Hello and welcome back. Standard, Legacy and Vintage Banned and Restricted announcements happened recently, and while I don’t cover those formats here the conversations around those bans and some other conversations about other cards got me thinking a bit. A lot of cards printed these days are powerful, probably more powerful than they need to be and certainly more powerful than some prior cards.
A chunk of players blame Commander for this because of the need to sell cards through everything ever printed to Commander players. I think that was more true in the past than it is now, with plenty of people buying powerful cards regardless of the level of that power to stay competitive in other formats despite design philosophy from WotC. With the B and R announcement, we can see that none of those cards were really Commander staples either.
However, there is certainly a push into card design space where you can get some outrageous value no matter the format you might be playing. With Commander’s access to almost every card in the game, there are definitely some clear sign posts of power largely represented in the Game Changers lists but many more cards than that could be argued.
TOO MUCH UPSIDE
Mark Rosewater had said once that they now make cards in the vein and image of the mechanic Landfall, in which he means drawbacks are something players don’t like in general and players do like being rewarded for doing stuff. I mean, who doesn’t like free? Unfortunately we’ve seen what that can do to the game itself and the cards used to play it.
I personally despise landfall as a mechanic, so with that bias mentioned I will try my very best to be impartial. The reason is that I don’t believe we should get free stuff with everything we do. Sure it feels good and that’s why these kinds of cards get played, and I’m not immune to the train to value town. As an example, Y’Shtola, Night’s Blessed recently made it to number 1 built decks on EDHRec, and I have that deck myself.
It’s when you have too many cards that reward you for breathing though that you lose the tension in the design of a deck, too many single cards that do too much, or the story about how you pulled something off despite the drawbacks and the cost. Plenty of cards have exploitable drawbacks as well and synergies that our huge card pool can easily find payoffs for. A lot of stories about games that are meant to impress are less about the struggle or the turnabout or the underdog winning the day and more about “I dumped my deck onto the table and broke it”. All well and good, but let’s get more creative.
“DRAWBACKS”
Starting with cards that don’t really have drawbacks and do see some play, I find most of these centered in Black. Syr Konrad the Grim is an easy, powerful example of giving you a bonus for something you are probably fine with doing anyway, and he himself doesn’t make it free. You have to pay mana to mill unless you have something else doing the milling for you.
Another card with a drawback is Vilis, Broker of Blood. You have to lose life after summoning this eight mana demon to the battlefield to get the card draw. While he can fuel this a bit himself, it creates more tension about letting some damage through to get more cards to cast, or using your own life total as a means to an end.
So called drawbacks aren’t only in Black though. Descent into Avernus is quite popular among some players for the speed it can add to closing a game and the entertainment that might accompany it even though it ramps everyone with Treasure tokens and deals damage to players including yourself. Aria of Flame is sometimes used in spellslinger decks for speed up damage if they don’t quite play storm. Rites of Flourishing gives you extra draw and land drops, but does so for everyone else as well.
Depending on the drawback, there is probably a way to either use it better than your opponents and your have to outrace them with your deck, which should be generally designed better to abuse an effect like Primal Vigor or Forced Fruition with some kind of synergistic payoff for you to break the balance and come out ahead.
CREATIVE DESIGN
This isn’t something we can place squarely on players though. As I mentioned earlier on, the design of a lot of cards has become one of “yes, everything and then some”. It’s long been a critique of the legends we use as Commanders and bears out that if the legend isn’t providing a card advantage or mana advantage, it is less likely to be used. It can be too much hand holding in a design where the deck kind of just runs itself.
These are cards that sell however. Everyone likes to stay in a game and have stuff to play. Having card draw in the command zone is a big deal but there are some other, interesting offerings to consider along those lines. Breena the Demagogue, Gluntch the Bestower and Xyris the Writhing Storm draw you cards but can be political, along with some synergistic cards that can give you additional payoffs.
There are other levers you can pull as well, and a good showcase of some of these cards are from the Mystery Booster Commander Edition legends recently spoiled. Yume Chronicler of Valor allows players to pay into a spell that might benefit them and you, while Lyna Veil of Vengeance can aid your opponents while also suppressing them as a threat to you.
PLAYER AND POLITIC
I think that’s where the more interesting design for Commander is. If they can make the card have value but also have a political leaning, it’s a more interesting design that isn’t just value but value to the game and the experience itself. This is a multiplayer format and winning at most levels, while exciting and invigorating, can be secondary to the stories to tell afterward and the cool things you get to do with your deck in a game.
Until next time, do you pay two for Rhystic Tutor?
