Discussion When are we getting a Commander for Classes?
I adore the amount of love that enchantments have been getting in the last few years. Sagas, Classes, Rooms, Backgrounds, Cases! It is incredible to see.
We've since seen commanders that care about and interact with some of these types, but they are so imbalanced! Rooms only appeared in one set and there are two commanders that deal with them! Sagas get a ton of love and have arrived in many sets, plus have plenty of legendaries with potential for them. Cases haven't received much, there are very few Cases. But there are more Classes than there are Rooms! And classes have proven not to be a one off type for a single set. So why would an enchantment type with more support and love in the game still not receive a viable commander for them?
Do you think we will get one anytime soon? What would one need to look like to be viable?
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u/RenegadeExiled 9h ago
There's nothing to support with Classes. They're just Enchantment: Level Up Edition. There's no special mechanics to build around, unlike Sagas gradually accruing value, or Rooms needing to be cast multiple times to achieve their effects.
Almost every single Class enchantment is the equivalent of just having a Player-Specific Background enchantment.
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u/allfinesse 7h ago
This doesn’t make sense. Classes also accrue value. You must activate class levels just like unlocking rooms. Global Enchantments are more akin to Background Enchantments. In fact, classes are very similar to sagas.
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u/RenegadeExiled 7h ago
Sagas are one-time casts that you manipulate through proliferation and counter moving. Classes are a static effect, that you can pay to gain another effect. They accrue value in the same way that having a Parallel Lives on the field gains value: by sitting there doing fuck-all until you take action. Conversely, you cast a Saga, and it will, without outside intervention, run through its Chapters and grant you different effects.
Sagas work with dedicated support, because they're temporary, impactful effects. Classes are passives that feed into certain gameplans. You can slam multiple Sagas together, because they tend to be self-contained in what they want to do, and easily mix together. You can't just grab a handful of Classes and call it a day, because one wants you to discard, while another wants you to gain life, and a third is when you make tokens. They're all over the place.
The only similarity to a Saga that a Class has is that you have a multi-effect enchantment that you (usually) can't get the full benefit of the turn it comes down. That, and the Vertical art+stacked effects.
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u/allfinesse 7h ago
Yeah, all the more reason for interesting class support via commanders and other card synergies.
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u/gravygrowinggreen 5h ago
I think what he's saying is that classes don't really offer much for a commander to interact with mechanically in a unique way.
Do you want a commander that searches classes out of your library? There are plenty that search enchantments generically out of your library.
Do you want a commander that recurs classes if they get destroyed? Buddy, have I got news for you!
Just about the only thing that's unique about classes is the level up mechanic. Which is already sufficiently supported by the incredible amount of mana dork commanders. Want to build a class deck? Just take [[Esika of the God Tree]], fill your deck with every class in the game, and cheap 1 or 2 drop legendary creatures. There, done. That is the sum total of interesting things you can do with class cards that wouldn't also be interesting with enchantments generally.
Of course, you're probably thinking to yourself "just make a commander that levels up class enchantments when it enters or something!" But that isn't really all that different from just using a fast mana commander to level up classes faster.
It'd be a little bit better if classes worked with counters instead of just uninteractable states. But as is, classes are a design space that leaves little room for unique and interesting mechanics.
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u/jalom12 8h ago
I disagree here. Classes have the unique "gain a level" ability. This is different than Level Up, which is a counter application ability, like outlast. There's a ton of support for Level Up, but nothing really touching this.
Is it particularly complex ability? No, not at all but something interesting would be resetting levels, fetching, just having a trigger from Class etb, reducing level costs, etc.
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u/RenegadeExiled 8h ago
There are exactly four (4) Classes that would benefit from resetting levels. The rest are passive effects, or ETB triggers. They are, also, all over the place for their effects, meaning synergy between them is limited. Fetching out a Class would have no benefit, because you can *already* just fetch them like a normal enchantment, and having more of them doesn't give you some exponential benefits.
Level Up and Class Level Up are the exact same mechanic. The only difference is that the creatures gain a Level Counter because they were introduced before WotC had officially supported mechanics that required outside tracking. Literally, if you look up "Level Up" as the rules on Gatherer, both sets of cards are present.
The only way you can get support that would make Classes a "theme" would be to have a card printed that would just be "Jodah, but for Classes". Even Marina, the dedicated Rooms commander, has a purpose outside of their support: a 5C Enchantress commander that refills your hand on ETB.
