Expanding on a new format idea from a while back
General forum
Posted on June 28, 2021, 10:46 p.m. by jaymc1130
So a while back I had an interesting idea for a format similar in style to Commander and Oathbreaker and I've since refined some of the scope. I figured I'd post my updated thinking and rules here and see what people think about it as an idea. And, perhaps, see if any one is interested in play testing the format with me on something like Untap. Thoughts and suggestions are most welcome.
For the time being I'm calling the format "Legionaire" for lack of any better ideas. The conceptual theme behind the format is basically expanding the command zone and introducing some new tactical and strategic play patterns.
100 card singleton. Each deck must contain exactly 100 cards (not including command zone cards or companion cards).
In addition to the 100, each deck must include a legendary creature commander (standard commander rulings here) or partner pairing to provide color identity in the expanded command zone.
Each Command Zone must include 9 permanents.
1 must be a legendary Land.
1 must be a legendary Planeswalker.
1 must be a legendary Enchantment.
1 must be a legendary Artifact.
1 must be a legendary Creature.
1 must be an equipment.
1 must be a vehicle.
1 must be a "trinket" (1 cmc artifact).
1 must be a "bauble" (0 cmc artifact).
A single card may fulfil multiple of these requirements should it fit the criteria. Mox Amber for example is a legendary artifact, and a "bauble". Skullclamp is an equipment and a "trinket". Any and all commanders count toward the use of these 9 slots. Only 1 land may be included in the command zone. The other 8 non-land command zone permanents, in addition to the other requirements, must represent each cmc value from 0-5 once, and one of 6 or greater. Each face of a dual face card counts separately provided that face is a permanent. Once all the requirement criteria have been met any remaining command zone slots may be occupied by any non-land permanent card with cmc 1 or greater. Standard command tax rules apply to all permanents in the command zone (the tax is not part of the casting cost for the land, rather that tax is a state based requirement to play the land from that zone for each time it's previously been played). All non-land cards in the command zone must adhere to the commander's color identity.
Each deck must contain exactly 11 sideboard cards.
This covers the deck construction rules. There are a couple of ideas behind the purpose of this template. First, this template ought to provide a high degree of consistency in performance in a large deck singleton format. Second, it creates some unique opportunities for rules that restrict gameplay in a way to open up new strategic and tactical play patterns that are interesting and enjoyable when combined with the gameplay rules for Legionaire. Third, it offers a wide degree of deckbuilding flexibility that allows for a ton of fun customization for any idea or theme. The sideboard adds some functional utility to some cards that are missing from commander currently and would allow them to see play.
On to the Legionaire gameplay rules.
The focus here was simple. Try to tone down some of the oppressiveness of competitive EDH and force combat to take a more prominent role in tactical and strategic choices.
Starting hand of 7, standard multiplayer edh rules, each player draws for their first turn. Starting life totals at 40.
A player cannot win the game unless that player has dealt damage to each opponent with a vehicle crewed by an equipped commander.
Whenever an equipped commander crews a vehicle the equipment effects are applied to the vehicle in addition to the commander as long as the commander remains equipped as a state based effect until end of turn. A vehicle crewed this way will be considered to have been "Mounted" and a vehicle in this state that deals damage to an opponent will be considered to have dealt a "Mounted Hit". (This is just terminology to facilitate the rules moving forward. Open to suggestions for what to name it.)
If a player would draw a card with no cards left in the deck and no opponent has dealt each other player a Mounted hit that player may instead choose to shuffle all owned cards not on the battlefield into their library, and return all cards not on the battlefield that started the game in the command zone or sideboard to their respective zones, then draw a card.
If a player's life total would be reduced to less than 1 by anything not owned by them and no opponent has dealt each other player a Mounted Hit, any loss of life or damage that would reduce their life total to less than to 1 reduces it to 1 instead.
A player cannot lose the game from poison counters if no opponent has dealt a Mounted Hit to each other player.
