I think we all wish WOTC didn't control the format, I also think we need to recognize that it got way too big for five volunteers to run. If the rules committee had adjusted and adapted as the game grew I don't think we'd be in this position, but it stayed way too small for how big the format got.
People were already mad when WOTC made "for commander" cards. This gives them more reign to do so. As well as control the ban list. Nothing is stopping them from banning a card then 2 sets down the line offering something of a similar effect but just slightly off and making it scarce so people pay top dollar
Im curious to see how their new structure will influence the design phase of commander products. Hopefully it stops design mistakes like Yuriko/arcane signet/and so on.. earlier on in the process.
DO NOT CHANGE ANY BANLIST UNTIL NEXT QUARTELY UPDATE. Regarding the chaos that happened after the recent bans, it can be easy to undo things that led to the threats, but doing so can just cause more chaos. Please listen to the former RC members regarding the format. The last thing it needs is multiple overpowered chase cards (looking at you jeweled lotus) to incentivize players to buy cards. Try to keep balance in mind throughout every card. Powerful cards are great but needs reliable counterplay to prevent from being miserable to play against. Also STOP PRINTING WARD ON EVERY LEGENDARY CREATURE.
I love how honest and open Josh is about how angry and hurt he feels over the RC's lack of communication with the advisors. Honestly, what's the point of having advisors if you're not even going to ask when it comes to such huge format-shaking decisions?
Exactly, doesn't make any sense. Threats are obviously bad, but this all started with the terrible management of the whole situation by the RC, and majority people were still upset about that part even if they weren't harassing anyone.
I listed to the LoadingReadyRun podcast on Monday about this, and Ben Wheeler (also of the CAG) had a slightly different take. He said they had discussions about “fast mana” but they didn’t discuss any specific cards until a day or two before the announcement.
@RBGolbat yes the RC was polling them about fast mana but like Josh said later even if they choose to ban those cards and he disagrees, OK whatever now let's talk about how to implement your decision then. I absolutely would be hurt as well in his place to not be including in open and informative talks about not even just the bans but then Handing over Edh to WotC. That's not just a slap in the face, it's one followed up with a kick to the nuts.
RC is very wrong and ruined everything they found out the issue cant be fix so they left.. but also all you players who threaten their life should go to jail. you dont threat someones family member that is a no go!
Josh is absolutely right. If you want to threaten people with violence over pieces of cardboard....you don't need to be playing this game and need therapy. 😬
It wasnt over cardboard it was over money and while it is gross to threaten people and absolutely unacceptable, people get violent over money all over the world every day, so it is sadly not suprising that this was the outcome.
No one made threats about cardboard lmao y'all need to be honest about it at least. Threats ain't cool, but pretending it's about cardboard makes me think this community based around a children's card game never actually grew up.
For people who think commander is going to die (unlikely) its a community built format! If wotc starts dramatically changing things we can, as a community, just keep playing commander how we have been! You won't be ARRESTED for playing with the cardboard how you and your friends want. We can just make a format called commander classic or something lol
Exactly, while I like the bracket system (means you have to rule 0 if your deck is “mostly a 2 but runs a couple of 4s”)… if you don’t want to use it, just don’t. My LGS will just be playing as normal.
That's good with a tightly-knit friend group, but try telling that to people who can only go to a LGS to play Commander, and they rock up to a pod of Randoms with banned cards. It won't end well.
I agree with you, we can adjust rules, but playing banned cards always feels wrong (e.g. paradox engine). And for some reason we insist on buying the original cardboard instead of a good printer. Why don't we all play with proxied original duals and tabernacles and stuff like that?
I really appreciate the insight of everyone at the Command Zone. They don’t just inject venom into their points for the sake of bashing, they actually explain their individual opinions and it’s entirely constructive. People that just take to the internet with cruel intentions can really learn something from the Command Zone, be constructive folks, not malicious.
Commander is what got me into Magic the Gathering. It is relatively affordable and budget friendly to play and I love the idea of having a deck built around 1 card. I love playing commander and will continue to play the game. I am hopeful that the commander format will stay healthy and more importantly safe for those that want an escape from everyday life.
As long as you have good friends or a playgroup you'll be happy to keep playing bubba! Side note I have a tip for you. Don't always build your deck from the top down. Meaning built solely because you like the commander. Sometimes it's better to build a deck from the bottom up. Meaning find a strategy you like, or a play style and build from that finding a commander that really jives with that strat.
@@kementurhman, I’ve been to a commander “tournament” once. Again, the reason I went once is watching a grown adult scream at a teen because of some slight. Again, anything that has a competitive aspect can be dangerous even if unlikely
@@GeneralDisarray666 do not believe a thing till a name and shame happens. Considering the politics of the RC and Wizards. For all we know. They're faking it cause the changeover was planned all along and they needed a contreversy to do so.
@@GeneralDisarray666 dude, this people don't even get paid for the work in the community rules. Now they have to show the evidence? I think you are a little confused
People hate people, hate being manipulated, love money. CMM and LCI were pushed hard with JL and MC being reprinted and DE being in the list of LCI, then shortly after a few volunteers pull the rug from under you.
My least favorite part of the magic community is the sheer amount of emotionally unintelligent adults. They are impacting this game far more negatively than anything wotc could ever do.
I mean...isn't this more a result of the sheer number of immature adults in society/online, rather than specifically Magic: the Gathering? I'm not sure Magic has a disproportionate number of idiots.
Unfortunately it's not really an either-or with who's worse for commander. It's an ecosystem, and the worry is that the dumbasses who threaten violence are emboldened in the first place by an entitlement that's nurtured by wotc bending and warping the game to meet their wants over the last decade or so. Once theres decisions they don't like they think they're in the right to 'correct' decisions by any means because it's THEIR format. With wotc in charge my worry isn't necessarily that they ruin the rules of commander or even print horrible cards unchecked (I mean, I worry a bit but Im sure there'll be a natural ebb and flow), my worry is that wotc folds to the worst offenders because they spend more money and are more likely to be those financially invested in the product vs invested in the game.
@@shrouded8797it has though. Mtg has classically been a refuge for loads of people with very poor social skills that find a place where they can be the bullies. Of course a majority of the people is cool, but the percentage of absolutely abhorrent people to deal with is off the charts compared with anybother hobbie I've ever had.
@@victorperezurbano9504 I'd say that conclusion mainly comes from your own experience, which is not necessarily indicative of everyone who plays Magic. I would personally only feel confident in claiming that Magic has a disproportionate number of toxic people after some kind of objective analysis.
Yeah, honestly all the grandstanding is getting annoying. Like I get it that it’s bad and never should have happened but that shouldn’t be the focus of the conversation.
A small percentage of people in the community took it way too far, and now everyone is going to pay for it. I'm so frustrated that some people just can't comprehend how to criticize in a normal way and instead decide to threaten people over a CARD GAME.
You mean the new RC is going to be focused on making wotc money instead of the old RC curating a format so their RUclips videos would get more views? Wow, such change lmfao
of course wizards didn't want them to ban the cards. they want to make the most amount of money possible. everything here is related to money. 90% of the people who talk about not banning the cards, mention money, and investments, something that shouldn't be part of a cardboard trading card game. This is all on wizards for wanting money over anything else.
48:24 I don't fully agree with Josh's point about needing certain cards to be expensive. Pokemon has a more consumer friendly model with every card being affordable, but popular cards get super rare special treatments. If Magic stopped the alternative art secret lairs and instead made them the chase cards, they could lower the price of the base version. It would require them to improve their foil quality and make sure the designs cater to people who like to bling their deck. (So probably anime girls and stuff like that)
I’ll agree with JL, but dockside was released in the early days of treasures and they didn’t know how powerful they would snowball into. I’m sure they would have written him to make tapped treasures like they do now if they were going to make him now.
I am glad jeweled louts was banned in had one insomd it in jan I hate nthat card only being g able to use ot for one color is dumb for me I jad it in a 3 color deck so it 2as really useless I am not hurt about any of thw bans. Amd if ppl spend mo ey for the Cards that's on you just my opinion.
@BlueGriffin20 the problem isn't the treasures coming in tapped - there are plenty of ways to untap them (looking at you Amulet of Vigor!!!). The issue has always always always been the *amount* of treasures it has produced.
fax. this literally has to be orchestrated. the only other explanation is the RC members are too stupid to tie their own shoes, let alone manage a format
Even if the death threats didn't happen I think this was inevitable. 50% of commander players prefer a hands off approach and use rule zero, the other 50% want commander to be a more curated and regulated experience similar to standard. With the recent bans the RC moved in the curated direction away from the rule zero direction, and 5 volunters can't balance commander. This was inevitable the minute they felt rule zero was no longer enough.
The 50% that prefer hands off are either in play groups where rule 0 functions well, play CEDH or they are “that guy”. The 50% against, play with groups where rule 0 has not functioned overly well. They need some basic guidelines against the most egregious circumstances that they can refer to for those pubstomper opponents where common sense and sportsmanship has left the building… “Where you stand on an issue depends on where you sit”.
@@Dragon_FyreDon't agree with this at all. First, most cedh players don't care very much or are excited for the changing meta. Cedh is just playing to win within the context of edh rules. Just because a card is mean or oppressive does not make it cedh, being efficient and helping you win makes a card a cedh card. Example: there is almost zero mass land destruction in cedh because it's not very good, but many people with no understanding of cedh would think Armageddon is a cedh card. Second, I have a play group and I play with randoms in a store. The store I go to, everyone brings 4+ decks. Most people have a precon and a high power deck, many even have a cedh deck. We always rule zero. It's common to play a precon game and then a cedh/high power game. This is with randoms. Don't assume that your play experience is everyone else's.
I feel like Josh is being a bit disingenuous about never being consulted. Although they never discussed the specific cards, they had years of back and forth discussing fast mana and getting feedback. They had years of data, its not like they came out of nowhere. And yes it definitely could have been handled better.
Yeah he does come across as hiding or atleast not mentioning that discussions have been made about them before, and that the rules committee made the decisions taking into account the thoughts of the team
@@drunkenalethoso like a year? And Josh has still not changed his mind about bans in general. Rc knows how the advisory group feels anyway, they exist to advise not vote, and they've already advised
@Wyrm7774 JLK said 1.5 years or so I believe in one of the videos right after the bans. It's way more about how they went about it rather than if the bans were good for the format. Tbh, I do think they were the right bans, but they went against advice given to them that suggested they execute the bans in a different way (even their most publicly recognizable RC member advised this). Home run for the format, if you dont count the damage done by doing it the way they did.
The true beauty of commander as a format is that it's mostly left to player discretion about what gets played and how it gets played. You got proxies? Cool. You got banned cards youd like to rule 0? Nova, let's go. Shall we add a table rule like whoever takes damage first loses? That's awesome, we can do that! It started as chill format for the relaxed player to enjoy, and for competitive players to strut their stuff amoungst themselves, but ultimetly its our format and a game that can always be played reguardless of what wizards decides to do with it moving forward. It doesn't matter what gets put on the banlist in terms of gameplay outside of a sanctioned magic event. It's a game that brings prosperous friendships and provides healthy, complex puzzles from gamestates right down to building your own decks. Paper magic is a promotion for improving social skills and creates a healthy environment for those introverted people to do something extroverted comfortably. The only players crying about the bans are those hardcore players who play sanctioned events, collectors, and scalpers. It boils down to money. You've always been allowed to proxy mana crypt and jewelled lotus, and it really suck for those people who genuinely bought those cards to enjoy them in proper, but for those people who hoarded them to sell copies for more expensive prices and to all the people sending death threats, CRY MORE! You are the people that ruin good things like this, and your tears are delicious.
I only wish that the RC had banned more than these four cards. If they were going to get a massive blowback for banning a bunch of cards that needed to get banned, they might as well have banned all the cards that needed bannings at once and gotten this whole vitriol over with. Of course they didn't realize the backlash they were going to get over this, but man what a missed opportunity.
if they didn't understand the backlash they would get over banning mana crypt alone, idk what to tell you, they should of never been in the position to make that kind of decision in the 1st place.
Man, you can really feel the frustration Josh has about this in the first few minutes. I didn't 100% agree with the decision the RC made, but the reaction to the bans was incredibly overblown and it's pretty lame that WotC is now in the driver's seat of the whole format.