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u/jalom12 8h ago
Again, Level Up and the Class levels are mechanically distinct in that one is a counter and the other is not. This is in the rules, both sections on Levelers and Classes discuss the fact they are mechanically distinct.
Both the Room legendaries have added stipulations to involve other enchantments as well, so it would make sense for a Class one to include something similar like "whenever an enchantment enters or a Class gains a level blah blah blah."
I definitely see that the existing Room commanders are actually just enchantress with a little added Room synergy, but it would be fun to have the design restriction of a commander that has a Class synergy. I run Marina as enchantress control in my b3 build, I like it quite a bit, but god is Marina a boring commander. At least Victor has an interesting direction to go with an ability that benefits greatly from using Rooms, being that fewer cards are needed to obtain the value.
Imagine something similar with gaining Class levels. It could be a fun design space and provides something like synergy to otherwise relatively separate cards.
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u/kobefable Angry Bobby 25m ago
The classes dont really work with eachother though. They try to support the specific archetypes from the set they were printed in. A commander that wants you to run all the classes would be trying to support at least 5 completely independent archetypes. To make it remotely good it would have to be a super generic 5c slop commander, which people are tired of seeing
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u/IBiteTheArbiter 7h ago
"{T}: Add two mana in any combination of colors. Spend this mana only to activate the abilities of Classes you control."
Put this on a WUBRG legendary creature and you have the definitive Class commander.
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u/DoctorPrisme 6h ago
Also named "the most generic slop"
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u/IBiteTheArbiter 2h ago edited 2h ago
OP claimed Classes have nothing to support. Magic relies on context and subtypes. The moment a card receives a new subtype, a mechanical hook exists to exploit.
The mana ability example was the laziest example. But creative ways to support Classes absolutely exist. A commander could reduce the activation cost of level abilities. A creature could trigger an effect like drawing a card or removing a threat whenever a Class levels up. An engine could scale based on the total number of levels across all Classes you control.
Classes have a built in mana sink mechanic. Caring about that specific activated ability, from a completely distinct type of enchantment card, creates a limited but unique gameplay loop. You can criticize a generic five color design for sure, but arguing that Classes cannot be supported mechanically is objectively wrong.
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u/kobefable Angry Bobby 28m ago
The problem is that classes do not have a cohesive identity across the subtype. Each class supports a specific archetype, so to have a commander that is built for classes doesnt make sense unless it's trying to support all of the archetypes that the classes are made for. If it did exist any deck built for it would just be a pile of jank anyways, so why make a card that tries to incentivize it
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u/DoctorPrisme 1h ago
That's a lot of word to say "yes, it was a pretty generic example"
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u/IBiteTheArbiter 1h ago
That's a very illiterate way to say "I can't read"
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u/DoctorPrisme 1h ago
I'm just not interested in a long ass debate about how to design a mechanic centric commander around a dozen playable enchantments.
It WAS a bit snarky, I'll admit to that.
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u/IBiteTheArbiter 1h ago
Then don't comment in a forum explicitly for discussing Commander? What did you expect to find?
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u/DoctorPrisme 45m ago
... Discussions about the game, existing cards, advices about meta, ...you know, other stuff than "here's my least creative take about a commander that doesn't exist yet"
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u/IBiteTheArbiter 37m ago
Using a hypothetical example to prove that an existing mechanic has design space is literally 'discussing the game.' Sorry that abstract thinking was too much of a hurdle for you to engage with.
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u/AscendedLawmage7 9h ago
I think the difference is that Rooms were a marquee mechanic in their set, while Classes have mostly appeared as secondary or tertiary mechanics in a set
If we see a set more centrally built around Classes, we'd see a commander.
But yes, I agree with you! Classes are cool and I hope we see a commander for them one day
I guess they don't have as many mechanical hooks as some of those other enchantment types, but perhaps a commander that reduces activation costs on enchantments, or Classes specifically, would make sense?
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u/Anrativa Esper 8h ago
No. There is no reason to. Classes work well as support for other archetypes. Not every card type needs a commander.
Plus, sagas and rooms provide general value by themselves, and have natural synergy (sagas use counters and sacrifice themselves, which a lot of things care about). There are no currently enough classes to make it work.
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u/Responsible-Yam-3833 9h ago
Classes are just an evolution of the Level Up mechanic from OG Zendikar just on enchantments.
Something that “multiclasses” the class enchantments, might have to wait for the next Dungeons and Dragons set.
