Magic The Gathering

[Flexo]

Shit, even Oathbreaker couldn't take off after being sanctioned and it's like a diet Commander.

Or brawl. Aka standard commander which isn't a bad idea...

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Yeah, but it's a much more interesting to me to have a lower powered format where you can play powerful cards like IE and Treasure Cruise without them being completely broken by fetches

Delve is broken even without fetches.

Like, Treasure Cruise was as much at fault for the Thoracle/Inverter deck as Thoracle.

In some ways they would, but a case like Nadu's can directly prove that Commander has enough influence on design to shape what cards get printed and how they're worded. Even for direct Commander product there's a specific range of cards/decks they want to foster for casuals, although sometimes cards from them end up being breakouts that are deemed too unfun by the RC.

It's both. Nadu's final iteration wasn't playtested at all AND he was modified to be that way explicitly for Commander. Nadu isn't the only example, but it's the biggest and most recent one.

Yes they changed Nadu "for commander"

but quite frankly the Original version of Nadu is kind miserable as well. You can't Bolt it, you can't Push it and honestly I think there is a non-Zero chance that if the card got printed as was..you end up with some just as awful Temur Rec deck instead of the Shuko deck.

 

[DootSkeleton]

but quite frankly the Original version of Nadu is kind miserable as well. You can't Bolt it, you can't Push it and honestly I think there is a non-Zero chance that if the card got printed as was..you end up with some just as awful Temur Rec deck instead of the Shuko deck.

Idunno, the original text was exactly:

3/4
Flying
You may cast permanent spells as though they had flash.
Whenever a permanent you control becomes the target of a spell or ability an opponent controls, reveal the top card of your library. If it's a land card, put it onto the battlefield. Otherwise, put it into your hand.

It's a very efficient threat with upside that you can't 1-for-1 without a sweeper, but that's about it. The combo potential is what made it so broken.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Idunno, the original text was exactly:

3/4
Flying
You may cast permanent spells as though they had flash.
Whenever a permanent you control becomes the target of a spell or ability an opponent controls, reveal the top card of your library. If it's a land card, put it onto the battlefield. Otherwise, put it into your hand.

It's a very efficient threat with upside that you can't 1-for-1 without a sweeper, but that's about it. The combo potential is what made it so broken.

You kind of have to answer it the turn it comes down though.

If someone untaps with this version of Nadu the game is almost certainly over because the opponent might not get to resolve a spell the rest of the game. It would be the Modern version of the Tranny Mono Blue deck that won the Pro Tour and then ruined the Arena Ques for a year because it was cheap to build.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

Delve is broken even without fetches.

Like, Treasure Cruise was as much at fault for the Thoracle/Inverter deck as Thoracle.

Yes, it's a very powerful effect with a very real building costs that sees very little play in pioneer outside of Phoenix and sometimes Jeskai Ascendancy. If there were decks chomping at the bit to dump their library into their graveyard to draw 3 for 1 mana I'd concede that Treasure Cruise was the problem. Hell, if Phoenix wasn't still a perfectly good deck without it in Explorer before they brought delve into the format I'd consider that it might be the problem. But when the problem blue deck seems to be just Arclight Phoenix every time I start to observe a pattern and it isn't "decks that can reasonably cast treasure cruise."

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Yes, it's a very powerful effect with a very real building costs that sees very little play in pioneer outside of Phoenix and sometimes Jeskai Ascendancy. If there were decks chomping at the bit to dump their library into their graveyard to draw 3 for 1 mana I'd concede that Treasure Cruise was the problem. Hell, if Phoenix wasn't still a perfectly good deck without it in Explorer before they brought delve into the format I'd consider that it might be the problem. But when the problem blue deck seems to be just Arclight Phoenix every time I start to observe a pattern and it isn't "decks that can reasonably cast treasure cruise."

I misspoke, i am a retard and called dig through time treasure cruise.