"For the people making those threats, you suck!" You tell em Josh. Threats of violence is never acceptable. It's more their fault for taking the risk having things that can change in value at anytime. They know that risk. The Rc didn't ban those cards to screw people out of money. They made a decision they thought would make the game they love and we all love, a better game. They should be praised for taking such a risk, knowing there'd be backlash, but did it any way for the sake of the game. It definitely sucks to lose that much money, but you always know that is a possibility. Your fault, not the Rc's, and you're trash if you threated their lives.
Gavin being in charge isnt necessarily a pro, hes responsible for some of commanders most egregious design mistakes. And thats not a slight against him as a person or saying he doesnt care about the format, but more so his track record with design.
You can't work at WotC for a long time without having some really bad design mistakes. It's just the nature of things. I wouldn't rate that very highly as a factor.
The final product is just at the tip of the pyramid. There's a lot of factors to consider that go into the cards we play with. But put that aside for moment. Gavin (and the design team) has done a ton of wonderful things for magic and the community. If you're gonna count his Ls, count the Ws too.
what did people expect would happen when you do death threats to people who do it VOLUNTARY without any pay ? i mean i rly like hte bans and so does everyone i talked with, it seems only people who lost money are angry
As someone who owned the big three of the four cards banned, yeah, it sucked, but I never put them in every deck to begin with. I only used them in my most powerful decks, and those decks will adapt without them. What felt bad was that Mana Crypt has been legal for about 25 years, and then it gets hit out of nowhere. Jeweled Lotus is practically unplayable outside of Commander so it also seemed to be pretty safe to buy. It's not the price tag that annoys me, it's the fact that they are now "technically unplayable." To state further I am no MTG Finance bro, but it sucks that I spent money on cards that seemed pretty safe, so that my favorite high mana cost Commanders can keep up with the increasingly low cost modern Commanders, and now it's much more difficult to play what I want to play against a more and more low-to-the-ground format.
Wizards could always release their formula for how they balance power with cost and rarity when designing cards to the public,. Then people can go over the math and break down the numbers of every card ever and see where it lies in comparison to other cards, and use those numbers to determine where things should sit on a tier list based on their under and over of the baseline of what is considered 'balanced or 'normal'. I'm being slightly facetious, but if you want a method for categorizing thing in a way that isn't "arbitrary", then looking at the raw design numbers and mathematics behind card creation is the way to go.
@@raiserofchickens facetious or not that isn't the worst thing. I have always been lucky in that my play groups tend to be willing to meet each other on a similar level. But as someone the works at an lgs I'm curious what this will look like within my local community.
While I agree that the RC made a lot of mistakes that helped lead to this, I think it’s worth remembering that all of those cards were design mistakes and three of them were made specifically for Commander. It’s also worth noting that unlike the design mistake of Arcane Signet, those cards were not reprinted into the ground to make them easily accessible. The RC would never have made these mistakes in the first place if WOTC hadn’t fumbled beforehand. At the end of the day the RC was an inherently reactionary institution. Were all of their reactions good? No. But to blame them primarily for this mess is short-sighted. The buck stops with the company that makes the cards.
I think resentment from not being consulted as CAG members influenced their opinion on this rather heavily. They even agreed the bans were good for the health of the format, yet still put all the blame on the RC where it's WOTC's fault for abusing power creep to take more and more money from getting players hooked to gambling. At least half of the reason that people lost so much money with these bans, was because WOTC designed these cards to be so artificially expensive. These cards should've either been banned long ago, or straight up never have been printed.
I can't agree with the blame being laid on the RC's feet. No matter how bad you believe their decision or communication was, the reaction was completely unjustified. Want to blame someone for what happened? Blame the violent people on the community. Or maybe the problematic tie between gameplay and the financial side of the game. Or just WoTC for printing design mistakes.
My problem with continuing to criticize the RC is that it feels...pointless. There has been so much of that over the past bit that reiterating it feels pointless, especially for a body that no longer exists. I wouldn't say their decisions were perfect, but the only purpose I see of such discussion at this point is to kick people who are already down as well as justify the assholes who in their minds did the right thing here.
A large percentage of the online community was against the bans. That doesn't really tell us how much of the total Commander community were against it.
I think the saddest part about all this in the long run besides the death threats of course is the fact that if the rules committee had done like Olivia suggested banned Nadu and Dockside and then wait on the other two I don't think we would be in this position now. what might have been😢
So that's the thing about this situation. The majority of this community wouldn't even consider sending death threats to the RC, yet that's the reason being used as to why WotC took over. However, I think that honestly takes away from valid criticism against this decision. Ultimately, regardless of the response, this was of the RCs own making and they had the means/resources to make a more informed and calculated decision, but didn't.
Disagree, Lotus and Crypt would have been no less expensive in the future, they likely would have been more expensive by then. The outrage over the 'loss of money' would have still happen, especially on top of the previous one (Dockside). There was no way to ban these cards that wouldn't have hurt one group of people and caused outrage.
@@thecosmiccall3802aye, the threats are bad… but they are being used to obfuscate the real reason WotC is taking over and also to ignore the valid views. Happens with any online discourse where a tiny fraction of people take it too far.
The shock of banning 2 old staples after seeing nothing for 3 years is definitely a contributing factor to the vitriol. Some people would have been salty over Dockside, but basically everyone was on board with Nadu, and it would not have escalated to the point that it's currently at. Especially if it was just those two, or just Nadu, with a statement like: "Hey we're looking at fast mana for the long term health of the format, but also the CAG and RC are working on a new tiered system that we plan to announce alongside Foundations release, so a ban may not be appropriate for those anyway as cards like Mana Crypt will likely be part of the highest power tier"
@@thecosmiccall3802Uh. That’s not how people work. This is the kind of thing people say to abuse victims. The RC could have banned every card in the game and it would not have been their fault that they got death threats. There’s no excuse for that. None. Criticism, being upset, petitioning, boycotting, sure. But not harassment and death threats.
The victim-blaming of the rules committee is so strange when most of the opposition is on financial grounds, and aside from the fact that finance/investment culture in a card game is toxic as hell, the price of those cards is wotc's fault. If you're mad that you spent a lot of money on a card that got banned, that's wotc's fault.
"If you're mad that you spent a lot of money on a card that got banned, that's wotc's fault." Partly their fault, partly the fault of the person buying it. If you buy a Magic card not on the reserved list you HAVE to understand that the value could plummet at any time and you can not rely on it holding value indefinitely.
Most bans you get a heads up. Tournament results come in with huge dominant performances. Everyone is talking about how much the cards are shifting the meta. The normal cues people see that signal possible bans were not obvious to people. Because those cues were not there, people were blindsided. And when you hit somebody in the wallet by surprise, they get very angry. Right or wrong, this reaction was entirely predictable. It is no surprise to me that the most media savvy member of the RC was the one against them. She saw this coming.
Honestly, yeah, this really rubbed me the wrong way. Command Zone has spent so much time focusing on the financial implications of the bans and that just feels gross. I wish they'd had somebody on who actually held the opposite position to argue it.
Really no one should buy any cards and let wotc die… everything sucks about this company… sarcasm aside… I see a lot of blame shift from rules committee > to wizards > to the players themselves lol… in a format where if I show up with my crap voltron deck and tell the table “hey I have a jeweled lotus in my deck but this is a voltron deck that is more toolbox and is just for fun… it rarely wins” no one so far has said gtfo… I still find it weird people blaming the players who bought cards to play the game in paper… “you should know better than buy Magic cards” lol ok why the fuck should they even play at all then? Just feels like a weird statement… again for the most casual of formats where I already saw bans of mana crypt on discord channels for community games… no problems… well some people I guess are annoying to deal with rule 0 convo but this is magic so ya gonna have some off people lol… it is what it is…
seriously! WotC intentionally and artificially inflated these hyper-pushed cards to drive up profits. They knew what they were doing even at the cost of the health of the format and despite warnings by CZ's own members like Josh. Despite this, they put the blame entirely on the RC. Yes, they did not handle it adequately, but the bans are good for the format in a vacuum. I understand they resent the lack of communication but why not hold WOTC accountable as well?
People also need to understand the bans DO NOT impact you FRIEND’S playgroup. You can rule 0 in « pot of greed » draw 2 cards for free if you want to. Because steady friends group adapt to the group. It’s to make the format more fun for CASUAL PICKUP games and newish players in LGS. Rule 0 with strangers does not always work…. If at all. Pretty much everyone has bad stories of LGS players and their « power level 7 » or « slightly upgraded precons » stomping your actual slightly upgraded precon. LGS games WILL be MORE fun now. Pickup games will benefit from this. Play whatever you want with your friends and whatever your playgroup allows. Love to you all. Hate and threats have no place in ANY conversation. Peace!
Magic the gathering isn't LGS only so this point makes little sense. WoTC already shown they don't care about LGS, you think them being in charge of Commander is going to be good for LGS going forward? Jim and the RC discussed banning Lotus and Crypt over a year ago, and WoTC still pumped out Commander Masters sets only a few months ago and not one RC member said boo! Even though they knew they were likely banning those cards we were all spending big money chasing!
@@rakino4418 so? RC knew they were in the process of banning Lotus and Crypt and weren't transparent enough to advise anyone during Commander Masters release. WoTC knew by then that the RC was in the process of banning Lotus and Crypt, and by selling the product only months before they were eventually banned is actually illegal in Australia where I'm from. They sold product that they knew the RC was banning! RC didn't say a word, Jim and co kept it all hush hush until now. You realise WoTC have broken Australian Consumer Law yeah? Even Sony and Steam have been smashed by Australian Consumer Law. Our government actually protects us from shady businesses that sell product it knows will be banned or not fit for purpose. And jewelled lotus is no longer fit for purpose. This goes beyond just Commander and making it more casual and fun. WoTC have broken laws and Jim literally stated in print they knew over a year ago RC were talking of banning Lotus and Crypt. WoTC have broken Australian laws, they and those who sent death threats or threats of violence to the RC and CAG need to be held accountable.
@@olcar7799 it does affect it in much the same way as a referees call on the field in most sports. That position is taken as the default. If you have a replay, unless the available video shows definitive proof that it was a bad call, the decision will stand. The ban list is considered the default. If you have 2 people for and 2 against, the default position for most groups would be that the ban list applies (or endless bickering where they simply cannot come to an agreement).
The biggest thing about this is that Wizards said don't do this. Another arrow in the statement all Wizards/Hasbro wants to do is keep their bottom line/reprint equity. Makes me more afraid going forward.
I'm curious, what will happen with the next Lutri situation? The RC didn't want that card printed (iirc), and then made the 'easy' decision to ban it because they had no financial incentive not to (and they could do it before people lost money on the card). Now, what check is there? Would Hasbro be happy with the Commander Team at WotC if they preemptively ban a card because it would be too desirable as an auto-include in so many Commander decks?
What check was there for jeweled lotus? The rc wasn't using their checks anyway for too long which got people in the mindset that they would never be used.
Transformers community is the same thing. I'm starting to think mtg and transformers fans are one and the same. Just check out tfw2005. Toxic people on there.
I feel like they didn't consider that the RC didn't consult them on the bans or on handing to WOTC to protect the members of the cag. I'm obviously speculating but I'd like to think that by not involving the cag they were able to protect them even if it may not have been smart to do.
Eh, considering the RC stated the reason they didn’t tell anyone was to prevent leaks… seems unlikely. Why would they not just be upfront about such a reason?
"They didn't ask" - Yeah, well, if I'm actively fearing for my life, for the lives of my family, I'm not going to ask if anyone can take over. I'm going to take the fastest route out of that situation. I think the idea that they should have asked is utterly ridiculous and heartless from Josh and Jimmy. It's not realistic and it's not compassionate.
It's a shame EDH players couldn't act like adults and handle a ban list. We're now in a world where a WotC or Hasbro executive can force a change in EDH no matter how bad it is for the health of the format.
