[MCD] Wishes

[DirkGently]

We don't need sideboard checks. Anyone who is going to try to cheat at commander by switching sideboards around is too pathetic to deserve consideration in the rules.

as far as silver bullet answers, assuming that happens (and no one has provided any compelling evidence that it will imo), played correctly they shouldn't be locking some poor undeserving soul out of the game on turn 5. They might come up if someone has become the dominant threat. At which point, if you're not prepared to take the heat, I'd say that's your mistake, not the fault of wishes. The balancing effect of the format is one of its greatest strengths imo, not something to be feared.

[pokken]

We don't need sideboard checks. Anyone who is going to try to cheat at commander by switching sideboards around is too pathetic to deserve consideration in the rules.

as far as silver bullet answers, assuming that happens (and no one has provided any compelling evidence that it will imo), played correctly they shouldn't be locking some poor undeserving soul out of the game on turn 5. They might come up if someone has become the dominant threat. At which point, if you're not prepared to take the heat, I'd say that's your mistake, not the fault of wishes. The balancing effect of the format is one of its greatest strengths imo, not something to be feared.

I don't know that it'd be cheating though, really. You could tailor it per shop you go to, or tailor it per table you sit down at, and there's nothing illegal bout that because strictly speaking there're no rules about modifying your deck whenever you want in between games. I think wishboards would be effectively impossible to administer in a casual setting in a way that doesn't lead to serious feelbads.

The point is that, fundamentally, any limit that was large enough to add a lot of options would be functionally the same. You could have two different 7 card sideboards for different communities and it makes having 7 or 15 largely meaningless. I think that's a reason to take a super hard line on a very low number if you are pro-wishes.

regarding evidence on silver bullets: There's really no parallel except casual magic where people can play wishes if they want, but in casual magic the game is so much less formal than commander it's almost a meaningless comparison.

What we do know is that CEDH players will figure out what the best thing to be doing is, and that will influence what is done at lower levels. What is optimal will be known very quickly and become part of the consciousness of the community.

[DirkGently]

you can already do that with your mainboard and afaik nobody does that. Also idk why that would be worse than someone just plays in one meta and tunes their deck to combat the other strategies there. It's basically the same thing. I mean yeah if you wanna counter your meta nothing is stopping you, now or ever.

CEDH players will tune wishboards to combat the cEDH meta. This information will be useless to casual players even if they absorb it.

[pokken]

you can already do that with your mainboard and afaik nobody does that. Also idk why that would be worse than someone just plays in one meta and tunes their deck to combat the other strategies there. It's basically the same thing. I mean yeah if you wanna counter your meta nothing is stopping you, now or ever.

CEDH players will tune wishboards to combat the cEDH meta. This information will be useless to casual players even if they absorb it.

I think it's a lot harder to change cards in and out of a 100 card deck than in and out of a 7 card sideboard at least it is for me. I *have* seen people making changes between games but usually for general tuning purposes, but hell, there is literally nothing stopping you from having a hundred 7 card sideboards without having to mess with your main deck (other than to have a wish or two in it).

I will just disagree with you about the CEDH stuff. I have never had any trouble applying lessons from CEDH both in terms of card selection and deck construction. And I'm not alone. You can see how cantrips and cheap ramp have been adopted in greater rates over the years in casual decks pretty easily.

A CEDH wishboard would look a lot different from EDH wishboard but a lot of things would overlap; things like playing an extra sweeper, bomb, and targeted hate. Torpor Orb is a really good example of a card that would overlap, and Scavenger Grounds another. There'd wind up being templates very quickly.

[Hermes_]

If you wish to get a greater source of comments and actual interaction with members of the RC and CAG https://discord.gg/commander

[DirkGently]

Easier physically sure, but I think the vast majority of commander players have no interest in countering their local meta. Even if they 1) they play in multiple metas 2) want to meta-counter 3) are lazy, they can just have different decks tuned to different metas? And those 3 qualifiers mean we're probably talking about an infinitesimal fraction of the format. And again, all that aside, I don't see why this is different than someone who plays in one meta tuning their deck to that meta. Which doesn't really happen to an egregious degree despite requiring way fewer qualifiers.

Wow, cEDHers will teach us to play a bomb in the wishboard. Where would we be without their incredible insight?

Cantrips and ramp are internal to your own deck. Silver bullet answers are external. Someone playing Chalice of the Void or Trinisphere to counter specific cedh strats is going to look pretty stupid shoved into a wishboard of a casual deck, especially since wishboard targets have to consider the deck it's in as well as the meta, both of which are wildly different.

Maybe by 15 cards you can get a reasonable hit rate on narrow answers but not at 7 and definitely not at 3. Keep in mind it's not just "someone at this table is affected by the bullet" but "the person in the lead is effected by the bullet." In a format this diverse it's a bad strategy. And if someone gets rekt every once in a while for playing an overrepresented archetype, serves 'em right I say.

[pokken]

If you wish to get a greater source of comments and actual interaction with members of the RC and CAG https://discord.gg/commander

I just am incredibly thankful they have just hard no'd this one enough times it's probably not changing

[Hermes_]

If you wish to get a greater source of comments and actual interaction with members of the RC and CAG https://discord.gg/commander

I just am incredibly thankful they have just hard no'd this one enough times it's probably not changing

Sheldon has said if there's an actually NEW argument,he's willing to listen

[onering]

"as far as silver bullet answers, assuming that happens (and no one has provided any compelling evidence that it will imo)"

And there hasn't been any compelling evidence that it won't either. So long as its mostly hypothetical, with both sides being able to produce some scant anecdotal evidence in their favor, there's no need to mention this. Whether you want to admit it or not, you're using conjecture as much as pokken is. And both of you make logical points.

One way wishes would be different than just making changes to a deck between games, or based on who you see at the store and knowing the meta, is that by simply running the wish you are being intentional about wanting to do that. You put a wish in your deck to serve as a modal card that allows you to flexibly grab what you need from a mix of answers and a fallback generically good card. Its inefficient, and so for it to be worthwhile it needs to not be dead. You don't want to keep your wish in your deck if (in a 3 wishes board) your two answers would be useless against the people who showed up for game night, so you'd either want to swap the wish out for the generically good card or swap in another wish board. Because you've dedicated a deck slot to the effect, you're more likely to do things to ensure its relevant. Its also a lot faster and less obnoxious to swap out one wish board for another compared to going through your whole deck to swap out a couple of main decked pieces of hate, or to figure out what to cut to swap in targeted hate.

