Should banned as commander come back?

[Dunharrow]

It pleases me that the RC grasps why people want BaaC returned and they understand the advantages.... except for one point. He says that some of the cards that would be banned as commanders are very popular, and that means a lot of players would be disappointed to have build decks that are no longer legal.
While this is true, it ignores the fact that you can still play these cards in the 99. If you really love Golos and can't put him in the command zone any more, it doesn't mean you can't play with the card at all.

So, to me, BaaC list is more tolerable than outright banning cards. 'You can still play with it, just choose a different commander' is way more acceptable than 'you can't play with this card at all anymore'.

I also think that many of the commanders that combo with a single card (like Prossh, Skyraider of Kher[/card) could conceivably be put on the BaaC list. Rather than banning something like [card]Food Chain, you could just take one of the combo pieces out of the command zone.
(though arguably Food Chain interacts poorly with a format where you always have access to a creature in the command zone).

[DirkGently]

So,sheldon wrote an article about this https://articles.starcitygames.com/prem ... good-idea/

SPOILER

Show

Hide

Bringing back Banned as a Commander (BaaC) is a suggestion that crops up from time to time on social media. It's a conversation worth exploring, if for no other reason than the fact that the question is constantly recurring.

First, I'll address the biggest misconception. We on the Commander Rules Committee (RC) don't think that the concept is too difficult for players to handle. Magic players are smart. They can definitely process the additional list and the arguments behind its existence and which cards might go on it. The reason we removed the category isn't its complexity, but in the necessity. The major part is that you don't make format-level rules for corner cases — in this one, we were doing it for three or four cards. One of the things we on the RC value is simplicity, especially when it comes to communication. A single banned list is crisp, clean, and straightforward to communicate. It's not the highly invested player that we're targeting here, but the legion of the more casually invested. In this thing, we're serving as their voice.

There's a valid argument that we should be crafting the format for the more highly invested player. After all, as the argument goes, they're the ones on whom our decisions have the most impact. They're the ones (pre- and post-COVID) going to events at their LGS or Grands Prix and CommandFests to play the format. The kitchen table players are just going to do whatever they want anyway. That argument, however, belies the truth of the format's popularity.

One of the reasons that we've become monumentally successful is that we've catered to the vast group of players who until we came along didn't have a voice. The idea that someone was looking out for them truly resonated, as we've focused on what matters to that group: stability, simplicity, and de-emphasis on competition. That stance — and not wavering from it despite immense pressure to do so — has translated into Commander becoming the most popular format in Magic. Leaning towards the most highly invested segment of the player base would then be abandoning what got us here in the first place. It would attempt to make Commander into the same as other formats, which is the one thing we absolutely don't want to do. This format will continue to exist on its own terms.

Accepting that we don't want to try to make Commander just like other formats, we can still break down the argument of whether or not bringing back BaaC is a good idea. One of the major drivers of this conversation is what happens if the number of commanders that would go on the BaaC list makes no longer a corner case? What if there are a dozen or more offenders? Would that make it time to resurrect the category? Let's continue along the line that it might be.

A significant part of the Philosophy Document is this sentence:

Each game is a journey the players share, relying on a social contract in which each player is considerate of the experiences of everyone involved–this promotes player interaction, inter-game variance, a variety of play styles, and a positive communal atmosphere.
In short, it means we want to do our best to prevent as many miserable games as possible. What miserable means is highly subjective, but we have a pretty good idea of where the biggest chunk of common ground lies. For the most part, it means taking the game away from the other players. We understand that games have to end, but the most negative experiences come from players feeling like they haven't ever gotten started. This isn't vilifying resource-denial strategies or those who play them; it's recognition that our target demographic enjoys a particular openness to their games.

We can also look at the types of things that will get cards banned. Again, from the Philosophy Document, this includes cards which easily or excessively:

Cause severe resource imbalances
Allow players to win out of nowhere
Prevent players from contributing to the game in a meaningful way.
Cause other players to feel they must play certain cards, even though they are also problematic.
Are very difficult for other players to interact with, especially if doing so requires dedicated, narrow responses when deck-building.
Interact poorly with the multiplayer nature of the format or the specific rules of Commander.
Lead to repetitive game play
Operating under that guidance, we can come up with a list of candidates for BaaC.

Before we get there, I'll address what is a common misconception from supporters of the pro-BaaC argument. Part of the draw of the idea is that it would free up some cards to be playable in the 99. In the end, the move would shackle more cards than it frees. The poster children represented here are Braids, Cabal Minion; Erayo, Soratami Ascendant; Griselbrand; Leovold, Emissary of Trest; and Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn might also fit.

Of those, I'd without a doubt keep Erayo and Leovold banned, and likely Griselbrand. The first two are an easy case — they without a doubt and without much work prevent players from contributing to the game. Erayo is especially heinous because once flipped, with generally trivial effort, it locks out others for free. One wheel with Leovold simply takes the other players out of the game. Griselbrand is a better Yawgmoth's Bargain, getting you the cards right away and proving the answer to getting more.

The others can likely be freed. The worst sin of Braids is when it's easily available out of the command zone on Turn 2, basically ending the game before it gets started. With the added necessity of having to tutor for it to get it early, it seems safe. Rofellos is borderline, although it doesn't seem much worse than Metalworker. Emrakul is the most borderline. Outside the command zone, it can't be Entombed and Reanimated, so it seems reasonably safe, but with easy access to it in the command zone, it could be problematic.

What new cards would then go on the BaaC list? We'd first have to answer why they'd go on the list despite not currently being banned. The easy answer is that they're fine (at least mostly so) in the 99, but they're undesirable coming out of the command zone. The reason that we'd pick them although we haven't done so already is that we've taken a more liberal view of banning cards, which is the whole reason we've reintroduced the category in the first place.

Looking back at the Philosophy Document, we can glean a few answers, although it feels like we might need to stretch in some places. This list would combine two factors: crafting the format more towards the kinds of games we'd like to encourage and identifying cards that are actively creating a negative environment. While we lean strongly towards the latter currently, having the aforementioned more liberal bent in adding banned cards suggests that the former can carry nearly equal weight.

For the purposes of this list, we'll lean a bit away from our current idea of banning cards as exemplars, although they can certainly still serve that function. I'll first make the argument for why each of these cards (many of them with relatively high salt scores on EDHRec) would go on the list before addressing the counterarguments.

The combination of keyword soup in an inexpensive package and the ability to easy create oppressive Superfriends deck would warrant Atraxa, Praetors' Voice's inclusion on the list. Having four colors in the casting cost isn't all that much of a restriction because one of those colors happens to be green, allowing for easy ramp and color-fixing.


Maybe the least offensive card on the list, Chulane offers excessive rewards at no cost for doing what you're going to do a lot of anyway, namely cast creatures. Its major sin is leading to incredibly repetitive play. It might also lead to a compelling argument that Tatyova, Benthic Druid might also belong here, but that seems like way too much of a stretch.


If we're actively discouraging deck styles that take away the game from other players, then Derevi merits inclusion for its easy ability to break the symmetry of Stax cards like Winter Orb. Funny that circumventing the commander tax isn't its top problem. It didn't just push the envelope, it shredded it. There is simply too much going on for such an inexpensive card.


Golos does serve as an exemplar, but this one for designers, who are making five-color commanders that don't cost five colors to cast — a trend that can quit at any time. The problem is that players get the advantage of choosing from any card in Magic while not having to pay the associated cost for the flexibility. Ubiquity is also an anti-Golos argument. According to EDHRec, it's the most popular commander, in greater than 20% more decks than the number two choice, Atraxa. This is the kind of fatigue the format doesn't need.


Another card that simply takes away the game from other players, Grand Arbiter Augustin IV's compounding factor is that it also accelerates its controller. We actually don't mind slowing down Commander games if it's symmetrical. GAAIV is anything but. It's the first card that I knew I was going to add to the list.


Continuing on the same theme, being able to build around Hokori, Dust Drinker and guarantee it coming out of the command zone stops the other players from being in the game unless someone happens to have an answer in hand on that critical turn. By the time they get untapped enough to cast something, Hokori's controller is likely to be too far ahead to catch up to.


Narset suffers a little from the Paradox Engine problem. It's mostly oppressive but it doesn't always work, forcing players to suffer watching it maybe happen. The build for Narset is to add all or most of the extra turn spells, which basically leads to one player hogging the action while three watch. That's not a particularly enjoyable game for 75% of the players and it's certainly not the kind that we want to encourage.


For the most part, players don't mind when you copy their stuff, but stealing it is a horse of a different color. Sen Triplets robs a player of any agency while you're stealing their stuff, which is what leads to its high Salt Score — even slightly higher than Narset.