Which erodes players trust. I got earlier a few years because I saw the writing on the wall. Death threats are not the right and correct to respond to this however I do understand that it’s pretty brazen by wizards to ban cards that were still printed as of the end of last year where they at least had an inkling what they are going to ban. Collecting cards games in an overly regulated format like modern or standard comes with the format . The mantra for edh used to be different. The whole reason was to play with cards that simply don’t have a home in other formats and not being worthless junk. Always dicey to collect but it’s still a kick in the Nats to have old powerhouse cards like crypt completely devalued. Let’s see how this shakes out. It’s gonna take months or potentially years to see how the format performs due to this and future decisions.
It's a shame that the RC was so driven by hubris that they didn't consult with the CAG, didn't listen to their own members, and ignored direct advice from WotC in regards to this ban wave.
@@methshin1 They didn't ask the CAG about this specific set of bans, but Tomer said they've been asked about fast mana in general and the CAG has said multiple times it's a problem. The RC said they had the input they needed to make these bans and that input from the CAG is where these bans came from.
@@TargetSniper365 That would be a mistake. Unbanning those cards rewards the people who threatened the RC.Also, most people believe Crypt and Lotus were problems In the format. Gavin said Lotus was a mistake.
Fast mana is an issue. If a card is balanced around costing five mana, and thus coming out on turn five. Circumventing that and getting it out on turn three, or worse 1 or 2, is horribly unbalancing. Power creep is definitely an issue, but that only exacerbates the fast mana problem. Really, they feed into each other making the other one a bigger issue.
"I lay it squarely mostly at the feet of the Rules Committee" You'd think the RC invaded a smaller nation by the reaction Josh is having. They just banned 4 cards though, 2 of which (Lotus and Nadu) are design mistakes as admitted to by the creators, Dockside which even you guys complain about in your episodes of Game Knights and Extra Turns, and Crypt, which was pretty busted but it's ancient compared to the other three. I understand being frustrated at not being consulted but in the last podcast Josh was still in the mindset of not banning anything while Rachel was the one being diplomatic and understanding why and how they reached that decision. Olivia's approach was better, yes, but the heart of the issue, at least for me, is that even if the bans were completely unwarranted, the format has grown exponentially in the last couple of years and the longer these cards continued to create a rift between the community, the worse the issues with the format would get. At least with these bans the message was clear that designed for commander chase cards are under the same scrutiny as other broken cards that came before them. I understand the frustration and maybe it is from having played yugioh most of my life, but bans are something people are quite used to in other games and formats and while Commander can self regulate and rule zero things, it won't mend all the glaring issues plaguing it at the moment.
Definetly feels like JLK feels slighted by the RC rather than actually considering the bans being useful, his take on the financial impact is also irrelevant to the conversation of the balance of the game, which is what his priority should have been in the position that he was in
You got it with “bans are something people are quite used to in other games/formats”. A single ban in commander hadn’t happened in 3 *years*. A single ban on a card over like $20 hasn’t happened in like 10 years (more honestly I think). This is a $400 ban. COMPLETELY UNPRECEDENTED in the 20 years the format has been popular. Put simply: the RC changed its ban philosophy on a dime and left people who maintained the old philosophy holding the bag.
It is irresponsible to shepherd the riot to the door by saying "we were never consulted on this" when you literally were consulted on fast mana, fueling the anger of the people, then disavowing them as "not part of the community" when they break down the walls, all the while trying to claim you never stoked the flames at all. I will be honest, I already had a low opinion of JLK after his talk about using magic cards as an investment, and the way he speaks on this makes me even more skeptical of his character.
I love that you guys didn't just jump to pushing accountability off of the rc and onto the threats, like every other youtuber is. The threats are unacceptable 100%,but the rc absolutely has a hand in this mess. They bungled the ban and the transfer. I actually never thought about the option of them stepping down and allowing other community members to step up instead of just passing it to wotc. Looking back this would have been a more optimal solution.
This decision will not be felt in weeks, maybe not even months. It will take probably years before we realize that this was the turning point for the game and how bad the effects truly were by this. Another thing people don’t think about is while these people love the game, it is their livelihood. If their boss threatens termination if they don’t comply with anti-player game choices, they will make those choices. Love and passion are great, but that pales in comparison to survival. You CANNOT put the expectation of the health of the format being prioritized ever again. It is no longer a game managed by players, it is a business and we are consumers.
I came across from great point from Distraction Makers over the new tier system and im honestly really liking it. It works very well for competitive pokemon (the video game version) with SMOGON's tiers (of which they have four: ubers, over-used, under-used, and never used. These tiers are based off tournament data gathered by the organizers. If commander tourneys can now collect data on that kind of stuff it can potentially be useful in helping wizards place cards, as game-warping cards are more likely to always be or always always be played at tournaments. IE thoracle combo is akin to gen 1 snorlax. Its just the strongest and everyong plays it because its the highest tier. There exist lower tier games without Snorlax as well.
I hope that at least one of you are willing, and invited, to be on the new committee even in an anonymous way. The Command Zone has become a staple of where I get MTG news and assistance and it's clear you don't just love the game, you have the community in mind as well.
Why is it the first thing people do in response to a ban list is to threaten people,there’s a lot ways to go about dealing with ban than telling telling someone your gonna un alive someone
I wish there was 5 brackets just so it becomes a 1 to 5 scale A 1 to 4 scale is harder to mentally picture How many people say on a daily basis "on a scale of one to five..."?
This is probably the kind of feedback they are looking for tbh. Not sure if they will have an actual poll for players to fill out, but this would be great for them to consider
While I feel for the RC group, the community never really controlled the format. The fact that they didn't even talk to the Commander advisory group clearly shows that. All in all I am happy wizards is taking over.
I'm only 20 minutes in this and is it me or is there some big "I'm not here to blame the victim but let me explain to you how they got themselves into this and how I would've done it" energy in the conversation?
I disagree with josh when he says that the rc should have asked the community to take their role They were just bashed like crazy by the community They have every right not to want to engage with it anymore and just leave it to a «higher power»
The RC were apparently under the impression that they are the only people on Earth capable of steering commander. That's Josh's point. Stepping down is understandable, but not even TRYING to keep it in the community speaks volumes of their selfishness.
I agree. I feel Josh was being very unsympathetic with the RC regarding their resignation. I do think the RC didn't handle the announcement of the bans well. However, why would they wait to talk to the rest of the community when there are crazies flinging death threats at them. I don't know, this video just seemed very back and forth in the opinions towards the RC.
These reactions are crazy. The fact that losing control of the Rules Committee comes with sadness and loss shows how distorted the format has become. The advisors should not be this invested in a kitchen table format. If it's truly a "community-run format," then the control doesn't matter. Rule Zero anything and everything. Have fun.
In my opinion, if Wizards unbans any of the cards that caused this change to happen, they will have proved to the people that made those threats that doing that will get them what they want.
@@danielbretado7660 og dual lands, gaeas cradle. They should also be banned in commander, or reprinted to lower the costs. Two color lands, which are fetchable and have no draw back, that are in every cedh deck or high power list should be affordable or banned.
You know, Josh calling people out for dismissing the feelings of those who were angry is super valid. I was one of the people being dismissive, and that part made me feel bad which is good. I fell into the anonymity trap of the internet and left my empathy at the door. Thanks for the reality check Josh!
Technically "half" isn't a a number in the same sense of how many people are on either side of an argument. There have been many many anecdotal polls across social media with a rather consistent trend showing a pretty even 50/50 split for and against. That isn't the same as saying you know how many people have voted in those polls.
If your complaint is that :this hurt me" that is irrelevant to the fact that its harmful to the gameplay. We are looking at this as a game, not an investment. I dont care if you lost money. I care about enjoying playing the game.
Kinda disappointed with way Command Zone is handling all of those things happening. After the Bans were announced your focus was weirdly on Post Malone and other of your rich friends who could not play their mana crypts anymore, instead of thinking about what positive effect these bans could have on the majority of Commander players (who do not own any of those cards). And now you claim "half" of the people were against the bans, bc of Josh's Twitter poll?... It honestly makes me think some of you may have become a bit out of touch with the communty or at least your opinion is clouded by personal greif over the bans. But the worst is imo that, directly after condemning the threats, it sounds like you now shift the blame to the RC? The answer to "how did we get here?" is not bc the RC handeled this poorly, it is bc some people made bad financial decisions by putting money they couldnt afford to loose into game pieces and then some of them decided to behave like sociopaths. Victim blaming the RC was not what I expected from this channel, honestly.
Wow. Victim blaming all the LGSs who lost thousands on their dead collector box stock. If your argument is that these small businesses which for the foundations of our community deserve it for their bad investment call - then you can make the same arguments for the RC - they knew they'd risk backlash for the bans so it's totally justified right?
This comment missed the boat. Victim blaming is a hot button term that dismisses cause and effect. RC made a "dangerous" ( at minimum upsetting") decision even though they knew it was dangerous.
@@wchenful Honestly I dont believe this myth thats being parroted over and over about LGS's losing money bc of this. I have yet to see the the LGS that had loads of money in Crypts and Lotuses. That sounds irresponsible for a serious buisness. And even if thats the case: LGS's obviously survived the Jace ban so it cant be as bad as you wanna make it seem.
@@whoopie23 enlighten me, how was this ban dangerous? Did you know beforehand that some lunatics would react that way? I did not. There have been multiple bans in magics history that had massive "financial" implications, yet never triggerd this amount of outrage. Must be a commander thing.
It's not victim blaming, and to suggest that it is is ridiculous. They were the leaders of a popular thing on the internet. They fucked up. Bad things happened to them, bad things that SHOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED, but that were a direct fallout of the decisions they made. When you operate on the internet in 2024, you have to be prepared for the fallout of your bad decisions, and burying you head in the sand and just saying "well people shouldn't do that!" Isn't an effective strategy.
Lmao. You are part of the problem and apparently don't understand what "community" driven means. Little hint: you aren't the whole community. And neither am I.
He’s an advisor, meaning he was asked to be on the CAG because clearly the rules committee wanted to hear his opinion on certain decisions, (which some people agree with). Just because you disagree with is opinion doesn’t mean his input isn’t valid. : )
I am really glad that Josh emphasized that this decision wasn't just universally liked with a small percentage who didn't support it. This was definitely closer to the middle and ultimately caused a division in the community. Lumping the people who didn't like this decision with the horrible people that threatened the RC is not fair. Those people's opinions are no longer valid, and even with them not counted, there is still a significant group of people who didn't support this decision who's opinions are valid.
It's wild to me that even people as thoughtful and intelligent as this cast are so easily duped by internet hate mobs organizing, spamming, astroturfing, and botting to seem larger than they are. You think the community is split 50/50? There is no chance. How long has it been since gamergate, and these kinds of tactics are still working just as well? I wouldn't be surprised at all if its even some of the same people. You all are really ready to live in a world where banning three cards, in a fundamentally casual format, that are universally agreed to be so powerful they warp the entire format, is somehow reckless? It's so sad that fear of a very vocal and amoral minority has this much power to shape the future of the format. The message is loud and clear; the worst people on the internet can get exactly what they want from WotC by making enough noise.
Yes I suppose it was IMPOSSIBLE to let the community know they were looking at these cards. That would be an impossible and way too rational thing to do. Got it.
They should generally unban all the cards. As a player i feel a bit like: "Oh, we need to take care of the little players, because they dont know whats good and bad for them." Im grown. i know what i want to play against and what not and can communicate that by myself.
I appreciate the take of "leaving the threats of violence to the side, what went wrong?" As horrendous as the death threats were, this was an easily avoidable situation that felt like watching inexperienced, yet good-hearted people step on about 15 rakes at once. It is worth pointing out the failures of the RC, and also making explicit that they of course did not deserve death threats. It was clear mismanagement in an inherently janky format.
I'm not prone to conspiracy, but there are so many aspects of this that feel so odd. Many people in the community have pointed out that Crypt and Dockside were possible pulls in the packs sold as part of the Con Box. Having no bans for 3 years, followed by a massive ban with no warning or open discussion. The fact that, as Josh says here, this ban was discussed with WotC but not the CAG. The speed that the RC stepped down and the speed with which WotC has already geared into their new strategy. The whole thing has so many questionable things about it that we will likely never have all the information about. The explosive negative response has created a massive internet smoke screen on the very real discussions that should be being had about this. It feels like the RC wanted to assert some type of control for some reason and jumped to this huge move. There are probably a not insubstantial number of players who weren't even aware there was a RC. Start with small monthly updates; a watchlist, some small bans, some mild changes. Honestly, the RC should have maybe made a temporary ban category where possibly problematic cards could be placed to enable better rule 0 discussion. Temp ban new cards that seem problematic until the community can come to a consensus. No one was shocked at Dockside. We all know those "problem" cards. I don't think this is the end of commander, but WotC isn't gonna be healthy for the format.
