Does Anyone Here Miss the Days When Commander Sets Were Not Tied to the Current Standard Set?
General forum
Posted on Nov. 10, 2024, 4:17 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
I just saw this post on Mark Rosewater's Tumblr account, and I share that user's sentiment; I miss the days when WotC released Commander products once per year, and those products were not related to the current standard set. I understand Rosewater's reasoning, with his response, but I still believe that the Commander products were better, before they were tied to the current standard set (a practice that began with Ikoria), so what does everyone else say, about this subject? Do you miss the time when Commander sets were not related to the current standard set? I certainly am interested to receive your responses, on this subject.
Yes, I do miss the days of there not being over 9000 pushed to hell cards and broken legends in every color, and players actually having to dig for interesting cards to build unique and fun decks not just generic piles of staples.
November 10, 2024 6:25 p.m.
The Commander sets feel like they took on part of the story and worldbuilding role of the the second and third sets of blocks. Like a whole two-set block is released at the same time, but only half of it passes through Standard.
I liked the depth of worldbuilding and story development that multi-set blocks offered, and I also liked the setting-indifferent Commander precons from 2011-2019. What we have now doesn't make me totally happy, but I'm accepting it as a compromise. Actually, what I really miss is the 2009-2013 years, when Commander sets were part of the "summer casual" suite with Archenemy and Planechase. But Commander's the only one that really took off, so I can't fault them too much for focusing on their most successful product lines. It's probably just the nostalgia talking, but 2006-2015 were some of the best years that the game had to offer, in my opinion.
Having a full Standard set plus four Commander decks released three times a year, apparently soon to be kicked up to six times a year, is a lot of cards. Production is great, there's more options than ever, and the product fatigue is already setting in hard for me.
November 10, 2024 6:41 p.m.
SteelSentry says... #5
The baffling nature of Mark's comment aside (reducing the product load by cutting the 4-5 commander decks a year but putting 2-4 in every set, on top of 6 sets a year now???), I'm honestly torn. Some of my favorite commanders are from the era of set-themed commander decks, and for every forgettable deck we get a Shorikai, Genesis Engine or Mirko, Obsessive Theorist
, which are not just strong but give support to certain mechanics or strategies the colors didn't have a good leader for. If we accept that product fatigue is a lost cause, I'm not necessarily against themed commanders; even bad sets can have a shining piece of salvage like Mirko. (I'm betting it's on the fact that he doesn't have a hat.)
November 10, 2024 9:15 p.m.
FormOverFunction says... #6
I can relate to what you’re saying, DemonDragonJ, and I think that some of it (for me, at least) is my age. I miss the times where there wasn’t really any more story than the bare-bones “you’re a wizard shooting Magic(tm) at other wizards, plucking (i.e. conscripting) terrifying and magestic beasts from the æther, and sometimes lucking out and stumbling across a bunch of discarded/lost weaponry left in the terrifying wake of some CRAZY war between wizard brothers. The core sets gave me that feeling, because I wasn’t locked into someone else’s story. Those first commander decks, which I never got around to buying, gave that same feel. I didn’t know Nekusar, the Mindrazer’s back story. I didn’t know that he used to be a benevolent king who tragically lost his beautiful and loving queen Asmerelda who kept his quick-to-anger temperament in check so he turned to dark magic to bring her back but it twisted him into an evil litch who even ended up killing his favorite cook, Johnathon, who always made food that looked like forest creatures, which made him even crazier because Johnathon was secretly a wizard who worked with Asmerelda to keep him calm etc etc run-on sentence intended. It was wide open. The good news is that many of us are being given the opportunity to experience the pre-internet joy of coming across a card that you literally have never even heard of. On balance I’m still very much enjoying Magic: the Gathering, it’s just (as with all things in life) taken a fair amount of personal readjustment.
Icbrgr says... #2
Actually the opposite....I miss the days when Commander/EDH weren't catered to at all and the a format comprised of everyone's bulk/staples that were opened from standard.... but it is what it is... I think I personally like the connected products overall, but at first found it very confusing in regards to set legality... like when Modern Horizons 3 came out there were a few commander only cards that I thought were Modern legal.
November 10, 2024 5:50 p.m.