As far as it being much of a problem, it would depend on what the wish rule actually looked like once ported to commander. The smaller the wishboard, the clunkier swapping out wishboards becomes. Its relatively easy to cover all your bases by having two 7 card wishboards and swapping depending on who you see at the store, but crafting enough 3 card boards to effectively cover all your bases would be a lot more cumbersome, and keeping track of them even more so, and you're still likely to end up in scenarios where there's no right answer for which board to run. Then you have to keep track of which wish boards have what colors and so can or can't be used in what decks, and it becomes more of a pain in the ass than its worth.

I think the easy way to solve the potential problem is to tie wish boards to decks. Make them 3 additional cards beyond the 99, your commander, and a companion that are part of your deck and just start outside the game. This also neatly clears up any confusion newer players might have about whether they can run second copies of cards in a wish board. If its not considered part of the deck, that's ambiguous, but if its part of the deck it intuitively has to follow all deckbuilding rules. The unfortunate effect is that this may create the impression that such boards are required, but the presence of wishes in the format might do that anyway. There are plenty of things that show up in games of commander that let you cast or copy an opponents spells, and you don't want to blank when you cast an opponent's wish, so even if you don't plan on wishing you might as well through in a few generically good cards that didn't make the 99 just in case.

[DirkGently]

And there hasn't been any compelling evidence that it won't either. So long as its mostly hypothetical, with both sides being able to produce some scant anecdotal evidence in their favor, there's no need to mention this.

Except that I'm arguing for a method that would result in acquiring evidence - start with the most restrictive reasonable policy with 3 wishes and see what happens. If they become a problem somehow (which is incredibly unlikely with only 3 wish targets), I'd be happy to concede the point. The anti-wishers want to assume the worst possible result and then claim victory by avoiding ever investigating the claim.

Anyway, just because we don't currently have any direct evidence, we don't have to completely throw up our hands, we can look to similar situations to draw inferences. While both sides attempt to justify their opinions based on examples from similar situations, I obviously think all the anti-wish examples are bad and not properly analogous (and/or are assuming unlimited wishboards or something else I don't support).

One way wishes would be different than just making changes to a deck between games, or based on who you see at the store and knowing the meta, is that by simply running the wish you are being intentional about wanting to do that.

That's assuming that people are putting in narrow answers. I don't think that's remotely a forgone conclusion.

You put a wish in your deck to serve as a modal card that allows you to flexibly grab what you need from a mix of answers and a fallback generically good card.

There are a multitude of ways you might use a wish. I could create plenty of ways to use a wish where none of them would be answers at all, but instead proactive cards that depend on what stage of your game plan you're on.

I'll give you a (I think quite plausible) example. You're playing Wort, the Raidmother - maybe you want ramp to set up, maybe you want token production to copy more spells, or maybe you want a big X burn spell finisher to win. All sorceries fetched off your Burning Wish.

You don't want to keep your wish in your deck if (in a 3 wishes board) your two answers would be useless against the people who showed up for game night, so you'd either want to swap the wish out for the generically good card or swap in another wish board.

I really wonder if you've actually played at an LGS to make statements like this. I have never in my life seen anyone swapping cards around to counter the LGS meta. For one thing, most people have a least a couple different decks they might pull out, so even if you knew exactly who you were playing against, you still wouldn't know which decks you were playing against. Plus it's not like people are going to play the same decks at the same time, so if the counter to Billy's deck is in wishboard A and the counter to Bob's deck is in wishboard B and the counter to Jimmy's deck is in wishboard C, are you swapping the whole thing around every game? And nobody is going to notice that you do this only after everyone has their commanders face-up on the table? Logistically I can't even imagine how this would work. And frankly, speaking as a min-maxer, nobody min-maxes this hard. It would be beyond pathetic.

I know this is kind of an intuitive response, but I really can't imagine anyone doing this and I think assuming anyone will is peak fearmongering nonsense. It's not even relevant because someone could do the same thing in a closed, non-LGS group without needing to switch wishboards at all, but I think proposing it like it's a real concern makes the whole anti-wish position look significantly more detached from reality.

Because you've dedicated a deck slot to the effect, you're more likely to do things to ensure its relevant.

Yes, like play generic answers that are unlikely to be dead. Which is fine and not problematic and (imo) much more likely. If I Burning Wish for Vindicate, is anyone bothered by this sequence?

I'm sure some people will include perhaps 1-2 narrower answers against decks that are (1) overrepresented (2) frequently dominant or (3) unfun. I think hating on those things is fine. People should encounter more resistance when playing decks within those categories. For how much some antiwishers complain about certain decks you'd think they'd be thrilled about being able to wish a Pithing Needle out versus Derevi etc etc.

As far as it being much of a problem, it would depend on what the wish rule actually looked like once ported to commander. The smaller the wishboard, the clunkier swapping out wishboards becomes. Its relatively easy to cover all your bases by having two 7 card wishboards and swapping depending on who you see at the store, but crafting enough 3 card boards to effectively cover all your bases would be a lot more cumbersome, and keeping track of them even more so, and you're still likely to end up in scenarios where there's no right answer for which board to run. Then you have to keep track of which wish boards have what colors and so can or can't be used in what decks, and it becomes more of a pain in the ass than its worth.

You think two seven card wishboards is enough to cover every possible combination of major archetypes against 3 opponents? Are you positive you've played this format before?

Whatever, it doesn't matter, I only want 3 anyway. I'll take some deep breaths.

I think the easy way to solve the potential problem is to tie wish boards to decks.

Is that not obviously how it works? Has anyone suggested anything else?

There are plenty of things that show up in games of commander that let you cast or copy an opponents spells, and you don't want to blank when you cast an opponent's wish, so even if you don't plan on wishing you might as well through in a few generically good cards that didn't make the 99 just in case.