The juxtaposition of three nerds passionately talking about this game that they love and the swirling vortex of doom just outside the window is a poignant reminder to get some perspective. A hurricane just hit the eastern coast and now floods are ravaging multiple states. There’s high potential that a neofascist will be reelected to run the most powerful country in the world. There are major problems in the Middle East, Ukraine and Taiwan. I don’t think I need to go on. We all love this game and this format, and we deeply care about what happens to it. However, before we all have a collective aneurism, go hug someone you love, watch a funny movie or, and I mean this with all the sincerity and grace I can muster, touch some grass. ❤
They took over because they knew this ban would dramatically affect chase cards in future stupid expensive sets and wotc isn't allowing reported losses. The other reason is just convenient to them and a good cover story. Sucks people can't be decent humans and not go insane over a game..but I wasn't surprised either.
They brought up a few key points I think the community as a whole has avoided discussing since the bans have happened. 1. They did not seek insight or approval from either WOTC or the CAG. The decision was made completely on their own without any outside influence. 2. The bans and death threats can both be bad. Just because a small percentage of crazies started making it personal doesn’t mean the initial decision was warranted. It can be a bad decision but that doesn’t mean someone is allowed to threaten your life. Both of these things can be true. 3. WOTC has always had control of the format….they print the cards. It’s kind of shocking that a lot of people don’t seem to realize that the entity they are afraid of having control of the format, has always had control of the format. As a side for the people attacking Josh for “victim blaming” and/or bringing up the Command Zone’s business operations…..why? Stating it was a bad decision does not mean he agrees with the threats. He stated several times that those are bad people. Discussing cause and effect doesn’t mean he agrees with those weirdos actions. The Command Zone had nothing to do with the bans so bringing up their financials and employee pay is also a weird unrelated point to make about a topic completely separate from the business.
I just want to say for #1 that the RC has been consulting the CAG for years about these cards and fast mana in general so I feel its disingenuous to say they never got insight from the CAG or WOTC. I also agree that the RC fucked up in their execution. I like your point #3, no one brings up that part, especially since every card is printed into legality.
@@Xalyn937 Is it worse if they just ignore the feedback they get? I’m iffy if there was any real push back by CAG or WOTC but I guess we will never know 100% for sure. The biggest point I was trying to make was number 3. I just think it’s weird the community is terrified that the creators of the card game they play has a more control over the card game they play. WOTC can print whatever they want and the rules committee had no control over that.
The thing about wizards making tournaments for edh, they will automatically be cedh and will not allow proxies. The only question is, will the player base care about those or will they continue to just run their own tournaments
One potential upside to not allowing proxies could be that they reprint a bunch of high power cards (fetchlands for example) to reduce the price in the secondary market so that cEDH is more affordable
Both podcasts about the ban gives me the impression that Josh is so against the bans that it's clouded his opinion about everything surrounding the bans and it's causing him to make it hard for the co host to express any their own opinion without him interrupting. Maybe it's the editing. Or maybe it's how they're seated with Josh on one side and his co-host on another. But I think this is something The Command Zone should look into.
I think Josh took it pretty personally that the CAG wasn't consulted on the bans, and it's hard to blame him. What was the point of the CAG if the only action taken officially since it was started wasn't brought to them for discussion or input.
Oh for sure, man is all-out salt-posting through the entire event. If anything, it certainly just seems like this is a bias the Command Zone already had, though.
@@elijahdprophet They CAG has been around for five years. They've been around for multiple bannings. Their roll was to advise and give feedback, not participate in decisions. From what I've heard the CAG was told that bannings were in the works and generally what they revolved around (fast mana). That was not something that was never discussed before. What the CAG wasn't involved in, was the action decision on what to ban, and they were only told about a day before (from what I've heard). None of that is unreasonable for a group whose real job was community out reach and provide feedback on general community sentiment.
A few bad people seem to be the excuse to dismiss the criticism of the bans. We know our community is ripe with neck beard keyboard warriors. I feel they have highjacked all the good criticism for the bans. Also, we gotta toughen up against these assholes and not fold to them. I disagree with Mana Crypts ban, but the rules committee has done more good for the format than bad. Now we get our bans, or lack there of, from execs.
I always find it a very dangerous narrative created by "it's a small portion of the community" rhetoric, when talking about the threats. Because I STILL see people today that have that level of vitriol and haven't stopped that behavior. That makes it incredibly hard to have sympathy for that side of the argument. I agree it's not everyone, but it definitely feels like more than "a small portion" personally
From the RC's Philosophy page, under Stable: "When necessary, make changes, even large ones, but not for the purpose of defining a metagame, 'shaking things up,' or in reaction to the hot topic of the day." "defining a metagame" was expressly why they banned the fast mana cards. "Occasional games like that are fine, but it shouldn't be common, and we're taking steps to bring that frequency down a bit by banning..." The silly part is that trying to artificially slow the game down IS "defining a metagame."
This change was long overdue. Sad that it had to come in such an unfortunate way, but I felt that having a format of this size and importance in the hands of several volunteers was always dumb, dangerous and reckless, no matter how much they cared for it.
You know the one thing worse than death threats over the internet? Sending armed mercs to threaten people in their home. I'm glad no corp has done that, though, right?
I think it's honestly hypocritical of JLK to complain about that when he said wouldn't want the job. Nobody would want that job now. The RC were the ones getting death threats; they were under no obligation to make it even worse by putting out the word that they were thinking of handing the format over. If he wouldn't be willing to take the job because he just saw people getting lots of death threats, he shouldn't be complaining that they didn't put themselves out there for even more abuse. Just makes him come off as salty and a bit detached from reality.
@@EvilMagnitude You understand there are more people on the CAG than Josh right? His point of criticism is there was zero effort or outreach to the CAG or the community while making this foundational change, implying they learned nothing from their original mistake.
@@dub253 Oh no, I didn't know that the CAG was more than just JLK. I actually thought it was called the JLKAG because he's the only person. That's great to know, thank you! I'm not talking about the rest of the CAG. I'm talking about JLK. His point of criticism is very bad. He's complaining that the people getting legitimate death threats did not ask people if they wanted a job that *he does not want* because of death threats, an action that 100% guaranteed WOULD have generated even more death threats. He's not actually concerned with the safety of the RC first and foremost when he complains about this, and I hope he's able to self-reflect and realize how poorly that statement comes across. He's indirectly saying that he's upset that they didn't generate even more death threats upon themselves by hinting that they might give WotC the format. That's no good. There is a reason Rachel had to gently check him on this point and remind him that the safety of the RC was the first and only consideration.
I find it funny because let’s be real a lot of people who buy expensive cards rarely have the idea of selling it because magic is prob the only card game where buying the cards actually mean your gonna play with them and not just have them sit around like Pokémon cards for example. So the idea that people lost 100’s of dollars is kinda dumb cause most people say some cards are worth a price but let’s be real we magic players rarely sell our cards
Local stores with 5-10 copies got wrecked, but there's definitely speculators that will buy every copy of cards they can find at $20, sit on them at $100 and hope they slowly float up to $200. I know it happened a ton with Orcish Bowmasters and The One Ring as those cards are unlikely to see reprints
@@WytchfynderGeneral there are plenty of LGSs that had a lot of these cards. I alone had 4 lotuses and 1 crypt. My in LGS in my dinky town had 10 or more of each. Idk dude you play in Alaska?
This is part of why people were mad. They wanted to play with those cards. Also, nearly every week you see somebody on the FB groups who had some kind of thing go wrong in their life and are forced to sell their cards. Just because they don't want to sell doesn't mean they don't see it as a backstopping in case things go wrong. Like downgrading your card from a luxury model to a compact toyota when you can't afford it.
Finding out that not only did members of the CAG, the RC, but ALSO WotC advised them NOT to do this, the ones that pushed through the banning really shouldn't have been in that position to begin with. They used their power like a cudgel, and while the responses in some instances were terrible, to act shocked about the vitriol and quit just goes to show how unfit SOME people were in the RC.
I am 10000000% on the side of no one deserves threats if violence over what is ultimately 4 squares of cardboard. Be better people. I and many others dont wanna sit at the table with people like that. Be safe, be kind and if you're going to do something think about if you would like if someone did that to you.
I know the community needs direction with such a massive format and that a 'rule 0' approach isn't always effective. That being said, we as a community had actual say on how a massive corporation behaves in practice (minimal as it was) and we gave that away to the worst possible entity. Hasbro who so far has shown little but monarchical contempt for magic the gathering is going to make sure that they use the control of this format to drive their profits and nothing else. Will there be some upside? sure. But likely no matter how many passionate WotC employees on that committee want to keep this format fun and pure, some exec from Hasbro is gonna come slide their d**k down their throats and say "Change this, its not making enough money"
What do you think about Wizards of the Coast taking the reins of Commander? What advice would you give them on managing the format?
Bad,don’t get bullied by the secondary market, focus on the health of the game.
I think we all wish WOTC didn't control the format, I also think we need to recognize that it got way too big for five volunteers to run. If the rules committee had adjusted and adapted as the game grew I don't think we'd be in this position, but it stayed way too small for how big the format got.
People were already mad when WOTC made "for commander" cards. This gives them more reign to do so. As well as control the ban list. Nothing is stopping them from banning a card then 2 sets down the line offering something of a similar effect but just slightly off and making it scarce so people pay top dollar
Im curious to see how their new structure will influence the design phase of commander products. Hopefully it stops design mistakes like Yuriko/arcane signet/and so on.. earlier on in the process.
DO NOT CHANGE ANY BANLIST UNTIL NEXT QUARTELY UPDATE. Regarding the chaos that happened after the recent bans, it can be easy to undo things that led to the threats, but doing so can just cause more chaos. Please listen to the former RC members regarding the format. The last thing it needs is multiple overpowered chase cards (looking at you jeweled lotus) to incentivize players to buy cards. Try to keep balance in mind throughout every card. Powerful cards are great but needs reliable counterplay to prevent from being miserable to play against. Also STOP PRINTING WARD ON EVERY LEGENDARY CREATURE.
I love how honest and open Josh is about how angry and hurt he feels over the RC's lack of communication with the advisors. Honestly, what's the point of having advisors if you're not even going to ask when it comes to such huge format-shaking decisions?
Exactly, doesn't make any sense. Threats are obviously bad, but this all started with the terrible management of the whole situation by the RC, and majority people were still upset about that part even if they weren't harassing anyone.
I listed to the LoadingReadyRun podcast on Monday about this, and Ben Wheeler (also of the CAG) had a slightly different take. He said they had discussions about “fast mana” but they didn’t discuss any specific cards until a day or two before the announcement.
@RBGolbat yes the RC was polling them about fast mana but like Josh said later even if they choose to ban those cards and he disagrees, OK whatever now let's talk about how to implement your decision then. I absolutely would be hurt as well in his place to not be including in open and informative talks about not even just the bans but then Handing over Edh to WotC. That's not just a slap in the face, it's one followed up with a kick to the nuts.
@@RBGolbat that makes it even worse
RC is very wrong and ruined everything they found out the issue cant be fix so they left.. but also all you players who threaten their life should go to jail. you dont threat someones family member that is a no go!
Josh is absolutely right. If you want to threaten people with violence over pieces of cardboard....you don't need to be playing this game and need therapy. 😬
That’s true for almost anything really, this is especially the case
It wasnt over cardboard it was over money and while it is gross to threaten people and absolutely unacceptable, people get violent over money all over the world every day, so it is sadly not suprising that this was the outcome.
@@jeremiahchamberlain4179 good point
No one made threats about cardboard lmao y'all need to be honest about it at least. Threats ain't cool, but pretending it's about cardboard makes me think this community based around a children's card game never actually grew up.
