Guardman wrote: ↑2 years ago
In my mind you could either have two mana artifacts that produce colored mana or creatures that produce colored mana, but not both. Creatures are more interesting, most can't be used the turn they come into play, and all colors have ways of dealing with them, unlike artifacts which only has red, green, and white really.
I don't think anyone should be using targeted removal on minor mana ramp (which nearly all 2cmc ramp is) anyway so it's kind of irrelevant imo. The issue isn't that ramp can't be killed, the issue is that it's just not worth doing it. Though creatures are admittedly more likely to get wiped up at some point than artifacts.
I would also expect that Tier 3 would take a page from Pioneer and ban Fetchlands (along with the ABUR Duals). But I know from experience that without things like Fetchlands, Land Search, and mana rocks that can be paid with colorless mana, 3+ color decks do take a hit to their consistency. The change isn't to make them a whole lot less consistant, just a small hit to make mono-colored and two-colored decks more attractive.
ABU duals are only barely better than shocklands. Feels like a pretty arbitrary line tbh.
5c might be a bit tougher but I'd be surprised if I couldn't create a 3c manabase that was very reliable without fetches (or abu duals I guess). Even 5c we've got a lot of rainbow lands. I don't think it'd be that bad. The vast majority of players aren't playing fetches or abu duals anyway, and they do fine with their crappy budget manabases.
Anyway I don't think making it inconsistent in its manabase is a very fun way to nerf something that's overperforming.
I mostly play 1c and 2c decks myself, but it's because I think they're more fun to build. 3c is too open-ended unless I have a really specific plan.
I think you are missing the point of the Tier ban list. It isn't to tamper down power levels as much as it is to bring a playstyle closer to commander before everything became streamlined. Most of the people I know who enjoy playing commander like that would be disappointed if
Sol Ring was banned for them.
Mana Crypt would probably be a Tier 2 ban for power level reasons.
If they want to play sol ring, couldn't they just play tier 1? I was under the impression that these formats would be existing simultaneously, so sol ring isn't banned outright for commander players. They can still play it all they want, they just have to cop to the fact that it's a very powerful card.
If you want to go back to "the good old days" then just play reverse-modern commander or something. Seems a lot easier to track the banlist. Neither thing will ever actually happen on any scale outside of (generously) a few isolated playgroups anyway.
If a card needs to be banned, but it doesn't fall neatly into a category, it probably should be banned at Tier 2 since it most likely falls into one of the Tier 2 ban criteria. Also I am under no delusions that the Tier 2 ban list would probably be longer than most would like given the fact that long ban lists are a burden, but when you have almost three decades of cards, the ban list is going to be relatively short in comparison. It is cost, but one I believe is worth the payoff.
I think I want to see more than 1 example category of cards in tier 3 before I entertain it being viable as a way to define a banlist. I suspect you're going to end up with a 500+ card banlist for Tier 2, and it'll still be broken. That seems unreasonably unwieldy, especially since wotc is printing new abominations all the time.
I am sure that there will be some people that try to push the bans really hard, especially in Tier 3. The key there is to have a clear theory of why certain cards will be banned and a ban committee that can work well together, understand the needs of each Tier, is willing to discuss it, test it, and adapt it as need be. It isn't going to be perfect. It isn't going to be easy. It might be too lenient or too punitive, especially at first. And it might accidently include a group of cards that shouldn't be banned, or include a group of cards that were initially overlooked. It will never be perfect. But perfect should never be the enemy of good.
What you're describing sounds like an incredible amount of overhead, both from whatever-multiheaded-hydra the RC becomes, and from the players keeping track of it. That overhead is the enemy of the "good". And I'm incredulous that there's much good to be gained here anyway.
Also this isn't about competitiveness per se. I think of it more like the difference between modern, standard, and pauper. Modern is tier 1. Standard is tier 2. And pauper is tier 3. Pauper games play completely different from modern and standard due to the restrictions in the format, but that doesn't make it any less competitive.
I think that comparison shows the fundamental problem with this idea. Standard is relatively homogenous in power level - and thus generates good-ish games - not simply because of the cards available but because everyone who plays standard - actually plays standard, not the new guy who cracked 7 booster packs to make his deck and barely knows how to play - is playing with basically a spike mentality. They're not going to intentionally self-limit their power because that's not how standard, or modern, or legacy, or pauper, is played.
You can create a huge unwieldly banlist to attempt to create the commander equivalent of standard (didn't we already try that?) but it's not going to solve the vast majority of problems that arise within games because the problem is the diversity of players and attitudes, not the diversity of cards.
Also, this ban list isn't for the established playgroups, but for amorphous groups and games between strangers. This doesn't really fit into the rest of the discussion per say, and I'm not going to debate it here, but I do want to just give you my view on "talk it out" and Rule 0 in general so you understand where I am coming from. In short, Rule 0 is doing way too much heavy lifting and it is hurting commander because of it.
I don't have a fixed commander group really. I have some regulars I play with (in that its a rotating cast of 20 to 30 different players) along with always the new person in town wanting to join for the night. Rule 0 just doesn't work in my scenario and talking it out has led to many an argument. And this was before COVID. I haven't played much since, but I can tell you that newcomers have gotten more prevalent, not less.
