Let's Talk Commander || TTC Ep521 

Hilarious timing, obviously. This was recorded *before* the announcement that WotC would be taking over the format. The opinions herein are still relevant (except maybe stuff relating to the CAG is less important now).

The timing... oh god the timing.

Can't wait for "Let's Talk Commander 2: Electric Boogaloo" next week

Extremely funny release-timing considering the now 30 minutes old announcement that WOTC takes over the format

Oh, we're gonna have to talk more about commander after today's announcement

As always with tap tap, great timing lol. Still looking forward to watching this later as I'm sure there's plenty of valuable discussion here.

Thank you Graham for being the first MTG content creater that I've ever heard say that they don't have a clue on which turn their deck can win. (39:23) This always baffled me like why the hell should I know on which turn I win in this game full of randomness and several other players interacting with me? Yes, I draw my opening hand and then see where the night takes and have fun.

Lol and today the RC just announced that they're letting WOTC take control. Dang, can't wait to see the next episode

Given how large the CAG is, I honestly feel it's valid to keep them out of the loop for the final decision. Keep in mind they had talked to the CAG about these issues for a long time now.

I just don't really get the problem with the rc not tellling the cag in advance. The primary purpose of the cag seems to be as a way of collecting and filtering magic opinions for the rc to work with and that doesn't need to go the other way. Obviously if they'd told the cag the plan in advance that would've given time to voice criticism, but as Wheeler said, they were already discussing these cards a bunch beforehand, so I don't see what that would've added.

Mtg finance is so funny, the so called investors don't know that "real" investments like stocks or similar may also crash similarly and investors of that assets would never react like that and also have tools and strategies to circumvent those crash events.

It is AMAZING how much of the vitriol I miss by switching my primary social media from Twitter to Bluesky. That the violent threats escalated SO MUCH is honestly shocking. It's the closest I've gotten in some time to thinking of leaving the game behind. Why would I want to associate with this sort of "community"?

I think Mana Crypt needed to be banned if Lotus was going. I’d hate to see it jump in price like Mana Vault, only to be banned a year or two from now

Oh boy! An already outdated video! I love living in interesting times!!!

I got my Nadont pin in the mail Friday from an order so it may still be in stock. It's lasted longer than Nadu now I believe!

1:04:00 They also use the term "availability" to mean "this card is expensive."

Considering the news about WOTC now owning Commander that JUST came out you guys might wanna updated the title to "part 1" lol.

Next week's episode title "Let's Talk About Commander: Addendum"

*pinches bridge of nose* WoTC taking over the format is not good for the format. BUT after the big babies who sent DEATH THREATS to people over CARDBOARD, i dont blame the RC. Because lets be honest: its not the RCs fault now if the format fails. NOW, it is SQUARELY on the shoulders of the people who made those threats. Because of they didnt, the CRC would still be in charge. As someone who played Yugioh for a long time, when WE act more mature than MTG players... And yet the people who SHOULD feel bad, won't.

And right before this dropped, I saw that the RC has asked WOTC to take over. It'll be interesting to see how that might color things.

The Rule 0 topic was very interesting. I had that experience. I lived in a city and had a semi public playgroup, where we always had a rule 0 talk, but it was always natural and non-formal, it was very good. Then I moved and at that LGS, there is no Rule 0 conversation and it was odd for people wehn I started it. Funnily enough, the games were very unbalanced before that.

rule 0, which can also be called CONTINUOUS ENTHUSIASTIC CONSENT!

Think we get another one with this title next week? Huge news like 30 min before this went live

I am disgusted by the negativity I see in comments, and heartened by everyone I follow being so sensible and positive. Everyone with a microphone is being an example to the rest of the internet - you don't have to agree, you don't have to be happy, but c'mon. Nobody in the decision chain is just out to get you, dawg.

At work. Learning my Magic news from the LRR comments.

Timing is awkward, but this is still a relevant and interesting listen.

Oh boy, I am so glad that this is the video that covers *all* the relevant news about Commander that happened this month. Luckily there is nothing more to talk about in this format, right? Right?!

I'm going to be honest, this mostly just makes me want to play magic with anyone from LRR; it would just be good fun

What timing to post this sheesh

Oh, well you folks are going to need a 2nd video for this, because the bombshell dropped not even a hour ago.

Crazy this all happened because we didnt want to talk about our decks before playing them with new people

sending eggs and support to wheeler during this trying time

can't wait for next week to also be about commander

It's COMMANDER. You can IGNORE the ban list. How dare these people treat others like this.