That's true but magic is massive if 0.5% of the players are asshats that's still to many people, just keep that in mind
Josh : “Don’t do that, you suck” 😂
IF WE DO NOT VOICE OUR OPINION NOTHING WILL CHANGE, DO NOT DENOUNCE THOSE WHO SAW ACTION TAKE PLACE
I need a shirt of that 😂
@@leroygardner8529…so you’re ok with threats eh?
@leroygardner8529 what are you on about?
He says while also saying "we were never consulted" when they literally were
The amount of vitriol these last couple weeks has made me alternate between irritated or just tired.
For people who think commander is going to die (unlikely) its a community built format! If wotc starts dramatically changing things we can, as a community, just keep playing commander how we have been! You won't be ARRESTED for playing with the cardboard how you and your friends want. We can just make a format called commander classic or something lol
Time to revive the Captain format! /s
I wish more people understood that this format is really what you make it.
Exactly, while I like the bracket system (means you have to rule 0 if your deck is “mostly a 2 but runs a couple of 4s”)… if you don’t want to use it, just don’t.
My LGS will just be playing as normal.
That's good with a tightly-knit friend group, but try telling that to people who can only go to a LGS to play Commander, and they rock up to a pod of Randoms with banned cards. It won't end well.
I agree with you, we can adjust rules, but playing banned cards always feels wrong (e.g. paradox engine). And for some reason we insist on buying the original cardboard instead of a good printer.
Why don't we all play with proxied original duals and tabernacles and stuff like that?
I really appreciate the insight of everyone at the Command Zone. They don’t just inject venom into their points for the sake of bashing, they actually explain their individual opinions and it’s entirely constructive. People that just take to the internet with cruel intentions can really learn something from the Command Zone, be constructive folks, not malicious.
Commander is what got me into Magic the Gathering. It is relatively affordable and budget friendly to play and I love the idea of having a deck built around 1 card. I love playing commander and will continue to play the game.
I am hopeful that the commander format will stay healthy and more importantly safe for those that want an escape from everyday life.
As long as you have good friends or a playgroup you'll be happy to keep playing bubba! Side note I have a tip for you. Don't always build your deck from the top down. Meaning built solely because you like the commander. Sometimes it's better to build a deck from the bottom up. Meaning find a strategy you like, or a play style and build from that finding a commander that really jives with that strat.
Pauper is also budget friendly if you want to play 60-card 1v1 format. Lots of powerful decks at common
It's a card game. It's not possible for it to be dangerous.
@@kementurhman, I’ve been to a commander “tournament” once. Again, the reason I went once is watching a grown adult scream at a teen because of some slight. Again, anything that has a competitive aspect can be dangerous even if unlikely
@@brandoncampbell5390 What did you do about it?
Ok. I do not like some of the bans, BUT DO NOT THREATEN ANYONE!!! the heck is wrong with people!?
No lo sé bro, sinceramente no lo se
Credible threats yet they didn't even show the community. I'm sure they got a few bad actors but they make ot seems millions of death threats came in
@@GeneralDisarray666 do not believe a thing till a name and shame happens. Considering the politics of the RC and Wizards. For all we know. They're faking it cause the changeover was planned all along and they needed a contreversy to do so.
@@GeneralDisarray666 dude, this people don't even get paid for the work in the community rules. Now they have to show the evidence? I think you are a little confused
People hate people, hate being manipulated, love money. CMM and LCI were pushed hard with JL and MC being reprinted and DE being in the list of LCI, then shortly after a few volunteers pull the rug from under you.
My least favorite part of the magic community is the sheer amount of emotionally unintelligent adults. They are impacting this game far more negatively than anything wotc could ever do.
Well said
I mean...isn't this more a result of the sheer number of immature adults in society/online, rather than specifically Magic: the Gathering? I'm not sure Magic has a disproportionate number of idiots.
Unfortunately it's not really an either-or with who's worse for commander. It's an ecosystem, and the worry is that the dumbasses who threaten violence are emboldened in the first place by an entitlement that's nurtured by wotc bending and warping the game to meet their wants over the last decade or so. Once theres decisions they don't like they think they're in the right to 'correct' decisions by any means because it's THEIR format. With wotc in charge my worry isn't necessarily that they ruin the rules of commander or even print horrible cards unchecked (I mean, I worry a bit but Im sure there'll be a natural ebb and flow), my worry is that wotc folds to the worst offenders because they spend more money and are more likely to be those financially invested in the product vs invested in the game.
@@shrouded8797it has though. Mtg has classically been a refuge for loads of people with very poor social skills that find a place where they can be the bullies. Of course a majority of the people is cool, but the percentage of absolutely abhorrent people to deal with is off the charts compared with anybother hobbie I've ever had.
@@victorperezurbano9504 I'd say that conclusion mainly comes from your own experience, which is not necessarily indicative of everyone who plays Magic.
I would personally only feel confident in claiming that Magic has a disproportionate number of toxic people after some kind of objective analysis.
I'm so glad we're finally evolving the conversation beyond "the RC got threatened" rather than letting it end there.
Yeah, honestly all the grandstanding is getting annoying. Like I get it that it’s bad and never should have happened but that shouldn’t be the focus of the conversation.
Based on the replies there are still a lot of stupid people here. Unfortunately
A small percentage of people in the community took it way too far, and now everyone is going to pay for it. I'm so frustrated that some people just can't comprehend how to criticize in a normal way and instead decide to threaten people over a CARD GAME.
Cedh players are intense
This is how I feel about the second amendment.
@@MatthewBreck Why do you say cedh players? How do you know it was them?
@@shane3424don't make this about politics. This is just a card game. 2nd amendment is a constitutional right.
You mean the new RC is going to be focused on making wotc money instead of the old RC curating a format so their RUclips videos would get more views? Wow, such change lmfao
of course wizards didn't want them to ban the cards. they want to make the most amount of money possible. everything here is related to money. 90% of the people who talk about not banning the cards, mention money, and investments, something that shouldn't be part of a cardboard trading card game. This is all on wizards for wanting money over anything else.
48:24 I don't fully agree with Josh's point about needing certain cards to be expensive. Pokemon has a more consumer friendly model with every card being affordable, but popular cards get super rare special treatments. If Magic stopped the alternative art secret lairs and instead made them the chase cards, they could lower the price of the base version. It would require them to improve their foil quality and make sure the designs cater to people who like to bling their deck. (So probably anime girls and stuff like that)
22:45 To me the root cause is WoTC started printing broken cards to drive the community-driven format.
I’ll agree with JL, but dockside was released in the early days of treasures and they didn’t know how powerful they would snowball into. I’m sure they would have written him to make tapped treasures like they do now if they were going to make him now.
@BlueGriffin20 see dockside has been talked of the bat. For years .
I am glad jeweled louts was banned in had one insomd it in jan I hate nthat card only being g able to use ot for one color is dumb for me I jad it in a 3 color deck so it 2as really useless I am not hurt about any of thw bans. Amd if ppl spend mo ey for the
Cards that's on you just my opinion.
@BlueGriffin20 the problem isn't the treasures coming in tapped - there are plenty of ways to untap them (looking at you Amulet of Vigor!!!). The issue has always always always been the *amount* of treasures it has produced.
This is literally what Palpatine did. We are turning this format into an empire, bruuh
fax. this literally has to be orchestrated. the only other explanation is the RC members are too stupid to tie their own shoes, let alone manage a format
Stoked to hear these takes.
Think they'll unban prime time?
@@alexscott8799 nah
Even if the death threats didn't happen I think this was inevitable. 50% of commander players prefer a hands off approach and use rule zero, the other 50% want commander to be a more curated and regulated experience similar to standard. With the recent bans the RC moved in the curated direction away from the rule zero direction, and 5 volunters can't balance commander. This was inevitable the minute they felt rule zero was no longer enough.
The 50% that prefer hands off are either in play groups where rule 0 functions well, play CEDH or they are “that guy”.
The 50% against, play with groups where rule 0 has not functioned overly well. They need some basic guidelines against the most egregious circumstances that they can refer to for those pubstomper opponents where common sense and sportsmanship has left the building…
“Where you stand on an issue depends on where you sit”.
@@Dragon_FyreDon't agree with this at all. First, most cedh players don't care very much or are excited for the changing meta. Cedh is just playing to win within the context of edh rules. Just because a card is mean or oppressive does not make it cedh, being efficient and helping you win makes a card a cedh card. Example: there is almost zero mass land destruction in cedh because it's not very good, but many people with no understanding of cedh would think Armageddon is a cedh card.
Second, I have a play group and I play with randoms in a store. The store I go to, everyone brings 4+ decks. Most people have a precon and a high power deck, many even have a cedh deck. We always rule zero. It's common to play a precon game and then a cedh/high power game. This is with randoms. Don't assume that your play experience is everyone else's.
I feel like Josh is being a bit disingenuous about never being consulted. Although they never discussed the specific cards, they had years of back and forth discussing fast mana and getting feedback. They had years of data, its not like they came out of nowhere. And yes it definitely could have been handled better.
Yeah he does come across as hiding or atleast not mentioning that discussions have been made about them before, and that the rules committee made the decisions taking into account the thoughts of the team
They were consulted like 15 MTG set releases ago. To assume everything remained the same from that point to the bans is daft.
@@drunkenalethoso like a year? And Josh has still not changed his mind about bans in general. Rc knows how the advisory group feels anyway, they exist to advise not vote, and they've already advised
@Wyrm7774 JLK said 1.5 years or so I believe in one of the videos right after the bans. It's way more about how they went about it rather than if the bans were good for the format. Tbh, I do think they were the right bans, but they went against advice given to them that suggested they execute the bans in a different way (even their most publicly recognizable RC member advised this). Home run for the format, if you dont count the damage done by doing it the way they did.
The true beauty of commander as a format is that it's mostly left to player discretion about what gets played and how it gets played. You got proxies? Cool. You got banned cards youd like to rule 0? Nova, let's go. Shall we add a table rule like whoever takes damage first loses? That's awesome, we can do that!
It started as chill format for the relaxed player to enjoy, and for competitive players to strut their stuff amoungst themselves, but ultimetly its our format and a game that can always be played reguardless of what wizards decides to do with it moving forward. It doesn't matter what gets put on the banlist in terms of gameplay outside of a sanctioned magic event. It's a game that brings prosperous friendships and provides healthy, complex puzzles from gamestates right down to building your own decks. Paper magic is a promotion for improving social skills and creates a healthy environment for those introverted people to do something extroverted comfortably.
The only players crying about the bans are those hardcore players who play sanctioned events, collectors, and scalpers. It boils down to money. You've always been allowed to proxy mana crypt and jewelled lotus, and it really suck for those people who genuinely bought those cards to enjoy them in proper, but for those people who hoarded them to sell copies for more expensive prices and to all the people sending death threats, CRY MORE! You are the people that ruin good things like this, and your tears are delicious.
I only wish that the RC had banned more than these four cards. If they were going to get a massive blowback for banning a bunch of cards that needed to get banned, they might as well have banned all the cards that needed bannings at once and gotten this whole vitriol over with. Of course they didn't realize the backlash they were going to get over this, but man what a missed opportunity.
if they didn't understand the backlash they would get over banning mana crypt alone, idk what to tell you, they should of never been in the position to make that kind of decision in the 1st place.
Man, you can really feel the frustration Josh has about this in the first few minutes.
I didn't 100% agree with the decision the RC made, but the reaction to the bans was incredibly overblown and it's pretty lame that WotC is now in the driver's seat of the whole format.
Curious have you asked your local card shops how much revenue they lost overnight? You don’t blind side your customers
remember guys, they work directly with Wotc, take everything with a grain of salt
This is my thought as I listen to this. There is no way they would ever bash Wizards. At points it almost feels like Wizards propaganda unfortunately.
"For the people making those threats, you suck!" You tell em Josh. Threats of violence is never acceptable. It's more their fault for taking the risk having things that can change in value at anytime. They know that risk. The Rc didn't ban those cards to screw people out of money. They made a decision they thought would make the game they love and we all love, a better game. They should be praised for taking such a risk, knowing there'd be backlash, but did it any way for the sake of the game. It definitely sucks to lose that much money, but you always know that is a possibility. Your fault, not the Rc's, and you're trash if you threated their lives.
