A place for complete-off-topic conversations that have nothing to do with Star Trek. The rules still apply here, stay civil.
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By Pazuzu
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#535897
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a ... 2020-11-30
I think the main issue is a misunderstanding of what the problem is and how R&D is choosing to help solve it. Let's start with the problem. The Commander format was created as a fun, casual Magic variant. It wasn't designed to be the main way people played the game, so we made decisions that maximized letting it be what it wanted to be. Those decisions majorly changed the dynamics of how the game plays out. The life total is different. The number of players is different. The strengths of various abilities are different. How players interact is different. But it was all played with cards and a color pie not designed for the format. Imagine, for example, if there was a new format called Rush where every player started with 10 life. White would be pretty good in that format, whereas blue would really suffer. As Commander has become more popular, we've had to come to terms with how to adapt the color pie to help it in Commander. The good news is the color pie is constantly evolving. There are always opportunities to push it in the direction that the game is evolving. However, the key to doing this correctly is to find ways to change a color that play into its core philosophy. A good example is how we handled red in dealing with Commander. Red needed more card draw, so we created "impulsive draw" (exiling cards that you can cast from exile for the turn), a way for red to get cards that was in-flavor for red. Notice that we didn't just give red an ability from another color. We explored new space to solve the problem in an organically red way. That's what we're currently up to in white. I need to stress two things. First, we change things slowly and carefully. When we want to try out something new, we tend to use it on a weaker spell to gauge how it plays and then strengthen it over time as we get more confident about it. We don't want to change our mind about something only to have a pushed version of it forever living in Eternal formats. Second, Commander uses (almost) all the cards. That's a lot of inertia to fight against. Even when we make good white cards, they have to fight against an existing environment that's weighted against them. What this means is that change takes time and effort. We went through this with red and, over time, managed to see marked improvement. White has proven a little more difficult. Its strengths are less useful in Commander, and its weaknesses are greater vulnerabilities in Commander, so it's a bigger challenge to solve, but I can promise you that we're working on the problem and have been for some time. We're finding possible solutions, but they're going to be things we ramp into slowly, and even when we're comfortable making more powerful versions of those effects, the inertia of fighting against established colors in an Eternal format will take time. This isn't a problem that's just going to be solved in one set.
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First Edition Rules Master
 - First Edition Rules Master
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Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Community Contributor
#535900
To my mind, that argument works better for red, where they're a Standard staple ("Red Deck Wins" is an actual decktype name!), but are weak in Commander because their strength of "I can make this number go from 20 to 0 very quickly" doesn't to a format where instead of 20 the number is 120. (3 opponents at 40 life each).

Meanwhile, white isn't really strong in *any* format. (I googled to try and find one to be sure. :) )
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By Pazuzu
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#535961
I play Commander on Spelltable and it works great. If you are interested in a game, let me know. I can help you setting up everything you need. If you like we can also play Modern.

Draft hardly works, but I played CMR Sealed last weekend.
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First Edition Rules Master
 - First Edition Rules Master
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Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Community Contributor
#535965
Johannes Mette wrote: Wed Dec 02, 2020 5:42 am I'm a MtG lockdown newbie :thumbsup: Commander :thumbsdown: "normal" MtG :thumbsup: Draft
That sounds about right. I get the people who are into "competitive" Magic, but... holy hell it's cutthroat and expensive. Draft and Commander are generally better, although you still have to be careful who you're at the table with. (Draft - especially at the end of a cycle - can become pretty solved and if you don't know the "right" things to pick you'll get stomped; Commander power level varies widely, so if you and your opponents aren't on the same page as to what level of power is "fun", someone's gonna have a bad day.

(For instance - a friend has a Commander deck that wins by submission. As in, it locks the game down so that it only ends when everyone else quits. It's interesting... once.)
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By nobthehobbit (Daniel Pareja)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
 -  
Moderator
#535976
In my experience all arguments over the cost of Constructed Magic boil down to Legacy and EDH players screaming at each other for hogging all the dual lands (and more generally Reserved List cards).
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First Edition Rules Master
 - First Edition Rules Master
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Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Community Contributor
#535980
nobthehobbit wrote: Wed Dec 02, 2020 4:45 pm In my experience all arguments over the cost of Constructed Magic boil down to Legacy and EDH players screaming at each other for hogging all the dual lands (and more generally Reserved List cards).
That is definitely a thing - and a reason why the quality of Magic proxies have increased so much. Friend got his hands on faux Power-9 and they are pretty indistinguishable for casual play.
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By nobthehobbit (Daniel Pareja)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
 -  
Moderator
#536002
I mean with Power their price is sustained by their rarity and hence collectability (if Magic crashed and burned tomorrow a Black Lotus would still fetch a decent price simply because of how few there are) and the desire of people to have legitimate Cubes and Vintage decks. Only Timetwister is legal in EDH and none are legal in Legacy.

What really hikes the price of Legacy and EDH (if you want to play with a deck at maximum potential) is Reserved List cards, and especially the original dual lands. (I'm fully in sympathy with the Legacy players here, given that that's an actual competitive format while EDH is supposed to be just for fun.)

With Modern and Pioneer the prices are kept down by the fact that there's no cards in the formats which Wizards promised they'd never reprint (go look at the historical price on Tarmogoyf), and with Standard the prices are kept down by so much Limited play happening that tons of packs are cracked for that.

With Legacy, any time they reprint an expensive non-Reserved List staple (eg Rishadan Port or Wasteland), the price decrease on that card is absorbed by a commensurate price increase on dual lands and a handful of other Reserved List cards.

And EDH players wanting those Reserved List cards for their funsies format just makes the situation far worse.
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By nobthehobbit (Daniel Pareja)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
 -  
Moderator
#536043
The preconstructed Commander decks are fine. My rant is about the people who trick out their EDH decks with all sorts of old, expensive cards that Wizards has promised never to reprint but that are essential for actual competitive formats, thus raising the price of said formats.
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By Iron Prime (Dan Van Kampen)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Moderator
#570628
Kamigawa soon - anyone excited?
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By Iron Prime (Dan Van Kampen)
 - Delta Quadrant
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Moderator
#570632
:cheersL:

The last time I played Magic was back in Mirrodin and Kamigawa. I just got back in this Nov/Dec when my son discovered the game. I couldn't resist the nostalgia so I preordered a booster box.
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