If you aren't running any forks I don't see why you'd bother (or even if you are tbh, you can probably find a better spell to copy than a wish). A lot of the wishes are type-specific so you'd have to get pretty lucky with only 3 targets, and there'd be no room for niche answers that's for damn sure.

I'm sure some super-nerds will do it just in case but 99.9% of the format is going to roll their eyes every time those people explain why they've made a wishboard for a deck without wishes. And they will explain it even though nobody asked, even if they've already explained it to the same people before, 100% guaranteed. Because getting a smug sense of superiority for doing the "technically correct" thing is the only actual value they're ever going to get out of their stupid wishless wishboard.

[pokken]

I think that in order for wishboards to ever be fair the cards must live in the command zone and be revealed. That's the only way I can think of to make it both fair, require no policing, and reduce the power compared to other formats that have to sacrifice sideboard slots. And most importantly revealing by default enables the social contract.

I never want to find out after wasting my time playing with someone that they are the type of jerk to run Flashfires in their wishboard.

[onering]

Dirk, you're a dick. I'm not even going to address any of your "points", which amount to just being a dismissive ass, or which have been repeatedly answered before. Keep in mind, this is how you respond to someone who mostly agrees with you, and was arguing how 3 wishes gets around most potential problems.

[DirkGently]

I think that in order for wishboards to ever be fair the cards must live in the command zone and be revealed. That's the only way I can think of to make it both fair, require no policing, and reduce the power compared to other formats that have to sacrifice sideboard slots. And most importantly revealing by default enables the social contract.

I never want to find out after wasting my time playing with someone that they are the type of jerk to run Flashfires in their wishboard.

I don't really have a problem with this implementation, although I also think the flashfires possibility is probably a lot less likely than playing against someone only to find out they're running Ruination in the main, which we currently don't have any method for forcing them to confess to. Or any other obnoxious crap.

Dirk, you're a dick. I'm not even going to address any of your "points", which amount to just being a dismissive ass, or which have been repeatedly answered before. Keep in mind, this is how you respond to someone who mostly agrees with you, and was arguing how 3 wishes gets around most potential problems.

Man, this really is a no fun zone isn't it? Every one of my epic zingers was directed at the arguments, not at people, with the exception of "Are you positive you've played this format before?" which I'd consider a pretty gentle joke (obviously I don't actually think you haven't played the format before, but I think you maybe haven't thought through the plausibility of this proposed strategy in concrete terms). In return, I personally am branded a "dick" and a "dismissive ass". I don't want this to degrade into a flame war any more than anyone else, but I don't feel like I'm in instigator here. I think there's room for arguing your position with a little colorful language to liven up the arguments without just insulting someone, a courtesy not extended to me.

[Legend]

The functionality of an effect should be consistent throughout the game, not just within a format. The game isn't called Commander the Gathering. It's Magic the Gathering.

I agree, but the RC is powerless to make that happen. Your desired outcome is actually a strong showing of this: you would have wishes be unrestricted in casual and non-functional in sanctioned. But the vast, vast, vastvastvast, vast, vaaaaast majority of wish usage in Magic: the Gathering happens in competitive constructed events, which use sideboards as the available targets for wishes. So while you can argue that you're going to simplify things by letting the rules of Magic dictate the rules of commander, it would actually create a situation where a single player has to be mindful of 3 sets of rules for the same card. A lot of people who play Magic competitively play commander casually, which would give them one set of rules for standard/modern/etc, then a second set of rules if they try to play a sanctioned commander event, and a 3rd set of rules for purely casual commander games. Do you see yet why the fault here is with Wizards?

I agree here, and acknowledge in the OP, that Wizards made a mess of WISHING from 1994-2009, from which time the rule for WISHING in Magic has remained unchanged. And during which time there has emerged zero evidence that it's problematic in any way. But can you not see that the functionality of Companion and Venture into the Dungeon in Commander contradict what you're saying? You may recall that Papa_funk, earlier in this thread, stated that they "decided that defining outside the game as containing nothing was the cleanest solution". That argument doesn't hold water anymore seeing as how it's full of Companions and Dungeons. You said elsewhere in this thread that Wizards should create a WISH zone. Okay, while I don't exactly agree, I do think that since outside the game is design space that they intend to explore and they're also intent on maintaining several alternate formats, they should come up with a clear explanation of the what's and why's for the zone of contention. EDIT: I don't agree that the RC is powerless in this regard. They have personal, direct ties to Wizards, one RC member has been a high profile Wizards employee for 20 years.

Sheldon has said if there's an actually NEW argument,he's willing to listen

There's a couple in the OP, but this one's my favorite.

You can't ban a mechanic. That makes no sense at all. — Sheldon Menery, The Spike Feeders, Episode 14, 28:05

[onering]

Man, this really is a no fun zone isn't it? Every one of my epic zingers was directed at the arguments, not at people, with the exception of "Are you positive you've played this format before?" which I'd consider a pretty gentle joke (obviously I don't actually think you haven't played the format before, but I think you maybe haven't thought through the plausibility of this proposed strategy in concrete terms). In return, I personally am branded a "dick" and a "dismissive ass". I don't want this to degrade into a flame war any more than anyone else, but I don't feel like I'm in instigator here. I think there's room for arguing your position with a little colorful language to liven up the arguments without just insulting someone, a courtesy not extended to me.

Spoiler alert: You are the instigator, and you repeatedly do this. Its not just "colorful language", you degrade posts you disagree with (or in my case, think you disagree with because you didn't understand what I was saying) and then get defensive when its pointed out. Your arguments shouldn't need you belittling the positions and experiences of others to work, but so often they do. Your post was full of the "smug sense of superiority" you derided, without the benefit of even being technically correct.


