The Future Of Commander: My Unfiltered Thoughts (also I open Duskmourn Collector Booster packs) 

I'm giving away 25 copies of The One Ring to viewers this Tuesday, October 8 at 3pm Pacific on Whatnot! Sign up at www.whatnot.com/invite/tolariancollege for $15 credit towards your first purchase!

Truly my favorite type of non-podcast podcast.

The commander discourse will continue until morale improves

All the serious conversation aside, it did give me a little laugh when Prof proudly declared "7 dollars!" on a 1 dollar card and then didn't bat an eye on the following 10 dollar card

It began with the printing of the Great Rings. Three were given to the Elves, immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings. Seven to the Dwarf-Lords, great miners and craftsmen of the mountain halls. And twenty-five, twenty-five rings were gifted to the whatnot stream, who above all else desire power.

25:00 - "that's called a rule 0 conversation! why do we need the brackets for?!" To make that conversation easier. It identifies the cards that MUST be discussed instead of letting the players decide what the FEEL like it has to be discussed.

"yes, they should have taken over. No, that is not a good thing." this is literally been my take all week. glad we aggre.

Duskmourn truly feels like it's 50% amazing art and cool themes, and 50% reference slop. The duality of Magic.

Its just baffling to me seeing people downplay the WoTC takeover by saying "people just won't follow the bans if they are bad". While seeming to forget that also should have applied to the RC bans. The worst people all seem to have selective memory.

I think the bracket system can work as a soft-ban list. Putting cards like ancient tomb and the one ring in bracket 4, you can then discuss with your group or a store can set rules for what brackets you will allow

"You can't codify fun." Prof, that's literally what game rules are!

“It’s his boss’s boss’s boss. Who we don’t know the name of by the way.” Yes we do, it’s Chris Cocks. (That is not a derogatory nickname, but his genuine surname. Seriously.) When you look at a timeline, basically all the heaviest controversies and mistakes in WotC’s handling of both magic and DnD happened within a year or two of Chris becoming CEO of Hasbro following Brian Goldner’s death. The 30th anniversary packs, the OGL rework, the Aftermath Pinkertons. And his mishandling extends beyond Wizards to other Hasbro stewarded franchises as well. Power Rangers is basically dead right now. It’s treated internally as a punishment assignment. But Goldner bought PR with a plan, he had a vision for the franchise, he had actual ideas. Unfortunately he took his ideas to the grave with him, and no one at Hasbro knows what to do with the huge IP they sank a bunch of money into now. Who knows, maybe we’ll eventually get a Power Rangers universes beyond as Chris desperately tries to figure out how to recoup the loss of his predecessor by any means necessary.

25:00 My thoughts here are that in my experience rule zero just has never happened at my lgs. I enjoy playing there, it’s just not something that comes up unless someone’s playing an uncard or whatever, so to me a banlist and a thorough one is very important. This same argument you made could be made against the banlist entirely, but I like and think it’s great for the format. The banlist doesn’t stop people from playing the power 9 in their friend group that always has rule 0 convos, it exists to stop a random guy at an lgs curb stomping a new player whose never heard of rule zero in her life.

I've never cared about the rules or regulation for Commander. I play with three people at our kitchen table. We make decks that we think are cool and are built with lots of different types of cards. I couldn't care less if one of my buddies has a Jeweled Lotus on turn one or a Nadu, if anything it makes them a target for the table because of its power. We play and have fun. People are so ridiculous about this whole thing. It's never okay to threaten someone's life over f-ing cardboard. Those folks need to go touch some grass.

"Fewer bans and more conversations" doesn't work with randoms. People are not responsible enough to go by their own judgements, thats why rules were invented in the first place. "Thats a rule zero conversation why do we need the brackets for" because people are terrible at conversations and the brackets serve as an easy to access/understand guideline and it provides a clear example for those who otherwise would not understand.

The true horror of Duskmourn is how it failed to excite me like Bloomburrow did.

I need to hear why Prof hates Acrobatic Cheerleader so much. I'm sure I could guess, but I need to hear it from the source haha.