Braids free in the 99 is only a small one of the anti-Tergrid, God of Fright arguments. Tergrid might be okay if it had only one of the two abilities (either sacrifice or discard) instead of both — although the discard part plus Mindslicer is still pretty icky. No matter what, it would still lead to a style of deck that doesn't much suit fun and interactive play. It's a card that definitely fine in the 99 but is a monster coming out of the command zone.


Although we lean more towards the more subjective fun angle, Urza, Lord High Artificer is one that could go based on power level. The issue is that it's frightfully easy to build an overpowered deck with to win on very early turns. Faster Commander games are not better Commander games. Sure, you can just shuffle up and go to the next one, but why bother if it's just going to be the same all over again, which is what Urza brings from the command zone.


In the same vein as GAAIV, Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger speeds you up while slowing everyone else down. In mono-green, it's frightfully easy to get it going Turn 3 or Turn 4, making the game pretty one-sided rather quickly.

Other commanders that I considered for the list were Korvold, Fae-Cursed King and Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, although in the end, neither seemed oppressive enough. As I mentioned, Emrakul is the most borderline, since it's not difficult to cast it by Turn 6, it can't be countered, and the extra turn is a cast trigger. If I were leaning towards being the most safe, I'd probably add it to the list instead of waiting to see if it caused too much havoc. I'm sure there are a few others that folks would nominate as potential candidates, but the list isn't all that large.

All those arguments made, I'm going to upend them. As it stands right now, bringing back BaaC still isn't worth the effort. It might (stress on the "might") lead to a healthier environment in the long term, but the short-term pains would be extreme.

While we could do without a few of the cards, many of those that would go on the list are some of the most popular commanders in the game. Folks have invested significant time and resources into their decks. That alone isn't a reason to keep around unhealthy cards, but it's certainly a consideration. The only compelling reason to reinstate BaaC is if there would be enough cards to make the extra layer of administration worthwhile, so paring down the list doesn't make sense. If the cards are that oppressive, outright banning is enough.

Additionally, even though there are some styles which we feel are on the whole could be unhealthy in high enough doses, we want to support the diversity in play styles that has become the hallmark of the format. Everyone being able to find their particular niche is one of the things that Commander is all about.

I copied it to make it easier to quote here

Not particularly relevant to his points (which I largely agree with, and have stated in this thread ad nauseum) but I think his takes on particular generals are pretty inaccurate. Nobody is realistically asking for Narset to get banned, and she's essentially the same as Leovold except harder to remove - the accessibility of the CZ is 100% the reason Leovold is banned and would be nowhere near bannable without it. Same for Erayo, though it's harder to find a direct comparison with an unbanned card. 2-card lockdown combos aren't worth banning cards over outside of the CZ (for that matter, teferi lock is still allowed, presumably because it's slower even though imo it's harder to stop). Emrakul was, afaik, almost never used as a commander, so BaaC makes little sense for him imo. The problem was always within the 99.

Minor point, but I kinda hate the "one of those colors is green so fixing is easy" argument. Fixing is easy for EVERY COLOR, especially if you put money into it. Green maybe has an edge if (1) you want land ramp not artifact ramp and (2) you're on a bargain-basement land budget, but that's a pretty narrow case. Green's fixing is not a significant factor in Atraxa's power.

Similarly, Golos would be almost equally powerful if he cost WUBRG - for powerful decks, at least. Weaker decks would have a harder time, yes, but QED those were already less powerful to begin with. The main problem with Golos, imo, is simply that his activated ability is stupid. His etb is strong, yes, but not problematically so without his activated. The activated is cancer, though. I hate 5c freecast stuff - we got at least 3 of them off the top of my head and they can all suck my farts. All it incentivizes is big piles of the highest-cmc cards you own, and forces uninteresting games of whack-a-mole. The problem with the plethora of 5c commanders they print is simply that 5c is inherently very powerful, AND that the designs are obnoxious. The fact that they don't require 5c fixing is way down the list of why they're problematic.

Banning Hokori as a commander.........that's very funny.

Narset I could get behind. Screw narset.

Even mentioning Sen Triplets in a conversation about bannability is insane. That commander is legit terrible.

But he brings me back at the end there, with exactly the argument I've been making. Yes, I hate Golos, but banning the most popular commanders is a great way to alienate players and destabilize the format. It would be a disaster.

While this is true, it ignores the fact that you can still play these cards in the 99. If you really love Golos and can't put him in the command zone any more, it doesn't mean you can't play with the card at all.

So, to me, BaaC list is more tolerable than outright banning cards. 'You can still play with it, just choose a different commander' is way more acceptable than 'you can't play with this card at all anymore'.

While it's hard to say for certain, my intuition is that this argument doesn't remotely hold up against what people actually care about. When I think of the decks I've built, in a solid 80% of cases if the commander got banned, I'd toss the whole thing out the window. Take Zirilan of the Claw - sure, there are other mono-red dragon tribal commanders, like Lathliss, Dragon Queen, but it functions in an entirely different way from Zirilan. I'd have to make huge changes to modify the decklist for Lathliss, but more importantly, the gameplay with Lathliss isn't what I wanted out of the deck, even if it was a functional deck by switching the commanders.

While I'm sure some decks (1) could be easily swapped for an alternative, i.e. Golos for Jodah, and (2) would still be enjoyable to the pilot, I think a lot of people built around that particular commander because they really liked THAT commander and building around having consistent access to it. Putting them in the 99 is going to be a very different experience.

EDIT: It's kind of funny, but I think there's sort of a sweet spot for commander banning (whether outright, or potentially BaaC, although I think there's functionally little difference in most cases) - you probably don't want to ban something REALLY popular, like Golos or Atraxa, but there's also not much point to banning something like Hokori that is realistically not getting played (I remember playing against it once in my whole life, and I beat it handily with my own mono-white Nahiri brew). Getting played IS a necessary component of the banning criteria - if Armageddon or winter orb were getting a ton of play at casual tables, I have little doubt they'd get banned, what keeps them legal is that they generally don't show up outside of competitive decks. So I think the ideal targets for bannings are commanders with a moderate following - stuff you see from time to time, but not so popular that a large segment of the playerbase would lose a deck.

FWIW, I'm working on a Golos deck now (based around Sorrow's Path because it sounded hilarious) - while his design is kinda cancer, being a commander that kind of lets you pretend like a land is your commander instead is a nice niche to fill. Something like Jodah wouldn't fit the same role at all for me.

[BounceBurnBuff]

I'm relieved to see Tergrid on there. Something I never see covered re: Tergrid is how she effectively nullifies a wealth of commanders from the CZ.

Playing a wheel deck? You feed Tergrid.
Playing Chainer, Nightmare Adept? Your commander and likely most of you card draw options and removal feed Tergrid.
Playing Meren? You feed the Tergrid (though I shed less tears for this lass).

I could go on, but I think you get the picture. The pressure of absolutely, cast-iron NEEDING an answer there and then to her being cast before untapping/doing her thing is far too much. As a 1-off in the 99? Sure, we have Notion Thief and Hullbreacher (shout out to the hilarious reasoning in the article for keeping Leo banned in the 99 whilst ← that is legal btw). But she leads to far more degenerate and 1 sided games than is welcome in casual IMO.

[onering]

So,sheldon wrote an article about this https://articles.starcitygames.com/prem ... good-idea/

SPOILER

Show

Hide

Bringing back Banned as a Commander (BaaC) is a suggestion that crops up from time to time on social media. It's a conversation worth exploring, if for no other reason than the fact that the question is constantly recurring.

First, I'll address the biggest misconception. We on the Commander Rules Committee (RC) don't think that the concept is too difficult for players to handle. Magic players are smart. They can definitely process the additional list and the arguments behind its existence and which cards might go on it. The reason we removed the category isn't its complexity, but in the necessity. The major part is that you don't make format-level rules for corner cases — in this one, we were doing it for three or four cards. One of the things we on the RC value is simplicity, especially when it comes to communication. A single banned list is crisp, clean, and straightforward to communicate. It's not the highly invested player that we're targeting here, but the legion of the more casually invested. In this thing, we're serving as their voice.

There's a valid argument that we should be crafting the format for the more highly invested player. After all, as the argument goes, they're the ones on whom our decisions have the most impact. They're the ones (pre- and post-COVID) going to events at their LGS or Grands Prix and CommandFests to play the format. The kitchen table players are just going to do whatever they want anyway. That argument, however, belies the truth of the format's popularity.

One of the reasons that we've become monumentally successful is that we've catered to the vast group of players who until we came along didn't have a voice. The idea that someone was looking out for them truly resonated, as we've focused on what matters to that group: stability, simplicity, and de-emphasis on competition. That stance — and not wavering from it despite immense pressure to do so — has translated into Commander becoming the most popular format in Magic. Leaning towards the most highly invested segment of the player base would then be abandoning what got us here in the first place. It would attempt to make Commander into the same as other formats, which is the one thing we absolutely don't want to do. This format will continue to exist on its own terms.

