Rule 7 Thoughts

[pokken]

Well, then it's not on the battlefield under your control and you can ship it off to the command zone

That said, there's always a loophole, isn't there. This one is called Sludge Monster.

Oh I misheard. So your patch allows control magic but not gilded drake?

[duducrash]

Is this a issue you all face regularly? I think the annoyance of people abusing ETBs (would be small) but still would be more present as a problem than what we have now. Doesnt "run more interaction" fix the existing problem? And if its that much of a problem, isnt banning Oubliette more reasonable than changing a rule?

[ISBPathfinder]

Isn't simplifying the format rules while being better in line with the spirit of the format an overall bonus? Remember when they removed the rule on mana production? They did it because it was largely redundant with commander identity rules. While keeping both was more in line with what they wanted for the format removing the mana production rule ultimately simplified the rules with a very small loss. Simplifying rules is worth something and I think its probably a bit of my own personal opinion but tuck and transform effects do clash with the concept of commanders accessibility from a spirit of the format in the exact same way that tuck did.

Run more interaction is something that has a heavy caviot based on the colors you have access to. Decks in good color combinations its totally fine to use that concept. But my argument against it existing has been largely for less competitive color combinations and or less competitive decks. I have a $100ish Arcades, the Strategist for example that would probably be taken out back by these effects where as I have other three color decks where I literally couldn't care less if you try it. The stronger the deck is, the less it probably matters if you try it to them. Theft and transform effects affect less competative decks to a much higher degree.

[pokken]

Is this a issue you all face regularly? I think the annoyance of people abusing ETBs (would be small) but still would be more present as a problem than what we have now. Doesnt "run more interaction" fix the existing problem? And if its that much of a problem, isnt banning Oubliette more reasonable than changing a rule?

Commander theft leaving someone completely out of the game is something that happens to me and by me a lot. I've set up a lot of Gilded Drake locks in particular. One game I can remember having all three players' commanders off of Agent of Treachery and Ephemerate. They wound up scooping.

Theft effects are massively overpowered in commander and far more of a problem than treeing them. When you tree a commander they trade a removal spell to get it back. When you steal a commander, you often are forced to kill it then recast it with tax to get it back.

I am not a huge fan of the games where a commander being yoinked causes one player to spend the whole time on their phone.

[Rumpy5897]

Oh I misheard. So your patch allows control magic but not gilded drake?

"You may not perform this action if your commander is on the battlefield under your control and is not enchanted by any Auras you do not control."

The idea was to stuff the "Edric sac". As such, when do you do this? When you have the commander on the battlefield under your control. If it's stolen, then you don't control it, so you can dispatch it to the command zone. But there are cases of controlling it but it being useless, and those cases were identified to have to do with auras, hence the second part of the clause. But that's not ultimately all-encompassing, as per Sludge Monster, so it wasn't getting the job done despite it already lacking elegance, so never mind

[RxPhantom]

Why not give all commanders hexproof and indestructible then? When the RC bans something or even discusses problematic cards, I often hear some variation of "Sheldon must've gotten wrecked by [card]." This whole thread sounds like that, like you lost some games due to theft/transform and now the whole format should pay for it. Some commanders need to be answered, and if your deck can't deal, change you deck. Dedicate slots to protecting your commander if the deck falls apart without it.

[ISBPathfinder]

I think you are underestimating the value of having a reasonable clock and spot removing your opponents commander. This isn't even talking about removal that is reusable and requires opponents to answer it like say a Grave Pact.

The big upside is that a lot of repeat answers threaten the whole board often forcing all opponents to deal with them so while they can be troublesome I have no reason to help an opponent out of theft / transform but I do have reason to address these sort of global answers.

[pokken]

Why not give all commanders hexproof and indestructible then? When the RC bans something or even discusses problematic cards, I often hear some variation of "Sheldon must've gotten wrecked by \\card//." This whole thread sounds like that, like you lost some games due to theft/transform and now the whole format should pay for it. Some commanders need to be answered, and if your deck can't deal, change you deck. Dedicate slots to protecting your commander if the deck falls apart without it.