I'm CACKLING at the jeweled lotus thing 3:20. Imagining the alt world where the prof is giving out banned cards and saying "who knows! maybe they'll be back soon!!"

The bracket system should almost exclusively exist as a warning system to spark conversation on power outlier cards or cards that can generate more consistently strong games. Stuff that is really strong off the rip like Rhystic Study or Smothering Tithe, and also cheap tutor effects like Vampiric Tutor, which can make even a weak deck have an answer to any given situation based on deck building.

I think the bracket system as described is there to help facilitate the rule 0 conversation. As it is now someone can come in and say their deck is a 7, and then come in with all the tutors and turn 2 win cons. With the brackets they can say "hey my deck is mostly bracket 2 with like 2 bracket four cards." and the group can understand it's power a little more than a nebulous "it's a 7" IMO the cards being placed in brackets helps define peoples decks better than just guessing, which is kind of what we do now. If it's easier to quantify, it's easier to talk about, and easier to rule 0 a fun game.

Brackets are the best information in recent years. It's not perfect, but so much better, that "my deck is 7". And if you try to find a fourth guy to play a game and somebody comes saying that they just assembled their first EDH deck, then no Vampiric Tutor will make their deck higher than 1 (unless they are lying).

Hearing 16:52 makes my blood chill. I truly can't imagine how awful it's been for them.

Tbh I’ve avoided other content creators on this topic. I don’t want to be riddled with anxiety in the online panic. You’re the only one I clicked on. Even when you disagree, or are skeptical, or are angry, there’s a way you go about it that I appreciate.

What’s so sad is that we just now whenever Gavin or someone else on the forward facing team is forced to announce something awful, people will go after them rather than the executives behind the decision. There’s a deep rot in our community, and we have a lot of work to do to fix things.

One thing I love about him playing the booster box game is no matter what he’s opening, his overall guess is 2x whatever the real price is. It happens almost every time.

Most of the MTG content creators I've heard talk about the bracket system seem to be misunderstanding it, at least from my perspective. The way I understood the bracket system, it is basically giving a framework for the Rule 0 conversation. A new player may not fully understand the power level of a card like Thoracle so seeing that it's typically a bracket 2 card unless it's paired with the cards it combos with, at which point it becomes a 3 or a 4. That doesn't mean it's banned but it frames the conversation saying "my deck is a 2 other than the Thoracle combo". Yes it's basically rule 0 with extra steps but it gives a decent framework

I look forward to the printing of "Bling Lotus" which is a 0 mana artifact that taps and sacs to create 2 mana of any color that must be spent on a commander.

The designer of Acrobatic Cheerleader watching this video: 👁️👄👁️

Everyone has that 1 guy in their group that doesn't have good judgement. Some people work better under guidelands and that's where I see the tier system working. I know the flaw is that anyone can make a bullshit 2 card infinite with tier 1 cards and that's still where rule 0 chats need to still happen. But for some, having that baseline guideline prior to the discussion will come in handy i am sure.

I disagree with you on the idea that commander is better off with more rule 0 “this play group doesn’t do that” a person should be able to go to a new store and sit down and play their deck and everyone knows what cards simply aren’t allowed because there’s an official list. Magic should be more than a bunch of small isolated pods with their own insular rules. Imagine getting a new job and you move and you go to a store and they just tell you you’re not allowed to play with your decks until you rebuild them to their esoteric basis.

These have to be my favorite types of videos on the channel. Something about the professor just talking openly and honestly about his feelings plus him going through packs (and always overvaluing them lol) just feels so honest and true. It feels like the video is made for passion, and I love that

"This is just a casual format, we can play what we want in my pod" - the guy who invested hundreds of dollar in their decks and its about to commit some crimes against humanity in their lgs/local pod

Proxies will always be free if you have access to a printer. That’s always been my mtg philosophy.

"What do we need the bracket system for if we have Rule 0" The Bracket system is meant to help Rule 0, not replace it. They said that in the Weekly MTG stream.