What do you think the people who made the threats say during a job interview when asked "How do you handle change?"
Gavin being in charge isnt necessarily a pro, hes responsible for some of commanders most egregious design mistakes. And thats not a slight against him as a person or saying he doesnt care about the format, but more so his track record with design.
You can't work at WotC for a long time without having some really bad design mistakes. It's just the nature of things. I wouldn't rate that very highly as a factor.
The final product is just at the tip of the pyramid. There's a lot of factors to consider that go into the cards we play with.
But put that aside for moment.
Gavin (and the design team) has done a ton of wonderful things for magic and the community.
If you're gonna count his Ls, count the Ws too.
what did people expect would happen when you do death threats to people who do it VOLUNTARY without any pay ?
i mean i rly like hte bans and so does everyone i talked with, it seems only people who lost money are angry
As someone who owned the big three of the four cards banned, yeah, it sucked, but I never put them in every deck to begin with. I only used them in my most powerful decks, and those decks will adapt without them. What felt bad was that Mana Crypt has been legal for about 25 years, and then it gets hit out of nowhere. Jeweled Lotus is practically unplayable outside of Commander so it also seemed to be pretty safe to buy. It's not the price tag that annoys me, it's the fact that they are now "technically unplayable." To state further I am no MTG Finance bro, but it sucks that I spent money on cards that seemed pretty safe, so that my favorite high mana cost Commanders can keep up with the increasingly low cost modern Commanders, and now it's much more difficult to play what I want to play against a more and more low-to-the-ground format.
I lost almost nothing and I think it was the most stupidest bone headed decision ever made.
@@Trainwithsebfavts
If sheldon were alive, he'd be so disappointed and ashamed of the toxic people in the format he helped build.
Curious what this is going to look like moving forward. The tier lists of cards feels arbitrary still.
Wizards could always release their formula for how they balance power with cost and rarity when designing cards to the public,. Then people can go over the math and break down the numbers of every card ever and see where it lies in comparison to other cards, and use those numbers to determine where things should sit on a tier list based on their under and over of the baseline of what is considered 'balanced or 'normal'.
I'm being slightly facetious, but if you want a method for categorizing thing in a way that isn't "arbitrary", then looking at the raw design numbers and mathematics behind card creation is the way to go.
@@raiserofchickens facetious or not that isn't the worst thing. I have always been lucky in that my play groups tend to be willing to meet each other on a similar level. But as someone the works at an lgs I'm curious what this will look like within my local community.
While I agree that the RC made a lot of mistakes that helped lead to this, I think it’s worth remembering that all of those cards were design mistakes and three of them were made specifically for Commander. It’s also worth noting that unlike the design mistake of Arcane Signet, those cards were not reprinted into the ground to make them easily accessible. The RC would never have made these mistakes in the first place if WOTC hadn’t fumbled beforehand. At the end of the day the RC was an inherently reactionary institution. Were all of their reactions good? No. But to blame them primarily for this mess is short-sighted. The buck stops with the company that makes the cards.
Crypt existed for decades. If it's problem in your meta, pack more artifact hate.
And now the company that makes cards is fully in control of the format. Expect things to get much, much worse.
@@methshin1 They didn't even mention crypt.
Pure hubris by the RC to handle the whole thing like they did.
I think resentment from not being consulted as CAG members influenced their opinion on this rather heavily. They even agreed the bans were good for the health of the format, yet still put all the blame on the RC where it's WOTC's fault for abusing power creep to take more and more money from getting players hooked to gambling.
At least half of the reason that people lost so much money with these bans, was because WOTC designed these cards to be so artificially expensive. These cards should've either been banned long ago, or straight up never have been printed.
I can't agree with the blame being laid on the RC's feet. No matter how bad you believe their decision or communication was, the reaction was completely unjustified.
Want to blame someone for what happened? Blame the violent people on the community. Or maybe the problematic tie between gameplay and the financial side of the game. Or just WoTC for printing design mistakes.
My problem with continuing to criticize the RC is that it feels...pointless. There has been so much of that over the past bit that reiterating it feels pointless, especially for a body that no longer exists. I wouldn't say their decisions were perfect, but the only purpose I see of such discussion at this point is to kick people who are already down as well as justify the assholes who in their minds did the right thing here.
"Not everyone even knows what fun means" was the quote of the episode. Feeling it deep in my soul.
Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving community.
A large percentage of the online community was against the bans. That doesn't really tell us how much of the total Commander community were against it.
I think the saddest part about all this in the long run besides the death threats of course is the fact that if the rules committee had done like Olivia suggested banned Nadu and Dockside and then wait on the other two I don't think we would be in this position now. what might have been😢
So that's the thing about this situation. The majority of this community wouldn't even consider sending death threats to the RC, yet that's the reason being used as to why WotC took over. However, I think that honestly takes away from valid criticism against this decision. Ultimately, regardless of the response, this was of the RCs own making and they had the means/resources to make a more informed and calculated decision, but didn't.
Disagree, Lotus and Crypt would have been no less expensive in the future, they likely would have been more expensive by then.
The outrage over the 'loss of money' would have still happen, especially on top of the previous one (Dockside).
There was no way to ban these cards that wouldn't have hurt one group of people and caused outrage.
@@thecosmiccall3802aye, the threats are bad… but they are being used to obfuscate the real reason WotC is taking over and also to ignore the valid views.
Happens with any online discourse where a tiny fraction of people take it too far.
The shock of banning 2 old staples after seeing nothing for 3 years is definitely a contributing factor to the vitriol.
Some people would have been salty over Dockside, but basically everyone was on board with Nadu, and it would not have escalated to the point that it's currently at. Especially if it was just those two, or just Nadu, with a statement like: "Hey we're looking at fast mana for the long term health of the format, but also the CAG and RC are working on a new tiered system that we plan to announce alongside Foundations release, so a ban may not be appropriate for those anyway as cards like Mana Crypt will likely be part of the highest power tier"
@@thecosmiccall3802Uh. That’s not how people work. This is the kind of thing people say to abuse victims. The RC could have banned every card in the game and it would not have been their fault that they got death threats. There’s no excuse for that. None.
Criticism, being upset, petitioning, boycotting, sure. But not harassment and death threats.
Brackets are going to be a lot less relevant than people think. Expect to see a lot of "All brackets, no cEDH" games.
The victim-blaming of the rules committee is so strange when most of the opposition is on financial grounds, and aside from the fact that finance/investment culture in a card game is toxic as hell, the price of those cards is wotc's fault. If you're mad that you spent a lot of money on a card that got banned, that's wotc's fault.
"If you're mad that you spent a lot of money on a card that got banned, that's wotc's fault."
Partly their fault, partly the fault of the person buying it. If you buy a Magic card not on the reserved list you HAVE to understand that the value could plummet at any time and you can not rely on it holding value indefinitely.
Most bans you get a heads up. Tournament results come in with huge dominant performances. Everyone is talking about how much the cards are shifting the meta.
The normal cues people see that signal possible bans were not obvious to people. Because those cues were not there, people were blindsided. And when you hit somebody in the wallet by surprise, they get very angry. Right or wrong, this reaction was entirely predictable. It is no surprise to me that the most media savvy member of the RC was the one against them. She saw this coming.
Honestly, yeah, this really rubbed me the wrong way. Command Zone has spent so much time focusing on the financial implications of the bans and that just feels gross. I wish they'd had somebody on who actually held the opposite position to argue it.
Really no one should buy any cards and let wotc die… everything sucks about this company… sarcasm aside… I see a lot of blame shift from rules committee > to wizards > to the players themselves lol… in a format where if I show up with my crap voltron deck and tell the table “hey I have a jeweled lotus in my deck but this is a voltron deck that is more toolbox and is just for fun… it rarely wins” no one so far has said gtfo…
I still find it weird people blaming the players who bought cards to play the game in paper… “you should know better than buy Magic cards” lol ok why the fuck should they even play at all then? Just feels like a weird statement… again for the most casual of formats where I already saw bans of mana crypt on discord channels for community games… no problems… well some people I guess are annoying to deal with rule 0 convo but this is magic so ya gonna have some off people lol… it is what it is…
seriously! WotC intentionally and artificially inflated these hyper-pushed cards to drive up profits. They knew what they were doing even at the cost of the health of the format and despite warnings by CZ's own members like Josh. Despite this, they put the blame entirely on the RC. Yes, they did not handle it adequately, but the bans are good for the format in a vacuum. I understand they resent the lack of communication but why not hold WOTC accountable as well?
People also need to understand the bans DO NOT impact you FRIEND’S playgroup.
You can rule 0 in « pot of greed » draw 2 cards for free if you want to. Because steady friends group adapt to the group.
It’s to make the format more fun for CASUAL PICKUP games and newish players in LGS.
Rule 0 with strangers does not always work…. If at all.
Pretty much everyone has bad stories of LGS players and their « power level 7 » or « slightly upgraded precons » stomping your actual slightly upgraded precon.
LGS games WILL be MORE fun now. Pickup games will benefit from this.
Play whatever you want with your friends and whatever your playgroup allows.
Love to you all. Hate and threats have no place in ANY conversation.
Peace!
Magic the gathering isn't LGS only so this point makes little sense. WoTC already shown they don't care about LGS, you think them being in charge of Commander is going to be good for LGS going forward? Jim and the RC discussed banning Lotus and Crypt over a year ago, and WoTC still pumped out Commander Masters sets only a few months ago and not one RC member said boo! Even though they knew they were likely banning those cards we were all spending big money chasing!
@@avatarofpapermagic publishing and print run months if not years ahead.
@@rakino4418 so? RC knew they were in the process of banning Lotus and Crypt and weren't transparent enough to advise anyone during Commander Masters release. WoTC knew by then that the RC was in the process of banning Lotus and Crypt, and by selling the product only months before they were eventually banned is actually illegal in Australia where I'm from. They sold product that they knew the RC was banning! RC didn't say a word, Jim and co kept it all hush hush until now. You realise WoTC have broken Australian Consumer Law yeah? Even Sony and Steam have been smashed by Australian Consumer Law. Our government actually protects us from shady businesses that sell product it knows will be banned or not fit for purpose. And jewelled lotus is no longer fit for purpose. This goes beyond just Commander and making it more casual and fun. WoTC have broken laws and Jim literally stated in print they knew over a year ago RC were talking of banning Lotus and Crypt. WoTC have broken Australian laws, they and those who sent death threats or threats of violence to the RC and CAG need to be held accountable.
@@olcar7799 it does affect it in much the same way as a referees call on the field in most sports. That position is taken as the default. If you have a replay, unless the available video shows definitive proof that it was a bad call, the decision will stand.
The ban list is considered the default. If you have 2 people for and 2 against, the default position for most groups would be that the ban list applies (or endless bickering where they simply cannot come to an agreement).
“How many decks are a 7 in here?” Looooool
The biggest thing about this is that Wizards said don't do this. Another arrow in the statement all Wizards/Hasbro wants to do is keep their bottom line/reprint equity. Makes me more afraid going forward.
I'm curious, what will happen with the next Lutri situation? The RC didn't want that card printed (iirc), and then made the 'easy' decision to ban it because they had no financial incentive not to (and they could do it before people lost money on the card). Now, what check is there? Would Hasbro be happy with the Commander Team at WotC if they preemptively ban a card because it would be too desirable as an auto-include in so many Commander decks?
What check was there for jeweled lotus? The rc wasn't using their checks anyway for too long which got people in the mindset that they would never be used.
Mtg has always had a very toxic community. It's embarrassing and I feel ashamed to be involved in a community that spews threats. It's a game.
Transformers community is the same thing. I'm starting to think mtg and transformers fans are one and the same. Just check out tfw2005. Toxic people on there.
Been waiting for this coverage all week...
This is how I see the rules committee
RC: I cast Armageddon
RC: All right I scoop
I feel like they didn't consider that the RC didn't consult them on the bans or on handing to WOTC to protect the members of the cag.
I'm obviously speculating but I'd like to think that by not involving the cag they were able to protect them even if it may not have been smart to do.
Eh, considering the RC stated the reason they didn’t tell anyone was to prevent leaks… seems unlikely. Why would they not just be upfront about such a reason?