Some of my earliest memories of Magic were pulling stuff like Iname, Death Aspect and Phyrexian Soulgorger out of boosters and not understanding what I'm supposed to do with them because they are so completely perpendicular to what I understood the flow of the game to be. There is little greater joy the game can offer me than coming up with something that makes ridiculous cards work. GIve me more of these puzzle cards!

Nadu is a design mistake, but it’s one I’m happy with it. Nadi was so bad it got banned. The original Nadu that gave all permanents flash would have been a horrible commander to play against. It likely would not have banned. The design team thinking about commander prevented something even worse

Really appreciated the commentary and humor around this whole situation (regardless of timing). Have to say - "Magda in shambles" had me laughing so hard.

I usually like to say "what kind of game do we want to play?" to try and get a feel for the pod. and its done a good job to indicate how I play and which decks I play.

13:30 "I don't think you should be having to field those questions" *monkey paw curls*

Man now I can't play Mana Crypt in my flip a coin pre con lol

Great takes. I also approach the “investment” like Wheeler laid out.

Lrr crew, your comedic timing is perfectly on point as always 👌

I refuse to play with "Sol Ring". It's not a mascot. It's an unbalanced piece of cardboard that warps deck building.

On the aspect of investing.. completely acceptable. Investing in anything comes with risk of loss. Gold ,stocks crypto, 2008 crash. They still have cards that are playable and don't go to 0 like stocks do. Get your group to accept it or find another group. I am sorry for them. Having played through chronicles and multiple bans. Be prepared for value loss on some cards. Thoughtful discussion . Appreciate the thoughts. And I am more worried about wotc in charge than a 3rd party unable to enforce action on a ban.

I am in the southeastern US and completely forgot that this was a thing until this video posted. For *reasons*. Thank you for the distraction.

When I saw the bans my initial reaction was both: Yeah sure. This makes sense because these cards are very dumb and quite annoying in commander. The other half of my reaction was: Wow, I have bought both my HP mana crypt and my jeweled lotus because I wanted to play with those in cedh. Well what am I going to do with them now? Guess I will put my mana crypt in the vintage cube. I am still happy with my purchase (at least with the mana crypt) because I really like the artwork and sometimes stare at it for just a few minutes straight. The only ban I was not on board with was nadu. I have a casual, mid power, sort of rampy nadu deck. I have no combo in it and the best cards are shrieking drake and the other 2 mana bounce a thing of yours and repeatable blink effects. The funny thing I have found is that many players will just be negative to you simply because you are playing nadu. I rule 0d the deck (I also have an alt commander in llonis crypto zoologist in case somebody objects) and mid game there was a person walking by looking at my board and basically just hissing at me about nadu, and how I dare play such a card with all the time it takes and all the triggers it creates. I happily explained to them that I do not play any combo in there and just want a commander that gets me a little more value out of my blink effects and also work with fecund greenshell which is the true commander of the deck. After I explained that to them they went: oh, sure. This makes sense and seems okay. I just find it astonishing that people always asume people playing commander and „powergaming/tryharding“. I don‘t care whether I am winning a game of commander. I just wanna do some broken and funny stuff. Currently my favourite deck is either a pauper list of shirei shizos caretaker or a vultron list of sythis, harvests hand. I will play these decks against any powerlevel just because I like playing them. I will also gladly play others peoples deck because I want to play magic and just have fun. I also love brewing decks and do so often for friends who are fairly new to magic or who dont like brewing. On the other hand I hate building new decks since I usually try to avoid staples and make room for more creative includes. Therefore I would usually have to buy or proxy around 50 new cards which I do neither have the money nor the motivation. The latest creation I made was a deck I fondly called „Urzas war crimes“ it is a urza lord high artificer deck centered around simulacrum synthesizer and then playing every sort of war mech or war vehicle looking vehicle in the game (mostly warhammer) and basically making a construct (Pilot) for each when it enters Idk. I think commander is fine. All the people losing their minds are reacting in their own ways. And I have to admit I cannot relate but I do understand (except for the people threatening others). And btw loved the stab at the yugioh palyers really helped lighten up the mood at the beginning

Ben waiting all week fir this

The one thing what bugs me on this bans is the fact that i play 75% with my play group. We allow some banned cards coz its fun. So most of my decks are build around powerful stuff what is banned. So i have builded decks what dont have banned cards (before this banning) and can hold up. And i play them on my LGS. Now i need to build new decks for this and its just frustraiting.. I like my decks.. So now i just dont go to my LGS to play.. So problem solved.. Well i go to play Highlander but thats all..

