New Format? (Oakland Highlander)
General forum
Posted on May 3, 2020, 11:40 p.m. by Savagegammer
Some of my friends and I came up with a new format, and I would like to see what people think of it.
So, in this format, you have 2 commanders: A non-basic land and a legendary creature or planeswalker. Decks are 80 cards including the land and planeswalker/creature. You must use at least one mana from your commander land to cast your commander creature/planeswalker. You start with 30 life. Like commander, this is a singleton format as well. Your commander land does not count as your one land per turn, and does have normal commander tax. Your commander land also must be within the color identity of the legendary creature/planeswalker. Your legendary creature/planeswalker sets the color identity for the rest of the cards in the deck. There are sideboards (normal 15 cards, singleton rules apply), same with companions. OAK is a 3 or 2 player format. In 3 player, you play until one player wins twice, with sideboards. 1v1 is best of 3.
For the ban/restricted list, the link is here: https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/oakland-highlander-banrestricted-list-deck/?cb=1588563627
Cards on the ban list are banned and cannot be played anywhere. the cards on the restricted list cannot be your commander. These are all lands.
I was thinking about having the name be Oakland highlander, mainly because it originated in Oakland.
Here's a deck that I made for this format if people want to check it out: Tezzeret OAK
Thank you, please feel free to ask questions or leave suggestions!
TypicalTimmy: Ahhh, yep. Forgot about that. Even sitll, the question is there - you could run an off colour land and pay for the colourless portion of the creature. And the rules should also be robust enough to cover future sets (since we don't know the sepcifics of what WotC will print and this seems pretty integral to the format).
May 4, 2020 7:54 a.m.
Its not a bad idea, but as they said, you'd definitely need to iron out the logistics of this, even more so than some other off-brand formats because that extra land that is always available is easily abusable in the right hands. Just off the top of my head Oboro, Palace in the Clouds is one of the more abusable legendary lands, with access to infinite landfall triggers, in and very early. With that contributing to wins in several other color combinations.
I'm sure there are countless other example of this, and probably better ones, but just to show that with this you would have to experiment a lot to iron things out, and even then, at what point are too many things broken or complicated that it becomes pointless?
May 4, 2020 8:26 a.m.
TriusMalarky says... #5
If this was a thing, Landfall looks fun with Oboro, Palace in the Clouds cand Tatyova, Benthic Druid.
Lotus Cobra plus Fastbond equals infinite landfall triggers. Just need a way to put cards back in your deck, or forgo playing Tatyova and play Jaddi Offshoot instead.
May 4, 2020 9:35 a.m.
Savagegammer says... #6
Thank you all for your suggestions. I Mistyped the commander land, It was supposed to be non-basic, not legendary. Sorry about that.
May 4, 2020 10 a.m.
Savagegammer says... #7
enpc, do the new changes answer your questions? Thank you for your suggestions!
May 4, 2020 10:16 a.m.
Savagegammer says... #8
TypicalTimmy, The. reason that this would be a format, not an alt. style, is that A) You can have a land as your commander. B) You can use planeswalkers as commanders. C) It is much faster than commander, which is the parent format. D) It is 80 cards and 30 life, which is not seen in very many other formats.
enpc says... #2
So basically you get a free land drop in the command zone? There are a couple of questions here:
Are there any restrictions about replaying the land? You've banned most Strip Mine effects (but not all), but stuff like The Gitrog Monster, Crop Rotation, Zuran Orb and especially Fastbond are not on the list of banned cards.
Having a land in the command zone basically encourages not only lazier deckbuilding (since you've got a guaranteed land) as well as greedier opening hands since you've effectively given people 9 cards turn 1. This will undoubtedly just encourage even more combo focused decks.
If you're going to create a "new" format, you should at least lay out some of the ground rules of it. If you're adapting it from another format (in this case I'm guessing commander) then you need to actually state that in your description.
Since the lands are also considered commanders, you need to touch on how the colour identities work. Is it only from the legendary creatures? Can you run Breeding Pool with a mono green commander and then your deck is actually blue/green?
What about partner commanders? Can you run them and have 3 cards in the command zone? how does casting restrictions work there?
You also need to fix your comment about paying for your commander creature with mana from your commander land to be: "you must use at least one mana from your commander land to cast your commander". Currently your wording is ambuiguous and can be interpreted as needing to entirely pay for your commander with mana from your land.
May 4, 2020 1:29 a.m.