Phasing Commanders and permanent removal

[pokken]

So I'll keep this pretty simple--I think we should probably close the phasing loophole now that more and more of these effects are being printed, e.g. Out of Time and Oubliette (being reprinted and generally available).

I'd propose a pretty simple "if your commander phases out you can put it in the command zone instead" - don't think there are any real gotchas there.

Feels like phasing is just going to slowly bring back the Tuck meta over time if we keep on keeping on.

Something to think about anywho

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Phasing is way more fair than tuck. Tuck basically forced players to either play/save tutors to avert total catastrophe or spend a large amount of slots on functional redundancy. Phasing is way easier to undo and is way less damaging to tempo if answered expediently.

Semi-permanent commander removal is necessitated by the rising tide of Legendary Creature powercreep. Phasing and transmutation effects are relatively clean and offer more counterplay than Oblation ever did.

[ISBPathfinder]

I don't think that phasing is specifically more of an issue than someone theft and transform. If we were to make an update to the rules I feel like I would want it to be one that can address all of these.

[pokken]

I don't think that phasing is specifically more of an issue than someone theft and transform. If we were to make an update to the rules I feel like I would want it to be one that can address all of these.

The nice part is that phasing has a much cleaner rule than theft/transform. we spent a lot of time trying to rules patch those effects and could not get a clear winner I don't think

[JovialJovian]

Tucking rose to prominence as a way to deal with extremely powerful commanders, and was done away with because it's SO powerful that it was bending the metagame away from commander-focused decks and toward general goodstuff. Getting a commander back from being tucked was extremely difficult for most decks.

Targeted phasing as removal is vastly less punishing, because all of the effects that can do it have been deliberately limited. I don't see any need to preemptively neuter phasing. If they start printing hyper aggressive phasing-based removal, then we can reconsider.

Semi-permanent commander removal is necessitated by the rising tide of Legendary Creature powercreep. Phasing and transmutation effects are relatively clean and offer more counterplay than Oblation ever did.

I'm pretty sure Oblation is a Village Rites variant that can sometimes act as emergency removal.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

@JovialJovian Oblation used to be premium tuck. Thank heavens it no longer wields such brutal power.

[3drinks]

I typically value and enjoy your contributions and philosophies, @pokken, but I don't get the problem here. Phasing conventionally buys a turn without the problem card, and they closed the indirect phasing loophole (good riddance, Reality Ripple on a Batterskull germ!) already. I don't see these three mv sorcery speed enchantments as problematic in any way. Three is a lot to spend on your own turn for single target removal, and phasing is situational as it is. It doesn't even re-proc ETB triggers. If Out of Time was problematic (I don't think it is), the solution would be to Eliminate it from the format, not remove an entire subsect of removal class, let alone because of a couple of rando enchantments. Do people not play disenchant|f03 effects anymore? Further, how are these any worse than, say, a Song of the Dryads or Darksteel Mutation? I'd argue the latter is actually harder to deal with. Or is this a you issue because you don't want to "lose slots" to playing general interaction?

I think this is a healthy conversation to have. Hope to continue it in this rare instance that I actually came into the "philosophy" subforum.

[pokken]

I typically value and enjoy your contributions and philosophies, @pokken, but I don't get the problem here. Phasing conventionally buys a turn without the problem card, and they closed the indirect phasing loophole (good riddance, Reality Ripple on a Batterskull germ!) already. I don't see these three mv sorcery speed enchantments as problematic in any way. Three is a lot to spend on your own turn for single target removal, and phasing is situational as it is. It doesn't even re-proc ETB triggers. If Out of Time was problematic (I don't think it is), the solution would be to Eliminate it from the format, not remove an entire subsect of removal class, let alone because of a couple of rando enchantments. Do people not play disenchant|f03 effects anymore? Further, how are these any worse than, say, a Song of the Dryads or Darksteel Mutation? I'd argue the latter is actually harder to deal with. Or is this a you issue because you don't want to "lose slots" to playing general interaction?

I think this is a healthy conversation to have. Hope to continue it in this rare instance that I actually came into the "philosophy" subforum.

Oubliette is probably the most egregious example, but Out of Time loops can be there too.

If your color doesn't have enchantment removal, your commander gets oublietted and it's gone forever.

I'm on record on my feeling on the tree effects, that they are problematic. Unfortunately that is hard to fix. Phasing is easy to fix, and easy to fix ahead of time as they add more phasing effects.

I do think that tree and theft loopholes for commanders should be closed, but they are very hard to close rules-wise.

