because even if you disagree with that change, you would disagree on the basis of whether it made Commander better, not based on a theory that all mechanics require fair and equal treatment. Not all mechanics are made equal.

[pokken]

Consider perhaps that the arguments are not convincing or on particularly sound logical footing

If they weren't, you'd have harpooned them on sight. In fact, every time you post an ad hominem attack, I become a little more confident in their veracity.

Well, they're certainly not convincing. The closest you've gotten to a bite is someone intrigued with the deckbuilding but still very concerned about balance. Show me a couple people actually convinced

Please quote me an actual argument I've made in this thread. And then find the ad hominem in there.

I find your arguments completely unconvincing - there's nothing personal there at all.

----------------------------------------------------

As regards to the logic of your position: You're trying to make way too many points and none of them are supported well enough to be "skewered" - you aren't making formal arguments, So there's no way to tear them apart because your premises and propositions are unclear. I'll give you an example:

Rule 13 should be revised simply because people like to play with their toys. Yes, technically Wishes can be played in Commander, but they're like toys without batteries. Every card that isn't banned has the potential to add to the positive experiences of Commander. The same would be true of Wishes.

There's just not enough to argue with there. If you replace "Rule 13" in that statement with literally anything it says the same thing and still lacks any force as an argument.

And this is repeated throughout your treatise. You've opted for a broad and shallow approach.

Make clear your premises and propositions and I'll happily skewer them for you.

Edit: I realized I might come off as sending mixed messages. I think this is because you present yourself as if you've laid down an unassailable logical argument with all the fallacy accusations at your detractors. What I found when I started reading more deeply is that the actual logic is fairly weak all around.

I don't want this to sound overly harsh so I will say that point 9 was one I found interesting - the point about the specific card rules text overriding the general rules was one I thought was somewhat of a unique take. I have a lot of issues with it but it's one I would engage with formed as an argument.

----------------------------------------------------------

In terms of what I think you should do to try to get your point across? Focus. Go deeper. Because most of your sections are too shallow and don't address actual concerns.

Most people are concerned with the actual impacts to the format and you seem to not care about that -- the fact that you do not seem to acknowledge that there *is* a bar you have to clear is the thing I find probably the most disconcerting here.

You've spent paragraphs and paragraphs telling us why you don't think logically you should have to prove (or even convince anyone) that changing rule 13 won't make anything worse (because logically, they should never have been exiled in the first place, or whatever).

But that's simply false. The RC will not make changes they think will make the format worse. So prove it'll make it better. Or argue for it.

[MRHblue]

Legend - This thread is a thought experiment only, because you refuse to understand how EDH rules get changed. Call things like that a logical fallacy all you want. It is not, because I am not using it to defend my position.

I definitely think that it's something that the RC should test and gather data on. They have the resources to do this right and publish results?

What exactly would they be testing?

[RxPhantom]

Holy moly! What a thread. I'd have commented earlier, but I was on vacation with an internet connection worse than dial-up.

Anyway, this thread has clearly become it's own special kind of rabbit hole, so I'll keep it brief: [mention]pokken[/mention] pretty much nailed it in his previous post. The arguments proposed by the OP, while voluminous, are light on substance. OP also engages in numerous other fallacies in defending their arguments, including straw men and shifting the burden of proof. And frankly, I'm unsure if it has a name, but simply declaring that you have negated all opposing arguments doesn't actually mean that you have.

Wishes would subvert deck construction rules and become a crutch for lazy deckbuilders. Having a magazine of silver bullets won't lead to better games or a better format. It would lead to homogeny, and poorly constructed decks getting better results than they should.

[darrenhabib]

Legend - This thread is a thought experiment only, because you refuse to understand how EDH rules get changed. Call things like that a logical fallacy all you want. It is not, because I am not using it to defend my position.

I definitely think that it's something that the RC should test and gather data on. They have the resources to do this right and publish results?

What exactly would they be testing?