The RC has even admitted recently (if I remember right from one of Sheldon's article) that Rule 0 only works for established playgroups. They also admitted that they don't really want people to default to non-established playgroups. It's a nice idea, but clashes with reality. And me and the people with amorphous playgroups need more structure than to Rule 0 it. I think commander would be in a much healthier place if the RC added more rules, more structure, and more cards to the ban list, but then said, if your playgroup doesn't want to play with certain rules and/or bans, you can Rule 0 it. Rule 0 should be subtractive, not additive like it currently is.
I'm in roughly the same situation as you, and have been for some time. I haven't had a closed commander group since 2013 or so. I've migrated through quite a few different groups with roughly similar situations as you describe.
Rule 0, as a way to say "hey, we should change X rule for the entire group" doesn't work for an open group, at all. I'm in agreement on that. But that's not the only way to figure things out. Everywhere I've been, people are generally open to someone playing an un commander or other silver-border promo, for example, if permission is asked first. It's also pretty common practice to try to hash out where the power levels lie before the game so that they can be balanced out. That's not always perfect, of course, but I have way way more reasonable games than terrible games.
Let me tell you about a problem I DO have though - coming into a playgroup alone, especially when relatively new, can be a %$#% horrible experience. I've had a lot of times where I come into an LGS, there's a game or 2 or 3 going on, and they're all well-underway. And so I sit and wait and hope that someone will finish a game so I can jump in. And then a table finishes a game and I eagerly bound over and ask if I can join the next one. "No, sorry, we only want to do a 4 person game" or "Sorry, we just want to play with each other". So I go back to my spot and sit, and wait, and wait, and wait. Sometimes I just give up and go home.
Now it's true that commander is very popular and in a lot of places (not all!) it's easy to find somewhere that could, in theory, divide into a tier 1 and a tier 3 game, or whatever. But in practice, that's going to make the business of finding an appropriate game to join all the more difficult, especially if your deck is being judged solely on a black-and-white model of "do you have any of these cards in it?" And then you say "yes" and they say "sorry, we only want to play tier 3" and so you go sit in the corner because you had the audacity to play a precon with
Rampant Growth in it or whatever.
People misrepresent their decks power level or fun level or whatever else you ask them all the time. And it's not that most are trying to be mean or intentionally lie. They really believe what they are saying. But we don't share a common language.
That, as they say, is life.
To me this seems like a problem that sort of fixes itself. When you're new and stupid, you get rolled by people who say they're playing a 7 because a 7 to you means "I picked the GOOD precon" but for them means "I can't afford alpha duals", but you're mostly too dumb to realize what's going on. When you're more experienced, you know the right questions to ask and the right signposts to determine power levels a lot more accurately, and can play accordingly - whether that's busting out an appropriate-power deck, or holding up your combo-breaker even though you wanted to develop.
Codifying something like my ban tier list or something else, anything else that will weaken Rule 0, will go a long way to making sure everyone is talking the same talk and that you can play with strangers without having to worry that your interpretation & description of your deck is the same as what the people you are playing with are.
I'm sorry but I'm not going to buy into the idea that individual cards are a reliable signpost for the power level of a deck.
If you have a deck like
Golos, Tireless Pilgrim/
Sorrow's Path deck, don't let the fact that it is banned dissuade you from playing it in an established playgroup with people you know and can discuss it on the same page.
Yeah I don't have that. Everyone who played against it found it to be fun, though, I've gotten loads of compliments on it. Same for my Kaervek deck that sports mana crypt, a couple fetches, dtutor vtutor etc. Why is my using dtutor to find
Deadly Wanderings or golos to find
Sorrow's Path being lumped into the same category as people using dtutor to find
Thassa's Oracle or golos to find
gaea's cradle? We are not the same.
But please, for the love that is all that is holy, don't try to rule 0 it in a game with someone you only kind of know. I have too many bad memories of things like that and talking about it only causes pain, grief, and yelling when other people's idea and experience of a deck doesn't jive with your idea and experience of your deck. It's why I have a strict no Rule 0 policy when playing with people unless I know them and their style of decks well.
These days, if I want to play Golos, I'm ready with a backup if someone doesn't want to play against a banned commander. But it doesn't hurt to ask. I'm not sure why you think this is an exchange that's going to result in wailing and gnashing of teeth?
Of course, this is helped by experience. I know the power levels of my decks pretty objectively, and I'm good at judging other people's power level, because I've built and played a lot of decks, and I'm pretty good at magic (no apologies). So maybe it's harder for other people to make an honest accounting of their own power level or to judge others at a glance. I think the oft-repeated wisdom covers a lot of ground - bring decks of varying power levels to ensure you have something appropriate. And if sometimes you're gonna have a bad game, despite trying to talk it out, then it's really not the end of the world. Recalibrate and try against next time.
Really, the easiest criticism of this idea, though, is that it's simply never going to happen. It's a somewhat interesting hypothetical, but I don't think anyone whose being honest actually thinks that anything remotely like this will ever actually be implemented.
Haven't you heard? He isn't qualified. I know you're half joking (as was I), but Sheldon actually said anyone seeking a seat on the RC will be sure to not get it.
Perfect since I'm not seeking it, at all. Although the other criteria would presumably exclude me (not to relitigate that argument).