 

[Flexo]

Cards like Eliminate can't hit Jace, and the cards in your search that are CMC 3 or greater that aren't MDFCs are stone unplayable.
I also ran a search for exile removal that hits Planeswalkers and found that Baleful Mastery is fringe, March of Wretched Sorrow is playable (was unplayable before Necrodominance). What's playable in Modern and Legacy is different, with a bit of overlap. I'm lumping them together for convenience.

Dude, i said it was around 30. Look at the linked search:

I already accounted for stuff like eliminate not hitting him.

And how is baleful mastery fringe?


It's not only a 2 mana solution, it will literally wins you the game in BOTH the Thoracle or Jace situations. Seems like if it's "fringe" then that's the player base's idiocy.

EDIT: My mistake. I was playing another game and was thinking of its play sequence. I forgot MTG's order there for a sec.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

It's not only a 2 mana solution, it will literally wins you the game in BOTH the Thoracle

Only if the Library is exactly zero for the Thoracle player (It can happen with Doomsday)

 

[DootSkeleton]

Dude, i said it was around 30. Look at the linked search

I did. I redid that exact search to only include instants. Aside from some cards that don't do what we want (Brokers Charm, Molten Blast, Bedeck // Bedazzle), most of them aren't good enough.
Finishing Blow is a 5 mana Hero's Downfall. Closing Statement is 3 mana at best. Breathe Your Last is a direct upgrade to Hero's Downfall. None of those are playable in Modern or Legacy. If they were, the top players would be playing them.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

As far as instant speed planeswalker removal goes 2 modern playable ones that got missed were Leyline Binding and Flare of Malice

 

[AnotherPleb]

I also wasn't referring to Commander. Just Modern and Legacy.

The influence of Commander and how much money it makes absolutely sways what kind of effects WOTC is willing to print. IMO standard is healthier when someone can side in Torpor Orb effects.

No the primary reason people only know MTG as Commander is because WOTC has never managed The Pro Tour Scene sensibly and the "ESPORTS" Era completely and utterly killed it.

You can blame that on them sticking with MTGO and not updating it for ages. By the time Arena happened it was too late.

Brawl crying in a corner somewhere lol

Thank you for reminding me of this gem. The only thing brawl decks did was add two insanely busted commanders for Bant and Jund, though Esper had one that was at least balanced. Mardu one was overcoated to hell and back though and if I'm paying 5+ mana for a commander in Mardu I might as well play Kaalia. (I would say Edgar Markov but you usually only hardcast him once.)

 

[Flexo]

Thank you for reminding me of this gem. The only thing brawl decks did was add two insanely busted commanders for Bant and Jund, though Esper had one that was at least balanced. Mardu one was overcoated to hell and back though and if I'm paying 5+ mana for a commander in Mardu I might as well play Kaalia. (I would say Edgar Markov but you usually only hardcast him once.)

I actually liked the brawl decks and wish we were getting those instead of the fatass commander decks nowadays.

1. Sometimes I'd actually like to play brawl than another commander game.
2. It gets annoying picking up a deck for some of the contents and then having this massive swell to the collection. It would be nice if the flood was smaller.
3. It would also be nice having some intro products around the $20 price point instead of the $40-60 price point (or more if it's some bullshit like the masters set). Then they could save commander decks for the special stuff like UB sets.

 

[AnotherPleb]

I actually liked the brawl decks and wish we were getting those instead of the fatass commander decks nowadays.

1. Sometimes I'd actually like to play brawl than another commander game.
2. It gets annoying picking up a deck for some of the contents and then having this massive swell to the collection. It would be nice if the flood was smaller.
3. It would also be nice having some intro products around the $20 price point instead of the $40-60 price point (or more if it's some bullshit like the masters set). Then they could save commander decks for the special stuff like UB sets.

The idea was passable but it was enough of a failure for WOTC to drop brawl as a format. Most people choose commander so they don't have to worry about a rotating format.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

You can blame that on them sticking with MTGO and not updating it for ages. By the time Arena happened it was too late.