Everything outlined in this thread.

[Dunharrow]

The following EDIT has been added to the Preamble Spoiler in the OP and dated.
"I apologize in advance for my obtuse writing style and lack of linguistic elegance. Please try to see past me, the messenger, to the message. I will do my best to reply to every post in this thread with the exception of ad hominem attacks."

Wishes: Yes because they would bring balance to the format. Just revise Rule 13 to make them work according to the rules of Magic and the spirit of Commander.

Balance to the format?
You mean kill all graveyard decks, cascade, storm, commanders with activated abilities, artifact decks, blue decks, multicolour decks, ... and on and on and on.
Wishes push people to including narrow hate cards because there is no downside. In any given game, drawing Rest in Peace can be bad, but if you put all the hate cards in your sideboard when you wish you will always have a narrow effect that knocks someone out of the game.
Every commander deck would also be able to run Karn, the Great Creator and Mycosynth lattice. It would be wrong not to.

People talk of wishes remembering a time when they searched their binder for a card and picked a cool timmy card they wish could fit in the deck.
But the truth is that wishes push people towards not including answers in their decks and gets them to search up hate cards and lockout pieces.
It makes the format spikier.
Everyone would have to get wishes because of how powerful they would be.

More Chicken Little rhetoric that's rife with fallacies. See Spoiler 12. I really wish the RC would stop listening to this bullcorn.
[/spoiler]

okay Legend, this is a mix of confusing and condescending. I made my post in a different thread and you made your answer here.. which I find weird.
Then, there is the absolutely infuriating approach you take to answering me. I made very valid points which you just dismissed as rhetoric and referred me to a different post, which is again, confusing when trying to have a conversation.

So then your #12 saying that people have choices and assuming people will get silver bullets is a logical fallacy....
What a load of guano!
I do not mean to be rude, but I feel like you have been quite rude and I do not care to waste more time on this.
But, basically, you're proposing that we all play with wishes because most people will play fair. That is not how it will work out.
Commander is about building casually and playing competitively. So if you are wishing and going through a binder looking for a card, choosing a sub-optimal card is akin to sand-bagging your winning combo. There is no fun in it.

Wishes to me just promote lazy deckbuilding. They would be autoincludes in every deck and would be extremely powerful.

I like that I need to think about whether or not I want Reclamation Sage or a fatty or card draw in my green deck. With wishes, I can make that slot all 3 effects I am considering. And more.

Tutoring is very powerful when you are restricted to your deck of 100 cards. Tutoring becomes dumb when you can search through hundreds of cards.

[tarotplz]

14.) You "proved" that all our arguments are worthless? Really?

Yes, except I prefer the terms "fallacious" and "erroneous" over "worthless", which you first used. I find the term a bit too insensitive, even for me. That being said, fallacious arguments do lose a little more worth every time they're repeated, so I suppose they could eventually become contextually worthless.

So out of all the points I made you choose to only respond to one...

You ignore the part which is my actual argument against your position ("your original post is an opinion piece. it states your personal opinion. it doesn't prove anything, it doesn't disprove anyting and it certainly has no authority to actually change anything.") and don't add it to the quote to make yourself look better.

At that point you should've also done away with the the "14.)" in order to make it look like there weren't 13 other points to respond to.

I also find it funny that out of all the thing to respond to you chose this one and double down on the thing that makes everyone here think you're acting so unreasonable in this discussion.

We're not repeating ourselves because we've run out of things to say, we are because (even though you think otherwise) you haven't actually refuted a single one of those arguments.

You can't just simply claim that you're correct. I mean I guess you've shown that you can, but that doesn't actually make you correct.

Here's one more interesting part about how you go about reaching your goal. You actually had a member or the RC reply to your thread. Wow, that must feel great. There's your chance to convince them, right? You however simply ignore him, because what he said doesn't fit your narritive...

I answered this on the Commander Summit like two weeks ago. It's one of the first questions in the episode.