Accepting that we don't want to try to make Commander just like other formats, we can still break down the argument of whether or not bringing back BaaC is a good idea. One of the major drivers of this conversation is what happens if the number of commanders that would go on the BaaC list makes no longer a corner case? What if there are a dozen or more offenders? Would that make it time to resurrect the category? Let's continue along the line that it might be.

A significant part of the Philosophy Document is this sentence:

Each game is a journey the players share, relying on a social contract in which each player is considerate of the experiences of everyone involved–this promotes player interaction, inter-game variance, a variety of play styles, and a positive communal atmosphere.
In short, it means we want to do our best to prevent as many miserable games as possible. What miserable means is highly subjective, but we have a pretty good idea of where the biggest chunk of common ground lies. For the most part, it means taking the game away from the other players. We understand that games have to end, but the most negative experiences come from players feeling like they haven't ever gotten started. This isn't vilifying resource-denial strategies or those who play them; it's recognition that our target demographic enjoys a particular openness to their games.

We can also look at the types of things that will get cards banned. Again, from the Philosophy Document, this includes cards which easily or excessively:

Cause severe resource imbalances
Allow players to win out of nowhere
Prevent players from contributing to the game in a meaningful way.
Cause other players to feel they must play certain cards, even though they are also problematic.
Are very difficult for other players to interact with, especially if doing so requires dedicated, narrow responses when deck-building.
Interact poorly with the multiplayer nature of the format or the specific rules of Commander.
Lead to repetitive game play
Operating under that guidance, we can come up with a list of candidates for BaaC.

Before we get there, I'll address what is a common misconception from supporters of the pro-BaaC argument. Part of the draw of the idea is that it would free up some cards to be playable in the 99. In the end, the move would shackle more cards than it frees. The poster children represented here are Braids, Cabal Minion; Erayo, Soratami Ascendant; Griselbrand; Leovold, Emissary of Trest; and Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn might also fit.

Of those, I'd without a doubt keep Erayo and Leovold banned, and likely Griselbrand. The first two are an easy case — they without a doubt and without much work prevent players from contributing to the game. Erayo is especially heinous because once flipped, with generally trivial effort, it locks out others for free. One wheel with Leovold simply takes the other players out of the game. Griselbrand is a better Yawgmoth's Bargain, getting you the cards right away and proving the answer to getting more.

The others can likely be freed. The worst sin of Braids is when it's easily available out of the command zone on Turn 2, basically ending the game before it gets started. With the added necessity of having to tutor for it to get it early, it seems safe. Rofellos is borderline, although it doesn't seem much worse than Metalworker. Emrakul is the most borderline. Outside the command zone, it can't be Entombed and Reanimated, so it seems reasonably safe, but with easy access to it in the command zone, it could be problematic.

What new cards would then go on the BaaC list? We'd first have to answer why they'd go on the list despite not currently being banned. The easy answer is that they're fine (at least mostly so) in the 99, but they're undesirable coming out of the command zone. The reason that we'd pick them although we haven't done so already is that we've taken a more liberal view of banning cards, which is the whole reason we've reintroduced the category in the first place.

Looking back at the Philosophy Document, we can glean a few answers, although it feels like we might need to stretch in some places. This list would combine two factors: crafting the format more towards the kinds of games we'd like to encourage and identifying cards that are actively creating a negative environment. While we lean strongly towards the latter currently, having the aforementioned more liberal bent in adding banned cards suggests that the former can carry nearly equal weight.

For the purposes of this list, we'll lean a bit away from our current idea of banning cards as exemplars, although they can certainly still serve that function. I'll first make the argument for why each of these cards (many of them with relatively high salt scores on EDHRec) would go on the list before addressing the counterarguments.

The combination of keyword soup in an inexpensive package and the ability to easy create oppressive Superfriends deck would warrant Atraxa, Praetors' Voice's inclusion on the list. Having four colors in the casting cost isn't all that much of a restriction because one of those colors happens to be green, allowing for easy ramp and color-fixing.


Maybe the least offensive card on the list, Chulane offers excessive rewards at no cost for doing what you're going to do a lot of anyway, namely cast creatures. Its major sin is leading to incredibly repetitive play. It might also lead to a compelling argument that Tatyova, Benthic Druid might also belong here, but that seems like way too much of a stretch.


If we're actively discouraging deck styles that take away the game from other players, then Derevi merits inclusion for its easy ability to break the symmetry of Stax cards like Winter Orb. Funny that circumventing the commander tax isn't its top problem. It didn't just push the envelope, it shredded it. There is simply too much going on for such an inexpensive card.


Golos does serve as an exemplar, but this one for designers, who are making five-color commanders that don't cost five colors to cast — a trend that can quit at any time. The problem is that players get the advantage of choosing from any card in Magic while not having to pay the associated cost for the flexibility. Ubiquity is also an anti-Golos argument. According to EDHRec, it's the most popular commander, in greater than 20% more decks than the number two choice, Atraxa. This is the kind of fatigue the format doesn't need.


Another card that simply takes away the game from other players, Grand Arbiter Augustin IV's compounding factor is that it also accelerates its controller. We actually don't mind slowing down Commander games if it's symmetrical. GAAIV is anything but. It's the first card that I knew I was going to add to the list.


Continuing on the same theme, being able to build around Hokori, Dust Drinker and guarantee it coming out of the command zone stops the other players from being in the game unless someone happens to have an answer in hand on that critical turn. By the time they get untapped enough to cast something, Hokori's controller is likely to be too far ahead to catch up to.


Narset suffers a little from the Paradox Engine problem. It's mostly oppressive but it doesn't always work, forcing players to suffer watching it maybe happen. The build for Narset is to add all or most of the extra turn spells, which basically leads to one player hogging the action while three watch. That's not a particularly enjoyable game for 75% of the players and it's certainly not the kind that we want to encourage.


For the most part, players don't mind when you copy their stuff, but stealing it is a horse of a different color. Sen Triplets robs a player of any agency while you're stealing their stuff, which is what leads to its high Salt Score — even slightly higher than Narset.


Braids free in the 99 is only a small one of the anti-Tergrid, God of Fright arguments. Tergrid might be okay if it had only one of the two abilities (either sacrifice or discard) instead of both — although the discard part plus Mindslicer is still pretty icky. No matter what, it would still lead to a style of deck that doesn't much suit fun and interactive play. It's a card that definitely fine in the 99 but is a monster coming out of the command zone.


Although we lean more towards the more subjective fun angle, Urza, Lord High Artificer is one that could go based on power level. The issue is that it's frightfully easy to build an overpowered deck with to win on very early turns. Faster Commander games are not better Commander games. Sure, you can just shuffle up and go to the next one, but why bother if it's just going to be the same all over again, which is what Urza brings from the command zone.


In the same vein as GAAIV, Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger speeds you up while slowing everyone else down. In mono-green, it's frightfully easy to get it going Turn 3 or Turn 4, making the game pretty one-sided rather quickly.

Other commanders that I considered for the list were Korvold, Fae-Cursed King and Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, although in the end, neither seemed oppressive enough. As I mentioned, Emrakul is the most borderline, since it's not difficult to cast it by Turn 6, it can't be countered, and the extra turn is a cast trigger. If I were leaning towards being the most safe, I'd probably add it to the list instead of waiting to see if it caused too much havoc. I'm sure there are a few others that folks would nominate as potential candidates, but the list isn't all that large.

All those arguments made, I'm going to upend them. As it stands right now, bringing back BaaC still isn't worth the effort. It might (stress on the "might") lead to a healthier environment in the long term, but the short-term pains would be extreme.

While we could do without a few of the cards, many of those that would go on the list are some of the most popular commanders in the game. Folks have invested significant time and resources into their decks. That alone isn't a reason to keep around unhealthy cards, but it's certainly a consideration. The only compelling reason to reinstate BaaC is if there would be enough cards to make the extra layer of administration worthwhile, so paring down the list doesn't make sense. If the cards are that oppressive, outright banning is enough.

Additionally, even though there are some styles which we feel are on the whole could be unhealthy in high enough doses, we want to support the diversity in play styles that has become the hallmark of the format. Everyone being able to find their particular niche is one of the things that Commander is all about.

