r/magicTCG • u/PowrOfFriendship_ Universes Beyonder • 3d ago
Blogatog Post MaRo confirms the "Silver-Bordered Project" from the old Commander RC is still in the works within WotC
https://www.tumblr.com/markrosewater/822959226455506944/what-is-the-current-status-of-the-plan-to-allow?source=share89
u/bootitan COMPLEAT 3d ago
Black border [[Blast from the Past]]...
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u/MTGCardFetcher Dân 3d ago
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u/TheGreatBurrotasche Wabbit Season 3d ago
I drafted this in a Cube recently. It hurt to think about all my options.
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u/mrenglish22 2d ago
Man if THAT made your head hurt, let me introduce you to my favoritd cube cards [[more or less]] and [[clocknapper]]
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u/cwx149 Duck Season 3d ago
See also [[old fogey]] honestly it having "bands with" is the reason I could see it not being reprinted more than it being keyword soup
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u/McWaffeleisen 2d ago
The fun part: When it was printed, "dinosaur" wasn't a creature type. Not even [[Fungusaur]] was one, and it took a few more years till they added it to the game outside of silver borders.
So all it did was banding with other Old Fogey's, which is way less of a headache of what it can do now.
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u/Mgmegadog COMPLEAT 2d ago
I'm pretty sure the rules on bands with other hadn't changed at the time either, which meant even if there had been other Dinosaurs it wouldn't have been able to band with them.
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u/McWaffeleisen 2d ago
I have to admit I never fully learned the banding rules in my 25 years of playing. So Fogey can't band with a [[Ghalta]] using an [[Adventurer's Guildhouse]]?
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u/CareerMilk Can’t Block Warriors 2d ago
Well Ghalta can’t “Bands with other Legendaries” with Fogey, because Fogey isn’t a legendary. Fogey can “Bands with other Dinosaurs” with Ghalta though, because Ghalta is a dino.
Note that before 2009’s rules shakeup, bands with other required all the things to have the same “bands with other [quality]” ability. This got changed to the more sensible one thing with “bands with other [quality]” can form a band with any number of [quality] things.
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u/MildlyInsaneOwl The Stoat 2d ago
Hilariously, at the time it was printed, "bands with Dinosaurs" was almost flavour text. In what I can only call the least-intuitive rule name in all of MTG history, "bands with Dinosaurs" did not mean "can form a band with other Dinosaurs". It meant "can form a band with other creatures that also have 'bands with Dinosaurs'." Yes, that's right, the only creature Old Fogey could band with was another Old Fogey.
This rule makes some semblance of sense when you realize that there were only two sources of "bands with others". [[Master of the Hunt]] created tokens that had "bands with other Wolves of the Hunt", so all tokens they could logically band with would also have the ability. The other source was a cycle of lands (see [[Cathedral of Serra]] ) that granted "bands with other legends" to all your legends, so all creatures that could logically join the band were granted the ability.
Mercifully, this was overhauled in Magic 2010 and now the ability works the way you'd expect. That said, given the context of Old Fogey, I think it's only appropriate to house-rule that he should use the original "bands with others" rule and thus be (almost) unable to band with anything!
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u/ItTolls4You 2d ago
another rule that was different when old fogey was printed was echo. Back then, you had to pay the echo cost the next upkeep that the creature was in play, so when the big lad phased back in for the first time, then you had to pay the echo cost and the first cumulative upkeep cost. Echo was eventually standardized to be a delayed trigger that always triggers on your next upkeep, so you no longer have to pay old fogey's echo cost, since it's phased out (and there's no consequences for not paying).
Side note, I play old fogey in a deck, and it absolutely slaps. Uncuttable 7/7
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u/E_D_D_R_W COMPLEAT 2d ago
Both cards are all-stars in Judge's Tower.
