Thought Exercise: Changing the Commander Tax

[onering]

Golos definitely didn't go away with time, he had to be banned. Korvold, Muldrotha, Chulane, and Yarok are still some of the most popular commanders, and I've seen a lot of Koma, which is easier to generate value from but has a lower ceiling than those others. I think its both that the absurd value they generate makes them more resilient by finding the extra mana to pay the tax, and that WotC printed a glut of them over an extended time period, and also that people like their boring easy buttons for deck building.

[Myllior]

Regarding enabling the play of removing a commander on upkeep, so it can't be cast in that turn, or the idea that a commander is only castable from the command zone once, I would be adamantly against both because of the damage to voltron strategies. Removing a commander on upkeep would, outside of haste, mean that the voltron player is effectively unable to progress their gameplan for two turn cycles, which is obscene; I haven't got time to read the original proposal behind this idea, but if the idea was reverted to being a maximum of one cast from the command zone per turn, then I could see it being acceptable from a voltron perspective. A commander being more like a companion is highly antagonistic to the concept of voltron, so I don't think there would be a reasonable middle ground. However, the idea doesn't seem to have legs anyway, given that the collateral damage to the format as a whole would be far in excess of whatever perceived issues it might solve.

(Disclaimer: I don't see many of the issues prompting this discussion as issues to begin with; if someone runs Food Chain, that's a deliberate choice as to how they wish to play the game. So while I'm not a proponent of changing the commander tax to begin with, I still wanted to raise the voltron point so it's considered in this hypothetical).

[BeneTleilax]

outside of haste, mean that the voltron player is effectively unable to progress their gameplan for two turn cycles

If you don't have reliable haste access, protection or a backup plan, voltron is going to have a bad time anyways. Isumaru-style play-a-cheap-dude-and-stack-stuff-on-it voltron has been getting worse for a long time, and has been dull long before then. I think voltron absolutely has its place in the format, but the pressures of current removal have already all but crushed the sort of decks you describe. The way you address those shortcomings adds more diversity to the archetype, whereas previously it was simply a matter of jamming the cheapest useful dude with the best equipment.

[Jemolk]

Golos definitely didn't go away with time, he had to be banned. Korvold, Muldrotha, Chulane, and Yarok are still some of the most popular commanders, and I've seen a lot of Koma, which is easier to generate value from but has a lower ceiling than those others. I think its both that the absurd value they generate makes them more resilient by finding the extra mana to pay the tax, and that WotC printed a glut of them over an extended time period, and also that people like their boring easy buttons for deck building.

Not entirely, no, but my experience in my meta was certainly that the decks got played less and less over time, and eventually got dismantled because they got boring for their pilots as well. Again, I can only speak to my own experience, but I've definitely seen the prominence of these sorts of generals fade significantly over time. Golos hung on the most, but all the Muldrotha and Korvold decks around me, of which there were plenty, have been completely dismantled, and there's only one Yarok deck left, which rarely gets played. Maybe it's just that my meta has a lot less people who are into the easy boring crap than some others. It's always possible.

[BeneTleilax]

I haven't seen a huge shift, but one of the guys who ran 4C Omnath just recently took his apart from boredom and started building Surak (the other one has a deck for every Omnath and mostly plays the 3C one). I do think we'll see a decline in the samey value decks, especially once the Golos ban made it clear that such decks are not in spirit.

[pokken]

I do think we'll see a decline in the samey value decks, especially once the Golos ban made it clear that such decks are not in spirit.

I think you'll see a lot of korvold, chulane and 4c omnath replacing golos =P


Provably some amount of Yarok too.

[BeneTleilax]

I do think we'll see a decline in the samey value decks, especially once the Golos ban made it clear that such decks are not in spirit.

I think you'll see a lot of korvold, chulane and 4c omnath replacing golos =P

I saw Kenrith and Esika replace Golos so far, which aren't *great*, but are noticeably less obnoxious. The other Golos player just took apart the deck and I don't know what he'll build next.

[pokken]

I saw Kenrith and Esika replace Golos so far, which aren't *great*, but are noticeably less obnoxious. The other Golos player just took apart the deck and I don't know what he'll build next.

That's interesting. I'm seeing some of that too out there in the internetosphere.

