Commanders with built in methods of avoiding tax

[pokken]

Derevi, Empyrial Tactician and Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow are both awful to play against and I've at times argued for both to be banned. Of those I think Yuriko is the most egregious but they're both awful.

Is there a rule template we could add that would make their activated ability cost commander tax, possibly on a separate timer (so you get one free use of it, basically)?

Something like:

If an ability on the card would cause your commander to leave the command zone, it costs 2 additional for each time it has been activated previously.

Just to kinda, get out ahead of future templating like this?

[void_nothing]

Yes, that's within the realm of possibility. You can use "if...would" to refer to an effect before resolution, certainly.

[pokken]

Then get it done RC ! Removal should work in a meaningful way.

[Lorn Asbord Schutta]

But the cards are different objects after zone change, aren't their? You could not track the fact of an ability being activated previously, with rules as of now, right?

[void_nothing]

But the cards are different objects after zone change, aren't their? You could not track the fact of an ability being activated previously, with rules as of now, right?

Do cards become different objects after changing zones? Yes. But commander-ness is also a special property of a card, not something tied to an in-game object; there's no meaningful difference in tracking a commander leaving the CZ by casting it or by activating an ability.

[Myllior]

I guess you'd modify Rule 6 to something like,

6. Commanders begin the game in the Command Zone. While a commander is in the command zone, it may be cast, subject to the normal timing restrictions for casting creatures. Its owner must pay 2 for each time it was previously cast from the command zone; this is an additional cost. If a commander has an activated ability that allows it to leave the Command Zone, its owner must pay a further additional 2 for each time the commander has left the Command Zone via this ability.

The idea behind the particular wording being that the tax shouldn't increase further if someone activates Derevi multiple times while holding priority, so that the ability resolves multiple times yet Derevi only leaves the Command Zone once.

I don't see any problem with these commanders personally, so wouldn't be in favour of such a rules change, but if it were to go ahead I imagine it would be worded something like that.

[JovialJovian]

While I would support such a change for Yuriko, as I feel it's more of a loophole with Ninjutsu being an activated ability rather than an alternate cost. Ninjutsu is functionally more similar to an alternate cost, and probably would be if it were created in the modern era. But, in the games where Yuriko shines, she's not really extremely concerned with the commander tax anyway, so I don't know that it's worth the trouble.

Derevi, on the other hand, was specifically designed to have that ability to bypass the commander tax. That was the intent. It was an experiment, and clearly the design team has decided that it was not something they wanted to do going forward. If you feel that it is problematic for Derevi to be able to bypass the commander tax, then I think you're talking about a ban, rather than torturing the rules to apply commander tax to it.

[pokken]

But, in the games where Yuriko shines, she's not really extremely concerned with the commander tax anyway, so I don't know that it's worth the trouble.

My experience with Yuriko most games is that no one bothers to kill it because it's functionally helping the player or at least not really materially hurting, and that's *why* it shines. they would be concerned with the commander tax if people could remove her in a meaningful way.

Derevi, on the other hand, was specifically designed to have that ability to bypass the commander tax. That was the intent. It was an experiment, and clearly the design team has decided that it was not something they wanted to do going forward. If you feel that it is problematic for Derevi to be able to bypass the commander tax, then I think you're talking about a ban, rather than torturing the rules to apply commander tax to it.

Derevi is *extremely powerful* for a 3 cmc card even without her activated ability (see all the CEDH decks that play her as their combo piece) but not busted and does something moderately unique. I see no reason not to let the same rule fix both cards.

As evidenced by Companion, Wizards is perfectly amenable to fixing things after the fact if they have the abiility to do so. I see no reason why the RC can't.

[PrimevalCommander]

Tracking the casting of the commander and the activated ability separately still allows these two commanders to be useful. Since you can alternate casting regularly and activating the ability to basically skip every other commander tax anyway. Seems like a good way to balance the utterly broken ability of ignoring commander tax completely.

I like cost reducers much better. See Karador, Ghost Chieftain and Tasigur, the Golden Fang as ways to reduce commander tax, but not make it completely irrelevant.