This covers the fundamentals of the gameplay rules for Legionaire. Essentially, this template prevents players from winning until they've gotten in a hit on each opponent and from losing to opponents by alternative means before the hits get in. The intention is to limit some of the powerful cheesier combo winning things decks in eternal formats can do without completely eliminating the ability of those concepts to function. Requiring Mounted Hits to win covered most of the blazing fast alt wins, and requiring them for opponents to lose by force (though a player can still kill themselves with these rules, so be careful) covers most of the niche cases like forcing an opponent to lose to mill before connecting with the Mounted Hits.
That's basically it for now. There are still questions about things such as the Mounted Hits requirement in games that have say 8 or 10 players for example, but the fundamental elements of the format idea are here for what could be a very fun way to play magic. There are some obvious choices I'd make in regards to bans (Mana Crypt and Sol Ring for example should probably be banned) but that's fine tuning and more of a down the road type of consideration.
I'll keep refining this idea since it's been fun to think about. Looking forward to thoughts and hoping there's some adventurous folks out there keen on hopping on Untap with me to mess around with the idea.
Too many rules and requirements for me to think that this would end up being a flexible format.
By having so many required cards, you end up narrowing viable options. By trying to increase consistancy, you end up requiring efficiency. I imagine it would be an even worse environment from a casual gameplay perspective than dealing with oppressive, high-powered commander decks.
A gameplay requirement of having a commander crew a vehicle seems kinda interesting, but there is way too much going on here.
June 28, 2021 11:45 p.m.
Your statement doesn't make any sense to me at any level, I might just be dense. Care to expand a bit on what you mean here by "narrowing options" or why casual players would find the format "more oppressive" than typical cEDH? Whatcha thinking mate?
June 28, 2021 11:54 p.m.
By require so many things, it seems to me that only so many viable options would exist. Just going on gut feeling here.
I really just think that there are too many different things going on here and that keeping the rules additions/changes simple is a good idea for a format variant.
June 28, 2021 11:58 p.m. Edited.
The current issue with cEDH (I feel from your statements that you don't play a ton of it) is that so few things are required and barely any viable options exist at all. So few restrictions is what causes stagnation and boring, stale game play. Increasing restrictions is a proven technique to increase variety of viable concepts and archetypes. It's the fundamental thought behind both the entire banning process and the entire design process for all of MTG.
I get that there are some new things happening here with this concept, but the changes are very minimal, we're talking added commander zone cards and a requirement to hit each opponent with those cards in order to win or kill an opponent. That's not exactly a massive number of additional rules to consider either, so I'm still not sure I can grasp what you're trying to say here.
Could you suggest some things you'd like to see from a format that includes all legendary permanent types in the command zone and restrictions on how explosively a player can achieve victory?
June 29, 2021 12:14 a.m.
I have to agree with 1empyrean. It feels like there's just too many requirements and hoops to jump through. It's kind of like, "but on the third tuesday of every month, as long as you saw a dog on your drive to the LGS then clause five is exempt" kind of thing. there's also a lot of extra stuff that you have to track.
While I am a fan of multiple things in the CZ, it basically guarantees lazy deck building, since I can have a land, Sol Ring and Mana Crypt in every opening hand.
The benefit of the oathbreaker signature spell is that it's a pretty simple concept. Here you have a lot of extra cards you need to have, all of which need to match your colour identities. And depending on your colours, you might find the number of legendary lands available to you are a tad on the expensive side which can also then limit the player base.
June 29, 2021 12:21 a.m.
There's a reason our group banned Sol Ring and Mana Crypt before we started playtesting this idea some. And it's the exact reason's you state. The rest of the deckbuilding that we've done has been the farthest possible thing from lazy, however. There are so many different combinations of things and we've found no shortages based on color identity, subtype, or any other aspect. And especially considering the number of flip lands these days, legendary lands being a financial factor limiting access seems pretty ridiculous to present as a reason.