Brackets are specifically for pick up games, random games on spelltable, and things like that. Because if you have a static playgroup of friends, you can and SHOULD discuss what is and is not allowed with that group. The brackets are there to prevent pubstomping and the like. Not everyone is comfy talking either to brand new people they are not used to. The brackets are there for people who are not comfy with doing the Rule 0 thing. You may not need it, and you may not want it, but other people can and will use it.

This isn't really an argument. But Cheerleaders have a long history in Horror. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a cheerleader in her free time, Jennifer's Body, Varsity Blood, Cheerleader Camp 1988, the list goes on but Cheerleaders are in a lot of horror movies

Perhaps one of the most painful things about this, is that unless we just assume WotC will run Commander into the ground and kill all value, this outcome means the people who were going crazy and harassing the RC pretty much unquestionably won. Wizards won't ban their cards, and Wizards will keep balancing the format in a way to ensure MTG cards have a lot of value in the trading market. That's their priorities, the health of the game is secondary. They're getting exactly what they want... unless Commander just falls over.

Prof, you pulled out the deepest of DS9 references and it made me smile. Thank you sir.

WoTC handling any banlist is scary. "We didn't test Nadu oops my bad guys"

I think the "salt score" from various different deck building sites is perfectly fine. The more salty the deck, the more high level

Props to the Prof for referencing one of the silliest episodes of DS9. You know, Falow would be a great Halloween costume!

I think WOTC's greatest strength is that it has access to more data (or can spend the time/money to get more data) about players and player sentiment. Unfortunately, I have no faith in their ability to manage the format or put gameplay above profit. Just look at how they manage the modern banlist or print modern cards nowadays.

I think a Canlander point system would be better from the perspective of accurately and objectively showing the power of a deck, but it would exacerbate the potential baggage for less enfranchised players that the bracket system will likely bring.

In our fully-torqued Twitter world, sportsmanship is dead, buried, and never coming back.

I always seeing prof’s exuberance on what he feels is a cool card. That’s what magic should be. Look at this sweet art, wow this card does what?, I really like the foiling, etc.

they should keep Cedh tournaments able to use Proxies and regular EDH leagues allowing gold bordered cards

You know what this bracket talk really reminds me of? I built a dungeons and dragons deck using the Initiative mechanic, because im a dnd nerd. I thought the dungeons were so cool and built the entire thing around the Dungeon Delver background. Its just initiative guys, some blink effects to reactivate their ETBs, and a few huge dudes to hit off of the Throne of the Dead Three room. I was told my deck was a "9" because i played a Displacer Kitten, and the guy jumped down my throat for lying about how strong my deck was. Now, knowing what i know now, Kitten is a crazy card. *I* just put it in the deck because i wanted to blink initiative guys, and Displacer Beasts are dungeons and dragons monsters. Arbitrary restrictions of what is or isnt of a certain power level are going to make new players hesitant to play. It sure as shit did for me.

I'd like to see more unfiltered Prof discussions like this while opening packs! Good point re the bracket system essentially resulting in soft bans. I wonder if a points system would be better, though getting agreement on quantifying the points would probably be like herding cats.

No matter what happens in the future, I’m glad that The Professor is alive and doing what he is doing. We are all so blessed to have him with his unbiased and intelligent words. Don’t ever stop being yourself Prof!

I don't usually comment on videos, but I just wanna say that your content is always really valuable to me prof! Your commentary and insights are always really well reasoned and clear, and your empathy to others in the community while still maintaining an objective standpoint is inspiring. Thank you for making such wonderful content!

My perspective as a casual player is that bans are good and having "rankings" is just complicated. If you want different bans for different "power levels" than just make a ban list for that level. They already have legacy, vintage, pioneer, standard, modern, etc so who cares if commander gets its own set of ban lists? If they are going to go "T4 card vs T1" then they should have done a point buy. 100 points is basic, 800 points is maximum; People can then say I have a "200 point deck" and know "this probably is okay".