Now I know you ([mention]Legend[/mention]) probably don't have the time to rewatch that episode to go through his points, so let me write them out for you to give you a chance to properly respond.

"Sideboards are a competitive construct". Changing decks between games or utilizing wishes to better counter opposing decks is not a style the RC wants to encourage.

"Extensive rules for the sideboard would be needed". For example, can you break the singleton rule?, are you actually allowed to sidebaord after a game?, how many cards go into the sideboard? etc. These are considered "a lot of rules for fairly mild function" (as there are not that many wishes that would actually see play).
I know you've given your opinion on some of these questions Legend, but ultimately it would be up to the RC to make those decisions. They'd also have to spread the word and make sure that every commander player actually knows about them. Which leads to the next point:

There would be an "additional burden of having to build a sideboard" even if not playing wishes, Not having a sideboard available might put you at a disadvantage (for example: gaining control of a wish) during a game, so all players are now suddenly faced with this added concept even if they don't actually want it.

He states that there would really only be 2 possible options to make wishes work.

1st: "What's done now", Rule 0, go talk about it with your playgroup.

2nd: "No rules whatsoever, you can go get whatever". This would lead to a lot of arguments and lots of feelsbad moments. Here I would like to quote directly: "we found it just doesn't work that well" (this would imply they've done some testing with open wishboards? Can we get some confirmation about this? [mention]papa_funk[/mention] )

"People have different visions of what's supposed to be there (in the wishboard)." This I assume is refering to the fact that yes indeed, some people would break wishes. They do narrow answers better than other tutors after all, as you don't have to put potentially dead cards (in the given matchup) into your deck. Things like Choke might very well become wishboard staples.

Since the RC thinks the 2nd option would lead to too much confusion and too many unfun situations, they think the "simplest solution" is the best one to use, which in this case is rule 0. If you want to allow wishes in your playgroup go for it, have a conversation and set your own parameters.

[tstorm823]

Commander is about building casually and playing competitively. So if you are wishing and going through a binder looking for a card, choosing a sub-optimal card is akin to sand-bagging your winning combo. There is no fun in it.

That is an incredibly solid argument right there, at least against the idea of wishing for any card you own. You can't apply "build casually" to cards you didn't put in your deck, and you can't pretend wishing for Goblin Game with your Burning Wish is "playing competitively". Without the wishboard solution, it's just literally impossible to play wishes in line with that mantra. Good call.

[papa_funk]

Now I know you (@Legend) probably don't have the time to rewatch that episode to go through his points, so let me write them out for you to give you a chance to properly respond.

It was like the first question, so I didn't figure it was that much of a burden! But thanks for the summary.

2nd: "No rules whatsoever, you can go get whatever". This would lead to a lot of arguments and lots of feelsbad moments. Here I would like to quote directly: "we found it just doesn't work that well" (this would imply they've done some testing with open wishboards? Can we get some confirmation about this? @papa_funk )

Testing? No. It was the actual rule for a while; it's what we started with and it led to lots of arguments and feelsbad moments.

[tarotplz]

2nd: "No rules whatsoever, you can go get whatever". This would lead to a lot of arguments and lots of feelsbad moments. Here I would like to quote directly: "we found it just doesn't work that well" (this would imply they've done some testing with open wishboards? Can we get some confirmation about this? @papa_funk )

Testing? No. It was the actual rule for a while; it's what we started with and it led to lots of arguments and feelsbad moments.

Wow, really? I did not know that. When was that and how long did it last? (For reference I've only played commander for roughly 2 years)

This would also mean that contrary to the original post that wishes have in fact NOT always been de facto banned. They were intentionally removed because they didn't balance out the game but were actually the cause of many bad experiences.

Here are a couple quotes from the original post that are now obviously faulty:

How could they when they've always been de facto banned in Commander

There is absolutely zero data on Wishes in Commander because they've always been de facto banned in Commander. All opinions about Wishes in Commander are baseless assumptions or anecdotal in nature.