I copied it to make it easier to quote here

Not particularly relevant to his points (which I largely agree with, and have stated in this thread ad nauseum) but I think his takes on particular generals are pretty inaccurate. Nobody is realistically asking for Narset to get banned, and she's essentially the same as Leovold except harder to remove - the accessibility of the CZ is 100% the reason Leovold is banned and would be nowhere near bannable without it. Same for Erayo, though it's harder to find a direct comparison with an unbanned card. 2-card lockdown combos aren't worth banning cards over outside of the CZ (for that matter, teferi lock is still allowed, presumably because it's slower even though imo it's harder to stop). Emrakul was, afaik, almost never used as a commander, so BaaC makes little sense for him imo. The problem was always within the 99.

Minor point, but I kinda hate the "one of those colors is green so fixing is easy" argument. Fixing is easy for EVERY COLOR, especially if you put money into it. Green maybe has an edge if (1) you want land ramp not artifact ramp and (2) you're on a bargain-basement land budget, but that's a pretty narrow case. Green's fixing is not a significant factor in Atraxa's power.

Similarly, Golos would be almost equally powerful if he cost WUBRG - for powerful decks, at least. Weaker decks would have a harder time, yes, but QED those were already less powerful to begin with. The main problem with Golos, imo, is simply that his activated ability is stupid. His etb is strong, yes, but not problematically so without his activated. The activated is cancer, though. I hate 5c freecast stuff - we got at least 3 of them off the top of my head and they can all suck my farts. All it incentivizes is big piles of the highest-cmc cards you own, and forces uninteresting games of whack-a-mole. The problem with the plethora of 5c commanders they print is simply that 5c is inherently very powerful, AND that the designs are obnoxious. The fact that they don't require 5c fixing is way down the list of why they're problematic.

Banning Hokori as a commander.........that's very funny.

Narset I could get behind. Screw narset.

Even mentioning Sen Triplets in a conversation about bannability is insane. That commander is legit terrible.

But he brings me back at the end there, with exactly the argument I've been making. Yes, I hate Golos, but banning the most popular commanders is a great way to alienate players and destabilize the format. It would be a disaster.

While this is true, it ignores the fact that you can still play these cards in the 99. If you really love Golos and can't put him in the command zone any more, it doesn't mean you can't play with the card at all.

So, to me, BaaC list is more tolerable than outright banning cards. 'You can still play with it, just choose a different commander' is way more acceptable than 'you can't play with this card at all anymore'.

While it's hard to say for certain, my intuition is that this argument doesn't remotely hold up against what people actually care about. When I think of the decks I've built, in a solid 80% of cases if the commander got banned, I'd toss the whole thing out the window. Take Zirilan of the Claw - sure, there are other mono-red dragon tribal commanders, like Lathliss, Dragon Queen, but it functions in an entirely different way from Zirilan. I'd have to make huge changes to modify the decklist for Lathliss, but more importantly, the gameplay with Lathliss isn't what I wanted out of the deck, even if it was a functional deck by switching the commanders.

While I'm sure some decks (1) could be easily swapped for an alternative, i.e. Golos for Jodah, and (2) would still be enjoyable to the pilot, I think a lot of people built around that particular commander because they really liked THAT commander and building around having consistent access to it. Putting them in the 99 is going to be a very different experience.

EDIT: It's kind of funny, but I think there's sort of a sweet spot for commander banning (whether outright, or potentially BaaC, although I think there's functionally little difference in most cases) - you probably don't want to ban something REALLY popular, like Golos or Atraxa, but there's also not much point to banning something like Hokori that is realistically not getting played (I remember playing against it once in my whole life, and I beat it handily with my own mono-white Nahiri brew). Getting played IS a necessary component of the banning criteria - if Armageddon or winter orb were getting a ton of play at casual tables, I have little doubt they'd get banned, what keeps them legal is that they generally don't show up outside of competitive decks. So I think the ideal targets for bannings are commanders with a moderate following - stuff you see from time to time, but not so popular that a large segment of the playerbase would lose a deck.

FWIW, I'm working on a Golos deck now (based around Sorrow's Path because it sounded hilarious) - while his design is kinda cancer, being a commander that kind of lets you pretend like a land is your commander instead is a nice niche to fill. Something like Jodah wouldn't fit the same role at all for me.

Being able to pretend a land is a commander is by far the biggest positive of Golos. Even that can be a negative with Field of the Dead, and I had to switch my 5 color lands deck back to Child of Alara once the dies rule got changed so it could go back to being a fun lands deck that tries to win off of gates rather than "lol Field of the Dead and Vesuvas."


I strongly disagree with not banning cards because they are popular. The opposite should be true. If a card is both oppressive and popular, it is more in need of banning than an oppressive but unpopular/rarely ran card. Screw Hokori, but nobody runs Hokori. Sure, banning Golos as a commander would upset everyone who runs Golos, but it would make the game better for everyone else. The entire point of a banlist is to acknowledge that there are limits to rule 0 and the social contract, and that sometimes what is good for the individual and what is good for the group are at cross purposes, and that for the good of the format the RC needs to step in and ban popular cards. Commanders like Golos, Chulane, Korvold (I disagree that this nonsensical and under costed resource engine isn't oppressive) make the game worse for everyone. They make the format repetitive, sclerotic, and boring. They squash creativity and centralize the game around themselves. The closest I have ever gotten to seeing a good game with one of them involved is when the controller got arch enemied right out of the gate and just wasn't allowed to play, and that's not a good game. Golos doing something really stupid (like Dirk's Sorrow's Path idea, or 5 color bad stuff) is an exception, though even otherwise goofy ideas like 5 color god tribal become annoying due to them operating off of Golos' activated ability and devolving into the same old cast golos activate golos gameplay that has become just so %$#%$#% tiresome over the years.

I'm also shocked that Sen Triplets got the mention. I think that despite the salt score, its unwarranted. People don't like other people touching their cards, and that's 90% of the salt with steal effects. The effects themselves generally aren't the problem, and get FAR less hate in online play. In terms of what she actually does, she doesn't do any of the things the RC actually looks for when banning cards.

Hokori, OTOH, I agree with. He's not popular, and not all that powerful, but he's a lot like Braids in that he's just %$#% miserable to play against. He's responsible for the absolute worst games I've ever experienced in my playgroup. He's self limiting, I think, because he's often just as unfun for the pilot. The last game the guy played him in my group nobody had a chance to suggest he pack it in because as the game wore on he just said "this %$#% suck, I'm killing this deck." The reason I'd like to see it BaaC is as a signpost banning, and just to steer people away from attempting that mistake.

[pokken]

I strongly disagree with not banning cards because they are popular. The opposite should be true. If a card is both oppressive and popular, it is more in need of banning than an oppressive but unpopular/rarely ran card.

In fact, this used to be one of the major criteria known as problematic casual omnipresence which had its wording kinda phased out. The ideas are still there though to an extent, but I find the new wording to be a lot less useful to analysis frankly (since the criteria are now so vague).

Simply put, I agree 100%. Being used a lot is a big tipoff that something might be problematic, and if it is problematic it will have an outsized impact as well. So the threshold for how annoying it has to be is much lower if you see it every other game (e.g. Golos, Tireless Pilgrim).

[Dunharrow]

Not particularly relevant to his points (which I largely agree with, and have stated in this thread ad nauseum) but I think his takes on particular generals are pretty inaccurate. Nobody is realistically asking for Narset to get banned, and she's essentially the same as Leovold except harder to remove - the accessibility of the CZ is 100% the reason Leovold is banned and would be nowhere near bannable without it.

Wrong Narset! He is talking about Narset, Enlightened Master, which is hard to interact with and doesn't make for interesting games.

While this is true, it ignores the fact that you can still play these cards in the 99. If you really love Golos and can't put him in the command zone any more, it doesn't mean you can't play with the card at all.

So, to me, BaaC list is more tolerable than outright banning cards. 'You can still play with it, just choose a different commander' is way more acceptable than 'you can't play with this card at all anymore'.

While it's hard to say for certain, my intuition is that this argument doesn't remotely hold up against what people actually care about. When I think of the decks I've built, in a solid 80% of cases if the commander got banned, I'd toss the whole thing out the window. Take Zirilan of the Claw - sure, there are other mono-red dragon tribal commanders, like Lathliss, Dragon Queen, but it functions in an entirely different way from Zirilan. I'd have to make huge changes to modify the decklist for Lathliss, but more importantly, the gameplay with Lathliss isn't what I wanted out of the deck, even if it was a functional deck by switching the commanders.

While I'm sure some decks (1) could be easily swapped for an alternative, i.e. Golos for Jodah, and (2) would still be enjoyable to the pilot, I think a lot of people built around that particular commander because they really liked THAT commander and building around having consistent access to it. Putting them in the 99 is going to be a very different experience.