23:03 This is effectively that "Players can regulate themselves", which is fine when you have a established pod of people and you only play with them. But a lot of people are only able to get games from their LGS. Anecdotally, I found the CEDH players are much more common at LGS' and the kind of self-regulation that you're hoping for I haven't found. To the point where I gave up Commander because I just want to play casually with an upgraded precon. I don't have the money to be running "7 power level, I swear" decks and something like an established tier list with clear demarcations of power level would greatly benefits casual commander players. I don't think THIS system with a single card determining power level will but like you said things are just in the planning phases and I'm hopeful for what the teams come out with.

I know you likely wouldn’t want it but I wish they would let you join the team and be the one responsible for communicating with the community on any news. You are the most level headed person in the community, and you always compose your thoughts so well. You being the voice of commander seems fitting. Monthly commander updates from the professor? Class is in session!

Prof: ***scrutinizes his own example*** Prof: dont scrutinize my examples!!! 🤷‍♂️

Never been a Commander player but i feel for them. I hope Wizards can focus on their competitive formats for once. I would kill to see Pioneer and Modern get some true love to help people like me get back into the game again.

15:29 damn what did Acrobatic Cheerleader do to you Prof ??? 😂😂

23:35 The issue my lgs has with this is people lying about what kind of cards they're running or how efficient their deck is. Player responsibility is important for everyone to enjoy a good game. Pods are chosen at random for FMN, and people are expected to be reasonable and discuss decks prehand. When a person says "Oh my deck is only $28 worth of cards" but they are working with a deck that turbos out the table by turn 6 its upsetting to people less experienced in deck building. I've been part of that problem and started building decks for all experiences. People in denial with an obsession on winning every game no matter what will do anything to satiate that addiction instead of playing fair. I don't know how best to remedy this issue.

Challenge accepted: WOTC can print more of the expensive cards BEFORE they ban a card. The RC couldn’t do that. This allows players to be let down softly rather than a giant bomb being dropped on them.

"Wow, look at all these death threats. Yep, I know how to handle this. Reprinting the whole reserve list into oblivion."

hold on hold on, I need an explanation of the absolute hate for Acrobatic Cheerleader. That alone has me distracted from the RC discussion. Like is it a thing with cheerleaders? Is it the art? Did it stomp him in a game? lol Thanks now this is what I will be focused on instead of the RC discussion.

Wether it be brackets or power levels if you ask me about my deck you will get this response " I made this deck to do a thing, if the deck actually does whats it's supposed to, that is entirely up to the gods"

I think the hardest part to consider about all this is you need to find a way to focus on the social aspect of rule 0 without punishing people who struggle to socialize. Speaking personally I struggle with that and there are people in my ONLY local playgroup who are really good at talking down powerful decks and using their social skills to manipulate the table. I don't think bans are the solution nor is the suggested system, but I do think they should find SOME way to make rule 0 conversation easier and more enjoyable for people who aren't as naturally skilled at speech.

Unfortunately, the reaction to the bans shows exactly why we can't just rely on conversation and the judgement of the players.

I have a great deal of respect for you and how you take your time to digest and reflect on things before giving us your take. Even in this case where you have opted for an unscripted video, you’ve still given yourself time to have thought about it before hand.

''the problem isnt gavin its gavin's boss''

Every card should get a score. Like the salt score. All these scores are added up then divided by 100. You have a level 3.7 deck. Make a cool app to punch in your deck list and it spits out a number.

2:26 I might hold you to your word, but I promise that I’ll never be an ugly monster about it; you are entitled to your opinion, good sir, and I will respect it. Also, nice tie

I think a big thing no one talks about is how already overworked wizards seems to be. You should be hiring people to oversee Commander not just throwing it at design team.

Way back in the 90s, WotC considered creating a new format based on a card-scoring system. The idea was that your deck could only have a certain number of points, and better cards cost more points. They abandoned it - ostensibly because it's too much work to assign points. (Or perhaps because they realized players will chase power cards and they didn't want to incentivize that. The new bracket system reminds me of that. Different and less onerous, but still a clear similarity.