Especially since Wishes were de facto banned since day 1, and hence have never even been able to adduce the attributes that supposedly warrant their de facto banning.

This basically turns the entire argument upside down, since most of it was based on wishes never even getting a chance to prove themselves in the format. Which aparently they absolutely did get and were then remmoved on purpose for creating bad gameplay.

Oh and let me take this opportunity to thank you for putting in the time to govern such a great format! Even if my playgroup is probably a bit more competitive than the average commander group, we always have a great time with the format

[MRHblue]

Everything outlined in this thread.

As Papa has said a lot of this actually was the rule for a long time.

But even if it wasn't, lets say we have optional wishboards: People can literally run Flashfires, Acid Rain et al without a downside because another wish-able card will so something to everyone. Why do we need to test this? Thats terrible flexibility to allow.

Now if you allow grabbing any card, this just multiplies.

So what item in this thread does seem like it would be useful to test to you?

[Legend]

The following replies were typed prior to papa_funk's last reply, but they have been kept intact.

Reply to papa_funk

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I answered this on the Commander Summit like two weeks ago. It's one of the first questions in the episode.

It was the last question, three weeks ago at the time of your post. The question was specifically about "Commander and Sideboards". I'm arguing for the ratification of Rule 13. The RC unveiled a new and improved Official Format Philosophy and in the same breath contradicted it with Rule 13, which is why I started this thread.

Consider the possibility that Wishes could serve as a stabilizer for the format, especially on the cEDH front. And that all of the worst-case-scenario assumptions are phobic hysteria when what Wishes need are empirical data. The only way to get that data is to ratify Rule 13 so that Wishes work properly in Commander. Also, Commander is all about fun, and Wishing is fun.

2nd: "No rules whatsoever, you can go get whatever". This would lead to a lot of arguments and lots of feelsbad moments. Here I would like to quote directly: "we found it just doesn't work that well" (this would imply they've done some testing with open wishboards? Can we get some confirmation about this? @papa_funk )

Testing? No. It was the actual rule for a while; it's what we started with and it led to lots of arguments and feelsbad moments.

And it took you 10 years to mention this!? And nobody, I mean absolutely nobody, over the course of years of online discussion about Wishes in Commander has ever mentioned this? How is this possible?

Would you mind describing how long Wishes worked in Commander, when and why the rule was changed, where the reasons for the "why" came from, especially why Rule 13 instead of banning, etc.? I'm sure a bunch of us would be really grateful.

Disclaimer: Your reply, should you choose to reply (and I hope you do), might change my attitude about Wishes in Commander, it won't change my opinion on Rule 13.

Reply to tstorm823

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Why? Such a case has never been made for any other effect in the history of the game.
Imagine that the default value of all effects legal in Commander is 1. Rule 13 has artificially -1'd Wishing, giving it an adjusted value of 0. It shouldn't be required to artificially +1 Wishing by explaining its merits in Commander any more than it's required to do so for other effects in Commander. All that is required is a revision of Rule 13 to remove the -1 brand on the effect, thereby restoring Wishing to its proper value and place among other effects.

Put another way, if Wishes require a special explanation why they should be in the format, then so do tutors, extra turns, ramp, life gain, direct damage, removal, infinite combos, mill, evergreen keywords – in short – every effect and combination of effects that there is. Of course, that's an absurd notion, but no less absurd when applied to Wishes.

Nonetheless, I do have a supposition in favor of Wishes in Commander. A great and relevant one which is they would bring balance to the format. It's become clear that some opponents to Wishes have pet decks that they are afraid will be put in their place by the Wishes and that they are not actually as concerned about the overall health of the format as much as they pretend.

Every card ever unbanned has had that case made for it, so yes, other effects have had that case made for them in the history of the game.