Granted we don't have a ton of experience messing with this so far ourselves, but a handful of games is something and the mixing and matching of the command zone pieces has actually been maybe the most fun part of it all. The types of restrictions put on what cards can hold what slots means that the very start of the process of deck construction ensures a person has to make choices, sacrifices even. Do you want a partner? Well at least one of those other slots has to fulfil multiple criteria to even leave a slot available. It's been the absolute farthest possible thing from "lazy" deck building because those restrictions that are in place force choice and compromise.
Did I word the post in such as way as to imply that your non commander legendary permanents all had to match the color identity of the commander exactly? It seems as if that's the way it's maybe being interpreted, in which case I've goofed linguistically. Your non commander legendary permanents must fit within the Commander's color identity. If I'm playing Thrasios Tymna I could use Legion's Landing as my Legendary Enchantment and my Legnedary land. It's a white enchantment and fits within the color identity of the commanders. It has a face that's a legendary land. It's also 1 cmc, but not an artifact and so can't count towards my trinket requirement.
June 29, 2021 12:45 a.m.
Being able to count the back of cards definitely does help to alleviate to an extent, however there are still a lot of hoops that you have to jump through. And it means that everybody has to spend the firt 10 minutes of every game checking that a person's deck fulfils the requirements. Formats like commander lep you show your commande and go. And it's pretty easy to see if somebody has made a deckbuilding goof.
Additionally, commanders like Najeela, the Blade-Blossom get stupid good, as she has immediate access to stuff like Skullclamp , Bow of Nylea , Purphoros, God of the Forge , Liliana Vess (to assemble an infinite combo piece) as well as some othe goodies. And yet she can still comply with the comabt requirement. And yes, yo ucan just ban her, but now we are adding more and more cards to banlists. Also, what about things like The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale ? that can now be played turn 1.
Overly complicated rules that have to be jumped through from step 0 is what really turns people off to the game. While MtG is fullof complex rules and interactions, you can pretty easily explain enough basic rules to players that they can start a game from nothing and have a good time. I just don't think that this is achieveable here - there's just too much complexity.
And while your playgroup might be fine with it all, remember that your group has had a long time to develop and understand it. But just dumping out a bunch of complicated (or super wordy) rulings is not going to help get traction in the community. Think about commander and how quickly yo ucna explain the basic rules to somebody so they get the idea of what they need to do. That's more what you should be aiming for.
June 29, 2021 12:58 a.m.
This feels less like a cohesive draft and more like a set loosely connected of notes from which multiple formats could be born.
Let’s start with the first half of your post, the command zone rules. They are arbitrary, complex, and beg to be abused - a bad combination for a format. Imagine trying to teach a new player the format orally. That would be a disaster, since they’d likely have trouble tracking the double layers of 9 different permanent types and whatever is going on with your CMC rules. If your rules are such a mess when written, they’re going to be impossible to explain under real-world conditions.
And now for something completely different.
Did you know this is a vehicle format? Neither did anyone else until halfway through your post. You could probably come up with something equally arbitrary to slow down the game that doesn’t rely on a card subtype that has so very few viable options and skews the entire format toward the very few colors that have synergy with said subtype.
Overall, I think your proposal fails to fill its own niche (or, more accurately, fills such a narrow niche as to not really provide much of anything) and is unnecessary in complexity for the sake of including nonsensical compelled.
June 29, 2021 1:03 a.m.
jaymc1130 I kind of think I get what what you're going for here, but there really is a lot going on.
My first thought is that this might be better served as a house variant cube: draft your Planeswalker, draft your legendary stuff, draft your vehicle, draft the other stuff, then cube draft everything else normally. Give a good selection of each, and you should have enough for replayability without having to confirm everything for each new deck.
My other suggestion is to streamline and simplify. Assume I'm a reasonably knowledgeable player, and explain it to me in no more than four short-to-medium sentences. Find out the most central, essential parts and clean up the rest.
This variant will naturally be more accessible to you and your group, since you're the ones that developed it. Understanding is easy when you know the answers, and that's not a bad thing. Looking at this for the first time, though, I see a lot of extra rules that don't entirely seem to naturally flow, and a few of them look completely arbitrary.