If you take the cards from the article:
Narset BaaC - would kill the deck. Also, not very highly played in the 99.
Atraxa - would kill the deck. But Atraxa can be great in the 99.
Chulane - would not kill the deck. Just play another bant good stuffy guy. Chulane is good in the 99.
Derevi - would kill the deck. Derevi is good in the 99.
Golos - would not kill the deck. Good in the 99.
Grand Arbiter - It would certainly change the deck, but you can adapt your UW control deck to play without this general.
Hokori - would kill the deck.
Sen Trip - would kill the deck
Tergrid - would not kill the deck. You would have to change it a bit, but Tergrid fits so well in the 99 of any of these decks.
Urza - would kill the deck. Urza is great in the 99.
Vorinclex - would not kill the deck. Great in the 99.


So, from that list, the best candidates for banning as commanders would be Vorinclex, Tergrid, Grand Arbiter (but really this must not be that played), Golos, and Chulane. Though I will concede that Tergrid and Grand Arbiter are pretty unique so banning them is debatable.

Also, I think Kinnan would be a great candidate for BaaC.

Urza, Atraxa and Derevi are great in the 99, but banning them would kill certain deckbuilding strategies, so I get being more reluctant to banning them.

Nobody wants to ban niche commanders from being in the command zone. We just want to make it so that over-represented powerhouses like Golos are in the 99 instead of the command zone.

[pokken]

Honestly I've played a lot against Sen Triplets - while it's not omnipresent, it is seriously hot garbage to play against. One of the most irritating play patterns ever. "I'm going to play my commander and wait for my upkeep and if she lives, I will literally knock one player out of the game and probably win."

Oh, and I'm going to play your lands. Ugh.

[umtiger]

Thanks for quoting all of the commanders mentioned.

He used a lot of examples that aren't even on anyone's radar.

[DirkGently]

Wrong Narset! He is talking about Narset, Enlightened Master, which is hard to interact with and doesn't make for interesting games.

I'll admit it's slightly confusing, but I mentioned Narset, Parter of Veils as a comparison to Leovold, Emissary of Trest, not in reference to anything he said in the article. Later I mention Narset, Enlightened Master and say that I wouldn't mind it being banned. But I didn't autocard either so like I said, it's a little confusing.

While it's hard to say for certain, my intuition is that this argument doesn't remotely hold up against what people actually care about. When I think of the decks I've built, in a solid 80% of cases if the commander got banned, I'd toss the whole thing out the window. Take Zirilan of the Claw - sure, there are other mono-red dragon tribal commanders, like Lathliss, Dragon Queen, but it functions in an entirely different way from Zirilan. I'd have to make huge changes to modify the decklist for Lathliss, but more importantly, the gameplay with Lathliss isn't what I wanted out of the deck, even if it was a functional deck by switching the commanders.

While I'm sure some decks (1) could be easily swapped for an alternative, i.e. Golos for Jodah, and (2) would still be enjoyable to the pilot, I think a lot of people built around that particular commander because they really liked THAT commander and building around having consistent access to it. Putting them in the 99 is going to be a very different experience.

If you take the cards from the article:
Narset BaaC - would kill the deck. Also, not very highly played in the 99.
Atraxa - would kill the deck. But Atraxa can be great in the 99.
Chulane - would not kill the deck. Just play another bant good stuffy guy. Chulane is good in the 99.
Derevi - would kill the deck. Derevi is good in the 99.
Golos - would not kill the deck. Good in the 99.
Grand Arbiter - It would certainly change the deck, but you can adapt your UW control deck to play without this general.
Hokori - would kill the deck.
Sen Trip - would kill the deck
Tergrid - would not kill the deck. You would have to change it a bit, but Tergrid fits so well in the 99 of any of these decks.
Urza - would kill the deck. Urza is great in the 99.
Vorinclex - would not kill the deck. Great in the 99.


So, from that list, the best candidates for banning as commanders would be Vorinclex, Tergrid, Grand Arbiter (but really this must not be that played), Golos, and Chulane. Though I will concede that Tergrid and Grand Arbiter are pretty unique so banning them is debatable.

Also, I think Kinnan would be a great candidate for BaaC.

Urza, Atraxa and Derevi are great in the 99, but banning them would kill certain deckbuilding strategies, so I get being more reluctant to banning them.

Nobody wants to ban niche commanders from being in the command zone. We just want to make it so that over-represented powerhouses like Golos are in the 99 instead of the command zone.

Just for fun, I'll go through the list, as though I'd built decks around them.

Narset - yep, deck almost 100% killed since I've always seen it as extra turn/combat tribal which doesn't work without her.
Atraxa - for superfriends, the most common though not only build, it could still work without her, but it would function very differently. Not 100% dead, but I think it would really lose its luster since no other commander in 4c really incentivizes pws.
Chulane - I think this is pretty dead. If you're just playing goodstuff, sure, it doesn't require chulane, but what other bant commander wants to play Shrieking Drake? If you're optimizing for playing maximum creatures, another option wouldn't make sense.
Derevi - absolutely kills the deck in most cases.
Golos - depends on the build. If it's just fat stuff.dec, then Jodah is a reasonable switch, but he changes a lot of things - your curves since now you're ramping to 4 instead of 5, you actually need some protection for Jodah whereas recasting Golos wasn't a big deal, and Golos has his CA built in whereas Jodah kinda needs support. Esika could be an ok switch, but realistically incentivizes a much lower density of bombs. If it were my deck, I'd feel it necessary to make pretty major changes to accommodate another commander. And that's not even touching the "land is my commander" version, which is basically irreplaceable.
GAAIV - most versions I've seen do not rely heavily on the mana discount, so he's probably not completely irreplaceable. That said, while he's annoying I don't see him as that big of a problem per se.
Hokori - dead as a doornail.
Sen Triplets - dead as a doornail.
Tergrid - absolutely dead as a doornail. Without tergrid, symmetrical discard is not a means to an end. You could play Geth, Lord of the Vault or something to take advantage of discarded cards, but then you've got wildly different motivations to take advantage of it, since you're not relying on big mana. Tergrid is giving you value and tempo whenever you play discard or sac effects, symmetrical or asymmetrical - no other commander does that afaik. Retooling the deck for another commander would not only require a complete overhaul, but also play in a totally different fashion.
Urza - probably kill the deck since tapping artifacts doesn't really appear elsewhere in mono-blue.
Vorinclex - I think the deck would likely change pretty dramatically since it's going to change your ramp targets and your payoffs for doing so. Vorinclex takes small/mid ramp to get to 8, and then gives you the ability to tap for very large mana, which can be paid off with X spells and whatnot. Another ramp commander like, say, Azusa, has very different setups and payoffs - she doesn't need small/mid ramp since she only costs 3, what she needs is draw power, with a heavy value placed on land draw/recursion. She's also not easily able to generate 20 mana, so she probably wants smaller bombs than Vorinclex.
Kinnan, since you brought it up, would be dead as a doornail, no question. Any other commander would have wildly different motivations in deckbuilding.

The only one of these that I think might be able to be replaced without drastically changing how the deck is built and plays is GAAIV. Everything else, I think, would be a "throw the deck out the window" situation, at least for me. GAAIV is definitely an annoying commander, but idk, he doesn't seem bannable to me personally, not that I'd cry at his grave or anything.

As someone working on Sorrow's Path.dec, I take offense to Golos not being niche.

But tbh you didn't really address my main point at all, which is why I left in quoted - I think for most people, banning a card as the commander is by far the most important thing to them, and letting it continue to exist in the 99 is relatively meaningless. BaaC, for most legendaries, is 95%+ of the way towards completely banning them. With rare exceptions, banning a card in the 99 doesn't drastically change a deck. So by corollary, as long as you're going to BaaC a card, you might as well fully ban it. Which is why BaaC is a waste of time. If you want to ban Golos, ban Golos. Don't pretend like we're doing anyone a favor by letting him exist in the 99. You're giving someone back a nickel after you stole their bank account.

EDIT: Btw, I think one thing that people are totally discounting is that many of these commanders CAN be built for fun. Golos is a great example - there's nothing inherently oppressive about him. Put him in charge of a 5c ally deck and he seems totally benign. Tergrid, on the other hand, can only really crew miserable staxy decks, same for Hokori, GAAIV, and arguably urza and narset (though that's based more on how they're played in the field than just the mechanics on the card). Much like the format as a whole, I don't think Golos is the problem - it's the people playing it, and who would play the next oppressive thing if Golos were banned. You can't ban human nature.

[Dunharrow]

@DirkGently well explained.
I know that when it comes to banning cards I am much more pro than the average commander player. I think that we should ban the best 5-8 tutors, for example, to make the format feel more singleton.
I would 100% use the Banned as a Commander list to ban 10+ cards that I think are not great for the format while in the command zone. I get your point - obviously banning a card hurts people who played that commander more than people who just played the card in the 99. So, at that point, why not just go all the way?
Well, my answer to this is that the RC is reluctant to ban cards. If they don't want to ban Golos and Kinnan and Derevi (I mean, still, after all these years, Derevi is legal!!?!?), then I would at least like them to reconsider the BaaC so they can get more aggressive banning cards.

