Chain of Command
The Kitchen Table forum
Posted on Feb. 8, 2020, 3:26 p.m. by Quantum_Breaker
I have spent some time thinking on how to change commander a little so make room for planeswalkers as commanders and gameplay that is geared towards long term strategies while staying semi budget and avoiding pay to win decks (which is altogether impossible, but hopefully can be dissuaded).
So, without further ado, I present "Chain of Command"
To start the game you must have 50 commons, three designated commanders and cards to go with them, these commanders can be any legendary creature or planeswalker and their decks should contain only cards within all of your commander’s color identities and be of the same rarity as their commander.
Common, 50
Captain - Uncommon, 30
Major - Rare, 15
General - Mythic, 5
All totals include commanders, so your General comes with 4 Mythic rares
You start with 40 life
There are essentially four phases of play
Phase 1, Commons:
You start the game with your 50 commons in your library and your Captain in the command zone. All other cards should be put into your sideboard and commanders shown to opponents.
Once you cast your Captain, phase 2 starts
Phase 2, Uncommons:
You have successfully cast your Captain, now you shuffle your uncommons into your library (this happens at instant speed). Put your Major in the Command zone, your Captain ceases to be a commander and becomes a regular card in your deck. Reset all commander tax
If at any point before you cast your Major your Captain changes zones (exile, graveyard, removed from the game), your Major is removed from the game and you can choose to put your Captain into the command zone.
Once you have successfully cast your Major with your Captain on the battlefield, phase three starts
Phase 3, Rares:
Same as phase 2 but replace Captain with Major, and Major with General
Phase 4, Mythic Rares:
You have cast your general! Congratulations! You now shuffle your mythic rares into your library and your General becomes your commander just like phases 2 and 3. The first time you cast your General you may also put your Captain and Major from anywhere onto the battlefield, if they are already on the battlefield you may exile them then return them to the battlefield.(if your Captain or Major is in your library you may search it then shuffle)
Edits:
decreased commanders from 4 to 3
locked in rarity
added General's bonus
restructured explanation
SynergyBuild says... #3
I doubt this even would be fun in online mtg, but it would be the absolute worst in paper, utter trash gameplay and imagine having things like tutors in this deck, it would be disgusting to try to remember which cards are in each pile to know your deck. That's even assuming you will ever use the mechanic to upgrade your captain further when everyone knows that it is easy to kill it. Assumedly you'd just want to play a midrange/control deck with the 50 cards and stop your opponents from using anything while you stomp around with a singleton pauper basically draft deck. 0 interesting or fun actual gameplay I think could be gotten from this format that isn't in EDH, just some flavor fun, and also wow will mill be good at killing one player in a constructed 50 card deck. Even less fun.
February 8, 2020 6:25 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #4
Wow, everyone is super down on this. It is actually one of the more interesting commander variants I have seen pitched, though it is super complex and implementation in paper would be problematic.
February 8, 2020 7:36 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #5
Gidgetimer idc how interesting a format is, Brawl is interesting, Tiny Leaders is interesting, the most interesting was Oathbreaker. Those are all dead since they weren't fun. Fun is what matters, this fails on that regard more than any format that I have ever heard of.
February 8, 2020 7:50 p.m.
Quantum_Breaker says... #6
SynergyBuild, if you ran tutors you could only search your one library. The idea is that you add cards to your library as you upgrade your commander. The other "decks" are just groups of cards in your sideboard that get shuffled in when you go up a rank.
As for distinguishing between the cards post game Funkydiscogod, most of the cards in the groups of cards/decks for each commander are hopefully going to be of a certain rarity. I left the rarity kind of open ended so as not to be too strict. Also, if you use sleeves just put a little piece of paper or something in it. No biggie.
Im super open to feedback, this is kinda just a thought experiment rn. I'd like to do some significant playtesting but lack a dedicated group to help me test.
Gidgetimer I'm glad you think it's an interesting idea, if you have any ideas on how to make it less of a "nightmare on paper" I'd be glad for the feedback
February 8, 2020 8:49 p.m.
I actually think this could be interesting. You'd have to lose the flexibility of rarity. Lock in the rarity and sorting becomes easier. It would take a while to sort each game though. With that kind of set up time I think you could go further with changing the rules to make it worth it.
Maybe have objectives that if you meet them grant some kind of bonus.
Or planeschase type effect that you get along with each commander, but only benefits the owner of the commander.
I'd Increase life total and required commander damage.
Ban all auto win cards like Approach of the Second Sun and Vraska the Unseen to promote the long game.
February 8, 2020 9:33 p.m. Edited.
Gidgetimer says... #8
SynergyBuild I disagree with almost every single thing you have said in this thread. This sounds super fun to me and I don't think that not being fun was the downfall of any of those formats nor do I think a single one of them was interesting. It is however a logistical nightmare as presented and I don't play enough of niche formats to really contribute beyond vague encouragement and criticism.