Because the game is fun when commanders die and come back and less fun when they are gone the entire game.

If someone is playing a commander that is too strong is another issue.

I should add that I find your use of the git gud argument against me and isb to be a little insulting when you know very well neither one of us is that basic. I am basically never making comments to directly improve my experience and look at the broader perspective of everyone's game quality as much as possible

I think you are underestimating the value of having a reasonable clock and spot removing your opponents commander. This isn't even talking about removal that is reusable and requires opponents to answer it like say a Grave Pact.

The big upside is that a lot of repeat answers threaten the whole board often forcing all opponents to deal with them so while they can be troublesome I have no reason to help an opponent out of theft / transform but I do have reason to address these sort of global answers.

My experience has been largely that if power levels are even in the same region that I don't need any of the tree effects. They are actively horrible in higher power levels excepting Gilded Drake only pretty much.

At mid power the bomb theft effects like Expropriate, Agent of Treachery and Blatant Thievery become decent but Oubliette is still bad. If you resolve it someone will eventually remove it most of the time.

There are two play pattern problems here. The tree effects are actively bad in the way that Oblivion Ring is that when they die to collateral damage (say Cyclonic Rift ) you now put the targeted player in the lead. The other pattern is that sometimes you get lucky and the target sits there on the phone for the game.

At the typical mid power level there is nothing really good that happens gameplay quality wise.

The mid powered bombs and Gilded Drake reinforce that blue is basically required in higher powered games, and the tree effects are a die roll for remove target player and make them sit on their phone or give them the game. Massive variance and poor experiences.

Most of what thee effects serve to do is %$#% on worse decks. Much like Hinder, it tucked an innocuous commander and made someone upset ten times for every one time it kept an op Animar, Soul of Elements deck in line.

[RxPhantom]

Why not give all commanders hexproof and indestructible then? When the RC bans something or even discusses problematic cards, I often hear some variation of "Sheldon must've gotten wrecked by [card]." This whole thread sounds like that, like you lost some games due to theft/transform and now the whole format should pay for it. Some commanders need to be answered, and if your deck can't deal, change your deck. Dedicate slots to protecting your commander if the deck falls apart without it.

Because the game is fun when commanders die and come back and less fun when they are gone the entire game.

Disagree, or at least I don't think those concepts are mutually exclusive. A commander doesn't have to be oppressive to be answered, and answering a commander in such a way is satisfying to me. Similarly, I like the challenge of overcoming these plays when used against me. My impression of this thread is players should be entitled to their commander at almost all times, regardless of the legitimate efforts of other players. I think stealing and transforming commanders is included under the umbrella of legitimate efforts.

If someone is playing a commander that is too strong is another issue.

Agree, I guess. I don't think you're suggesting that these effects are acceptable against some commanders and not others, so I'm not sure why the distinction is important.

I should add that I find your use of the git gud argument against me and isb to be a little insulting when you know very well neither one of us is that basic. I am basically never making comments to directly improve my experience and look at the broader perspective of everyone's game quality as much as possible.

Then don't (perhaps intentionally?) make a straw man out of my argument. It's not "git gud," it's "suck it up." The quality of my games would be diminished if rules like this were enacted. So no, I don't think you or ISB are basic, but I consider the premise - that commanders should be immune to theft and transformation, so much so that it should be codified in the format's rules - to be basic, and I'm surprised that you'd advocate for it.

[pokken]

This whole thread sounds like that, like you lost some games due to theft/transform and now the whole format should pay for it

...

and if your deck can't deal, change you deck.

...

Then don't (perhaps intentionally?) make a straw man out of my argument.