That is not the case. Every card that was unbanned was unbanned first and foremost because it was no longer considered detrimental to the format, not because it was presumed to be a net positive to the format. Whether or not unbanning a card would be beneficial to a format is always an unknown factor. There have been plenty of cases in which the unbanned card was a dud, a dynamo, or a disaster. So, the case still stands. Wishes don't necessarily have to promise a better future for Commander in order to warrant the revision of Rule 13. That being said, they conveniently do happen to promise a better future for Commander.

You can't just act as though wishing is just like flying or trample.

You're right. That was a case of hyperbole gone wrong. But there are comparable effects in the list. Imagine rebooting the format entirely by putting every effect in Magic, even the evergreen keywords, each behind its own rule stating that it doesn't work. Then one by one evaluate the positive and negative aspects of those effects to determine if they benefit Commander and only then allow them into the format. I wonder which ones wouldn't make it in. Many would be quickly released while others would require labored consideration. I could see extra turns, shuffling effects, fast mana, mass land destruction, and combo enablers all behind the bars of a rule for life. Why are they free.

And its not as though wishes are unique in an entire effect being banned, dexterity cards and ante cards are all blanket banned from every format.

Comparing Wishing to dexterity and ante is just as silly as comparing Wishing to flying and trample. Also, those effects are banned, not de facto banned.

They're listed individually rather than in the rules, sure, but you could just as easily write a rule saying "gambling and card throwing are not allowed" and reach the same outcome.

Then why do you suppose WotC does the former instead of the latter?

An effect that has people digging through their binder for cards mid-game has different baggage than every other effect in the game. There's nothing unreasonable about saying "we don't want that specific baggage."

That baggage is a baseless assumption not based on data. (Spoiler 2) And yes, it is unreasonable when there are already several effects legal in Commander that in fact have that baggage. The supposed action (searching binders) that constitutes the imaginary baggage (waste of time) may be different than the others, but the result would be identical. So why not Rule 14, 15, & 16 for all undesirable effects? (Spoiler 8)

If the rules committee decided to remove infect as a win condition, would you say that it's absurd that a case was made against that one effect and not every other mechanic in the game?

Yes.

… even if you disagree with that change, you would disagree on the basis of whether it made Commander better, not based on a theory that all mechanics require fair and equal treatment. Not all mechanics are made equal.

They may not require equal treatment, but they do deserve fair treatment, which Wishes have never been given. There are mechanics in Commander right now that exhibit the egregious qualities attributed to Wishing (namely, an imbalance of resource time), yet they remain intact (as they should), while Wishes remain de facto banned, though they've never displayed those qualities in any format in the entire history of the game.

Reply to pokken

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As regards to the logic of your position: You're trying to make way too many points and none of them are supported well enough to be "skewered" - you aren't making formal arguments, So there's no way to tear them apart because your premises and propositions are unclear. I'll give you an example:

Rule 13 should be revised simply because people like to play with their toys. Yes, technically Wishes can be played in Commander, but they're like toys without batteries. Every card that isn't banned has the potential to add to the positive experiences of Commander. The same would be true of Wishes.

There's just not enough to argue with there. If you replace "Rule 13" in that statement with literally anything it says the same thing and still lacks any force as an argument.

Bah! Of course you sampled the weakest statement in the entire OP. Not that I blame you. Haha! I have no defense for it. It was a weak, last minute inclusion put there as a concession for those insisting Wishes have a special reason for being in the format (despite no other card needing a reason).

You've opted for a broad and shallow approach.

A symptom of hastiness and brevity.

Focus. Go deeper.

I may do that given the time.

Most people are concerned with the actual impacts to the format and you seem to not care about that

I care little about potential negative impacts because problem cards can just be banned. I care greatly about potential positive impacts because that's what matters more!

The RC will not make changes they think will make the format worse. So prove it'll make it better. Or argue for it.

