Hi All,
I have a bit of a headache and no idea what to talk about, but an update needs to be posted, so here we go regardless XD. As per always, we've got expenses piling up and not quite the cash flow to meet them, but we are hoping that things improve, especially as more stock has come in over the last few days.
David is off to Australia at the end of the month for 4 days to play some Card Fight Vanguard, which is super exciting.
Oh yeah... A Commander announcement happened. Gavin Verhey did a video that talked up a big anouncement and then the big anouncement was that the commander panel are choosing to do basically nothing.
Biorhythm was unbanned, and let's be honest, the decks that it's actually a problem against are decks without game changers so it just feels like the latest in a long line of unbans like Sway of the Stars etc..
Being able to play Lutri is cool, but that doesn't feel like an exciting change to me.
While I was hoping they'd make a change to Hybrid, I understand why they didn't. Bringing more complexity into the format that is the primary way new players are brought into MTG can lead to more bad than good.
Even amongst my friends and I who have been playing since before Commander even existed, there was some confusion on how hybrid cards would work.
In my opinion, the following makes the most sense in the existing rules
You can't play deathrite in monoblack decks. With the text box having actual green and black symbols (in addition to the hybrid cost) makes it colour identity still green and black rather than green or black.
Batwing Brume is the same; it would still be only legal in decks that are both black and white for the same reason as Deathrite Shaman.
Then come all sorts of other questions like Phyrexian Mana and cards like the mythos cycle from Ikoria.
I would love to see the Hybrid change happen to Commander, but I'm a long-term player with a pretty good understanding of the rules (at least as long as we aren't talking layers XD), so I very much understand not making that change, considering a lot of the current players don't understand the rules of the game as is. But I was looking forward to actually having interesting cards to play with General Ferrous Rokiric.
Sundering Titan, Iona and Griselbrand, in my opinion, don't lead to fun game states even if they are balanced. According to Gavin, there are people who find Griselbrand fun, probably to play against as well, but that's not me. The other 2 are just straight up miserable. And please don't try to tell me that Sundering Titan is good against ramp decks. It's not remotely true. Sundering Titan goes in those ramp decks and stops everyone else from playing before they've really ever started.
The no unbans is also something I'm fine with. Though my play group have mostly decided they are tired of both playing with and playing against cards like Craterhood and Rhystic Study. We find we don't enjoy those games and so we don't put those cards in our decks.
Occasionally, someone might show up with 1, but it's usually 1 copy in 1 deck rather than making proxies of that copy and putting it in all the decks, and that's OK. I understand Rhystic Study is annoying to play against, but my solution is to find people who agree with me and play with them instead :)
I think that's most of it covered, see you all in 2 weeks,
- Rose Willis
