COMMANDER/EDH BANNED LIST ANNOUNCEMENT: January 2016
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on Jan. 18, 2016, 11:39 a.m. by Ender666666
Summary:
- Commander-specific mulligan rules are removed
- Rule 4 (mana generation restriction) is removed
- Prophet of Kruphix is banned
Mulligans:
We promised in the last update that, with the advent of the Vancouver Mulligan, we'd be evaluating the mulligan process in Commander. This announcement is the culmination of that research. After examining several popular options, and coming up with a few of our own, we've concluded that the Vancouver Mulligan (with the standard first-one-free in multiplayer and a scry once you go to 6 or fewer) is the best option. The RC continues to use and recommend the Gis ("Mulligan 7s to a playable hand. Don't abuse this") for trusted playgroups, but that's not something that can go in the rules.
Ultimately, the goal of mulligans in Commander is to ensure that you start the game with enough lands to be a participant. With Commander games running an hour plus, it's unfortunate if you can't play anything because you miss land drops and get run over quickly.
We didn't want to solve the problems of Magic itself - mana screw and mana flood are part of the game - and players need to make a reasonable effort with their land counts, but we wanted a mulligan rule that tried to minimize unplayable opening hands. So, we brainstormed, and ran computer simulations. And what ultimately came out was... it didn't much matter. Nothing provided a clear enough upgrade to justify having additional rules for mulligans. For example, with 37 lands, Partial Paris was "successful" (which we defined as playing a 4th land on turn 4) 89% of the time versus Multiplayer Vancouver at 86%, but it came at a cost of about a fifth of a card on average. On the whole, 86% success is a rate that seems reasonable.
If you find yourself playing 1v1 (perhaps while waiting for a friend to show up), you should still use the free multiplayer mulligan. With a deck this size, variance is high enough to make not having the free mulligan potentially punishing - without the free mulligan you drop down to about 80% success rate, which, combined with being the only opponent to focus on, leads to too many unfortunate games.
Finally, its not an official rule, but we recommend setting aside the hands you're mulliganning away until you get a keeper. That saves shuffling time, and we're all for minimizing shuffling 100-card decks.
Rule 4:
We still love Rule 4. It's a nice piece of flavor and reinforces the idea that this format goes beyond simple mechanical restrictions into a deeper philosophical approach around color and mana symbols. Its effect on the game was pretty small, but that flavor message made it worthwhile to preserve.
However, the mana system of Magic is very complicated, and trying to insert an extra rule there has consequences in the corners. Harvest Mage. Celestial Dawn. Gauntlet of Power. And now, colorless-only mana costs.
Being able to generate colorless mana more easily in Commander wasn't going to break anything. But, it represented another "gotcha" moment for players, who were now likely to learn about Rule 4 when someone exploited the colorless loophole. We could paper over it (both "mana generated from off-color sources can only pay generic costs" and "you can't pay a cost outside your color identity" were considered), but a lot of the flavor would be lost in the transition, defeating the purpose. Without the resonant flavor, Rule 4 was increasingly looking like mana burn - a rule that didn't come up enough to justify it's existence.
We don't expect removing the rule to have a big impact. Some Sunburst and Converge cards might get a bit more of a look. Sen Triplets works more like you'd expect, as does Praetor's Grasp. The clone-and-steal deck, already one of the most popular archetypes, gets better, but less than you might think. It turns out there really aren't that many impactful non-blue activated abilities on cards that commonly get stolen in Commander. It's OK if you can regenerate that creature you just stole, and you'll need to work for it a bit anyway.
One side benefit to the removal of both the color production and mulligan rules is that, in terms of game play, Commander becomes a normal game of multiplayer Magic with a higher life total and a set of additive rules to bring a new piece (your Commander) into the game. That's good streamlining in terms of teaching people the format and reducing gotcha moments while still preserving the essential flavor of Commander.
Prophet of Kruphix:
This was challenging. Prophet is not a traditionally obvious problem card for Commander, so we chose to take a conservative approach and see if casual groups could adapt. In the past, we've seen unpopular cards generate a lot of outcry, but be handled reasonably well. Powerful cards existing is OK and exploring them responsibly is an essential part of Commander.
This didn't happen with Prophet. Casual groups haven't been able to work around it and problematic play has not dropped off in hoped-for ways. Instead, the primary approach has been to steal it, clone it, run it yourself, or get run over. Ultimately, it seems the card is too perfect - it does everything U/G Commander players want to be doing and it does it in a way that makes counterplay difficult. With traditional boogeymen such as Consecrated Sphinx, you're forced to expend a lot of your mana to cast it and will have a challenge protecting it as the turn goes around the table. With Prophet, it has virtual protection built in, negating that disadvantage almost immediately.
Prophet becomes only the second multicolored card on the banlist (after the structurally-problematic Coalition Victory). It's telling just how pervasive Prophet is despite such a restriction. Yes, U/G is the most popular color combination in Commander, but we've reached the point where Prophet is driving U/G deck choice, rather than vice-versa. That's centralizing in ways we can't ignore, so it's time for Prophet to take a break.