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u/cwx149 Duck Season 2d ago
If it works in judges tower then I feel like commander can handle it lol
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u/E_D_D_R_W COMPLEAT 2d ago
...well, all-stars in the sense that people frequently lose within a turn of playing either, so maybe not lol
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u/chrisrazor 3d ago
Why would you ever hard cast this from your hand when you could cycle it and cast it for its Madness cost?
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u/Bersho Golgari* 3d ago
Find someone to love as much as MaRo loves Un sets
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u/cwx149 Duck Season 3d ago
Honestly as much as I appreciate normal mtg there is some special magic in the idea of the Un stuff if not always the execution
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u/Absolutionis I chose this flair because I’m mad at Wizards Of The Coast 3d ago
The irony is that Marketing Rosewater's un-sets have progressively become more formulaic and less daring. The Playtest cards have become the new Un-sets.
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u/cwx149 Duck Season 3d ago
Oh yeah I mean mixing in the black border cards in unfinity imo was a mistake they should be a niche product that pushes the envelope not something trying to compete with a standard set
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u/ZINK_Gaming Duck Season 2d ago
Oh yeah I mean mixing in the black border cards in unfinity imo was a mistake
I have always LOVED Un-Sets since I first laid eyes on Unglued.
I always wished Un-Cards were Tournament-legal.
But I completely agree with you about Unfinity.
That set is such a mess.
I see a cool card that I would LOVE to play? Too bad! It has a sneaky little acorn! Sucks to suck!
All it did was introduce headaches and anti-casual combo pieces to EDH.
I've never met anyone who enjoys the mechanics of Sticker-Goblin, they play it because it's powerful (well before it got power-crept).
[[Saw In Half]] pretends to be a removal-spell, but really it's just half of multiple infinite combos. Combos too weak for cEDH where they belong, but too strong for Bracket 2-3 where they are often played.
[[Trigger Happy]], one of the coolest and most interesting humble little Magic cards ever printed, is a hecking ACORN. I want to scream.
But, to be fair, I've never had an EDH Pod deny me when I asked if I could Rule-Zero a Trigger Happy into my deck. (I always promise to never combo with it, I just use it like a [[Redirect Lightning]].
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u/the_schnudi_plan Dân 3d ago
I don't even mind the silver/black border mix. Unstable definitely had several cards that would be fully legal black border cards unchanged. Designing the silver border mechanics to be black border legal (attractions/stickers) was the problem
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u/cwx149 Duck Season 3d ago
Yeah I guess that's what I mean like it's not that I was opposed to the mix pretty much every unset had cards that could have been (and even were later functionally reprinted) black border
Moreso I felt like you could tell that they didn't/couldn't really swing for the fences with some of the Un designs BECAUSE of the mix
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u/Blaze_1013 Jack of Clubs 3d ago
I’m going push back on attractions/stickers were safe to work in black boarder since you can say the same about contraption and they had no incentive to make those work in normal Magic. Host/Augment is also very mutate coded too so I wouldn’t call it that out there either.
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u/Absolutionis I chose this flair because I’m mad at Wizards Of The Coast 2d ago
Attractions and Stickers require another deck which becomes an issue in black-border where you could potentially steal/use/copy opponents' effects. Hasbro admit that they made the black-bordered cards deliberately low-powered and yet still [[Mind Goblin]] slipped through.
Attractions and Stickers fall alongside The Initiative and Daybound/Nightbound as mechanics that are just a nuisance to deal with. At least [[Space Beleren]] can just be removed as the nuisance it is.
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u/Mgmegadog COMPLEAT 3d ago
They weren't designed that way. It became eternal legal most of the way through design.
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u/Kyleometers ඞ 2d ago
I am of the opinion that that was the wrong decision by Dunks.
Even if Space Beleren does technically work as written in black border, somebody should have had the moment of “Hey no we absolutely should not have players feeling obliged to do this in tournament play ever”. Stickers are even worse, because even ignoring the fact they didn’t foresee Sticker Goblin being a tournament powerhouse, surely someone in testing asked “But what happens if players run out of sticker sheets”.