(There is no straw man here intentionally or otherwise. What you said is a textbook git gud argument. The implication being that my problem is not being good enough or not having good enough decks)

Suck it up and git gud have the same implication here which is that you think this is some kind of reaction to not winning or having a bad game personally

I think it's better for the format. I'm sorry that surprises you but the implication of your argument is that I can't distinguish between my own personal dislike of losing and have good reasons for my position.

Feel free to disagree.

(I should add that I do have issues with whackamole commanders and have dedicated a lot of thought to ways to fix that with other rules patches. See the thread on limiting recasts)

Then don't (perhaps intentionally?) make a straw man out of my argument. It's not "git gud," it's "suck it up." The quality of my games would be diminished if rules like this were enacted. So no, I don't think you or ISB are basic, but I consider the premise - that commanders should be immune to theft and transformation, so much so that it should be codified in the format's rules - to be basic, and I'm surprised that you'd advocate for it.

The exact same arguments were used against getting rid of tuck like word for word. So it's worth thinking about the parallels now even if you disagree.

[Venedrex]

Look, I'm not going to say I like having my Commander stolen. But, I think Rx has hit the nail on the head for me here. There a lot of things in EDH that are not fun. Someone playing a bunch of stax pieces is not fun, but I don't advocate for banning stax pieces. Many players despise Grave Pact effects because they feel they can never stick a creature. Counterspells are unfun and can stop me from playing my commander. I mean, at what point do we draw the line? Might it be that some people (I don't personally) find stealing permanents to be a lot of fun. I like grave pact effects, sue me. The thing about this bloody game is, what's fun for one person might not be fun for another. The trick is trying to get people to willing try and make fun decks to play with and against rather than trying to rework the rules so that no one can ever not have fun. We could make a rule that the game CANNOT end by turn 4, or until turn 7 because that's no fun. Now the cedh community just got kicked out of the format, which seems highly uncalled for.

Also, why not just run some defenses if it's such an issue. Homeward path, bounce spells, Trostani Discordant, Veil of Summer, there are several good ways of grabbing your general back or stopping the snatch in multiple colors. There's also been a lot of talk about gilded drake. Uh, you guys realize that gilded drake costs a reasonable 316 dollars right now? Yeah the 300 dollar card is annoying and unfun. Kinda like if someone plays a Gaea's Cradle. But I've never played versus either because I don't play against cedh or whales most of the time. Not that you are a whale if you own one of these, I'm sure you got yours in a booster back in the 90's.

As far as arguing about Mono-R. Mono red not having answers to steal effects is true. But mono-red doesn't have answers to enchantments, people playing multiple colors, tutors, combo wins... (unless you find your one copy of Stranglehold.) my point being mono red is going to have gaping holes, because your playing one color. That's why most people play 2-5 colors, because mono colors are weaker, which is something that needs addressing, but not with rules changes to prevent fringe cases of stealing permanents.

You know how many games I've lost to some dumb combo, or games I've wanted to gouge my eyes out because someone Winter Orbed me? A bunch. But I don't call for those to banned, or for a new rule to make it so players can always untap all their lands if they want to at every upkeep just because I've lost or been driven insane by winter orb. Why? Because you don't smash a hole in a wall because you found a spider lurking on it. You take the spider out, or ask someone to take it out for you.

Here's what I'll say to conclude. Is this really worth it? You played some games and bad times were had because of steal effects. Now they all have to go? The format is in a good place. Why do we want to rock the boat? Just let the ship sail in the nice waters the format has found itself in.

[RxPhantom]

Suck it up and git gud have the same implication here which is that you think this is some kind of reaction to not winning or having a bad game personally

I think it's better for the format. I'm sorry that surprises you but the implication of your argument is that I can't distinguish between my own personal dislike of losing and have good reasons for my position.

Don't put words in my mouth. You may have good reasons for disliking theft/transform effects, but I don't believe they merit a change to the rules.

Feel free to disagree.

Clearly I do.