Whenever we decide to ban a card, we take a long look at the current list to see if any cards can come off, as we believe a casual format is better served by a minimalist banlist. After extensive discussion, however, we concluded that everything on the list served a purpose, so we won't be unbanning anything. It's been two years since the last (non-consolidation) card got banned, which is an acceptable growth rate!
http://mtgcommander.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=18057
There seems to be some confusion about what the removal of Commander Rule #4 means, so here is some clarification.
The normal Commander rules regarding Colour Identity still apply. You may only include Spells, Artifacts, Planeswalkers, Creatures and Lands in your deck that match your commander's Colour Identity. The ONLY exception is with cards where mana symbols show up in reminder text which explain a mechanic, for example, cards with the "Extort" mechanic. Crypt Ghast is an example of a card that is purely Black, even though there is a 
symbol in the reminder text that explains how the "Extort" mechanic works.
Your commander's Colour Identity is determined by each and every COLOUR of mana symbol, printed anywhere on it (Again, with the exception of reminder text).
Cards with the mechanic of "Devoid" are colourless, but still fall under the normal rules in Commander when determining its legality for your deck. Want to play Transgress the Mind, but your commander is Green? Sorry, you can't. Transgress the Mind may be colourless, but it has a Black Colour Identity when you are determining if you can legally include it in your deck because it has 
in its casting cost.
What the removal of Commander Rule #4 means is that lands like Forbidden Orchard, Mana Confluence, City of Brass, and cards like Birds of Paradise can now legally make you mana of ANY colour (
), regardless of your Commander's Colour Identity. In the past, if something caused a mana of a colour that wasn't part of your Commander's Colour Identity to be added to your mana pool, it INSTEAD added that many 
to your mana pool.
Oh, and IS NOT A COLOUR. Got it?
So what about Command Tower? Can it create any colour of mana now? NOPE. Because of the wording on Command Tower, it will still only create 1 mana of any colour IN YOUR COMMANDER'S COLOUR IDENTITY
I hope that this helps clarify things for anyone who might be confused.
DiamondFlavor says... #2
Despite presumably (hopefully) being satire, there is a grain of truth to "many people feel like they have to run just to be competitive or they at least have to build their decks expecting to play against it. is format warping, you either run it and/or risk losing to it."
February 8, 2016 10:06 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #3
You can say the same for green because of the ramp.
Ultimately, you're going to have to build your deck with the expectation that you may encounter certain effects in any given color or deck. When people say that you have to anticipate blue, what they usually mean is that you have to anticipate control (which is not strictly blue; white and black have their fair share of control). And if you don't build some resilience to control into your deck, then you deserve to lose to control.
February 8, 2016 10:13 p.m.
What I wrote was meant to be satire. You should build your deck to be ready for as much as possible. I was just giving an example of what people sound like when talking about bans.
Obviously you should expect to play against , you should expect to play against decks of all colors.
February 8, 2016 10:40 p.m.
DiamondFlavor says... #5
My comment was meant to be a tongue-in-cheek. Naturally you need to be prepared to deal with any color and strategy.
I do, however, think that it is difficult to play a deck without , , or and stay relevant for long in a game. and are fine in supporting roles, but have a hard time standing alone against the others.
February 9, 2016 9:35 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #6
Red is not naturally good at many of the important things in the format, unfortunately.
White is good, but a portion of its utility remains untapped unless supported by another color.
Blue, black, and green can be said to be the most effective at actualizing their own potential and depend less on supporting colors in this respect.
February 9, 2016 10:32 a.m.
lemmingllama says... #7
Red can be good when running a single linear strategy. Purphoros, God of the Forge and Krenko, Mob Boss can be successful, although many other options aren't very viable.
February 9, 2016 1:38 p.m.
NotSoWiseOne says... #8
canterlotguardian If the majority abuse it should they just let it slide because a few people don't abuse it? What should they have done instead? What is your argument if you have one? Use some logic and don't act like a kid about it. You were born with a brain. Use it.
March 4, 2016 12:57 p.m.
Raging_Squiggle says... #11
NotSoWiseOne, I'm not sure if you noticed or you intentionally posted anyways, but canterlotguardian made his argument on the first page of the thread, almost 2 months ago.
I'd suggest being more tactful when resurfacing old arguments that have since been resolved and checking how long ago the post was made before making comments like that.
Also, insults aren't getting this anywhere. Post your counter argument instead of simply contradicting and insulting someone for their opinion.
March 4, 2016 1:48 p.m.
canterlotguardian says... #12
I don't care. It's the Internet. Everyone thinks they can act like a complete dickhole with impunity, because hurr durr the net's anonymous.
And I don't care if I'm sounding like the very person I'm condemning. This is the second time in about five minutes I've had to deal with some jackwad who thinks their Internet connection is an excuse to talk shit that would make their mother disown them on the spot.
jrvalles says... #1
No, I didn't phrase that well, and I was responding to a comment several pages back without realizing I was so far behind the thread. I don't think we ever will, or even should ban all gravepact effects. The original post I was replying to was commenting on how gravepact effects have a "more annoying" effect to a casual game than the Prophet does. That's all. Would I personally like to see it gone forever? Yep. But I'm talking personal preference there, not actual banlist.
February 8, 2016 7:57 p.m.