Time for Dommander, where you can have any legendary card in your dommand dome.

cEDH is a mindset, not a format. cEDH can exist in any bracket and will be optimized to win with whatever tools the bracket decides to allow. Competition was never the problem. It's the misrepresentation and pubstomping that's the problem.

I like the bracket system in concept. I've played against too many people who claim they have a "casual deck" that completely sweeps the floor. Having an objective way to gauge the power level could be neat if they set guidelines for percentages of the deck that include cards/combos that are a certain power level. That way you can slap in a Vampiric Tutor you opened in a pack but it wouldn't compromise your deck's "bracket standing" unless you had a bunch of other high-power cards thrown in. I don't think it'll be easy to setup, especially with all the nuances that come with the way the thousands of cards interact with each other, but if done right I'm on board. Only time will tell

Two things: First Righteous Prof is right. Second: Him guessing the prices and being way off is extremely entertaining.

Thanks for your honest off the cuff thoughts about this. It’s great that the community can always rely on you to speak your mind.

The most contentious thing about this video is Prof's irrational anger towards a cheerleader appearinging in a setting based on 80s horror movies. Absolutely baffling. 😂

The Canadian highlander systems seems much better than brackets. It also requires MUCH more work.

The safety of a human life will ALWAYS be more important than a card game. It’s horrible and irrational that people threatened lives over the legality of cards in tournaments.

I think they should make an app that you can put your deck into, and each card has a point value. then the app can tell you the point value of your deck to relate power to other decks, and let you track what is in each deck. This way, if you play for fun, then you can ignore it entirely, but if you play at events, then just scan in your deck to judge its power. Maybe even let the players vote on what a card's points should be to help with the amount of cards in the format.

Prof I just started playing Magic a few months ago. Your channel has been invaluable to me learning this game, and from there getting out of my shell to meet new people. People like you and Olivia have a positive impact in the world and I hope you never stop being ambassadors for this hobby. At the end of the day the cards are useless without good people around a table.

I hate to be that guy, but I *_love_* being that guy, Maybe commander players should try out some other formats for once? They seem to be getting stir-crazy.

I think you shouldn't just accept the takeover. There are substantial community members (like you prof) that could work to reinstate a new RC. One that has more members. Many magic the gathering creators seem to feel similarly that keeping the format under control of outstanding community members is crucial for the health of commander.

I actually really like this. Its basically soft formats in edh id liken to legacy, pioneer, modern, etc in other formats And for each, people can build competitively thats of course true. And people can look at that as changing nothing cause pub stomping can still happen Another way to look at it is more competitive environements to try, all at different power levels. I think thats super fun And also i think a single card making a deck bracket 4 makes total sense. Its simple and clean, and for pickup games if you have a tier 1 or 2 deck with a couple bracket 4 cards in them just take them out Ya i can understand feeling bad cause you want to play with those cards maybe not at a table with a bunch of tuned cedh decks, but maybe this just means that sort of thing should generally be relegated to playgroup games where everyone knows you and knows your decks I really dont see the problem with that I think its also really important to note what a good idea this is from a format sculpting standpoint. Its not like a banlist where huge financial ramifications exist for removing cards. They can pretty loosely move cards around the brackets honing in a the best possible experience for each tier Its inherrently a tough, complex task to balance formats and normally there are huge consequences for making changes, goinf back on them, etc Which as an engineer, i cant imagine working in an environment where i cant test my designs. This lets thwm do that, and easily revert or change again at any point. And for us gamers, it doesnt impact anything except pickup games So ya like, dont make too many changes all the time but yearly is fine and it never forces us to stop playing a deck in the event of a change. Its all just recommendations Everyone tries to poke holes in this and i think the key thing is ya this doesnt fix everything, but i cant see how this makes anything worse at all. Like, despite the issues that still exist i dont see how this introduces any new ones i think it only removes older ones Not commenting here on the wizards takeover, just supporting this bracket idea

Watching this in contrast to the ... let's phrase it nicely the childish command zone episode is extremely refreshing. Thank you for being a mature voice of reason prof. As far as a good faith thing from wotc I am not sure. I can wish for reprints and all that, but honestly it will be stopping to push commanders so damn hard. They won't do it, but it would be something I wish for.