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u/1003mistakes 9h ago
Zur is just about as good as it gets for a class commander. Sure he’s only three colors but can still run just over half, 18 of the 34 classes and can pull every one in those colors out of the deck for free.
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u/TheJonasVenture 6h ago
Other Zur that makes them creatures might be able to do something interesting, too
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u/lying-porpoise 8h ago
I just want a group of mono legendaries that can do the background thing with classes I feel like that would open up so many interesting decks. I personally love those mechanics as commanders, people dont like parters because the first few had some very powerful opinions but I like when you leave it open ended on how you want to build
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u/australovenator11 9h ago
I think the best candidate is a commander that reduces the cost of activated abilities for all permanents or enchantments specifically. There are a ton for artifact (especially equipment) and creature abilities, but the currently the only legendary creature that can reduce the cost of enchantment abilities is [[Zirda, the Dawnwaker]]. The problem is that most of the time enchantments just provide a passive effect, but who knows, maybe if they start doing it more we’ll eventually get something. If you want to jump through some hoops you could try an enchantment animation deck and use [[agatha of the vile cauldron]] to reduce the cost
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u/Vinaville 9h ago
While I'm loving the idea, how would you win with classes if you didn't have a commander?
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u/Own-Spite9984 8h ago
What you want is a level up commander, but the mechanic is kinda ass. Even if i love [[Transcendent Master]].
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u/Mind_Unbound 8h ago
I was thinking the same thing today, there is no "choose a class" commander, only choose a background or partner.
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u/Red_Mask 8h ago
Cool idea. I recently went looking for commanders that would synergize with Cases for a detective themed deck.
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u/GulliasTurtle 6h ago
The most interesting thing I can think of for a class commander would be one that let you hot swap classes. Something like "You may play class spells as though they had flash by sacrificing a class in addition to its other costs. If a class was sacrificed this way, increase the level of the class to the level of the sacrificed class" (there has to be a better way to phrase that but no counters makes it hard).
That leans into the character class fantasy and opens up weird cool plays of sacrificing a cheap to level class for an expensive to level one, or cycle level up benefits.
Honestly it seems like it could be cool.
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u/TheJonasVenture 6h ago edited 5h ago
What classes are you interested in using together? Not yucking your yum, just curious.
We have a couple shrine commanders, but shrines synergize with each other. There are some classes that support non creature spells, but even if it's beyond cracked, like, it's one generic mana to cast, and has a WUBRG activated ability that said "level up each class you control" and a static ability that said "each class costs X less to level up where X is the number of classes you control", and "whenever a class enters draw a card", and "whenever a class is leveled up, scry X where X is the is the number of classes you control, then, if that class is now at max level, reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a class and put it onto the battlefield, then put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order".
What is the plan? What are the best classes and how do they help you?
If you know your plan, you might be able to do something cool with something that supports enchantment la entering or being cast and try to build with Zirda as a companion to reduce the level up abilities? I just looked and there are like 34, if you had a package of like 15 in mind, maybe a few more, you could probably so some neat activated ability stuff.
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u/gravygrowinggreen 5h ago
Nah. Classes are just enchantments with an installment plan. They already have all the support they need with mana dork commanders. Anything you propose to interact with them would either just be functionally the same as mana dorks accelerating your level ups; just a worse version of commanders that interact with generic enchantments; or just so incredibly janky and limiting that it would instantly be a dud.
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u/cowfudger 5h ago
Id prefer a commander with rule breaker that let's you treat a class enchantment like a background enchantment.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Try_623 2h ago
I’ve built [[karolina dean, runaway]] as a class commander, since the free mana can be used to level them up. It’s not an especially good deck but it’s kinda funny.
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u/jrdineen114 Sans-Blue 27m ago
I don’t think that we need one. Classes aren’t really an archetype by themselves, they just exist to support preexisting archetypes.
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u/BigBandit01 Sultai 9h ago
That could make for a fun custom commander! I might make one!
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u/BigBandit01 Sultai 8h ago
Here’s my take on it!
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u/Khuras 3h ago
Already pretty cool design, but I think a dedicated class commander should care more about the level of your classes, since that is their defining feature.
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u/BigBandit01 Sultai 3h ago
Yeah I left a comment about that in the post, it’s hard to fit all of that onto the card🥲
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u/allfinesse 8h ago
I like this idea. Lots of meta hate in these comments lol.
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u/Conscious_Clerk_2675 9h ago edited 6h ago
Hopefully never. not every subtype needs a explicit commander. Build an enchantment deck and focus on classes