February 8, 2020 10:53 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #10
Quantum_Breaker I understand that premise, I understood it when I made the comment you are referring to, I only stated that memorizing all 4 decks seems difficult if you want to remember what is in your deck at any time, which would be required if you want to cast a tutor with maximum info. What if you have 3 decks shuffled and forget if a tutor target is a mythic rare or rare so you have to guess if you even have it in your deck?
maxon I wish I could agree, but the issue is that if you lock in the rarity, while it would seem you would have all of the cards and just sort by the given rarity symbol, you could have plenty of uncommons that once were commons, or rares that once were mythics, and have them in separate places, or any number of cards from older sets like the dark where the symbols are all them same. It just is impractical to implement, and if you include full art cards or alters, it gets worse.
Gidgetimer Have you tested it? I tested deckbuilding and a few paper games with my collection and found it was super fun when playing with a roommate of mine, who also thought it was stupid. It sounded fun, that's why I tested it in the first place, it wasn't fun in real life. The formats I listed may be fun for you, I have no squabble with you or any number of players liking them. People decided it wasn't fun to play with a rotating Commander with walkers, People decided it wasn't fun to play with Tiny Leaders, or the busted Oathbreaker turn 2-3 hardlock/infinite combo/storm, but maybe every written statistic on the amount of games played recently for these formats is wrong, maybe it is a ton of fun to everyone and they all play it underground, I don't find it fun, and this was put on a player forum, so I am going to make the point I find true.
Dredge4life Do you play it? I have no issue with it if you find it fun and play it, but you say you 'liked' it, implying you don't anymore, or you can't play it anymore. Maybe no one else finds it fun in your area and stopped playing, online a lot of people found it fun to break the format over a couple weeks with Saheeli/Thoughtcast like me, Narset/Windfall or Narset/Timetwister, some Tezzeret combo lines, Teferi, Hero of Dominaria + Enlightened Tutor for Stasis was seeing some play, and the whole format died out as fast as it began. I love the idea, hated the awful management and unfun gameplay.
February 9, 2020 9:39 a.m.
Quantum_Breaker says... #11
SynergyBuild, do you think changing to only pioneer legal cards could help with the rarity issue? If not, do you have any suggestions? Thanks for playtesting, I know this needs lots of work and I appreciate the feedback
February 9, 2020 9:59 a.m.
Gidgetimer says... #12
SynergyBuild Look, I'm not playing the pronoun game trying to figure out what "it" is. I'm also not going to waste my time discussing why formats did or did not fail with someone who is using circular logic. "They failed because they weren't fun and my proof that they aren't fun is because they failed".
I'm done responding to you in any fashion. I made a comment about how I thought that this actually sounded a bit interesting and that I thought people were being unduly harsh. This somehow turned into you wanting to @ me. I really don't know what you are wanting from this interaction. If you are somehow looking to "win", fine you win internet points. But you lose reading comprehension, use of logic, and being a decent human being to interact with.
(In case it wasn't clear, I will not be responding to you at all. So go on the inevitable tirade so that you can feel you had the last word. Enjoy your internet points)
February 9, 2020 10:15 a.m.
The reason tiny leaders and oath breaker fell apart is theh got solved the card pool was too limited and decks where too small so people where either stuck playing the best deck or something that beats the best deck.
February 9, 2020 10:51 a.m.
SynergyBuild says... #14
Quantum_Breaker Well, pioneer only reminds me of a lot of the modern commander variants or the brawl variants, both of which failed. It would perhaps bring more immediate attraction to the format, but I doubt it would do well long term since it would stifle creativity.
You want to use multiple decks and rarity restrictions to create interesting gameplay? I respect that.
Don't shuffle the decks. Make the first deck Pauper, the second one Peasant, the third with rares, uncommons, and commons, the last just a commander deck. This makes rarity easier and means you can run budget cards in all 4 decks, each of them a real deck, progressively better and better.
This fixes two major gameplay issues and still allows for upgrading deck, which seems to be the point of this format. You can even have different sleeves on each of the decks, for easy sorting.
Now, what else is there? You want to fill a role that Commander doesn't play, so I came up with a couple of ideas, you could have an actual format where there are games two and three and even four, slowly moving up the ranks.
Since there would be 4 games, the games should be shorter, 20 life perhaps. Perhaps something like 30 card decks, but the issue lies with mill, perhaps an effect to stop it, like giving both players shroud, or having a Wheel of Sun and Moon effect always out, etc.
Perhaps there is a point per match, where if you end 2/2 it is a tie or whatever, but I like the idea of a benefit you can get each game per win, for example, if you win game 1, you get 5 life and an extra card, if you won two games you get 10 life and two extra cards (extra cards meaning opening hand AND maximum hand size), etc.
Then the General battle would be the deciding winning factor. With this in mind, you can know that aggro is a real contender, something that it isn't in normal EDH, giving this format much more of an interesting take, additionally, though your colors stay the same, the actual decks can change each match, giving a lot of powerful strategies, going aggro-control-midrange-combo is a real possibility!
You may also want to have other uses for multiple decks, like a team battle, but I like the idea of making it a round-by-round match, though it would use work.
February 9, 2020 11:04 a.m.
Quantum_Breaker says... #15
Did I say on the battlefield, I meant in your library, I have to edit that TypicalTimmy
It is fixed
shadow63 says... #2
Yeah this is super confusing and seems like a bad idea. The reason why formats exist the way they do is they are relatively simple
February 8, 2020 3:40 p.m.