I by no means want them to balance the format. It is my opinion that certain commanders are just inherently bad for the Commander format. I would be fine with Braids never being taken off the banlist if at least Derevi were banned. But it's not. So... why can't i play the card I like but I can get locked out of the game on turn 3 game after game after game.

And yes - I get it - the social contract, etc. But even a casual fat stack for Golos is inherently hard to play against. When casual decks are also oppressive then I have a problem.

[pokken]

Btw, I think one thing that people are totally discounting is that many of these commanders CAN be built for fun. Golos is a great example - there's nothing inherently oppressive about him

Yeah, any overpowered commander can be fine if you literally don't use their ability. Sadly, that's not really a reasonable expectation.

People played Advisor tribal with Leovold too but it didn't make it OK.

[DirkGently]

@DirkGently well explained.
I know that when it comes to banning cards I am much more pro than the average commander player. I think that we should ban the best 5-8 tutors, for example, to make the format feel more singleton.
I would 100% use the Banned as a Commander list to ban 10+ cards that I think are not great for the format while in the command zone. I get your point - obviously banning a card hurts people who played that commander more than people who just played the card in the 99. So, at that point, why not just go all the way?
Well, my answer to this is that the RC is reluctant to ban cards. If they don't want to ban Golos and Kinnan and Derevi (I mean, still, after all these years, Derevi is legal!!?!?), then I would at least like them to reconsider the BaaC so they can get more aggressive banning cards.

I by no means want them to balance the format. It is my opinion that certain commanders are just inherently bad for the Commander format. I would be fine with Braids never being taken off the banlist if at least Derevi were banned. But it's not. So... why can't i play the card I like but I can get locked out of the game on turn 3 game after game after game.

And yes - I get it - the social contract, etc. But even a casual fat stack for Golos is inherently hard to play against. When casual decks are also oppressive then I have a problem.

I'm not necessarily against a generally larger banlist (though I love my tutors, plz don't nerf my Kaervek deck lol). But I think the reason many people want BaaC is because they just want a bigger banlist and they hope BaaC will make the RC more heavy-handed with the banhammer. I don't think that's a reasonable expectation. For example, banning Derevi as a commander would have basically the same result as banning him. So whether BaaC should exist and whether Derevi should be banned are totally separate questions.

Also, minority opinion perhaps but I think Derevi is fine realistically. He's OP with winter orb, but if you're playing winter orb, winter orb is the problem, not derevi. He's damn hard to kill, yes, but his effect is also relatively minor unless you're abusing him with stax effects. And that's not what the banlist is targeted at. Not that I'm pleased to see him a table, but there are plenty of similarly obnoxious commanders in similar veins.

Golos, see below.

Yeah, any overpowered commander can be fine if you literally don't use their ability. Sadly, that's not really a reasonable expectation.

People played Advisor tribal with Leovold too but it didn't make it OK.

You don't have to avoid using his ability. You just need to not stack the deck with huge bombs. What's the average CMC of an average commander deck - maybe 3? So on average, you'd expect to hit 1 land and maybe 6 mana worth of spells for 7. That's a good deal, sure, but it's not overwhelmingly powerful or anything. He's a solid value piece without being broken. That's roughly what I expect he'll be in my SP list (but mostly a tutor for SP).

I agree that most people are using him as a commander for bomb.com.dec, but I don't think he's "forcing" you to do that in the same way Leovold motivates you to build wheels.dec. Leovold basically doesn't do anything without wheels, so if you're playing leovold, that's almost certainly what you're playing. Whereas with Golos he's still a good option for many fun ideas, even if you're not trying to exploit his activated to the max.

[pokken]

I don't think you've played enough golos yet to grasp how powerful it is. It's draw three annd all the Mana to cast them.

It's insane even in a piece of %$#% deck not trying to abuse it if you play even decent cards vaguely related to a gameplan. Even a really crappy gameplan..

You have to actively play awful cards to make it fair and I've even seen that backfire.

I'd say golos tempts people with fun ideas because playing a land as your commander sounds fun.. but you discover very quickly that activation once a turn is always the optimal thing to do.

The only way he's fun is if you aren't pulling the value slot machine..

[DirkGently]

I don't think you've played enough golos yet to grasp how powerful it is.

How dare you question my grasping ability.

One of my friends has a Golos deck and it usually loses, at least when I'm playing. Granted, that's because I'm usually directing people to dog pile him and kill his commander, but that's true for lots of commanders. Ofc it's hard to compare experiences without accounting for reference frames. My LGS is usually relatively high-powered. But someone untaps with Golos, I'm usually not assuming the game is over, which is better than I can say for other decks. The only time it gets really annoying is if they're playing a lot of extra turn effects, but in that case I'd assume the meta is pretty powerful and it's not unreasonable to expect that he'll be countered or killed quickly.

EDIT: You can't realistically just build 60 bombs 40 lands and expect it to do well, so most Golos decks are going to have at least ~20 ramp and/or general utility of relatively low value, in addition to a healthy chunk of lands. So the whiff chance is pretty high, I'd say 60-70% of cards even in nastier golos lists are relative misses. I've seen my friend untap only to hit 2 lands and a rampant growth plenty of times. Granted, some of the bombs are truly stupid, but I don't think the difference between Golos and Jodah is that huge given that Jodah gets to choose which bomb he's playing, can do it at least a turn earlier, and doesn't whiff. And that's not even touching Esika who is potentially more obnoxious than either since she's harder to remove, cannot whiff in any way, and doesn't require building a deck with a horrendous curve to take advantage of her.

I don't really like any of these commanders, I wish WotC would stop designing them. But I don't think banning Golos is realistically going to make it stop. If Golos existed in 2015 he could have been bannable, but at this point I think that ship has sailed. Dumb value is what wotc likes to design, so you can either try to play whack-a-mole while pissing off a huge segment of the playerbase, or you can shrug and learn to live with it.

[materpillar]

The only way he's fun is if you aren't pulling the value slot machine..

I speak from personal experience when I say part of the problem with Golos is that pulling the value slot machine is really fun. It's incredibly satisfying to flip three completely random spells for free. Will it be 2 lands and a garbage ramp spell or will it be 3 bombs and win the game? Who knows? Yay gambling!

I don't think the difference between Golos and Jodah is that huge given that Jodah gets to choose which bomb he's playing, can do it at least a turn earlier, and doesn't whiff. And that's not even touching Esika who is potentially more obnoxious than either since she's harder to remove, cannot whiff in any way, and doesn't require building a deck with a horrendous curve to take advantage of her.

My Golos deck has 40+ >7 CMC cards. I've been pondering what other commander that generates less salt I could actually run and have the deck function to any reasonable level. My current play pattern is to cast Golos T4-5 to find Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. He dies horribly. Cast golos T5-6 to find Cabal Coffers. Actually be able to cast more than 1 card a turn or fuel Mindshrieker silliness.

I don't know who I could replace Golos, Tireless Pilgrim with and actually be able to play the game if I run into any interaction at all. I'm trying to do things with Mindshrieker and Pyromancy, casting Draco is plan B not plan A so Jodah, Archmage Eternal doesn't really fit with what the deck is trying to do. I guess I could use Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge? Replace all my 3cmc ramp with 5cmc ramp and just hope she doesn't bite it immediately? It's like that or The First Sliver and hoping to cascade into Kodama's Reach.

[Dunharrow]

Also, minority opinion perhaps but I think Derevi is fine realistically. He's OP with winter orb, but if you're playing winter orb, winter orb is the problem, not derevi. He's damn hard to kill, yes, but his effect is also relatively minor unless you're abusing him with stax effects. And that's not what the banlist is targeted at. Not that I'm pleased to see him a table, but there are plenty of similarly obnoxious commanders in similar veins.

I mean, that's like arguing that Leovold shouldn't have been banned because you don't have to put wheels in the deck.
If you build Derevi - even if it starts off as Bant flyers or something, you quickly see how unfair any stax effects are. It's not like Winter Orb, Static Orb and Stasis are crazy expensive cards. Not to mention how good Derevi is with effects that tax mana like Thorn of Amethyst or Kataki, War's Wage.
But that's not all!
I have seen a Derevi deck that didn't play stax effects. What happened? Insane value by playing a commander that can't be hated out of the game but lets you play really strong synergies like Bloom Tender and Azami, Lady of Scrolls. Because it's not just stax effects, it is the inability to remove the damn bird from the game while it goes off with a million cards.
I know it is not as played as when it first came out. But it still interacts really badly with the commander format, and for that reason it can be brutal to play against. Then add to the fact that most of the time there are stax effects and it is just not a fun card to play against.