Honestly, I find esika to be noticeably more powerful than Golos the more I think about it. I abandoned that deck after building it because it is so obnoxious as far as play patterns go. It's so much better with being able to play reactively than golos - you can just have your commander be Consecrated Sphinx in a control shell. It's pretty abysmal tbh.

Kenrith, the Returned King is absolutely a significant power upgrade over Golos in most cases. Depends on the power level of your meta how obnoxious it is really - lower to mid powered groups will find kenrith less obnoxious, but mid to high will probably find him far more oppressive than Golos.

Golos was worse at crapping up mid-power games but Kenrith has a much higher ceiling even outside of CEDH, just playing the various land untap effects and Training Grounds stuff.

I think this ban is going to start to illuminate some of the problems with the overpowered generals printed recently.

[BeneTleilax]

Honestly, I find esika to be noticeably more powerful than Golos the more I think about it. I abandoned that deck after building it because it is so obnoxious as far as play patterns go. It's so much better with being able to play reactively than golos - you can just have your commander be Consecrated Sphinx in a control shell. It's pretty abysmal tbh.

It's god tribal (and was under Golos as well), so it's not that bad. The essential difference between these and Golos is that killing their general actually meaningfully sets them back. Kenrith rarely actually plays his general, and mostly just plays 5C goodstuff.

[Legend]

At the beginning of your turn, if a commander card you own is not on the battlefield or in the command zone, you may search your library, hand, graveyard or exile for that card and put it in the command zone. If you searched your library this way, shuffle it.

Personally, I really like this idea. But I suspect that a majority of other players wouldn't appreciate their commanders being downgraded to companions, and for legitimate reasons. But we probably wouldn't give it a second thought had that been the rule since EDH went public. Anyways, there would be an issue regarding face down in exile.

There are many commanders that go infinite with a card in their 99.

There are a massive number of generals who win the game instantly with infinite mana or other loops
. . .
And the list just goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on
. . .

I'm genuinely unaware of which ones they are and didn't find one online. Is there a complete list of them?

[pokken]

I'm genuinely unaware of which ones they are and didn't find one online. Is there a complete list of them?

I imagine the commander combos discord community site has a pretty exhaustive list.

https://www.commanderspellbook.com/

a partial list off the top of my head of powerful commander combo pieces (read: the first 20 or so off the top then I went down the top commanders list and it was basically every other one)

alela
kenrith
thrasios
chulane
korvold
tergrid
kinnan
muldrotha
yarok
sisay, weatherlight captain
meren fo clan nel toth
niv mizzet parun (and another one)
kykar, wind's fury
omnath locus of the roil
tatyova
aesi
zaxara
urza
k'rrik
animar
elsha
neuksar
the locus god
aminatou
tasigur
jhoira
brago
derevi
osgir
gitrog
marchesa, the black rose
nethroi
yawgmoth
riku
ghave
sidisi, brood tyrant
yidris (basically)
kumena
orvar
chatterfang
slimefoot
roon
rhys
maelstrom wanderer
heliod, sun crowned
estrid
tayam
brallin/sharky
any commander that taps for >1 mana
ukkima
syr konrad
mizzix
ezuri
ayara
rielle
grenzo, dungeon warden
codie
neheb
zacama
sakashima (new)
kodama (new)
sram


on and on and on and on and on and on

[Zealcat]

I'm not a fan of some of the more dramatic changes here, but in trying to hit two birds with one stone, here's my suggestion.

Modify commander tax based on the amount of colors you're running. So a mono colored commander costs 1-3-5-7 to recast, a 2 colored commander stays the same at 2-4-6-8, and a 5 color commander costs 5-7-9-11.

It gives a much needed boost to mono colors and nerfs the 4+ color monstrosities in one go.

[Dragoon]

I'm not a fan of some of the more dramatic changes here, but in trying to hit two birds with one stone, here's my suggestion.

Modify commander tax based on the amount of colors you're running. So a mono colored commander costs 1-3-5-7 to recast, a 2 colored commander stays the same at 2-4-6-8, and a 5 color commander costs 5-7-9-11.

It gives a much needed boost to mono colors and nerfs the 4+ color monstrosities in one go.

The problem with that is that you end up punishing people based on their colours and not their power level. Morophon, the Boundless Horror Tribal doesn't need the nerf, and Urza, Lord High Artificer doesn't need the boost.