I do really appreciate your empathy for the RC keeping things close to the chest, I can't imagine it feeling good to feel superfluous in such a big announcement. I deal with alot of NDA work and one way to massively prevent leaks is to judge everything on a need to know basis. Do we NEED to know the CAG already doesn't like dockside and is it worth people getting sued if we ask them again? I don't know if they made the wrong choice given how poor the response was for some.

Was joining the CAG just something content creators would do to boost their sphere or something? Let them slap something on their twitch or youtube profile to make them seem more powerful? Like secret societies for politicians?

I know it's a joke, but seriously: I feel like both EDH and cEDH players would all have a lot more fun, if cEDH players tried canlander instead

As someone who almost bit the bullet and bought a mana crypt before the bans, and someone who has made a living selling cards to people, I feel like I really dodged a bullet, and I totally agree with the bans. I hope with WotC's talk about tier levels of cards they take the approach of Canlander, and just do a point value for cards, with some cards getting pointed out of the system. It would make games easier to gauge, there would be less unseen disparity, and it's already something WotC does with casual queues in Arena. That and kill the reserve list, so everyone has a better chance at having access to game pieces.

A great example of how rule 0 can work for non-legal cards is Ben Brode basically every time he has been on "commander at home". Its to do weird things like playing un-cards that are fine play wise, or his deck of tiny cards, or even his all beta deck. Also yes, the timing

I think the most upsetting part about all of this is to realize that's the world we live in... Everyone always seems so on edge about everything that any change leads to unreasonable bursts of aggression. :/

Companies are so afraid of LRR's coverage, they keep timing things to delay coverage! :-P

Thank you for always being responsible and level headed members of the MtG community.

The funny thing is that certain bug of the Japanese yugioh format has gotten a slap on the wrist that nobody saw coming.

Glad Ben was able to get his bike back

33:21 Ben, I am the same way. I am good with playing as many games as possible. Let's set a record.

So wheeler, what you're saying is that the CAG is a focus group

Okay if next weeks thumbnail doesnt have all three people in the wheeler pose....

LRR are comedic geniuses. Even their release schedule has a sense of humour.

Damn, I haven't heard Ben speak at such length in a while - I really appreciated what they had to say about Standard.

I'd like for "Big Gulp Commander" to catch on as a phrase.

Opinions of the bans aside, WotC taking over the commander format is the worse outcome to come out of all of this.

EDH is 4 players. Highlander is 2 players. I don't think they're both cakes. One of them is a nice meal with your partner, the other is pizza party while playing mario kart with your friends.

The reactionaries (who’s Venn diagram of threats to lives and asking for unnecessary bans Every. Single. Set. is a circle) have taken over. I just learned the news from these comments and am eager to see what will be the actual outcome of the tier system. I would think it impossible given the size of the card pool, but probably most cards don’t get higher tiers.

Re: pickachu being the mascot and not getting a ban no matter how powerful. Its been a while since Ive done any pvp in pokemon games, but Smogon was always the most popular way to do so - and if Pikachu was by far the most busted pokemon, they would 100% put it in the Uber tier. The Pokemon Company would never ban Pikachu, but the 3rd party who decide on what pokemon are allowed in which competition tiers on Smogon absolutely would ban Pikachu. This is largely irrelevant after the news today, but using thay comparison - the 3rd party running commander should have banned sol ring even if the company that owns the card game would not do so.

All the love for the RC members and what they tried they do

Do you know you have 30 minutes?

This might be an unpopular opinion, but the tangent about modern commanders having so many spoonfeed designs always strikes me as odd, simply because there are so many legendary creatures printed nowadays. You probably shouldn't have any problem picking something less obvious and played-out, but then again, you also want your deck to be good, and those two goals go against one another. Even if we imagine a card that is both subtle and powerful, it stops being subtle the second everyone knows about its power. That's kinda what happened to Nadu, really: sure, everyone knew it's a good value engine, but how many people saw the synergy with landfall token makers (or realized just how many safety valves have been blown right off the card)? It's easy to say it was an obvious mistake with 20/20 hindsight, but I can't help but find it a disservice to the pros who actually put the winning decklists together. I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you want a commander that goes off the beaten path, you do have to go off the beaten path, yourself.