No, Esports is a giant money sink that is rarely successful, even League of Legends just kind of treads water outside of major events like Worlds.

 

[Oddjob OTP]

I misspoke, i am a retard and called dig through time treasure cruise.

Was tired last night, but Dig Through Time isn't played much in Pioneer, mostly just sees control pile play in low numbers/deck and Memory Deluge is mostly better if you want that sort of effect because most control piles aren't intentionally filling the graveyard enough to make it cheaper than 4cmc when it matters early game and the flashback mode is pretty great. I think some builds of Gearhulk Creativity also play Dig over Memory because Memory does nothing when your gearhulk grabs it and the deck is moderately good at filling graveyard but the deck is niche and they don't play a lot of them anyway.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Was tired last night, but Dig Through Time isn't played much in Pioneer, mostly just sees control pile play in low numbers/deck and Memory Deluge is mostly better if you want that sort of effect because most control piles aren't intentionally filling the graveyard enough to make it cheaper than 4cmc when it matters early game and the flashback mode is pretty great. I think some builds of Gearhulk Creativity also play Dig over Memory because Memory does nothing when your gearhulk grabs it and the deck is moderately good at filling graveyard but the deck is niche and they don't play a lot of them anyway.

Dig used to be bigger when the inverter deck was around, it let you grab both pieces of the Combo and emptied the Graveyard so after inverter resolved your Graveyard was small enough to win off Oracle, Phoenix typically plays cruise because they don't care about what you draw cause most of the deck is cantrips anyways. Typically "Look at 7 and pick your two best" is stronger than Draw 3 blind (It helps that Dig is instant speed as well)

Like at some point the Delve spells or Phoenix are gonna have to go (IMO if you ban Cruise Phoenix just switches to Dig) the two are generally close enough that in most cases you won't notice an incredible difference between one or another.

Edit : And looking at the current Phoenix list..LUL that one of Temporal Trespass. FUCKING KEK.

 

[Flexo]

The idea was passable but it was enough of a failure for WOTC to drop brawl as a format. Most people choose commander so they don't have to worry about a rotating format.

Yeah I remember it at the time and how much scorn it got as "standard commander." The rollout was definitely a debacle.

But ironically it's kind of ideal for newbies since it's going to be much easier to get newer, currently printed products than trying to get some ice age card from the 90s.

Plus WOTC would then have excuses when making product. Nowadays they make commander decks and everybody complains about "where is __ reprint?" If they just did brawl decks they'd at least then have the excuse of "only printing standard cards."

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Yeah I remember it at the time and how much scorn it got as "standard commander." The rollout was definitely a debacle.

It did not help that it came out in a terrible time for Standard..and even without the broken Commanders you get "Blue/X with every shitty cancel variant" a lot of the time.

 

[Flexo]

It did not help that it came out in a terrible time for Standard..and even without the broken Commanders you get "Blue/X with every shitty cancel variant" a lot of the time.

And it doesn't help that EDH is a "homegrown" variant and brawl kind of felt forced down by the company which just heightened the "money grubbing" feel of it.

Even if it was the company's idea, they should have went to the EDH rules com and the community and ask them to roll out the idea. Have game knights do a couple of "extra turns" episodes with the brawl format as a quicker variant and people would be more on board.

 

[macrodegenerate]

Yeah I remember it at the time and how much scorn it got as "standard commander." The rollout was definitely a debacle.

But ironically it's kind of ideal for newbies since it's going to be much easier to get newer, currently printed products than trying to get some ice age card from the 90s.

Plus WOTC would then have excuses when making product. Nowadays they make commander decks and everybody complains about "where is __ reprint?" If they just did brawl decks they'd at least then have the excuse of "only printing standard cards."

I think the main issue was that the meta had so few viable commanders in standard at the time. Baral quickly dominated as the lead commander in blue, and was oppressive because disallow became a UU answer to everything.