I know it won't be banned any time soon, but I 100% believe commander could be immensely improved by axing 5-10 cards that are just never fun to play against. No card bans will ever make Derevi fun to play against - you can ban all the stax pieces, and it will still be frustrating to play against.

[pokken]

Derevis fundamental problem is a strong effect, multiple combos and breaking the commander tax. He'd a mistake as much as I personally like the card.

Adds little and is a net negative.

He's fine in the 99 except that his only real use is birthing pod and najeela combos for most folks. But not really banworthy..

[DirkGently]

I mean, that's like arguing that Leovold shouldn't have been banned because you don't have to put wheels in the deck.

I haven't made that argument.

Leovold's only significant interaction is with wheels. Derevi has a TON of interactions outside of a handful of old stax cards. Winter orb - which is imo by far the cleanest, easiest to exploit card in Derevi stax - only has 35% usage on EDHrec. Plenty of people are building relatively fair Derevi decks. Your slippery slope is wrong.

I have seen a Derevi deck that didn't play stax effects. What happened? Insane value by playing a commander that can't be hated out of the game but lets you play really strong synergies like Bloom Tender and Azami, Lady of Scrolls. Because it's not just stax effects, it is the inability to remove the damn bird from the game while it goes off with a million cards.

...so kill the bloom tender and/or Azami? Since when are we letting Azami live and assuming we don't lose the game? Or wipe the board when he tries to go wide to take advantage of a strong tap ability?

Idk, I haven't played against many Derevi decks recently so maybe my opinions are out of date (although Azami and bloom tender have been around forever), but I think there are much worse things personally.

I know it won't be banned any time soon, but I 100% believe commander could be immensely improved by axing 5-10 cards that are just never fun to play against. No card bans will ever make Derevi fun to play against - you can ban all the stax pieces, and it will still be frustrating to play against.

I think banning 5-10 cards would mean approximately nothing to the overall quality of the game. You ban Derevi, there's a million other annoying commanders out there. Especially if you're complaining about stax Derevi, because those players probably aren't going to switch to a cutesy theme deck. There's always going to be annoying decks to play against. You can't ban human nature.

He's fine in the 99 except that his only real use is birthing pod and najeela combos for most folks. But not really banworthy..

His usefulness or lack thereof in the 99 is of exceedingly minor importance. Reinstituting BaaC would not improve the chances of Derevi getting banned.

[pokken]

His usefulness or lack thereof in the 99 is of exceedingly minor importance.

...to you

There's definitely a subset of people out there who think it's wrong to ban things from the 99 when the reason they are problematic is that they're in the commandzone. And there's also a subset of people who play Derevi as a card and like him.

Derevi's in 4% of possible decks as a card on Edhrec which is pretty respectable for a non-commander. There'll be 2515 people with decks who have to take him out for no reason if he's banned.

Reinstituting BaaC would not improve the chances of Derevi getting banned.

Perhaps*? I'm not sure that's the case. I think *if* they brought back BAAC it'd be explicitly two major shifts in the game over the years:

1) Growth in open play - More people are playing outside of curated metas every year. This means feelbads from stuff like building a Derevi deck in a vacuum are more present.

2) Increase in number of broken commanders - Wizards can't seem to help printing ridiculous pushed nonsense. It's reached a point where half of the decks I see are whack-a-mole commanders.

* I didn't read Sheldon's article so maybe he addressed this point explicitly?

(Ron Howard: He didn't. He basically said what I said--although he doesn't think it's worth it right now, if they did bring it back it'd be to more aggressively curate the format)

The reason that we'd pick them although we haven't done so already is that we've taken a more liberal view of banning cards, which is the whole reason we've reintroduced the category in the first place.

[onering]

Derevi can eat a ban on principle. She screws with a fundamental aspect of the format in a problematic way. That she enables really oppressive decks is icing on the cake, but being able to just pay 1WUG to both skirt tax AND even having to cast her (thus getting around most counters), is ridiculous. She (along with Oloro's far more innocuous 2 life a turn from the cz) pioneered WotC screwing with the fundamentals of the format and set the precedent that has led to so many problems since.

With Golos, its an enormous mitigating factor that Golos CAN be built in so many ways. This is balanced against the fact that most of the time he's being built as an centralizing value engine that cheats out multiple big spells a turn, usually involving extra turns. That's the typical Golos deck, that's the one that you run into at least once every other game online. Then there's the fact that even when piloting the more unique builds, he's still a ridiculous value engine that centralizes the game. The most interesting build I've seen in person was Golos Gods tribal, and even that just followed the same game plan of cast Golos, tutor your best land, spin the wheel to drop multiple gods a turn. In practice, there are only really three Golos decks: Decks that focus on casting Golos and activating his ability as much as possible, decks that run Golos so they can use a land as a commander (almost always Field of the Dead), and decks to which Golos is incidental (I imagine just 5 color control that uses Golos as a backup plan). The third is irrelevant, its both very rare and can easily replace Golos and be the same deck and is only running Golos because he is generically the most usefull 5 color commander. The second is mildly interesting: really interesting when the target land is sorrow's path or something else esoteric, really boring when its Field of the Dead like it usually is, and fairly uncommon overall. The first type of deck is fun for the pilot and incredibly boring and repetitive for everyone else, which is about as problematic as a deck can be. For the pilot, its really fun to spin the wheel and see what you get, and its also really strong, so you have the incentive to do it over and over again. For the opponent, its just watching the pilot laser focus on spinning the wheel, and the effect for you is always the same, the pilot gets stupid value. You, as the opponent, don't get any excitement or entertainment from the wheel spin, you only get the boredom and annoyance of that same damn deck doing the same damn thing every damn game. That's what's so damn dangerous about Golos, the things that make him a problem are what attracts most players to him. He sacrifices the fun of the table for the fun of the pilot, and does so dramatically.

And Dirk, you point out that the guy in your group rarely wins because you get the table to archenemy him and prevent him from playing. I agree, that's how you deal with Golos, but that makes for bad games, and while its an ok play pattern occasionally its awful when every other game is like that. When a commander demands to be the archenemy every game, and you run into that commander all the damn time, that does immense harm to the format. This is supposed to be a social format, every other game devolving into "make sure that guy can't play, or we all lose" ruins that. Golos does this, as do most of the commanders suggested for BaaC, and they all are common enough that the problem is ever present.

What's even worse is when there are multiple players running these kinds of commanders, and thus you cannot solve the issue by making them the archenemy, so whoever isn't playing them either ends up being a kingmaker (by handing the game to whoever they end up targeting less), or sits back until one of them goes off. That prompts more people to run these sort of uninteractive, repetitive, resource advantage machines or go for fast combo to outrace them in order to be able to actually impact the game. That's an arms race that ruins the format. cEDH, strong casual and 75% and more casual variants have been able to coexist for a long time, so its not like fast combo alone was killing the format, but these absurd value engines in the command zone are pushing this arms race into 75% metas and threatening to make the entire format like this. TBH, I'd rather see cEDH become the dominant meta than nonsense pushed bs defining casual. cEDH at least involves interaction and skilled play, and everyone is on the same page when it comes to tactics so nobody gets salty when they get stopped.

[pokken]

And Dirk, you point out that the guy in your group rarely wins because you get the table to archenemy him and prevent him from playing. I agree, that's how you deal with Golos, but that makes for bad games, and while its an ok play pattern occasionally its awful when every other game is like that

Thanks for saying this, it's pretty important. In my experience even trash golos decks (my mono red one, GOOD LORD that deck was horrible) every game was about what I hit with Golos.

[onering]

His usefulness or lack thereof in the 99 is of exceedingly minor importance.

...to you

There's definitely a subset of people out there who think it's wrong to ban things from the 99 when the reason they are problematic is that they're in the commandzone. And there's also a subset of people who play Derevi as a card and like him.

Derevi's in 4% of possible decks as a card on Edhrec which is pretty respectable for a non-commander. There'll be 2515 people with decks who have to take him out for no reason if he's banned.

Reinstituting BaaC would not improve the chances of Derevi getting banned.

Perhaps*? I'm not sure that's the case. I think *if* they brought back BAAC it'd be explicitly two major shifts in the game over the years:

1) Growth in open play - More people are playing outside of curated metas every year. This means feelbads from stuff like building a Derevi deck in a vacuum are more present.

2) Increase in number of broken commanders - Wizards can't seem to help printing ridiculous pushed nonsense. It's reached a point where half of the decks I see are whack-a-mole commanders.

* I didn't read Sheldon's article so maybe he addressed this point explicitly?

He sort of addressed the proliferation of broken commanders by discussing so many of them.