(I should add that I do have issues with whackamole commanders and have dedicated a lot of thought to ways to fix that with other rules patches. See the thread on limiting recasts)

But that patch, along with what has been suggested here so far, would add more complexity for little to no gain. Sure, enfranchised players who frequent places like Nexus and devour Magic content would grok it fine, but we're not the only ones playing this format. It also strikes me as solving problems that, well, aren't problems for the format at large.

Then don't (perhaps intentionally?) make a straw man out of my argument. It's not "git gud," it's "suck it up." The quality of my games would be diminished if rules like this were enacted. So no, I don't think you or ISB are basic, but I consider the premise - that commanders should be immune to theft and transformation, so much so that it should be codified in the format's rules - to be basic, and I'm surprised that you'd advocate for it.

The exact same arguments were used against getting rid of tuck like word for word. So it's worth thinking about the parallels now even if you disagree.

I know the arguments are similar because I was making them. I'd welcome back tuck with open arms and was deeply disappointed when it was removed. When some of us wax nostalgic about the format's earlier days, Hallowed Burial is never far from my mind.

[Venedrex]

I'll be the middle ground. I'm glad tuck is gone. I'm fine with commanders still being able to be stolen.

Right now both of you are even as far as the rules go, one of you wanted tuck but lost it, and wants steal around and still has it, and one of you wants steal gone but got rid of tuck. Boom, everyone has won, let's just all go home and play some edh.

Why not just ask Wotc to print some more anti-steal cards? I bet we'll see some more roll down the pipeline, then we can jam them into our decks.

[pokken]

This whole thread sounds like that, like you lost some games due to theft/transform and now the whole format should pay for it
...
Don't put words in my mouth.

Can you see how I might read that the way I did?

[Venedrex]

Me right now, trying to lighten the tension: "THREADJACKING WILL NOT BE TOLERATED."
I guess it's time to come clean. The guy playing agent of treachery, wasn't you Pokken. It was me in disguise. *Mask rips off* *Mission Impossible theme music starts playing* I knew you'd after the game you'd have one option, you'd have to make a forum post. And in that post, you'd advocate for a new rule preventing the stealing of commanders. As a result, I'd then be able to retrieve top secret information from your pc without you ever noticing while you were occupied in an intense discussion on Nexus. After hacking into your system, I was able to keep you occupied with inane babble, just long enough to memorize the entire database of the tuna factory's manifest. It's over, when I say it's over." *End Ethan Hunt voice* *Eagle lands on shoulder*

I'm sorry, I'm just trying to say really dumb stuff to make you laugh.

[Sharpened]

So I'm having trouble with the following things I'm seeing in this thread:

1. If someone is playing commanders that are too strong, we should Rule 0 solution.

2. I'm setting up Gilded Drake/Agent of Treachery locks, and that needs to be dealt with via a clunky rules change.

It just strikes me as a bit ridiculous.

[BeneTleilax]

I'm also with Pokken. Normalizing recasts to once per turn would both stop the dumber food chain/altar loops, and allow people to stay in the game more. If you want people to "suck it up" and deal with their general potentially falling out of the game, you shouldn't be surprised at the ways they optimize under that constraint, namely leaning towards generals that create massive value bursts immediately and jamming any decent sac outlets they can get. I have yet to see the format adapt to commander removal by ignoring their command zone; for many players, having a general is the reason they play the format. They'll either ignore the incentive entirely because having 20% of their games suck because someone shut their deck down is still better than having all their games suck 25% more because they've cut the cool synergies they wanted to build around for redundancy and goodstuff.