"They didn't ask" - Yeah, well, if I'm actively fearing for my life, for the lives of my family, I'm not going to ask if anyone can take over. I'm going to take the fastest route out of that situation. I think the idea that they should have asked is utterly ridiculous and heartless from Josh and Jimmy. It's not realistic and it's not compassionate.
It's a shame EDH players couldn't act like adults and handle a ban list. We're now in a world where a WotC or Hasbro executive can force a change in EDH no matter how bad it is for the health of the format.
Which erodes players trust. I got earlier a few years because I saw the writing on the wall. Death threats are not the right and correct to respond to this however I do understand that it’s pretty brazen by wizards to ban cards that were still printed as of the end of last year where they at least had an inkling what they are going to ban. Collecting cards games in an overly regulated format like modern or standard comes with the format . The mantra for edh used to be different. The whole reason was to play with cards that simply don’t have a home in other formats and not being worthless junk. Always dicey to collect but it’s still a kick in the Nats to have old powerhouse cards like crypt completely devalued. Let’s see how this shakes out. It’s gonna take months or potentially years to see how the format performs due to this and future decisions.
It's a shame that the RC was so driven by hubris that they didn't consult with the CAG, didn't listen to their own members, and ignored direct advice from WotC in regards to this ban wave.
@@methshin1 They didn't ask the CAG about this specific set of bans, but Tomer said they've been asked about fast mana in general and the CAG has said multiple times it's a problem. The RC said they had the input they needed to make these bans and that input from the CAG is where these bans came from.
Unban the cards it’s not difficult to correct that mistake
@@TargetSniper365 That would be a mistake. Unbanning those cards rewards the people who threatened the RC.Also, most people believe Crypt and Lotus were problems In the format. Gavin said Lotus was a mistake.
in my opinion, fast mana is not the issue, it's the power creep of card design that makes getting cards out early seem broken.
Fast mana is an issue. If a card is balanced around costing five mana, and thus coming out on turn five. Circumventing that and getting it out on turn three, or worse 1 or 2, is horribly unbalancing.
Power creep is definitely an issue, but that only exacerbates the fast mana problem. Really, they feed into each other making the other one a bigger issue.
"I lay it squarely mostly at the feet of the Rules Committee" You'd think the RC invaded a smaller nation by the reaction Josh is having.
They just banned 4 cards though, 2 of which (Lotus and Nadu) are design mistakes as admitted to by the creators, Dockside which even you guys complain about in your episodes of Game Knights and Extra Turns, and Crypt, which was pretty busted but it's ancient compared to the other three.
I understand being frustrated at not being consulted but in the last podcast Josh was still in the mindset of not banning anything while Rachel was the one being diplomatic and understanding why and how they reached that decision. Olivia's approach was better, yes, but the heart of the issue, at least for me, is that even if the bans were completely unwarranted, the format has grown exponentially in the last couple of years and the longer these cards continued to create a rift between the community, the worse the issues with the format would get. At least with these bans the message was clear that designed for commander chase cards are under the same scrutiny as other broken cards that came before them.
I understand the frustration and maybe it is from having played yugioh most of my life, but bans are something people are quite used to in other games and formats and while Commander can self regulate and rule zero things, it won't mend all the glaring issues plaguing it at the moment.
Definetly feels like JLK feels slighted by the RC rather than actually considering the bans being useful, his take on the financial impact is also irrelevant to the conversation of the balance of the game, which is what his priority should have been in the position that he was in
based yugioh pfp
You got it with “bans are something people are quite used to in other games/formats”. A single ban in commander hadn’t happened in 3 *years*. A single ban on a card over like $20 hasn’t happened in like 10 years (more honestly I think). This is a $400 ban. COMPLETELY UNPRECEDENTED in the 20 years the format has been popular. Put simply: the RC changed its ban philosophy on a dime and left people who maintained the old philosophy holding the bag.
R/whoosh
It is irresponsible to shepherd the riot to the door by saying "we were never consulted on this" when you literally were consulted on fast mana, fueling the anger of the people, then disavowing them as "not part of the community" when they break down the walls, all the while trying to claim you never stoked the flames at all.
I will be honest, I already had a low opinion of JLK after his talk about using magic cards as an investment, and the way he speaks on this makes me even more skeptical of his character.
I love that you guys didn't just jump to pushing accountability off of the rc and onto the threats, like every other youtuber is. The threats are unacceptable 100%,but the rc absolutely has a hand in this mess. They bungled the ban and the transfer. I actually never thought about the option of them stepping down and allowing other community members to step up instead of just passing it to wotc. Looking back this would have been a more optimal solution.
This decision will not be felt in weeks, maybe not even months. It will take probably years before we realize that this was the turning point for the game and how bad the effects truly were by this. Another thing people don’t think about is while these people love the game, it is their livelihood. If their boss threatens termination if they don’t comply with anti-player game choices, they will make those choices. Love and passion are great, but that pales in comparison to survival. You CANNOT put the expectation of the health of the format being prioritized ever again. It is no longer a game managed by players, it is a business and we are consumers.
Yea i think the sets coming out in 2026/7 will be interesting because those would have designed from day 1 with wizards at the helm
Sheldon Era Commander. I have a feeling most people will just jump on this and play that way.
I came across from great point from Distraction Makers over the new tier system and im honestly really liking it. It works very well for competitive pokemon (the video game version) with SMOGON's tiers (of which they have four: ubers, over-used, under-used, and never used. These tiers are based off tournament data gathered by the organizers.
If commander tourneys can now collect data on that kind of stuff it can potentially be useful in helping wizards place cards, as game-warping cards are more likely to always be or always always be played at tournaments. IE thoracle combo is akin to gen 1 snorlax. Its just the strongest and everyong plays it because its the highest tier. There exist lower tier games without Snorlax as well.
Never clicked on a video so fast in my life
I hope that at least one of you are willing, and invited, to be on the new committee even in an anonymous way. The Command Zone has become a staple of where I get MTG news and assistance and it's clear you don't just love the game, you have the community in mind as well.
Why is it the first thing people do in response to a ban list is to threaten people,there’s a lot ways to go about dealing with ban than telling telling someone your gonna un alive someone
Command Zone: The RC aren't the victims. You the players are the victims! But don't send threats to the people we are telling you to blame!!!!!!
Yea I'm getting very conflicted messages from the Command Zone team with this video in all honesty.
@@16jknight the takes here are coming off rather bad
You can be mad at both the RC and the people who acted irrationally.
I think the point is to not send threats.
I wish there was 5 brackets just so it becomes a 1 to 5 scale
A 1 to 4 scale is harder to mentally picture
How many people say on a daily basis "on a scale of one to five..."?
This is probably the kind of feedback they are looking for tbh. Not sure if they will have an actual poll for players to fill out, but this would be great for them to consider
While I feel for the RC group, the community never really controlled the format. The fact that they didn't even talk to the Commander advisory group clearly shows that. All in all I am happy wizards is taking over.
Just to say that the new set up in this episode with the 3 of you sitting comfortably is really nice
I'm only 20 minutes in this and is it me or is there some big "I'm not here to blame the victim but let me explain to you how they got themselves into this and how I would've done it" energy in the conversation?
I think that that commander got a plague brought upon it and the weekly mtg stream was the equivalent to a morphine shot
I disagree with josh when he says that the rc should have asked the community to take their role
They were just bashed like crazy by the community
They have every right not to want to engage with it anymore and just leave it to a «higher power»
That, and you're just putting someone else into the firing line. Why would you do that to someone else?
The RC were apparently under the impression that they are the only people on Earth capable of steering commander. That's Josh's point. Stepping down is understandable, but not even TRYING to keep it in the community speaks volumes of their selfishness.
I agree. I feel Josh was being very unsympathetic with the RC regarding their resignation. I do think the RC didn't handle the announcement of the bans well. However, why would they wait to talk to the rest of the community when there are crazies flinging death threats at them. I don't know, this video just seemed very back and forth in the opinions towards the RC.
@@GrandoorMcGoutyI agree 100%
For some reason I cannot stop looking at the Tornado over the window behind Jimmy.
I can’t stop looking at Jimmy under the tornado
These reactions are crazy. The fact that losing control of the Rules Committee comes with sadness and loss shows how distorted the format has become. The advisors should not be this invested in a kitchen table format. If it's truly a "community-run format," then the control doesn't matter. Rule Zero anything and everything.
Have fun.
In my opinion, if Wizards unbans any of the cards that caused this change to happen, they will have proved to the people that made those threats that doing that will get them what they want.
If money is not and criteria for bannings or reprints then is time to abolish the reserve list!
Most cards on the list are banned or bad. What cards do you need so desperately that you would advocate for such a change?
@@danielbretado7660 og dual lands, gaeas cradle. They should also be banned in commander, or reprinted to lower the costs. Two color lands, which are fetchable and have no draw back, that are in every cedh deck or high power list should be affordable or banned.
You know, Josh calling people out for dismissing the feelings of those who were angry is super valid. I was one of the people being dismissive, and that part made me feel bad which is good. I fell into the anonymity trap of the internet and left my empathy at the door. Thanks for the reality check Josh!
"It's impossible to say how many where against and how many were pro"
2 min after
"Half were against!"
Technically "half" isn't a a number in the same sense of how many people are on either side of an argument. There have been many many anecdotal polls across social media with a rather consistent trend showing a pretty even 50/50 split for and against. That isn't the same as saying you know how many people have voted in those polls.
If your complaint is that :this hurt me" that is irrelevant to the fact that its harmful to the gameplay. We are looking at this as a game, not an investment. I dont care if you lost money. I care about enjoying playing the game.
Kinda disappointed with way Command Zone is handling all of those things happening. After the Bans were announced your focus was weirdly on Post Malone and other of your rich friends who could not play their mana crypts anymore, instead of thinking about what positive effect these bans could have on the majority of Commander players (who do not own any of those cards).
And now you claim "half" of the people were against the bans, bc of Josh's Twitter poll?... It honestly makes me think some of you may have become a bit out of touch with the communty or at least your opinion is clouded by personal greif over the bans.
But the worst is imo that, directly after condemning the threats, it sounds like you now shift the blame to the RC? The answer to "how did we get here?" is not bc the RC handeled this poorly, it is bc some people made bad financial decisions by putting money they couldnt afford to loose into game pieces and then some of them decided to behave like sociopaths.
Victim blaming the RC was not what I expected from this channel, honestly.
Wow. Victim blaming all the LGSs who lost thousands on their dead collector box stock. If your argument is that these small businesses which for the foundations of our community deserve it for their bad investment call - then you can make the same arguments for the RC - they knew they'd risk backlash for the bans so it's totally justified right?
This comment missed the boat. Victim blaming is a hot button term that dismisses cause and effect. RC made a "dangerous" ( at minimum upsetting") decision even though they knew it was dangerous.
@@wchenful Honestly I dont believe this myth thats being parroted over and over about LGS's losing money bc of this. I have yet to see the the LGS that had loads of money in Crypts and Lotuses. That sounds irresponsible for a serious buisness. And even if thats the case: LGS's obviously survived the Jace ban so it cant be as bad as you wanna make it seem.
@@whoopie23 enlighten me, how was this ban dangerous? Did you know beforehand that some lunatics would react that way? I did not. There have been multiple bans in magics history that had massive "financial" implications, yet never triggerd this amount of outrage. Must be a commander thing.
It's not victim blaming, and to suggest that it is is ridiculous.
They were the leaders of a popular thing on the internet. They fucked up. Bad things happened to them, bad things that SHOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED, but that were a direct fallout of the decisions they made.
When you operate on the internet in 2024, you have to be prepared for the fallout of your bad decisions, and burying you head in the sand and just saying "well people shouldn't do that!" Isn't an effective strategy.
5 volunteers should not be managing the largest format in any card game. That is crazy.
Josh is so up his own ass about his position on the CAG. If you never think bans are justified, you don't deserve an advisory position.
Lmao. You are part of the problem and apparently don't understand what "community" driven means.
Little hint: you aren't the whole community.
And neither am I.
He’s an advisor, meaning he was asked to be on the CAG because clearly the rules committee wanted to hear his opinion on certain decisions, (which some people agree with). Just because you disagree with is opinion doesn’t mean his input isn’t valid. : )
I am really glad that Josh emphasized that this decision wasn't just universally liked with a small percentage who didn't support it. This was definitely closer to the middle and ultimately caused a division in the community.