But let's move on from that, and I hope you finally will. This thread is less than worthless so long as we keep rehashing the same %$#%$#% we've been discussing for the past 2 years. The RC is unequivocal in their stance UNLESS new arguments are presented (and even then probably won't move). I've repeatedly agreed with you that your 3 wishes proposal is a good idea, and even have said that it would probably be ok to expand to 4 or 5. What I have been trying to do since this thread was unlocked was move the conversation forward so it can actually be constructive. There is no point whatsoever at rehashing why its a good idea or that it should be implemented on a trial basis, so what's next? Well, either figure out a new argument that could get the RC to buy in on that experiment, or lacking that figure out how to ensure its success. Since the RC is clearly skeptical about wishes, and in the past has used complications in player understanding of the rule as a reason for keeping them banned, then logically we should be examining every objection and seeing what can be done to make them irrelevant in practice. Dismissing those objections as unlikely, or not yet borne out through experimentation, or not representative of the average LGS experience (or your personal experience, lets be honest here) is useless. It serves no purpose other than to be dismissive of the person's concerns and experiences.

Let's assume all of pokken's objections are unlikely to play out in a significant way, and become uncommon experiences. Those will be used by the RC to declare the experiment a failure. The RC isn't going to hear anything from the playgroups that never adopt wishes, and will hear little from the people that use wishes in fun and fair ways, but they'll hear all about people's bad experiences because people love to complain, especially when what they are complaining about has just been introduced for a period of probation with its future legality to be determined based on player experience. If you want it to stick around, you need to focus on creating the rule to minimize these negative experiences so even with them being disproportionately represented in the messages the RC gets they'll be minimal enough to not sway them.

There are lots of smaller LGSes where you can cover all of your bases with a couple 7 card sideboards because there are only like 12 regulars and each only has 1 or 2 decks you'd want to sideboard something against that this scenario will happen enough for the RC to hear from people pissed about it. There are enough people who will rules lawyer in their favor that its worthwhile to ensure the rules are clearly spelled out. Should it be obvious that you can't wish for a card that's already in your deck? Yes, but unless its clearly stated, either directly or from the wishboard being defined as part of the deck, then you will have people arguing they should be able to, and that means you'll have people sharing their frustrations about it with the RC. You can say "eh, doesn't seem likely, we shouldn't worry about it" all you want, but the RC clearly doesn't work that way.

Good rules are idiot proof, asshole proof, and future proof to the extent that can be reasonably attained. Don't leave any ambiguity, even if most people will intuitively understand it anyway, because enough people won't and enough people will try to take advantage of the ambiguity that it will be a problem. Ensure that the rule proposed doesn't just work for the current situation, but will continue to work as the situation evolves. That's a big reason I'm for having a wish board separate from a lesson board. I can see lessons as something that comes back, and even though most of the time you'd only need 3 right now (even though that counter intuitively means you wouldn't be able to through together a super casual learn deck with more than 3 learn cards), that won't necessarily hold true in the future. Learn/Lesson is a pretty cool mechanic that was a lot of fun in limited and held back only by the relative weakness of most of the cards when it comes to constructed. I could absolutely see a commander theme deck being released around Learn/Lessons if they worked in the format. Having a space for these separate from a wish board, or carving it out even if the RC still opposes wishes allows for future development of the mechanic and precludes needing to update the rule if it happens. It also allows you to run both Learn/Lesson spells and a wish without them competing for space.

I rambled on for longer than I meant to, but basically your attitude and approach aren't helping your position at all, and remember that I'm saying this as someone who wants the RC to adopt the 3 wishes rule. Don't dismiss objections, because the RC won't. Figure out how to solve them. If all we're doing is rehashing 2 year old positions, there was no reason to unlock the thread.

[DirkGently]

Spoiler alert: You are the instigator, and you repeatedly do this. Its not just "colorful language", you degrade posts you disagree with (or in my case, think you disagree with because you didn't understand what I was saying) and then get defensive when its pointed out. Your arguments shouldn't need you belittling the positions and experiences of others to work, but so often they do. Your post was full of the "smug sense of superiority" you derided, without the benefit of even being technically correct.

Posts don't have feelings. Positions don't have feelings. People have feelings. Bald-facedly Insulting a person because you disagree with their arguments is not ok in my book. Criticize my arguments as harshly as you want, but insulting me is completely uncalled for, and I think I deserve an apology.

But let's move on from that, and I hope you finally will.

No, sorry, I'm not going to just "move on" from you insulting me in a forum that's supposed to be about discussing ideas.

This thread is less than worthless so long as we keep rehashing the same %$#%$#% we've been discussing for the past 2 years.

It's absolutely worthless if we stop discussing ideas and instead just start insulting each other.

There is (to my knowledge) a new (anti-wish) argument being proposed, which is the hypothetical of someone having multiple sideboards and picking which one to use based on who is playing. I don't believe this has been argued before, I could be wrong. I think I've already illustrated pretty clearly why I think it's a nonissue, and haven't heard any practical illustration of how it might work, but to further illustrate my point, here is a list of popular archetypes that I see frequently.

Artifacts
lifegain
equipment/voltron
aristocrats/sacrifice
+1 counters
wheels
spellslinger
lands
tokens
enchantments
superfriends
voltron
graveyard
mill
toughness matters
discard
land ramp
artifact ramp
blink/etb
chaos
group hug
stax
draw-go
burn
goodstuff
zombies
goblins
elves
merfolk
soldiers
knights
spirits
vampires
dragons
cats
...and on and on and on.

Our format has incredible diversity and that's a great thing. It also means that trying to fill a wishboard with niche answers is really not going to be practical, whether it's 3 cards or probably even 15 cards (by 15 maybe you can get semi-decent coverage since some archetypes overlap a bit - but mostly I think it'd just be tedious to make that big of a wishboard so I don't want it). But even with 7 cards it's difficult to have a reasonable hit rate. Anyone who tries it will most likely realize how rarely they're using their niche answers and pivot to using more flexible (and less harsh) answers.

I've repeatedly agreed with you that your 3 wishes proposal is a good idea, and even have said that it would probably be ok to expand to 4 or 5.

I'm glad you agree with me on that particular implementation, but I'm still going to call out bad arguments. In part because I think the proposal "we should do 3-card wishes, but if we do 7 cards people are going to be swapping around wishboards to perfectly counter every deck they play against" makes it sound much more dangerous than it actually is. It also means that, if the RC was considering 7 card wishboards to align with arena, it could scare them off it if given credence. My position isn't simply "3 card wishboards would be acceptable despite being risky", it's "most fixed-sized wishboards would most likely be fine, however just to be extra extra extra safe we'll do 3 cards, mostly to placate people who are nervous."