There is this "dura lex, sed lex" attitude that crops up on forums like this, that games should have some requisite drudgery. This is absurd. This game, and this format, exist as a place for players to have fun, and the rules should serve only that. Now, there can be merit where some element of drudgery can make the resulting happiness all the sweeter, by giving a sense of accomplishment. Sometimes a rule, while maximizing fun for the most players, cannot but create drudgery for a few. However, both those points need to actually be argued, beyond simply telling people to "suck it up" if the game isn't as enjoyable as it could be. Claiming people ought to keep their heads down and meet their repeatable sac outlet quota if they want to build around their general speaks to a conflation of drudgery with usefulness

As for swap effects and graveyard loitering, what is the harm in either? Letting people recast their general after Gilded Drake'ing it is a rounding error compared to the preexisting Gilded Drake tricks; blinking it is almost always going to be better than recasting one's general. As for loitering in graveyards, how is it worse than waiting in the command zone until a good time to recast? Sure, it makes a few universal mass reanimation effects marginally worse, but I reckon that would be more than balanced out by more experienced players being pressured to run free repeatable sac outlets whenever possible. People generally want to have their general in play, so they're unlikely to wait around indefinitely until one of their opponents happens to have a convenient Twilight's Call before recasting them. If they are letting their general languish in the grave, it's probably because they're not in position to get much use from it.

Out of an abundance of caution, and to eliminate most of the rest of the random edgecases, I would propose that returning a general can only happen at sorcery speed. As for it being too complex, I think it's far simpler and more intuitive than the current rule 7. How is "Once per turn, when you could cast a sorcery, you may return your commander to the command zone from anywhere. You may cast your commander from the command zone only once per turn" a significant barrier to new players? I think it's far simpler than "If a commander is in a graveyard or in exile and that card was put into that zone since the last time state-based actions were checked, its owner may put it into the command zone. If a commander would be put into its owner's hand or library from anywhere, its owner may put it into the command zone instead. This replacement effect may apply more than once to the same event," but maybe the new players where you are appreciate state-based actions more. Generally, less-enfranchised players who might not read all the rules don't run things like Krenko-loops (and in the games where I have seen both new players and Krenko-loops, the new players assumed such a thing wouldn't work).

[ISBPathfinder]

@RxPhantom I am fine so long as we are in the same boat that the argument of tuck and theft / transform can be the same ticket from the perspective of spirt of the format and what the intention of rule 7 should be. I am fine if its more of a question if it should all be legal or banned I thought you were arguing that they weren't similar enough.

From that stance I would be fine entertaining unbanning tuck as an alternative but I also think its probably something that benefits more competitive concepts and hurts more casual ones. I do think that there has to be somewhat of an objective level of competitive play that the RC has to focus on and historically it has been more of the casual to midrange level of comp.

[pokken]

So I'm having trouble with the following things I'm seeing in this thread:

1. If someone is playing commanders that are too strong, we should Rule 0 solution.

2. I'm setting up Gilded Drake/Agent of Treachery locks, and that needs to be dealt with via a clunky rules change.

It just strikes me as a bit ridiculous.

I think this is a pretty severe oversimplification. Skips the tree effects and all the other theft effects and so on. And strips out the thoughts of player experience etc.

Calling things clunky and ridiculous is a somewhat clunky and ridiculous way to make an argument

From that stance I would be fine entertaining unbanning tuck as an alternative but I also think its probably something that benefits more competitive concepts and hurts more casual ones.

A big problem with tuck and theft effects is that they have the most outside impact in mid power areas (from 5-8 if you want a quick shorthand).

This might be what you're getting at but much like the current state, tuck effects allow mid-high decks to create bad games for each other and weaker opponents. Theft and transform basically do the same thing -- enabling punching down and beating similarly powered opponents whose colors cant easily answer the effects without warping them.

I doubt cedh decks would look twice at any tuck effects - maaaaybe Condemn. Maybe a hard control shell runs Hinder just to keep people honest.

[BeneTleilax]

via a clunky rules change.

I find the new rule, as I proposed, more elegant than the current rule 7. It's certainly shorter. So even if you do prefer an aesthetically pleasing ruleset to an enjoyable format, I fail to see how this is a point in favor of the status quo.