June 29, 2021 1:40 a.m.
As some examples:
Why does the sideboard exist, and why exactly eleven cards?
Why do you get a legendary permanent of each type? I see this not as a restriction, but as broadening the gap between ultra cards, strong cards, and decent cards. If one person brings Silent Submersible , Tawnos, Urza's Apprentice , Paradox Engine , and Sword of Feast and Famine , having those cards always available is going to leave almost no chance for whatever was cobbled together from Dusk Legion Dreadnought , Radha, Heir of Keld, Grimoire of the Dead , and Demonmail Hauberk . The consistency is incredibly high, and I'm sure a more extreme example could be easily created.
What's the purpose of the baubles and trinkets?
Since there are loss restrictions, a dedicated Stax or Turbo Fog deck could potentially make the whole game virtually unwinnable for anyone. Is this a viable strategy, or should it be discouraged?
June 29, 2021 2:27 a.m.
"Since there are loss restrictions, a dedicated Stax or Turbo Fog deck could potentially make the whole game virtually unwinnable for anyone. Is this a viable strategy, or should it be discouraged?"
I have no idea. Haven't had any where near enough chances to play and figure out how abusable that aspect might be yet. What's presented is as far as the concept has come this year.
June 29, 2021 2:36 a.m.
So everyone starts with a game ending combo in ther command zone
June 29, 2021 9:31 a.m.
TriusMalarky says... #16
You realize you have to ban a crap ton of stuff, right? Mox Amber , Mox Opal , Mox Diamond and Chrome Mox all mean that everyone has 2 mana turn one every single game. Also, most decks are running Skullclamp in the equipment slot anyways, especially as that's basically the only equipment worth playing in high tier play. Other than that, you'd have Lightning Greaves . That's two equipment that you'll see.
The vehicle is always Smuggler's Copter . There's nothing else good enough to see play in high power, and everything else is a gimmick.
On lands, most decks will probably just run Boseiju, Who Shelters All , and the ones that don't get crap like Gaea's Cradle, Eye of Ugin , Phyrexian Tower , or The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale . Maybe the occasional Untaidake, the Cloud Keeper to power out big commanders.
Planeswalker? Hmmmm. . . . Oko, T3f, Wallet Sculpter, LotV mean anything to you? Between them, the only cards worth playing will be sorceries and enchantments . . . oh wait, Serra's Sanctum for the Sythis player.
It's an unplayable format because nobody can cast instants, nobody can keep a creature or artifact around because it's an Elk, nobody has a hand, all of that starts on turn one, and oh by the way you also get a Copter that you might bother to cast. You can crew it with the Mox you got to use twice before it got Elked! That's fun. Then the Elves player with 400 Cradle mana and the Enchantress player who staxed the table out while drawing 40 cards a turn will take over the game.
While it could be fun, the first couple turns will play out exactly the same every game. Everybody either gets overly explosive starts or overly staxxy starts. You could ban stuff, yes . . . but what happens when you ban the cards worth running in those slots? You get a bunch of Copters. Cards that are played because they're objectively good but you'll never cast them because almost anything else is better in this format. And then where are you? Back to commander, but with a larger banlist and everybody gets several extra useless cards in hand.
TL;DR, Interesting idea but I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole, and I enjoy degenerate piles of stax like the filthy grinch I am.
June 29, 2021 1:49 p.m.
We also assumed only Smuggler's Copter would make it as a vehicle in this concept. So far that has turned out not to be the case, some of the other vehicles are important for mixing and matching based on the type and mana cost requirements.
Seems the consensus thus far is that the idea needs more refinement and simplification, and there's certainly no question that there are a lot of impactful considerations that need to be accounted for.
I'll keep working on it and update ya'll as things progress.
jaymc1130 says... #2
Just considered it, but for dual face cards they can also count toward the type requirements as well as the cmc requirements. Search for Azcanta Flip, for example, would count toward a 2 cmc legendary enchantment and the legendary land.
June 28, 2021 11 p.m.