I think at 7 cards people running a single wish will probably include a couple niche answers against particularly hated decks (which I personally think is fine, but that is 100% opinion and you're free to disagree). 7 modes is a lot for a single card, so eventually you will likely be best-served by including rarely-used, high-impact cards. However, if you're running multiple cards - say a lesson and a wish - 7 spots is pretty reasonable, potentially still fairly restrictive. For that reason, I think 7 may well be desirable once people get more used to including wishes in their decks, even if 3 is the best safe rollout plan to test the waters.

What I have been trying to do since this thread was unlocked was move the conversation forward so it can actually be constructive. There is no point whatsoever at rehashing why its a good idea or that it should be implemented on a trial basis, so what's next? Well, either figure out a new argument that could get the RC to buy in on that experiment, or lacking that figure out how to ensure its success. Since the RC is clearly skeptical about wishes, and in the past has used complications in player understanding of the rule as a reason for keeping them banned, then logically we should be examining every objection and seeing what can be done to make them irrelevant in practice. Dismissing those objections as unlikely, or not yet borne out through experimentation, or not representative of the average LGS experience (or your personal experience, lets be honest here) is useless. It serves no purpose other than to be dismissive of the person's concerns and experiences.

When it comes to the switching-around-sideboards possibility, I firmly believe that anyone who thinks through how it could actually be done in practice will quickly realize that the concern is unfounded.

We shouldn't give credence to every possible objection, no matter how unlikely. If someone says "I think that if we allow wishes, that people will create custom cards and wish for them", I'm not going to worry about amending the proposed rules in order to mitigate that worry, because it's not a reasonable worry.

Which anti-wish argument is based on "experience" and not a purely hypothetical "concern" in your view?

Let's assume all of pokken's objections are unlikely to play out in a significant way, and become uncommon experiences. Those will be used by the RC to declare the experiment a failure. The RC isn't going to hear anything from the playgroups that never adopt wishes, and will hear little from the people that use wishes in fun and fair ways, but they'll hear all about people's bad experiences because people love to complain, especially when what they are complaining about has just been introduced for a period of probation with its future legality to be determined based on player experience. If you want it to stick around, you need to focus on creating the rule to minimize these negative experiences so even with them being disproportionately represented in the messages the RC gets they'll be minimal enough to not sway them.

I suppose that's fair, but I still think we should focus on concerns that pass the smell test. I don't have a problem with saying "wishboards are tied to decks" (except that it's a bit clunky) but I think everyone would have assumed that without saying it. "Each deck may have up to a 3-card wishboard" I think essentially implies it. I'd have a hard time phrasing the rule in a way that didn't imply it.

People do change around cards in the main between games if they're testing stuff out, so switching things in/out of the sideboard based on performance is also fair, we're not trying to register decks. Of course doing it to intentionally target one of the decks you're playing against next would be scummy, but I can't imagine how you'd do that in a way that wouldn't be extremely obvious, if not immediately then in fairly short order.

I don't hate the face-up idea, but come to think of it I'd also prefer my opponents showed me ~10 random cards from their decks so I could better anticipate their power levels and degree of %$#%$#%. Maybe we should normalize that process. I do think following the normal rules unless we have good reason not to, though, is the best policy.

There are lots of smaller LGSes where you can cover all of your bases with a couple 7 card sideboards because there are only like 12 regulars and each only has 1 or 2 decks you'd want to sideboard something against that this scenario will happen enough for the RC to hear from people pissed about it.

Does anyone play in a meta where this is true? I've played in a lot of places, and one common factor I've seen is that most people who have strong decks have a lot of decks, though you only need 2 to put a major dent in this plan. You might be able to select a wishboard to wreck the dude who only has the one precon, but probably not the strong players. Besides, wouldn't anyone get kinda suspicious that this guy always has the sideboard tech against every deck at the table?

But let's assume there are 12 different players who each only has one deck you want to board against, and you have a 7-card wishboard where you're using 6 slots for narrow answers. You would need (by my math which is a bit rusty) at least 11 wishboards. And that's a nearly ideal scenario. If a couple players have 2 decks each, it's quickly going to become impossible.

I think a much more plausible scenario would be someone who only plays in a closed group of very casual, insulated players. The sort of thing my sister's boyfriend did for a while, where him and his roommates bought a precon each and a couple packs to modify them. In that circumstance, it'd be super easy to have a wishboard targeted to your opponents. However, it'd also be super easy to have a mainboard targeted to your opponents. I haven't played in a group like that for a very long time, so I'll admit ignorance on this point. But I don't suspect that people tend to tailor their decks to counter their local meta (to some degree it's natural to adapt to your meta, but not running hard counters to specific archetypes). Back when I did play in that sort of meta, we never had problems like that. I suspect that's primarily because it's lame and not fun, which I would also expect to keep other hypothetical wishboard shenanigans in check.

Cheating is not a problem I've seen in commander, or magic in general, and I think most everyone can agree that switching cards (main or board) based on the matchup would be cheating.

There are enough people who will rules lawyer in their favor that its worthwhile to ensure the rules are clearly spelled out. Should it be obvious that you can't wish for a card that's already in your deck? Yes, but unless its clearly stated, either directly or from the wishboard being defined as part of the deck, then you will have people arguing they should be able to, and that means you'll have people sharing their frustrations about it with the RC. You can say "eh, doesn't seem likely, we shouldn't worry about it" all you want, but the RC clearly doesn't work that way.

By the letter of the law I don't think it would be possible to prevent. We don't register decklists. Even with wishboards tied to decks in the strictest possible language, someone could pretend that they've just suddenly decided that X card is underperforming and decide what they really need is Y narrow hoser, and there's really no way to prove they're lying. But they could do that for mainboard too and I've never seen that happen so I don't think it's a reasonable concern.