[Dunadain]

I typically value and enjoy your contributions and philosophies, @pokken, but I don't get the problem here. Phasing conventionally buys a turn without the problem card, and they closed the indirect phasing loophole (good riddance, Reality Ripple on a Batterskull germ!) already. I don't see these three mv sorcery speed enchantments as problematic in any way. Three is a lot to spend on your own turn for single target removal, and phasing is situational as it is. It doesn't even re-proc ETB triggers. If Out of Time was problematic (I don't think it is), the solution would be to Eliminate it from the format, not remove an entire subsect of removal class, let alone because of a couple of rando enchantments. Do people not play disenchant|f03 effects anymore? Further, how are these any worse than, say, a Song of the Dryads or Darksteel Mutation? I'd argue the latter is actually harder to deal with. Or is this a you issue because you don't want to "lose slots" to playing general interaction?

I think this is a healthy conversation to have. Hope to continue it in this rare instance that I actually came into the "philosophy" subforum.

Oubliette is probably the most egregious example, but Out of Time loops can be there too.

If your color doesn't have enchantment removal, your commander gets oublietted and it's gone forever.

I'm on record on my feeling on the tree effects, that they are problematic. Unfortunately that is hard to fix. Phasing is easy to fix, and easy to fix ahead of time as they add more phasing effects.

I do think that tree and theft loopholes for commanders should be closed, but they are very hard to close rules-wise.

But what's the point of fixing phasing but not adressing the Song of the Dryads effects?

For the record, I disagree with this altogether and I think cards that encourage you to consider enchantment removal (and no color is truly dead to enchantments, some just have to play ridiculously expensive effects like karn), While also opening an alternative solution to commanders like Maelstrom Wanderer and Derevi, Empyrial Tactician other then kill them quickly, are a good thing. I also feel these effects are on a more appropriate interactivity level then tuck. Someone casts Hinder on your commander and counterspells (blue only, and only if you have it at the right time) and tutors (which some people prefer to avoid) are your only recourse. Someone casts Song of the Dryads and you can sac your commander in response, point a removal spell at your own commander, counter spells still work, and after it resolves you can either destroy the enchantment or the land that your commander turned into.

But even if these effects ARE bad for the game, what's the point of nerfing Oubliette and Out of Time when everyone will just play the other options then?

[pokken]

But even if these effects ARE bad for the game, what's the point of nerfing Oubliette and Out of Time when everyone will just play the other options then?

I'll invite you to read this parable that explains why you should fix what you can easily fix :D

One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed boy picking up and gently throwing things into the ocean.

Approaching the boy he asked, "Young man, what are you doing?"

"Throwing starfish back into the ocean. The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them back, they'll die," the boy replied.

The man laughed to himself and said, "Do you realize there are miles of miles of beach and hundreds of starfish? You can't make any difference."

After listening politely, the boy bent down to pick up another starfish and threw it into the surf. Then, he smiled at the man and said, "I made a difference to that one."

(Also it helps prevent the ability to get critical mass of permanent commander removal)

[Jemolk]

I also agree with the people saying that it's not really a problem. Every color has access to colorless permanent removal, and I think demanding that people be prepared to interact with the board is a good thing. Oubliette and Out of Time are very strong, but I don't think they present any real conceptual difficulties. Even mono-red decks can absolutely kill enchantments with the help of colorless artifacts, and every other color has its own options. In general, I'm happy to see phasing become more common again. It's a really cool mechanic with a number of really interesting use cases, both as removal and as protection. Also one of these days I'm going to include Spatial Binding in a deck and get someone, and it's going to be hilarious.

Meanwhile, for Song of the Dryads, I've seen people Strip Mine their own commanders to get them back into the command zone, and beyond that being really funny, I also think that something that encourages people to run single-target land destruction is a good thing due to the proliferation of strong utility lands. It's also not like any of these effects are actually bad when used against cards other than commanders, again somewhat unlike tuck. For example, I once had a Song of the Dryads on a Purphoros out of a Krenko deck, and when the Krenko deck found enchantment removal (because again, artifacts fill that gap) I Strip Mined the Purphoros. Funny stories like that, I think, are worth something. Considerably more than ensuring that the recasting of commanders faces absolutely minimal friction, in fact.

[DirkGently]

If they print something that phases out a card forever with no possibility to return, then we might have a problem. Until then, the enchantment removal you need to answer the other semi-permanent commander removal will do the job just fine.

Personally I think the worse loophole is the mindslaver loophole that can permanently exile your commander At least that's a categorically different thing.

[3drinks]

Wow did Dirk and I actually have the same take? It's a Festivus miracle!

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Wow did Dirk and I actually have the same take? It's a Festivus miracle!

It's kinda like a lunar eclipse. I don't see it every time it happens, but it always happens eventually.