I'd also add, as people have conflated this with stax and such, where what one player enjoys can be unpopular, I haven't really met anyone who enjoys oubliettes in and of themselves. Whenever one of the periodic "kill stax/storm/lands/w/e" threads pops up, people come out of the woodwork saying how much they love them and the puzzles they create for deckbuilding. I've yet to see anyone here praise Agent of Treachery-locking someone's general as their favorite way to spend a game. Instead, it seems to be a functional decision to run the optimal removal for the current ruleset. If it is no longer a valuable removal niche, why would people who enjoy running optimal removal in their decks not enjoy whatever becomes most optimal under the altered rules? That is, after all, what happens when the optimal removal suite changes in response to new cards entering the format; I didn't see anyone complaining about Infernal Grasp because it made their beloved Go for the Throats less optimal.

[ISBPathfinder]

So I'm having trouble with the following things I'm seeing in this thread:

1. If someone is playing commanders that are too strong, we should Rule 0 solution.

2. I'm setting up Gilded Drake/Agent of Treachery locks, and that needs to be dealt with via a clunky rules change.

It just strikes me as a bit ridiculous.

1) There will always be a best thing you can be doing and banning commanders is unlikely to ever achieve anything. I was more advocating that the only solution to imbalance in play power is more communication before the game. The nature of this format being a non tournament level format with multiple players there has always been a problem of someone playing much higher powered decks than the others and there doesn't exist anything you can ban that will ever fix that.

2) Its not really what I am saying. Also so far the proposed rules changes have been simpler than the current wording so I don't know that I would call it clunky. I am not a judge though by any means so I assume it would take some more fine tuning for exact wording but the proposed wording is like 1/3rd as complex as what we currently have.

[duducrash]

Yeah, theft effects kinda suck, but doesnt removal fix this? Isnt Doom Blade the fix?

My LGS dont play too much theft I guess, So im not going to say it isnt a problem just because I dont have to deal with it, legit asking

[ISBPathfinder]

Yeah, theft effects kinda suck, but doesnt removal fix this? Isnt Doom Blade the fix?

My LGS dont play too much theft I guess, So im not going to say it isnt a problem just because I dont have to deal with it, legit asking

Theft often involves needing to kill spell your own commander so you now spent a card to deal with a card and now you need to recast your commander at a +2 cost on top of having just used mana on a kill spell for your own commander. The level of disruption is a lot higher and the resource disadvantage to your opponent is also very high in this case.

This is also assuming that the player who had their commander stolen has an answer in hand to reload their commander. In the best case scenario it can result in some awkward useage of removal and a bunch of time recasting their commander. The tax on recasting the commander can be awkward to do in the same turn as the answer too potentially so this might result in putting opponents 2+ turns down depending on when and what answer they have and that is also assuming they have an answer. Then as polken has mentioned there is now the chance you can recur / reload your theft effect and it can get real oppressive real fast.

Similarly to the theft loop issue I have seen some issues in the transform effects when playing enchantress. Its really oppressive when you have a commander like Sram, Senior Edificer / Sythis, Harvest's Hand and you throw a tree effect at someone's commander while cantripping. There are also some commanders who happen to recur nicely that can feel very oppressive to loop transform effects as it feels like you can never get out from under them. Try having fun playing against a deck full of transform effects with a commander that draws cards or recurs them back to play.

[pokken]

Yeah, theft effects kinda suck, but doesnt removal fix this? Isnt Doom Blade the fix?

My LGS dont play too much theft I guess, So im not going to say it isnt a problem just because I dont have to deal with it, legit asking

I see a ton of all classes of this effect; everyone in both of my shops (in phx and PA) views Tree effects as autoinclude goodstuff, and almost every blue deck you see runs some sort of theft. Usually it's one of Blatant Thievery or Gilded Drake or Control Magic type.

Kenrith's Transformation is in 8% of EDHrec green decks, which is a rate of use higher than Necropotence and close to Gamble

(generally 8-10% on edhrec means you will see a card quite regularly in the wild)

[ISBPathfinder]

Kenrith's Transformation has like zero downside and its disruption. I have no idea how that card got printed that way. I don't understand how its not played in literally every deck that can play it its so busted.