Community

This thread is for discussion of this week's Serious Fun, which goes live Tuesday morning on magicthegathering.com.

In the "Cards" column:
Karmic Guide, Oversold Cemetery, Phyrexian Reclamation, Volrath's Stronghold

In the "Replacements" column:
Doomed Necromancer, Dread Return, Golgari Guildmage, Hell's Caretaker 

Uhhh... Dread Return is not Modern legal.

I suspect he was not being entirely literal, since the reasons for a lot of cards to be on the Modern banned list simply won't apply in Commander. Taking the basic "anything with the modern border + existing Commander ban list" seems fair enough to me.

Personally, I fully support playing Modern Commander since at the very list it makes sure everyone isn't playing Sol Ring. I do think the cards newly printed in the Commander sets should be permitted (but to count it as a 'promo' set for reprints so as not to allow Sol Ring and friends via the back door).

Aug 7, 2012 -- 4:48AM, aliasisudonomo wrote:

I suspect he was not being entirely literal, since the reasons for a lot of cards to be on the Modern banned list simply won't apply in Commander. ...

But then... 

"I can hear the exclamations already. "You're removing the cards from Magic: The GatheringCommander too?" Yeah. They aren't legal in Modern, so they wouldn't be legal in Modern Commander. Awkwardly, that includes our commander of choice."

The Modern banned list is becoming a bit of a joke!

First, we had Jacob van Lunen write an article on this site that thought Ponder was a legal card.

Then, out of the TOP 8 PLAYERS at GP Columbus, THREE of them had no idea that certain cards were already legal in the format:

(Beasly: Tranquil Garden, Estrada: Eternal Witness, Piland: Cruel Ultimatum... I have to wonder hos Estrada got through a GP without playing against Eternal Witness...)

Source:
www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.a...

Now, we have Styborski forgetting Dread Return is banned. Not that I blame him, that's much more subtle given that they didn't ban every piece of the Dredge deck.

So, Wizards, if someone reads this: you are failing at educating the community about what kinds of cards they are allowed to play in Modern.
This article details some possible solutions:
magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=10...

Modern is my favorite format! I want it to succeed, but clearer communication to the community about what cards are legal, why some cards are banned, and why "modern card frame" is NOT sufficient to ensure legality. I also support a redefinition of "Eternal" as "non-rotating", so that Modern can, in fact, be called an Eternal format.


As for Commander, I have a list of cards I think are bad for the format (this is personal opinion, not researched):
Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Consecrated Sphinx (due to the idiotic game state that happens when someone clones the damn thing), any spell or creature that can ramp two or more lands (incluing Primeval Titan), any sorcery or instant that can potentially draw more cards than mana in its cost... aka Recurring Insight; Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Worldy Tutor, Enlightened Tutor and any other 1 mana tutor (against the spirit of a singleton format); Hermit Druid and lastly: any card that effectively results in taking extra turns.

I've never met anyone that wants to accept that kind of banned list, although some of my friends do agree to remove sol rings.

I'm sure there's plenty of other broken stupid stuff (two card combos, etc) not covered by this list, but many people can and do already say "no infinite combos" at the start of the game.

Aug 7, 2012 -- 6:26AM, Endosymbiote wrote:

... First, we had Jacob van Lunen write an article on this site that thought Ponder was a legal card.

Then, out of the TOP 8 PLAYERS at GP Columbus, THREE of them had no idea that certain cards were already legal in the format: ...

Now, we have Styborski forgetting Dread Return is banned. Not that I blame him, that's much more subtle given that they didn't ban every piece of the Dredge deck. ...

And then there were some hilarious announcer "wtf?" moments during GP Columbus coverage, as well.

I really believe this is because many of the Poobahs and other powers-that-be are still just saying "Oh, yeah. That."  and thinking "Ok, I can cover this." without bothering to check their facts because "Hey! It's just ('Legacy Lite!'/'Old Extended!'/'Standard with a deeper pool!') How hard can it be?"

I think once people start wrapping their head around Modern having a unique identity and structure all it's own, instead of being a port/clone of some other format, these types of incidents will slow down significantly. In the meantime, they're good for frustrated chuckles.

I also take out cards that are broken in Commander. The first card I realized was MVat ... it's just silly game over mode, despite it looking somewhat innocuous. But I agree with you very much, Endosymbiote, especially how tutors (and clones IMO) defeat the purpose of the format. As to SRing -- if it's on a banned list, I won't play it... No praetors, no Titans... a friend of mine argued about how broken cards are okay because the other players play their broken cards to stop him. This is a silly idea, and isn't how this works. Instead, whoever gets the most broken cards first is the winner.

We played a game with him and he had dumped half his graveyard and had like a 29/29 Flying, Trample, Shroud Mimeoplasm . It was impossible to deal. More importantly, he felt bad about a lot of his deck, because it was broken and didn't make the game a challenge: dumping half your library and tutoring up LDeath is ridiculous. And he knew it, and that's why he said he wouldn't cast it... then what's the point of having it in the deck?