The first step is to prove that the standing reasons for Rule 13 are themselves erroneous. The reason for doing so is because people become complacent in the status quo, even if it was established on an aggregation of errors, and need to be reminded that they're standing on faulty ground. Now, if the arguments I've made to reveal said errors are themselves erroneous, then someone please reveal specifically what is erroneous about them. Claiming they're informal, inelegant, or ignorant to the feelings of the RC is not proof of error.

Reply to RxPhantom

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OP also engages in numerous other fallacies in defending their arguments, including straw men and shifting the burden of proof.

Numerous fallacies, huh? Prove it. If I propped up a straw man it's one of your own because every single argument against Wishes in the OP came straight from opponents of Wishes. I didn't create a single one of them. Every opponent of Wishes needs to brush up on shifting the burden of proof, seriously. If anyone shifted the burden of proof, it was the RC. I just shifted it back to where it belongs. It's ludicrous to de facto ban an untested effect and then burden others to prove with theory and anecdotes that the effect should not be de facto banned.

Wishes would subvert deck construction rules and become a crutch for lazy deckbuilders. Having a magazine of silver bullets won't lead to better games or a better format. It would lead to homogeny, and poorly constructed decks getting better results than they should.

No it wouldn't. It would lead to a balanced format in which casual players would have answers to competitive shenanigans. (Baseless opinions are fun!)

Reply to tarotplz

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You can't just simply claim that you're correct. I mean I guess you've shown that you can, but that doesn't actually make you correct.

That's what opponents of Wishes do and it seems to satisfy them. Monkey see and all that.

[papa_funk]

The following replies were typed prior to papa_funk's last reply, but they have been kept intact.

Reply to papa_funk

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I answered this on the Commander Summit like two weeks ago. It's one of the first questions in the episode.

It was the last question, three weeks ago at the time of your post. The question was specifically about "Commander and Sideboards". I'm arguing for the ratification of Rule 13. The RC unveiled a new and improved Official Format Philosophy and in the same breath contradicted it with Rule 13, which is why I started this thread.

Thanks for the correction; it was later than I remembered there and I was on my phone. The question is very relevant; it was about using Sideboards so as to make wishes work, and I went slightly beyond to talk about wishes in general.

I have read the philosophy document; heck, I wrote large chunks of it. I don't see this purported contradiction.

Consider the possibility that Wishes could serve as a stabilizer for the format, especially on the cEDH front. And that all of the worst-case-scenario assumptions are phobic hysteria when what Wishes need are empirical data. The only way to get that data is to ratify Rule 13 so that Wishes work properly in Commander. Also, Commander is all about fun, and Wishing is fun.

This both stipulates that the format needs stabilizing, and that Wishes might do it; neither of which has any backing.

"Wishing is fun" is the strongest argument you have presented. However, we have to consider the overall impact on the format of changes, and have found that this is not universally true and believe that wishing actually led to less net fun as people would argue over what was acceptable. This is, of course, opinion.

Edit: Note that this is a good reason to not ban them. Wishing is fun as long as a group agrees on the scope of it. By starting from a stance that requires this discussion, people get to set the parameters they are comfortable with as a group.

Testing? No. It was the actual rule for a while; it's what we started with and it led to lots of arguments and feelsbad moments.

And it took you 10 years to mention this!? And nobody, I mean absolutely nobody, over the course of years of online discussion about Wishes in Commander has ever mentioned this? How is this possible?

I'm guessing because the vast majority of people who want Wishes to work don't want there to be no rules around it. Advocating for that is a generally quite unpopular position; the idea that people can play a card in their deck and then just go hunting in their binder isn't demanded often.

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. If you want to make them work, you have to add additional rules or let players hash it out.

Would you mind describing how long Wishes worked in Commander, when and why the rule was changed, where the reasons for the "why" came from, especially why Rule 13 instead of banning, etc.? I'm sure a bunch of us would be really grateful.

Wishes had no Commander-specific rules up until at least 2010, since there were lots of issues around Spawnsire of Ulamog. At some point around there, we decided that defining outside the game as containing nothing was the cleanest solution, and playgroups could set parameters from there.