Need to ban Thassa's Oracle

I quit EDH. I refuse to play any format with WOTC at the helm. Canlander here I come.

I can’t emphasize enough how much I appreciate Wheeler’s articulation. Excellent breakdown of what it is about cards that is problematic and the difference between their being printed for commander vs. existing.

Bans should be focused around making more deck variety, of course RC can't just print Mana Crypt and Jeweled Lotus for everyone, but banning them makes less decks theoretically viable. Hullbreacher was incredibly harmful and a good ban that was understandable even to people who liked the card, same would be true for Orkish Bowmasters (still legal by the way) because it almost singlehandedly took Winota and the colour Green out of high power games. On the flip side, people call for Thoracle and One Ring bans, but banning Thoracle, strong as it is, is a whole archetype of deck and a strategy, not just a card, bans like this reduce variety, even if you don't like the deck, some people do. Blue draws really well, it's going to do that with or without One Ring, but the card gives every not blue deck a chance to keep up, we should support the colours that struggle, like green, and more broadly, not blue, with bans, as opposed to weakening stronger/faster decks. Not everyone likes fast, also not everyone likes slow, a small room of people I don't know shouldn't dictate what fun I'm allowed to have

Only played Canadian Highlander once, with Jolene, Plunder Queen, because she seemed fair and balanced in 1v1 😂

I've watched half of this so far, but wanted to comment before I forget everything. Problem with Dockside is that it's so abusable, if I go to a casual table because I want to pubstomp and play out all my fast mana turn 1, it's not going to make the game fair, but Dockside will give them a chance to stay on pace, and the opposite is true, if I'm over powered for a table, my opponents might play 2 sol rings and maybe a signet between them and Dockside is one of the worst rituals in my over powered deck. But, it is so abusable so I understand the ban. Crypt and Lotus, banning them doesn't do anything to RogSi, because RogSi is built to be fast, and consistent, and has so much redundancy that 2 cards being swapped out for rituals doesn't stop it winning on turn 2-3, what it does affect though, are the off meta brewers and lower tier commanders that need the help to keep up, because power creep has happened in every aspect of the game, it is a problem, and I don't know what the solution to that is, but banning fast mana only creates more of a gap in power. I wish I could still play jank, stompy tribal decks and keep up with Storm and Combo in casual, EDH is built on having the creative freedom to do that, but I have lost some of the tools that made it possible in the current climate. Much as I enjoy casual jank, I also play RogSi and feel like it's only my casual decks that lost something (Mayael and Karlach), and I feel like commanders I find fun are no longer viable, they didn't keep up well as it was, so I'm forced into a position of finding a better tier of commander, not what I wanted to play (that said I am currently building mono red Ramos Door, because funny) Last point i just remembered was about the power imbalance created by having them vs not having them. Because if everyone does, or, if everyone doesn't, then there is no issue, the issue is caused by have vs have not, which is a price issue (caused by greedy limited print runs) and bans should never be financially motivated (Timetwister is legal, Yawgmoth's Will is legal, LED, WoF, and on, and on) Sorry to rant, didn't want to comment multiple times

My friend and I have had good success with pregame chats. We don't call it rule zero. We just talk briefly about what our decks will play like and how quick / problematic they are. It's about experiences, not about power levels.

I agree and disagree with the takes in this, but I respect their opinions. Except on one thing, and it's not really about the bans. It's about the idea of "Big Gulp" commander. If you are playing at a game store that sells drinks and you bring your own drink instead, I'm sorry, you're doing wrong, you are an ass. Profit margins are razor thin, staying open as a LGS is very difficult. These stores do not owe you a place to play. If there is an easy, convenient way to spend a couple bucks on something you were going to buy anyway, just spend those couple bucks at the store where you're playing. Support your LGS, shop local, even it's just your drink, or eventually there won't be anywhere local to play.

I love Ben and agree with some of his opinions, but his privilege is really showing in full force in pretty much all examples he discussed in this episode. I would reflect on the fact that most people cannot afford a $4k e-bike and do not own a home, and so maybe you are not quite as suited to understand the common plight as you might believe.

Has anyone considered making a point system similar to Canadian Highlander for Commander that's revisited at intervals throughout the year. That way things wouldn't actually get banned but would cost you to play. Value impact doesn't make the thing go into purgatory. Unfortunately, The current ban system failed (along with commander community) and a new system like that would be interesting. Then have Legacy Commander where anything goes. I'm not saying this is the correct way but something to look into.