But w/e, if you're doing the legwork to run a test and think it's worth being super explicit about boards being attached to decks, then do as you see fit. My opinion is that it's unnecessary complication but I guess it doesn't hurt anything.

Good rules are idiot proof, asshole proof, and future proof to the extent that can be reasonably attained.

That's not true of the rules of commander at large. Why should this rule be held to such a stricter standard than the rest of the format?

Don't leave any ambiguity, even if most people will intuitively understand it anyway, because enough people won't and enough people will try to take advantage of the ambiguity that it will be a problem.

I could more plausibly see the concern if sideboards weren't already part of other formats. I think everyone who has played magic knows how sideboards work, and that you can't just swap them around as you please. But it's definitely a minor point, hardly worth disagreeing with. If you're writing the rule, write it how you want.

That's a big reason I'm for having a wish board separate from a lesson board.

I think that makes it less future-proof tbh. What about the next "learn"? Do we have to add a new zone every time there's a new sideboard-based mechanic? It just seems clunky to me.

I can see lessons as something that comes back, and even though most of the time you'd only need 3 right now (even though that counter intuitively means you wouldn't be able to through together a super casual learn deck with more than 3 learn cards), that won't necessarily hold true in the future. Learn/Lesson is a pretty cool mechanic that was a lot of fun in limited and held back only by the relative weakness of most of the cards when it comes to constructed.

I agree, although didn't divide by zero get banned? So I assume that card, at least, must have been fairly strong in standard? Idk if any others get played, I don't do standard.

I could absolutely see a commander theme deck being released around Learn/Lessons if they worked in the format.

That is definitely a possibility that would incentivize having a bigger space for cards. But I think starting with 3 and ramping up from there (if everything seems copasetic) is the best approach personally. If we get large enough that such a deck could work without having adverse consequences, then great. But idk that I'd want to make a whole new zone just to allow that possibility. Maybe if there was a way it could be worded that would make it more extensible for other mechanics that could be worth the rules overhead? I can't think of a way to do that without it being pretty clunky though.

I rambled on for longer than I meant to, but basically your attitude and approach aren't helping your position at all, and remember that I'm saying this as someone who wants the RC to adopt the 3 wishes rule.

Just because we agree on one point doesn't mean we're completely in agreement. That's fine, of course. I'm happy to hash out disagreements.

I'm sorry you don't like my approach to doing that, but I don't think it gives you the right to insult me.

Don't dismiss objections, because the RC won't.

I don't dismiss reasonable objections. That doesn't mean I should give oxygen to every possible objection. That's a recipe for spooking the RC even more, by making it seem like we're dodging a hailstorm of bullets.

Commander is extremely breakable as a format, with or without wishes. Despite that, it's still a lot of fun, because most people are considerate of other people and are looking for a similar type of experience. That's the glue that's held the format together since its inception. I don't see why we'd give people the benefit of the doubt in the core rules of the format, but then immediately assume the worst when talking about wishes.

If all we're doing is rehashing 2 year old positions, there was no reason to unlock the thread.

Again, I think the wishboard switching (swishboarding?) is a new argument. I'm mostly not engaging with old arguments because they're boring.

[Legend]

I think color-hosers should be banned. They also happen to be the only silver-bullets that matter.

15. Wishing and Hosing

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The idea that a new player might put a color-hoser into their deck and then feel bad when they find out it's banned is shall we say, nugatory (thanks thesaurus.com!), but actually gains meaning when applied to the player who puts a WISH into their deck – or worse who constructs a Learning/Lesson theme deck – only to find out that it doesn't function due to a rule that has nothing to do with deck construction. Besides, new players tend to have new cards, so which one is more likely, a 15-year-old player putting a 25-year-old Tsunami into their deck or that same player putting a 15-week-old Wish into it?

The very term "WISH' is a bit of a misleading misnomer, isnt' it? It fills our heads with fears of unlimited power, when in reality that isn't the case at all. You can't actually have anything your heart desires, especially in Commander where a given WISH isn't just limited to what type of card it can WISH for, but is also limited to what color and name of card it can WISH for because of comprehensive rule 903.10. For convenience, here's a readout of how every color-hoser corresponds with a WISH.

Coax from the Blind Eternities, Research // Development, Ring of Ma'rûf, The Raven's Warning, and Spawnsire of Ulamog aren't listed because none of them pose a threat by extension of color-hosers and never will because Wizards of the Coast no longer prints color-hosers.

Wish, Death Wish, Mastermind's Acquisition, The Raven's Warning, Research // Development, and Ring of Ma'rûf aren't listed because obviously they can WISH for any card within the limits of comprehensive rule 903.10.

Fae of Wishes // Granted can WISH for any noncreature card, however also within the limits of comprehensive rule 903.10.

Burning Wish can WISH for:

Decklist

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

1 Acid Rain

1 Anarchy

1 Boiling Seas

1 Flashfires

1 Martyr's Cry

1 Nature's Ruin

1 Perish

1 Reign of Terror

1 Stench of Evil

1 Tsunami

1 Typhoon

1 Virtue's Ruin

1 Volcanic Eruption

Approximate Total Cost:

Golden Wish can WISH for:

Decklist

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Chill

1 Choke

1 Conversion

1 Curse of Marit Lage

1 Dread of Night

1 Drought

1 Elephant Grass

1 Flooded Woodlands

1 Glaciers

1 Gloom

1 Karma

1 Light of Day

1 Magistrate's Veto

1 Magnetic Mountain

1 Monsoon

1 Reclamation

1 Thelon's Curse

1 Wrath of Marit Lage

Approximate Total Cost:

Cunning Wish can WISH for:

Decklist

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

1 Hibernation

1 Boil

1 Omen of Fire

Approximate Total Cost:

Living Wish and Vivien, Arkbow Ranger can WISH for:

Decklist

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress

1 Major Teroh

Approximate Total Cost:

Glittering Wish can WISH for:

Decklist

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

1 Flooded Woodlands

1 Glaciers

1 Reclamation

Approximate Total Cost:

Karn, the Great Creator can WISH for:

Decklist

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

1 Mycosynth Lattice

Approximate Total Cost:

PROBABLE BANS focusing on color-hosers

• Acid Rain
• Anarchy
• Boiling Seas
• Choke
• Conversion
• Curse of Marit Lage
• Drought
• Flashfires
• Flooded Woodlands
• Glaciers
• Glaciers
• Karma
• Karn, the Great Creator
• Light of Day
• Llawan, Cephalid Empress
• Martyr's Cry
• Nature's Ruin
• Perish
• Reclamation
• Reclamation
• Reign of Terror
• Stench of Evil
• Tsunami
• Virtue's Ruin
• Wrath of Marit Lage

ALTERNATIVE BANS focusing on WISHES

• Burning Wish
• Burning Wish
• Death Wish
• Fae of Wishes // Granted
• Glittering Wish
• Golden Wish
• Karn, the Great Creator
• Mastermind's Acquisition
• Wish

Nobody wants to hate monocolered decks out of the format, with or without WISHING, but as long as color-hosers remain legal in the format, the possibility looms, again with or without WISHING. The cards that come into question are those with the likelihood of making a deck irrelevant simply because that deck is only one color. The problem with these cards isn't actually their (narrow) effectiveness. It's that they cross a line from interacting with a strategy to invalidating a person by attacking the most emotionally resonant aspect of Magic – mana color.

Fortunately, Wizards of the Cost doesn't print color-hosers anymore. The vast majority of color-hosers were printed by 1997, at which point Wizards of the Coast greatly slowed down printing them until they stopped in 2002 and then stopped reprinting the remaining two of them altogether in 2005. A year after they stopped reprinting color-hosers, they started printing WISHES again and are now up to 53 black-bordered cards that utilize outside the game compared to the 25 egregious color-hosers. And Wizards of the Coast shows no signs of slowing down. Meanwhile, not a single color-hoser has been printed or reprinted in 17 years (other than masterpiece Boil). So, ask yourself, who's the real culprit here?

So, even though the alternative bans list is shorter, the probable bans list is the better option in the long run because:
A. It's full of cards that go against the spirit of the format.
B. Color-hosers don't get played in the format now and therefore won't be missed.
C. The probable bans list is finite and fixed because Wizards of the Coast no longer prints color-hosers whereas the alternative bans list would grow indefinitely.
D. WISHING is fun, color-hosing is not.

[Hermes_]

Sheldon has said if there's an actually NEW argument,he's willing to listen

There's a couple in the OP, but this one's my favorite.

You can't ban a mechanic. That makes no sense at all. — Sheldon Menery, The Spike Feeders, Episode 14, 28:05

I'm sure you and Sheldon see the comment differently. But by all means, hop on the discord and see what happens.

[pokken]

Criticize my arguments as harshly as you want,

You and I have had this out a bunch of times, and this will probably the the last time I bother but maybe it will help. When you call someone's idea stupid there is an implicit attack on the person there. There is a distinction between "this idea is dumb" and "Here are the reasons I think this idea is incorrect." Adding the value judgments just isn't useful for discourse.

To give you a specific example:

peak fear-mongering nonsense

So this is a criticism of the idea that someone would assume people might change up their wishboards. You're talking about the idea, so you're all good right?

Nope. Walk one step through the implications here. Think about calling something someone says 'fear-mongering' means - you're accusing @onering fear-mongering. That's a personal attack.

---

re: swishboarding

1) it does not follow that what is done with decks will be done for wishboards. they are different. I expect people will change their wishboards *all the time* for reasons, and share cards between all their decks' wishboards because it's simply too costly to dedicate a bunch of extra cards to every deck.

2) while I generally agree that it is the exception for people to change their decks up specifically based on who is there:

a) have literally seen people slot in cards based on who they are playing against on enough occasions that it sticks out. I would guess this is like, a tiny subset of players -- maybe 1 in 20 games I spot someone swapping cards?

b) I have absolutely seen people tweaking decks in between games on a regular basis.

c) It is nearly constant - one in every 3 games maybe? - that I see someone say "oh, so and so is playing, let me play this other deck." People are definitely aware of what people are playing and make some choices based on it.

[BeneTleilax]

I think everyone who has played magic knows how sideboards work

False. I know a fair number of casual guys, either folks who moved from 60-card casual to EDH or newer players who picked up EDH, who do not understand sideboarding/sideboards. I've also known people who've played for years, and just never did tournaments that required sideboards as a zone. If the RC allowed wishboards, they would have to define and explain them, and some of the other niche mechanics interact oddly with them, like Companions (which don't check your sideboard for eligibility).

If wishboards were allowed, the RC would have to establish rules defining all of this, and explaining it to new players. So the current solution of banning them is cleaner from a rules simplicity/elegance perspective. From a gameplay perspective, I tend to prefer limited to unlimited modality. Furthermore, Arena Best-of-One is pushing Wizards to print more modal effects, so if you want a specific combination of modes, odds are we'll get that before too long. Unlike the rules elegance point, I recognize that this is mostly my own tastes in what effects are fun, and others differ.

Also, I tend to agree with Onering; you make very good points, Dirk, but you often come off as dismissive or petty. I don't think the one invalidates the other.

[DirkGently]

The only color hate cards I see as a problem are the land hate ones. Anarchy is annoying but it's also kind of a worse Cyclonic Rift that's way more specific, so I don't think people would actually play it. It's currently in 1 out of every ~3500 red decks on EDHrec. Expanding the banlist by 50 cards to kill all the color hosers seems a bit extreme to me. If you wanna ban flashfires, boil, boiling seas, acid rain, stench of evil, and tsunami, I'm certainly not complaining, though I don't think I've ever seen any of them cast. Choke, wrath of marit lage, etc are kinda borderline since you can get rid of them with removal so they're much less harsh (actually I do remember someone wrath of marit laging me once, lol. What a prick), but still real obnoxious and can be worse against weaker decks that aren't running answers. Creature-only killers I think are totally fine, even if I'd definitely roll my eyes if someone cast them against me. Creature lockdown cards like light of day are also kinda borderline but considering they die to removal and also affect a subset of decks in those colors (many decks not caring too much about attacking, for example) I doubt people would play them.