[Legend]

Thanks for the reply.

This both stipulates that the format needs stabilizing, and that Wishes might do it; neither of which has any backing.

Perhaps "stabilize" wasn't exactly the right word. What I meant by it is that Wishes could provide answers to problematic decks and cards (in the future, if not now), thereby quelling dissent and reducing the overall need to ban this or that card. What backing was there to verify that Painter's Servant wouldn't be problematic?

I have read the philosophy document; heck, I wrote large chunks of it. I don't see this purported contradiction.

The contradiction lies between the bullet points which explain what leads to cards getting banned and Rule 13 which spits on the rest of the philosophy document by ignoring it and instead de facto banning an entire effect without reason or explanation.

...we decided that defining outside the game as containing nothing was the cleanest solution, and playgroups could set parameters from there.

I still have some questions, if you don't mind.

1. What were the "lots of issues around Spawnsire of Ulamog"?

2. Why not just allow Wishing to function in Commander as intended?

3. If Wishing in general is truly so problematic, why create a special rule for it instead of just banning cards with the effect?

4. Why expect players to figure out that Wishing doesn't work in Commander, despite not a single card with the effect appearing on the ban list, which is the thing that people look at when brewing? (Talk about feel bad moments, I have seen new players try to Wish, not realizing that it didn't function. Even though we've always let the new player have their Wish, they've declined every time, surely because it just isn't the same as playing by the official rules.)

4. Why put the burden of responsibility on players to decide whether or not Wishing works in a given game? It's a feel bad situation for everyone involved.

5. Why not do away with the ban list and rule that everyone is to defer to Rule 0 to preemptively manage effects they don't like? If it's able to manage Wishing, shouldn't it be able to manage every other effect, too?

6. Why assume the worst about Magic players when it comes to how they would Wish? Sure, it's the easy thing to do, but consider the possibility that pessimism isn't the same as realism.

7. Why not Rule 14 for "extra turns"? Rule 15 for "gain control of"? Rule 16 for "search your library"? Rule 17 for "counter target spell"? Rule 18 for "destroy all lands"? Rule 19 for "you control target player"? And so-on. Some of these effects actually exhibit the pesky attributes projected onto Wishes and all of them are obnoxious to a vast portion of the Commander community, yet they work just fine. What's so different about "from outside the game" that it alone gets singled out?

8. There is no universally fun effect in Magic. How is that an argument against Wishing and/or in favor of Rule 13?

9. How hard would it be, really, to rewrite Rule 13 to eliminate arguments over what is acceptable to Wish for? This seems like a case of making a mountain out of a molehill.

RULE THIRTEEN 2.0
An effect that would bring a card from outside the game into the game may do so only if the card meets the requirements of the effect, is legal in Commander, doesn't break the color identity rule, doesn't break the singleton rule (unless the card itself can do so), and the card back is indistinguishable from other card backs in the deck.

Thanks again.

EDIT: Replaced the words "Wished for" with "itself" in the parenthetical portion of RULE THIRTEEN 2.0. Nothing else altered.

[tarotplz]

I know we're all waiting for papa_funks answer, as that one matters a lot more, but let me try to tackle some of the issues you raise:

Wishes could provide answers to problematic decks and cards (in the future, if not now), thereby quelling dissent and reducing the overall need to ban this or that card.

and later on:

Why assume the worst about Magic players when it comes to how they would Wish? Sure, it's the easy thing to do, but consider the possibility that pessimism isn't the same as realism.