Unfortunately these bans came way too late for me. A month ago I sold my entire collection and dropped out of commander and anything related to magic. This game became to stressful. Between WOTC overloading us on product, Commander getting faster, and overall toxic environment i was dealing with at my only LGS. . I had to ask myself, "if i'm not having fun then why am I still playing?". I dont think these bans fixed anything and now that WOTC has full control i'm less confident in the formats future. I s till watch Some mtg content but I've completely cut this game off.

I foresee a time when Rule 0 is no longer supported in the WotC Official Commander format (thanks to their sanctioned tier system) and is only remembered by older enfranchised players. Those players will play a variant which DOES use the R0 discussion to levelset because the decks being played are so wildly different in scope. To signify this, the name of the variant becomes Type Zero, and is the most popular format where everyone plays the least efficient cards.

The thing I don't get with edh is people cry because the format is now "faster" but are annoyed when games get a bit long. Personnaly 45 min start to be long and if the game end in 10 min because somebody popped off, great the game is over lets just shuffle and play an other one I don't care who won, I'm just happy to play. I prefer that by a lot and I think most people too but they just don't know because most of them never played 1v1. If your opponent popping annoy you, just play more control and problem solved.

Good vibes to you Wheeler

Rule zero 100%;happens on macig cons. Even before you sit down on antable at the command zone, you take a little flag with "social" oder " "competitive" (or a third option I canr remember) to indicate what kind of game you want. And than you taök about it. Doesbit always work? No, but mostly. And I think its the right way to go maybe wizard's new bracket system will help to make these talks easier

I'm regards to these bans i feel bad for ONE person (outside the RC and CAG obvi) and that's my 12 yo cousin who opened a mana crypt from an Ixalan booster a few weeks ago and was debating heavily on whether to sell it or play it in a commander deck

48:25 ...That's literally what they said except for the extra sentence about it "defying the laws of physics." They called it "the iconic card" of the format, y'know, like a mascot would be. Also, the "geometrically reduces" is just the actual correct way to describe how banning Lotus and Crypt impact the capacity for decks to have explosive first turns. Geometric reduction is the inverse of exponential growth, specifically like how if you reduce the size of the side of a square, you geometrically reduce the size of its area rather than linearly. It's also true and despite Sol Ring being an incredibly powerful card, Lotus and Crypt costing 0 is a huge difference that makes them both much more powerful

I am such a casual player that I haven’t even sleeved all my precons, but I do know a little bit about money stuff... if there was the faintest whisper of a hint that someone on the CRC or CAG had sold any of these cards before the ban announcement, there would be So. Many. Lawsuits. And I'm sure that neither organization carries that sort of insurance. So, one reason for not communicating with the CAG is to protect them. Sad but true...

At MagicCon: Chicago, I had easy conversations prior to all my Commander games about relative power levels, and all my games were fun, even when we were getting destroyed by 5 color legends or 2 color Omnath.

CAG is like beta testers, stress testing a video game trying to break it. CAG didn't tell RC what to do, I think most of us got that.

Poor Wheeler on the CAG. He's got these discussions assumably as a CAG member that he doesnt have full say or definition on until after they announce it :(

A Dockside resolved at our game today. Made 5 treasures. Rule Zero was in effect, and no one was concerned, because it was played as a good card and not as a loop.

A great example of how rule 0 can work for non-legal cards is Ben Brode basically every time he has been on "commander at home". Its to do weird things like playing un-cards that are fine play wise, or his deck of tiny cards, or even his all beta deck. Also yes, the timing

Long ep, I like it.

I opened my Lost Caverns of Ixalon collector booster from festival in a box, opened one of those mana crypts, got excited and 30 minutes later saw the ban. Just had to laugh.

I am the guy Ben talked about. I have a mana crypt I have been meaning to sell for like a year, and keep forgetting to do so xD

Canlander is looking more interesting to me now. If only i can get my playgroup to make the jump.

I share my views similar to Ben, I also build decks regularly. I have a budget and the banned cards were most of it. I agree with the bans as they showed up in casual pods when they shouldn't have. Seeing play patterns and how the game goes is fun. I also don't play to win, I play to see decks churn and do their thing.

A better analogy would be The Justice League losing The Flash as we have plenty of stories showing that.