Wow, a Move Along Home reference in the wild in 2024.

so i was invited to play commander years ago and didnt have a deck. somebody lent me theirs until the next game when they wanted it back. the 2nd deck i played with that night was mono black with no instants other than skeletal scrying. i complained that there was no instant removal and was made fun of. id love to hear comments about my situation.

WotC designed all the cards responsible for this fiasco. They also decided to never reprint those cards. WotC bears the vast majority of the blame for this mess The Rules Committee should have indicated they were looking at these cards, but they were absolutely correct in prioritizing gameplay over the secondary market. They shouldn't have shocked everyone, but these cards shouldn't exist in EDH. Also, I fail to see how the 4 tier bracket system is significantly different from the 10 tier system we've been 'using'. Also, it's a casual format - casuals can't be bothered to accurately determine the power level of their decks

19:35 -- You know, Forsythe DID address this. I think it's pretty obvious that we'll be able to have Rule 0 discussions like, "My mana base is a 3, but the rest of my deck is a 1 or 2." Or, "I have a couple of 4's in my deck like Vampiric Tutor and Mystical Tutor, but my deck is otherwise a 2." The whole point of the new system seems to be facilitating Rule 0 discussion. Going back to the system YOU think is best for EDH is how we ended up at every deck being a 7. Also, the points system would be FAR more cumbersome given the scope. That said, if the brackets end up getting used for organized play, it's a simple matter of substituting your bracket 4 card with a bracket 3 equivalent. Hells, a bunch of us are already doing that with Mana Crypt RIGHT NOW. Also, your whole complaint about new players having to learn the brackets also applies to a ban list existing at all. Finally, 29:10 is a complete non sequitur. The cost certainly doesn't have anything to do with powerlevel. Whether or not a deck would retroactively be considered bracket 1 has less to do with it being a precon and more to do with what bracket 1 will end up looking like. After all, fetch lands are going to be bracket 1, and I suspect shocks, checks, and other excellent lands that you rarely -- if ever -- see in existing precons will be bracket 1. There's also no guarantee that cards in bracket 1 have ever been or will ever be in a precon.

Its hard to understate how important knowing your playgroup and knowing exactly what your deck is capable of is. I have a EDH deck that's half prison half wombo-combo, but I knows it's very unreliable and my friends love watching me pop or fizzle

You issued a challenge - essentially, “what can WotC do that the RC could not by owning this process”- WotC could errata cards instead of ban them ( especially new cards); WotC could issue reprints with errata. RC couldn’t do those things. I’m not saying wotc will do this, (or should), but it is something that only they can choose to do as the producers of the cards.

9:10 But I love tuning in to watch how out of touch you are with prices... :(

The idea that every game with strangers needs a drawn out conversation of what each consider acceptable cards seem a lot worse than the bracket system. I think a lot of people would rather just not play the format. If you a playing with friends, however, you don't need to care about _any_ external rules settings.

Prof - have to ask - was the line "Goodbye Nadu" a play on "goodbye and adieu" ? As in goodbye and goodbye / good riddance? Either way I got a kick out of it

21:10 I never thought I'd think of Jerma watching a TCC video, but that was the onion ring noise thru and thru right there. Definitely brightened up the mood for me

My playgroups rule 0 is no card is off limits, if you build a deck and it stomps regularly. We will target you out of the gates.

15:49 why so much hate for the cheerleader

Have prof run commander

15:28 Prof's visceral reaction to Acrobatic Cheerleader was cathartic

1:24 "...they disgust..." Me too prof, me too.

"It makes no sense it's so immersion breaking" Meanwhile in some future game: "Imma tap Rinoa Heartilly to destroy Elesh Norn and your TARDIS. Next Pickle Rick exiles your Karn...."

This is the best content on the topic. I listened to the commander cast after you retweeted it and honestly I was pre-disappointed with their approach to the topic and they're weirdly positive take in many ways while also minimizing the people making these very real threats. Thank you for being you professor a good episode