Lumping the people who didn't like this decision with the horrible people that threatened the RC is not fair. Those people's opinions are no longer valid, and even with them not counted, there is still a significant group of people who didn't support this decision who's opinions are valid.
It's wild to me that even people as thoughtful and intelligent as this cast are so easily duped by internet hate mobs organizing, spamming, astroturfing, and botting to seem larger than they are. You think the community is split 50/50? There is no chance. How long has it been since gamergate, and these kinds of tactics are still working just as well? I wouldn't be surprised at all if its even some of the same people.
You all are really ready to live in a world where banning three cards, in a fundamentally casual format, that are universally agreed to be so powerful they warp the entire format, is somehow reckless?
It's so sad that fear of a very vocal and amoral minority has this much power to shape the future of the format. The message is loud and clear; the worst people on the internet can get exactly what they want from WotC by making enough noise.
Yes I suppose it was IMPOSSIBLE to let the community know they were looking at these cards. That would be an impossible and way too rational thing to do. Got it.
They should generally unban all the cards. As a player i feel a bit like: "Oh, we need to take care of the little players, because they dont know whats good and bad for them."
Im grown. i know what i want to play against and what not and can communicate that by myself.
I appreciate the take of "leaving the threats of violence to the side, what went wrong?" As horrendous as the death threats were, this was an easily avoidable situation that felt like watching inexperienced, yet good-hearted people step on about 15 rakes at once. It is worth pointing out the failures of the RC, and also making explicit that they of course did not deserve death threats. It was clear mismanagement in an inherently janky format.
I'm not prone to conspiracy, but there are so many aspects of this that feel so odd. Many people in the community have pointed out that Crypt and Dockside were possible pulls in the packs sold as part of the Con Box. Having no bans for 3 years, followed by a massive ban with no warning or open discussion. The fact that, as Josh says here, this ban was discussed with WotC but not the CAG. The speed that the RC stepped down and the speed with which WotC has already geared into their new strategy. The whole thing has so many questionable things about it that we will likely never have all the information about.
The explosive negative response has created a massive internet smoke screen on the very real discussions that should be being had about this. It feels like the RC wanted to assert some type of control for some reason and jumped to this huge move. There are probably a not insubstantial number of players who weren't even aware there was a RC. Start with small monthly updates; a watchlist, some small bans, some mild changes. Honestly, the RC should have maybe made a temporary ban category where possibly problematic cards could be placed to enable better rule 0 discussion. Temp ban new cards that seem problematic until the community can come to a consensus. No one was shocked at Dockside. We all know those "problem" cards.
I don't think this is the end of commander, but WotC isn't gonna be healthy for the format.
The juxtaposition of three nerds passionately talking about this game that they love and the swirling vortex of doom just outside the window is a poignant reminder to get some perspective. A hurricane just hit the eastern coast and now floods are ravaging multiple states. There’s high potential that a neofascist will be reelected to run the most powerful country in the world. There are major problems in the Middle East, Ukraine and Taiwan. I don’t think I need to go on. We all love this game and this format, and we deeply care about what happens to it. However, before we all have a collective aneurism, go hug someone you love, watch a funny movie or, and I mean this with all the sincerity and grace I can muster, touch some grass. ❤
They took over because they knew this ban would dramatically affect chase cards in future stupid expensive sets and wotc isn't allowing reported losses. The other reason is just convenient to them and a good cover story. Sucks people can't be decent humans and not go insane over a game..but I wasn't surprised either.
They brought up a few key points I think the community as a whole has avoided discussing since the bans have happened.
1. They did not seek insight or approval from either WOTC or the CAG. The decision was made completely on their own without any outside influence.
2. The bans and death threats can both be bad. Just because a small percentage of crazies started making it personal doesn’t mean the initial decision was warranted. It can be a bad decision but that doesn’t mean someone is allowed to threaten your life. Both of these things can be true.
3. WOTC has always had control of the format….they print the cards. It’s kind of shocking that a lot of people don’t seem to realize that the entity they are afraid of having control of the format, has always had control of the format.
As a side for the people attacking Josh for “victim blaming” and/or bringing up the Command Zone’s business operations…..why? Stating it was a bad decision does not mean he agrees with the threats. He stated several times that those are bad people. Discussing cause and effect doesn’t mean he agrees with those weirdos actions. The Command Zone had nothing to do with the bans so bringing up their financials and employee pay is also a weird unrelated point to make about a topic completely separate from the business.
I just want to say for #1 that the RC has been consulting the CAG for years about these cards and fast mana in general so I feel its disingenuous to say they never got insight from the CAG or WOTC. I also agree that the RC fucked up in their execution. I like your point #3, no one brings up that part, especially since every card is printed into legality.
@@Xalyn937 Is it worse if they just ignore the feedback they get? I’m iffy if there was any real push back by CAG or WOTC but I guess we will never know 100% for sure. The biggest point I was trying to make was number 3. I just think it’s weird the community is terrified that the creators of the card game they play has a more control over the card game they play. WOTC can print whatever they want and the rules committee had no control over that.
The thing about wizards making tournaments for edh, they will automatically be cedh and will not allow proxies. The only question is, will the player base care about those or will they continue to just run their own tournaments
One potential upside to not allowing proxies could be that they reprint a bunch of high power cards (fetchlands for example) to reduce the price in the secondary market so that cEDH is more affordable
Both podcasts about the ban gives me the impression that Josh is so against the bans that it's clouded his opinion about everything surrounding the bans and it's causing him to make it hard for the co host to express any their own opinion without him interrupting. Maybe it's the editing. Or maybe it's how they're seated with Josh on one side and his co-host on another. But I think this is something The Command Zone should look into.
I think Josh took it pretty personally that the CAG wasn't consulted on the bans, and it's hard to blame him. What was the point of the CAG if the only action taken officially since it was started wasn't brought to them for discussion or input.
Agreed!
Oh for sure, man is all-out salt-posting through the entire event. If anything, it certainly just seems like this is a bias the Command Zone already had, though.
@@elijahdprophet They CAG has been around for five years. They've been around for multiple bannings.
Their roll was to advise and give feedback, not participate in decisions.
From what I've heard the CAG was told that bannings were in the works and generally what they revolved around (fast mana). That was not something that was never discussed before.
What the CAG wasn't involved in, was the action decision on what to ban, and they were only told about a day before (from what I've heard).
None of that is unreasonable for a group whose real job was community out reach and provide feedback on general community sentiment.
A few bad people seem to be the excuse to dismiss the criticism of the bans. We know our community is ripe with neck beard keyboard warriors. I feel they have highjacked all the good criticism for the bans. Also, we gotta toughen up against these assholes and not fold to them. I disagree with Mana Crypts ban, but the rules committee has done more good for the format than bad. Now we get our bans, or lack there of, from execs.
Bad, but not end of the world bad.
Hate/outrage bots continue to shape the fabric of our society.
I always find it a very dangerous narrative created by "it's a small portion of the community" rhetoric, when talking about the threats.
Because I STILL see people today that have that level of vitriol and haven't stopped that behavior. That makes it incredibly hard to have sympathy for that side of the argument. I agree it's not everyone, but it definitely feels like more than "a small portion" personally
Stop seriously. You are talking about a game of millions of players. Stop lumping everyone into that group
From the RC's Philosophy page, under Stable:
"When necessary, make changes, even large ones, but not for the purpose of defining a metagame, 'shaking things up,' or in reaction to the hot topic of the day."
"defining a metagame" was expressly why they banned the fast mana cards. "Occasional games like that are fine, but it shouldn't be common, and we're taking steps to bring that frequency down a bit by banning..." The silly part is that trying to artificially slow the game down IS "defining a metagame."
This change was long overdue. Sad that it had to come in such an unfortunate way, but I felt that having a format of this size and importance in the hands of several volunteers was always dumb, dangerous and reckless, no matter how much they cared for it.
I like the comfy chairs and random Sriracha approach to just talking about what's going on
You know the one thing worse than death threats over the internet?
Sending armed mercs to threaten people in their home.
I'm glad no corp has done that, though, right?
The RC not consulting the CAG before handing the format to WOTC is actually insane.....
I think it's honestly hypocritical of JLK to complain about that when he said wouldn't want the job. Nobody would want that job now. The RC were the ones getting death threats; they were under no obligation to make it even worse by putting out the word that they were thinking of handing the format over.
If he wouldn't be willing to take the job because he just saw people getting lots of death threats, he shouldn't be complaining that they didn't put themselves out there for even more abuse. Just makes him come off as salty and a bit detached from reality.
@@EvilMagnitudeAgreed
@@EvilMagnitude You understand there are more people on the CAG than Josh right? His point of criticism is there was zero effort or outreach to the CAG or the community while making this foundational change, implying they learned nothing from their original mistake.
@@dub253 Oh no, I didn't know that the CAG was more than just JLK. I actually thought it was called the JLKAG because he's the only person. That's great to know, thank you!
I'm not talking about the rest of the CAG. I'm talking about JLK. His point of criticism is very bad. He's complaining that the people getting legitimate death threats did not ask people if they wanted a job that *he does not want* because of death threats, an action that 100% guaranteed WOULD have generated even more death threats.
He's not actually concerned with the safety of the RC first and foremost when he complains about this, and I hope he's able to self-reflect and realize how poorly that statement comes across. He's indirectly saying that he's upset that they didn't generate even more death threats upon themselves by hinting that they might give WotC the format. That's no good. There is a reason Rachel had to gently check him on this point and remind him that the safety of the RC was the first and only consideration.
I find it funny because let’s be real a lot of people who buy expensive cards rarely have the idea of selling it because magic is prob the only card game where buying the cards actually mean your gonna play with them and not just have them sit around like Pokémon cards for example. So the idea that people lost 100’s of dollars is kinda dumb cause most people say some cards are worth a price but let’s be real we magic players rarely sell our cards
LGS’s probably took the biggest hit
@@harrybenjamin8202 You believe an LGS would hold onto a lot of Lotuses and Crypts for harder times? Be for real man
Local stores with 5-10 copies got wrecked, but there's definitely speculators that will buy every copy of cards they can find at $20, sit on them at $100 and hope they slowly float up to $200. I know it happened a ton with Orcish Bowmasters and The One Ring as those cards are unlikely to see reprints
@@WytchfynderGeneral there are plenty of LGSs that had a lot of these cards. I alone had 4 lotuses and 1 crypt. My in LGS in my dinky town had 10 or more of each. Idk dude you play in Alaska?
This is part of why people were mad. They wanted to play with those cards. Also, nearly every week you see somebody on the FB groups who had some kind of thing go wrong in their life and are forced to sell their cards. Just because they don't want to sell doesn't mean they don't see it as a backstopping in case things go wrong. Like downgrading your card from a luxury model to a compact toyota when you can't afford it.
Content creators that lead the community to feel that something was taken from them by the RC should take a look at their own tiger.
Finding out that not only did members of the CAG, the RC, but ALSO WotC advised them NOT to do this, the ones that pushed through the banning really shouldn't have been in that position to begin with.
They used their power like a cudgel, and while the responses in some instances were terrible, to act shocked about the vitriol and quit just goes to show how unfit SOME people were in the RC.
I am 10000000% on the side of no one deserves threats if violence over what is ultimately 4 squares of cardboard.
Be better people. I and many others dont wanna sit at the table with people like that. Be safe, be kind and if you're going to do something think about if you would like if someone did that to you.
They have already manage the ban list for the other formats. I'm choosing to stay hopeful that it'll all be fine.
I know the community needs direction with such a massive format and that a 'rule 0' approach isn't always effective. That being said, we as a community had actual say on how a massive corporation behaves in practice (minimal as it was) and we gave that away to the worst possible entity. Hasbro who so far has shown little but monarchical contempt for magic the gathering is going to make sure that they use the control of this format to drive their profits and nothing else.
Will there be some upside? sure. But likely no matter how many passionate WotC employees on that committee want to keep this format fun and pure, some exec from Hasbro is gonna come slide their d**k down their throats and say "Change this, its not making enough money"