[Zealcat]

I'm not a fan of some of the more dramatic changes here, but in trying to hit two birds with one stone, here's my suggestion.

Modify commander tax based on the amount of colors you're running. So a mono colored commander costs 1-3-5-7 to recast, a 2 colored commander stays the same at 2-4-6-8, and a 5 color commander costs 5-7-9-11.

It gives a much needed boost to mono colors and nerfs the 4+ color monstrosities in one go.

The problem with that is that you end up punishing people based on their colours and not their power level. Morophon, the Boundless Horror Tribal doesn't need the nerf, and Urza, Lord High Artificer doesn't need the boost.

Your example used the strongest mono colored and one of the weaker 5 colored commanders. By and large, 4+ color commanders are much more powerful than your average mono color. The top commanders on EDHRec are mostly 3+ color; the highest mono is Krenko at #23, and Urza at #34.

As it stands there is 0 drawback to running 4+ colors.

[pokken]

I don't think colors are anywhere near the problem that having an insanely powerful card available at all times is in terms of gameplay patterns

[Jemolk]

At the beginning of your turn, if a commander card you own is not on the battlefield or in the command zone, you may search your library, hand, graveyard or exile for that card and put it in the command zone. If you searched your library this way, shuffle it.

Personally, I really like this idea. But I suspect that a majority of other players wouldn't appreciate their commanders being downgraded to companions, and for legitimate reasons. But we probably wouldn't give it a second thought had that been the rule since EDH went public. Anyways, there would be an issue regarding face down in exile.

You know, the face-down-in-exile thing can also be solved by my suggested edit of having the commander in a different sleeve be an official rule and searching based on the sleeve. Of course, @pokken raised the issue of reanimation spells becoming too good and too pervasive with the added use as commander removal, and that objection is the big thing I couldn't really adequately answer, so I think it's probably going to be the primary sticking point here.

There is also pokken's suggestion that the commander return to the zone face-down and then turn face-up at its owner's next upkeep, of course, and I haven't seen much in the way of additional problems raised for that one.

As it stands there is 0 drawback to running 4+ colors.

Mostly, though one big potential drawback is not having access to a particularly cool build-around effect in the command zone, which involves the sort of deck I've been trying pretty hard to avoid hitting as collateral damage with any of the commander tax-related changes I've suggested or endorsed. Your suggestion would absolutely hit oddball and awesome Karona concept decks unnacceptably hard from my perspective, and would do some (admittedly minor, but still worth avoiding if at all possible) damage to cool oddities like Doran, the Siege Tower and Arcades, the Strategist as well. Also, the Theros gods are a rather large problem whenever they show up as commanders, even if it's not that common, and I'd really rather avoid buffing any, say, Purphoros, God of the Forge decks out there or incentivizing more of them to be built.

It's an interesting addition to the discussion, but ultimately I think it involves too much collateral damage and does too little to actually resolve the underlying problem.

[Zealcat]

It actually does almost nothing to the theros gods, since once they hit play they are rarely removed anyway.

I wish I saw more of these fabled 4+ color concept decks in the wild. Usually people running 5 colors are running powerful cards as the lack of color restriction allows. That argument sounds a lot like the one used to keep Golos legal ("think of all the wacky creative builds you'll lose banning him!") And yet, all of my games against him were not remotely fun or interesting.

[Dragoon]

I wish I saw more of these fabled 4+ color concept decks in the wild. Usually people running 5 colors are running powerful cards as the lack of color restriction allows. That argument sounds a lot like the one used to keep Golos legal ("think of all the wacky creative builds you'll lose banning him!") And yet, all of my games against him were not remotely fun or interesting.

Well, I can only vouch for my own meta, but I did face that Morophon, the Boundless Horror tribal last Friday. Just like I lost to a Krenko, Mob Boss deck comboing off not too long ago.

[Ulka]

I just wish we could bring back commander tuck. yes it was rough to deal with but it was part of the risk of building your deck wholly around your commander and while it punished some decks I do think I enjoyed the format more when it was around. Heck even if they just increase commander tax from moving your commander from your deck to the command zone from 2 additional mana to 4 additional mana I think that could assist on some of the issues we are talking about here.

[pokken]

I just wish we could bring back commander tuck. yes it was rough to deal with but it was part of the risk of building your deck wholly around your commander and while it punished some decks I do think I enjoyed the format more when it was around. Heck even if they just increase commander tax from moving your commander from your deck to the command zone from 2 additional mana to 4 additional mana I think that could assist on some of the issues we are talking about here.