I'm not sorry to see any of them go at the end of the day, but taking the stance "we should legalize wishes! btw we're gonna need to ban this massive list of cards," seems like a weak bargaining position, to say the least.

@pokken sure, I agree I'm saying he fear-mongered a lil' bit. That's only an indictment of a single one of his actions, though, not his entire character. I didn't say "your argument is fear-mongering, therefore you are a dick," because I don't believe that. I think he's a reasonable person who let himself get carried away on a hypothetical without thinking enough about the practicalities of it, or whether anyone would actually want to do it. I think there's a very significant difference between condemning an individual action and condemning the entire person who did them. If he'd said "I think, in this instance, you're being dickish" that would be one thing, although I still think that sort of rough language isn't particularly appropriate here.

@BeneTleilax If we fall in line with the sideboard construction rules for other formats, we can largely piggyback of those - it becomes messier if we're adding special qualifiers like needing to reveal or separated wishes/lessons. We'd still need to clarify that CI applies to both but I think most people would assume that. As far as niche interactions like companions, there are plenty of rules that commander inherits from the comp rules that commander players aren't aware of, but it's not generally a problem imo.

I meant to add a qualifier to that statement anyway, but I'll add one here: anyone who plays magic [seriously enough to find all the tech counters to all the different archetypes they're playing against] knows how sideboards work.

At any rate, if it became part of the commander rules, even unaware people would learn quickly enough. It's just that currently some people never interact with a format where they apply.

[pokken]

@pokken sure, I agree I'm saying he fear-mongered a lil' bit. That's only an indictment of a single one of his actions, though, not his entire character. I didn't say "your argument is fear-mongering, therefore you are a dick," because I don't believe that. I think he's a reasonable person who let himself get carried away on a hypothetical without thinking enough about the practicalities of it, or whether anyone would actually want to do it. I think there's a very significant difference between condemning an individual action and condemning the entire person who did them. If he'd said "I think, in this instance, you're being dickish" that would be one thing, although I still think that sort of rough language isn't particularly appropriate here.

Yeah I'm not a mod so I'm not calling him out for something that is obviously wrong and a rules violation Hopefully helping you get why he (and often other people) feels attacked when you get all aggro calling their posts dumb and stuff is more within my scope of responsibility as a forum citizen lol.

[onering]

Dirk, when your method is insulting, expect to be insulted. It's astonishing to me that you feel like your the victim here. Getting aggressive like you do pisses people off, and I'm not afraid to hurt your feelings by calling you out on it. I'm clearly not the only person who feels that way, so assess your behavior or keep earning the insult. We shouldn't be falling to this low level of discourse, but that's what happens when your argument style is, at best, insufferably smug. You want people to engage with your arguments like gentlemen, right after accusing them of fear mongering, telling them their experiences are irrelevant, and belittling them (hurr durr have you played this format, this totally isn't an insult I'm both super smart and super polite durr). "Oh, I just said your ideas were stupid, not you, how dare you get mad I'm the victim!" %$#%$#% dude, nobody buys that %$#%. And you do it all the time. I usually let it go, but this time it stuck in my craw.

I'd respond to the points you made in your most recent post, some of which are good and some of which aren't, but as you clearly want to continue to assert your behavior is totally acceptable while playing the victim, I have no interest in treating your mind ideas with respect while you can't muster the same for myself or others. You want to be taken seriously and treated with respect, don't belittle people's ideas or experiences because they don't align with your own, and don't complain about being attacked when you throw the first punch.

[BeneTleilax]

If we fall in line with the sideboard construction rules for other formats, we can largely piggyback of those

Comp rules aren't super clear, and specify a 15 card sideboard and 4-of card limit. Those would need to be remade for EDH. They're also very tournament-based, so most of the other relevant ones (like deck restriction interactions) are phrased in terms of the order in which you set things aside before shuffling, which isn't particularly new or casual player friendly. Also, the companion vs. general thing is counterintuitive, as both are card-contingent deckbuilding restrictions. That could be remedied by setting companions to also effect the wishboard, but again, would require another ruling/clarification. That is absolutely the sort of confusion that leads to casual players accusing each other of lying and cheating. .

I meant to add a qualifier to that statement anyway, but I'll add one here: anyone who plays magic [seriously enough to find all the tech counters to all the different archetypes they're playing against] knows how sideboards work.

I thought you didn't want wishboards to be limited to tech answers? That might be their strongest use-case, but once they're a thing, people will use them for whatever. Combo pieces, finishers, needlessly convoluted engines, a card they want to share between decks, etc. Also, that's not true.

I've seen people pretty embedded in a local EDH meta who don't know how anything beyond EDH and limited works. I know this because I had whole conversation with one of them about why Flusterstorm was worth money. Very online EDH players know how other formats work, but we're also disproportionately players who bailed out of older formats. A fair number of folks came over from 60-card casual when the format was small, and all all the knowledge they've since acquired is pretty localized to EDH. Those are, often as not, the ones setting meta norms from "above" or a place of social authority/experience, I've found. The newer folks, after EDH blew up, have increasingly only *ever* played EDH, or only EDH and draft/sealed.

A lot of those formats are legitimately dying, and with them their bases of expertise. I don't think my local store has had any 60-card Constructed events in years. That, or they're becoming increasingly siloed, where Standard/Modern players just aren't interacting with EDH players that often, and so aren't exchanging "common" knowledge about their respective formats.

[onering]

@pokken I agree that I've seen people swap decks and occasionally cards. I don't necessarily think it's always a bad thing. First of all, sometimes people will do it to just match their deck to the power level they expect, which can be making sure they don't get blown out by playing something too weak or even pick a weaker deck so they don't pubstomp. Even switching a few cards isn't always terrible. My main objection to "swishing" is that it could be annoying if a person makes up a bunch of wishboards to switch in and out depending on opponents. Tying the wishboard to the deck would, I think, cut down on it and make it less obnoxious, basically it would help keep the situation the way it is now, where the people who currently switch out cards would do so but you wouldn't see it expand or become completely obnoxious with some dude bringing 4-5 specialized wishboards. These are solvable concerns.