I very much agree that being able to play the card in the 99 is important. I run Golos in the 99 of Child of Alara lands. I'd run Derevi in birds tribal if she got banned as a commander. Braids would go in black stax. Rof would go in a lot of green decks. Chulane would go in any creature heavy Bant+, Tegrid if banned as a commander would go into any black stax, sacrifice, or discard deck. Korvold would go into the 99 of whatever commander replaced him as Jund sacrifice's commander. This matters. Does being able to use them as a commander matter more? Yes, of course, because being the a commander allows the card to impact every game reliably. That also means that problematic commanders are in greater need of banning than cards in the 99, and that cards are more likely to be problematic as commanders than in the 99. That is, of course, the logic behind BaaC in the first place, to create a way to deal with problem commanders that are ok in the 99, and thus while banning their most popular use still allowing them to exist in the format.

[pokken]

I very much agree that being able to play the card in the 99 is important. I run Golos in the 99 of Child of Alara lands. I'd run Derevi in birds tribal if she got banned as a commander. Braids would go in black stax. Rof would go in a lot of green decks. Chulane would go in any creature heavy Bant+, Tegrid if banned as a commander would go into any black stax, sacrifice, or discard deck. Korvold would go into the 99 of whatever commander replaced him as Jund sacrifice's commander. This matters.

I know I've said this before and got hammered for being up on a high horse but to me it's ultimately about fairness. Even if it's a only a handful of cards that are free in the 99, I think it's worth the headache because I guarantee you there are a bunch of people who like those cards that don't need to be punished.

It's very easy for folks to be dismissive of the joy people get from playing cards in their decks and the people who take umbrage at stuff like having to remove Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary from their elf tribal deck when Priest of Titania is in there. But I think you're right that it does matter.

I still viscerally remember when someone surprised me with Erayo, Soratami Ascendant // Erayo's Essence being banned in my crappy Edric deck. Like...Static Orb is ok but Erayo is too good in the 99? Bleh. I was unaware of the BAAC change for a while after release and got blindsided with it and it really soured me.

(Not that Erayo is a great example since they seem to think it's somehow oppressive enough to be banned on its own now despite it being BAAC and never creating a problem for years:P)

[DirkGently]

...to you

....no, to the RC.

It's of zero importance to me, I really don't care either way.

There's definitely a subset of people out there who think it's wrong to ban things from the 99 when the reason they are problematic is that they're in the commandzone.

I know, because they're always very vocal in these discussions.

Derevi's in 4% of possible decks as a card on Edhrec which is pretty respectable for a non-commander. There'll be 2515 people with decks who have to take him out for no reason if he's banned.

Slightly inconveniencing someone is basically irrelevant when you're talking about destroying someone's entire deck.

1) Growth in open play - More people are playing outside of curated metas every year. This means feelbads from stuff like building a Derevi deck in a vacuum are more present.

Reinstituting BaaC has little effect on this. If they wanted to ban those commanders, they could just do it now. Clearly they don't want to do that. The only reason you think it matters is because you put a lot of weight on their utility in the 99, which doesn't seem to be true for the RC.

2) Increase in number of broken commanders - Wizards can't seem to help printing ridiculous pushed nonsense. It's reached a point where half of the decks I see are whack-a-mole commanders.

Same thing.

* I didn't read Sheldon's article so maybe he addressed this point explicitly?

You should probably just read it. It's not that long.

Derevi can eat a ban on principle. She screws with a fundamental aspect of the format in a problematic way. That she enables really oppressive decks is icing on the cake, but being able to just pay 1WUG to both skirt tax AND even having to cast her (thus getting around most counters), is ridiculous. She (along with Oloro's far more innocuous 2 life a turn from the cz) pioneered WotC screwing with the fundamentals of the format and set the precedent that has led to so many problems since.

It always bothers me when people say things like "screws with a fundamental aspect of the format". Which aspects are fundamental, and who gets to decide? I think back to the super old days, when Feldon's Cane was restricted because it "screwed with the fundamentals" of only getting to play each restricted card once.

I agree that I wish they wouldn't print cards that are so difficult to interact with in the command zone, but that's because I don't like cards that limit interaction in general - not because there's anything sacred about commander tax that can't be experimented with, design-wise.

That's what's so damn dangerous about Golos, the things that make him a problem are what attracts most players to him.

I do think there's a stronger argument to banning Golos than stuff like Urza. GAAIV, Narset, etc. He has that "looks fun, but makes games unfun" thing going for him.

That said, I think he's still open-ended and doesn't NEED to be oppressive, nor is he impossible to handle or anything, so I personally wouldn't vote to ban him - though I wouldn't be too sorry to see him go.

This is supposed to be a social format, every other game devolving into "make sure that guy can't play, or we all lose" ruins that. Golos does this, as do most of the commanders suggested for BaaC, and they all are common enough that the problem is ever present.

The problem is that there's a LOT of commanders that do that. I don't think banning half the format's decks out from under people is going to be healthy for the format.

At least imo, the only real solution is either (1) talk about it, or (2) dogpile people playing danger-zone commanders until they realize that perhaps such commanders aren't as fun as they look. But I'm open to other options.

What's even worse is when there are multiple players running these kinds of commanders, and thus you cannot solve the issue by making them the archenemy, so whoever isn't playing them either ends up being a kingmaker (by handing the game to whoever they end up targeting less), or sits back until one of them goes off. That prompts more people to run these sort of uninteractive, repetitive, resource advantage machines or go for fast combo to outrace them in order to be able to actually impact the game. That's an arms race that ruins the format. cEDH, strong casual and 75% and more casual variants have been able to coexist for a long time, so its not like fast combo alone was killing the format, but these absurd value engines in the command zone are pushing this arms race into 75% metas and threatening to make the entire format like this. TBH, I'd rather see cEDH become the dominant meta than nonsense pushed bs defining casual. cEDH at least involves interaction and skilled play, and everyone is on the same page when it comes to tactics so nobody gets salty when they get stopped.

Idk, I've had plenty of games where there's 3 Golos-tier commanders sitting at the table. They're the threats, they know each other is the threat. So you wait in the shadows until they kill each other and you find your time to strike. To me, the more obnoxious game is the one where people are only ever planning to win with combos. That's when you really have no choice but to be kingmaker, imo - block them until you can't block them anymore. And Golos, while annoying, doesn't generally do that.

Jesus Christ stop posting more stuff while I'm replying. I want to go to bed

This matters.

That's your opinion.

To me, while of course I'd be slightly annoyed if I had to replace some card in one of my decks, I can't think of a single one that would really make me upset. Whereas if a favorite commander got banned, it would be devastating. I'd lose the entire deck. Based on that, I'd say it's 100x more impactful.

I know I've said this before and got hammered for being up on a high horse but to me it's ultimately about fairness.

You got hammered because it's ridiculous language to apply to banlist management. It's not unfair to have a card banned. It's certainly not unfair for a card to remain banned. If Rofellos had never been printed, we'd live in the same world we live in now. Would that be unfair? Having a card you like remain banned is not a punishment. You can't be punished by losing something you never had. And when it comes to most of these cards, they aren't even particularly unique effects. I can't for the life of me understand why people can't just shrug and play something else, especially when we're talking about cards that have been banned for roughly a decade.

Erayo, Soratami Ascendant // Erayo's Essence being banned in my crappy Edric deck

Nothing says "look how silly and fun my deck is" like a stax piece in an edric deck =/ You're not one of those guys who's constantly downplaying their threat level even when it's patently obvious that they're in a powerful position, are you? I hate those guys.

FWIW I would be ok with Erayo getting fully unbanned tbh. Definitely could be unbanned in the 99 if that were an option - Sheldon showed some real ignorance in that article imo, Leovold couldn't be unbanned in the 99? lol - but I don't think it really contributes positively to the game in either zone so w/e.

[pokken]

You should probably just read it. It's not that long.

I did, it was about what I expected But interestingly he confirmed my point which is that the only reason to bring back BAAC is to ban more liberally.

Slightly inconveniencing someone is basically irrelevant when you're talking about destroying someone's entire deck.

It's irrelevant to you. Not to the people impacted.

Sure, it's more of an impact to people who lose their deck, but it still sucks.

In my opinion it might suck even more in some ways (for that small audience) because there's zero justification for it other than "we don't think it's worth an infinitesimal amount of work to let you keep playing your card in the 99." If Golos gets banned as a commander you can at least see the reasoning for it.

Nothing says "look how silly and fun my deck is" like a stax piece in an edric deck =/ You're not one of those guys who's constantly downplaying their threat level even when it's patently obvious that they're in a powerful position, are you? I hate those guys.

It was my cheap 'competitive enough to play with people's "cedh" decks' deck and no I didn't play it casually - I trotted it out when people were playing powered decks since it was all I could afford at the time.