I think these two statements do somewhat contradict eachother. In order to make an impact in the higher levels of competitiveness in the format, wishes would need to provide really powerful answers. From talking to the cEDH crowd we can assume that those answers will be the exact stax pieces and narrow hosers most people here are afraid would be so problematic for the format (Given that Choke is already a maybeboard consideration in certain stax builds for very blue-heavy metas I doubt they'd hesitate). Anything else just isn't going to cut it.
This is how wishes have always been used in competitive formats. Allow me to point to the precident of Karn, the Great Creator in Modern Tron decks. Even in a format with actual sideboarding he managed to change the classic sideboard to a wishboard with the kind of problematic cards people typically don't want to see in the format (Ranging from narrow answers like Grafdigger's Cage to stax pieces like Trinisphere, lockdown cards like Ensnaring Bridge and of course the "out of nowhere" win with Mycosynth Lattice).

You also say that we shouldn't assume the worst from people. In order to have the effect you claim on cEDH however, people would have to utilize those kinds of cards. The possibility that they might not is really only applicable in casual EDH.

In casual there's certainly going to be a wide variety in which wishes would be used. With playgroups changing and people playing with strangers at events or at a LGS, many of them will have different expectations as to what is acceptable with wishes. Even if wish opponents are overestimating the amount of degenerate cards being wished for in casual, disagreements are going to happen. With wishes out of the format those can be avoided.

Why not just allow Wishing to function in Commander as intended?

Apparently because they did in fact lead to unfun situations. I think he stated that pretty clearly. Given that they were previously legal in the format, those opinions are also more than just thought experiments. You could claim it's all anecdotal, but since the decison was made to remove wishes from the format entirely and things went over so smoothly that we didn't even know about it, I can't imagine that people were too saddened to see them go.

If Wishing in general is truly so problematic, why create a special rule for it instead of just banning cards with the effect?

I believe he answered this one aswell.

Note that this is a good reason to not ban them. Wishing is fun as long as a group agrees on the scope of it. By starting from a stance that requires this discussion, people get to set the parameters they are comfortable with as a group.

It was to make it easier to houserule them back in if certain playgroups wanted to. If they were actually banned, there would likely be far more resistance to that sort of thing. Personally I don't think I've ever heard of a playgroup that actually house-unbanned anything.

The contradiction lies between the bullet points which explain what leads to cards getting banned and Rule 13 which spits on the rest of the philosophy document by ignoring it and instead de facto banning an entire effect without reason or explanation.

"Without reason or explaination" seems like a bold thing to claim, given that we were just given a reason for the removal of wishes by a member of the RC himself.

However, we have to consider the overall impact on the format of changes, and have found that this is not universally true and believe that wishing actually led to less net fun as people would argue over what was acceptable.

Wishes had no Commander-specific rules up until at least 2010, since there were lots of issues around Spawnsire of Ulamog.

To me, those look like reasons to remove wishes from the format.

Regardless, I think your case that wishes were unjustly exiled from the format from the very beginning without any justification whatsoever has been debunked by the fact that wishes were legal at one point and then intentionally removed for causing bad gameplay. This actually makes the burden of proof switch over to you in regards to proving that they would in fact benefit & balance out the format. Aside from "they'd be fun" and "don't assume the worst from people" we haven't really heard much about that from you.

Even according to your own words, the burden of proof should now be yours knowing that wishes have been legal in the format before .

I haven't defended the position because it doesn't require a defense. The default state of the game is that cards work according to the Oracle text, regardless of the format. The people who should be defending their position on this issue are those who made Rule 13 and those who agree with and support it, because frankly Rule 13 is an abomination and a spear in the heart of Magic. Just because the rule was instituted at the foundation of the format doesn't make it correct. But because it was (instituted at that time), those of us who are in favor of wishes in Commander are forced to start off on our back foot in this debate, when the reverse should be the case. The burden of proof begins in the hands of the opponents of Wishes, not their proponents. So, having recognized the trap (by reading years of discussion on the topic), I have rebooted the debate properly (offensively rather than defensively), and have elected to be blunt, and to leverage logical fallacies, not in order to be rude or haughty, but for the sake of brevity.

Looking forward to seeing the new arguments you're now surely going to bring to the discussion