Both tuck and escalating taxes do very little to actually fix the current problem with commanders while further benefitting goodstuff, ramp and infinite mana combo strategies.

Tuck in particular pushes toward either running more tutors or running more generically good cards, while your 1-2 tuck cards available per game are still overloaded -- once the one Hinder likely to be played in the game is gone, everyone is free to move about the cabin.

Which is why I think the solution is to make actual removal good against commanders.

[Dunharrow]

It actually does almost nothing to the theros gods, since once they hit play they are rarely removed anyway.

I wish I saw more of these fabled 4+ color concept decks in the wild. Usually people running 5 colors are running powerful cards as the lack of color restriction allows. That argument sounds a lot like the one used to keep Golos legal ("think of all the wacky creative builds you'll lose banning him!") And yet, all of my games against him were not remotely fun or interesting.

The issue is with generically good 4 and 5 color commanders, not the fact that they are that many colors. Remember when people playing 5 colors were using Sliver Queen or Cromat or Child of Alara to do things that had nothing to do with the commanders?
The biggest difficulty with 5 colors is the mana base. While it is a lot easier to do now than it was 10 years ago, it is still more challenging than a 1-2 color deck.
My issue with your idea of taxing commanders in relation to the number of colors is that is severely punishes people for playing non-problematic commanders.
Krenko, Mob Boss and Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy should be less taxed than Rin and Seri, Inseparable?
I don't think the rules need to target people for playing more colors.

[pokken]

I don't think the rules need to target people for playing more colors.

Tymna the Weaver and Thrasios, Triton Hero same as Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker and Reyhan, Last of the Abzan

Colors are not a strong correlation with power level of commander. Perhaps of deck (perhaps)?

But we're not talking about deck power here, we're talking about commander impact on gameplay.

[Jemolk]

It actually does almost nothing to the theros gods, since once they hit play they are rarely removed anyway.

I mean, I've definitely been known to remove them, and to counter them, and the perpetual problem is that they get removed so few times total that their mana snowballs way faster than the commander tax, and they just immediately recast it. You end up needing 2 counterspells or exiling enchantment removal spells per turn for a couple turns to keep them away. Which is part of the reason why they are so rarely removed. Pokken's suggestion would help a little with that. Yours would make it slightly worse.

I wish I saw more of these fabled 4+ color concept decks in the wild. Usually people running 5 colors are running powerful cards as the lack of color restriction allows. That argument sounds a lot like the one used to keep Golos legal ("think of all the wacky creative builds you'll lose banning him!") And yet, all of my games against him were not remotely fun or interesting.

I for one was sad about losing things like DirkGently's Sorrow's Path Golos deck, or one I saw from one of the commenters on MTGGoldfish that was a Nesting Grounds Golos deck. It's just that the collateral damage was, in the case of the ban, worth it, particularly because you can Rule 0 Golos back in for the particularly cool uses. I don't think the collateral damage for your suggestion is worth it at all, partially because I don't think it does much of anything to solve the underlying "goodstuff" problem.

[BeneTleilax]

It gives a much needed boost to mono colors and nerfs the 4+ color monstrosities in one go.

The thing is, goodstuff decks are much less reliant on their general than other archetypes. In trying to lump two separate problems together, you come up with an answer that solves neither. We need more pip-heavy cards and other monocolor incentives to deal with 3+color goodstuff and fewer all-in-one generals that demand repeated removal.

[pokken]

. In trying to lump two separate problems together, you come up with an answer that solves neither. We need more pip-heavy cards and other monocolor incentives to deal with 3+color goodstuff and fewer all-in-one generals that demand repeated removal.

I definitely think there is a thread to talk about fixing some of the color creep that's going on but it's almost entirely separate from commander power as you correctly identify.

I also tend to agree that it's just something that is going to have to be solved by printing and culture unfortunately -- I can't think of any clear cut way to incentivize fewer colors with rules that don't cause people to game the system.

If one and two color decks got significant power level boosts through some gameplay advantage, generals who are massive powerhouses like Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait and Heliod, Sun-Crowned and Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy and Urza, Lord High Artificer get problematic power increases.

Someone spins up that thread I'm happy to contribute