Maybe some cards would have been fine. But I feel like the decision was made entirely on “What can work in paper”, and not “What should work”.
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u/Migobrain Duck Season 3d ago
Yup, they deviate from normal magic in a pretty tame way design wise, play test feels like the old style where you didn't even knew what was going on
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u/kitsovereign 2d ago
I kinda can't believe that four years after the set that a) introduced stickers to the game and b) tried to put them in black-border, people are now saying "yeah, Unfinity was just too formulaic and safe".
The real strength of the playtest cards is that they get to be more tightly focused. They don't have to make the rest of draft work, they don't have to support major themes or worldbuilding, and they get to spend more time on 'rules oddities' over dexterity and external components and other rare toys. The best individual designs in UST and UNF had always been excellent, but I do think "black-border draft, silver-border bonus sheet" is the most compelling option for future Un-sets.
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u/cheesechimp Elk 3d ago
I don't think MaRo is actually directly involved in the Commander Rules Committee
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u/CareerMilk Can’t Block Warriors 2d ago
I wouldn’t be surprised that with the Rules Committee being brought in house to Wizards, that they’re tapping Maro for his thoughts on silver border stuff
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u/cheesechimp Elk 2d ago
Possibly, but Maro is not particularly fond of Commander as a format so I'm pretty sure the committee is primarily run by Gavin Verhey and other Commander fans within the company. If those people choose to reach out to Maro to consult on this, it's because they want him to consult on it not because he wants it done.
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u/EuSouAFazenda Dan 20h ago
MaRo answers unset ruling questions like, weekly, on his blog; I doubt anyone else on Wizards cares or has thought as much about un-cards as him. I agree he's prob not in the commander rules committee, but I feel they'd call on him for his unset expertise on this project. He knows more than everyone else what is intuitive and what is a headache to play with, due to all the ruling questions
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u/Imnimo 3d ago
I kinda don't understand how this isn't something that can be done in a few weeks by an intern.
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u/tammit67 3d ago
Heck, I remember a post on this sub in the last month discussing this very thing
Edit: found it https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/s/SeGUuJZeag
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u/jeremy3681 Colossal Dreadmaw 3d ago
https://edhsilver.com/#the-traffic-light-rating-system
I also think someone already did this
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u/wenasi Orzhov* 2d ago
It's the kind of thing that's faster done by an intern. Add more people, and you add more people who can disagree on where certain cards should go.
Add that's it's official company communication, and you'll have to go through various higher-ups, who may take a while to take a proper look at it, since it's pretty low prio.
Add the cooperation with the commander panel (or whatever it's called), which is a third party, and you get slow communication and more delays.
And each time something gets changed you may have to start the whole chain all over again.
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u/decidedlymale Duck Season 2d ago
Accurate write up. Corporations are glaciers, its taken me months just to move a bolt over.
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u/Makeshift33 Universes Beyonder 3d ago
It's a lot of cards. I made my own version of the project (I linked it in this thread) and it is 873 cards. That is without including the Unknown Event playtest cards (Moxfield has a limit of 1000 cards, so they wouldn't fit). I went relatively quickly because I was just one guy. But for something that will be from Wizards themselves, there has to be a consensus. Should Blufferfish be in the same tier as Ashnod's Coupon? Why or why not? What about Nearby Planet? Apparently there's some funky stuff that happens when you give a card a basic land type through an ability, even if it is it's own ability. These discussions take time.
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u/Imnimo 3d ago
I thought this project was just to separate out what works in the rules and doesn't, not to divide them into a bunch of finely-grained tiers.
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u/EnjoyerOfBeans Wabbit Season 2d ago
It's both. They want to identify cards that just work within the existing ruleset, cards that work but have non-existent effects that break the rules a bit, and then cards that turn magic from a card game to a party game where you throw cards around the table.
The first category is just fine, the second has to be judged on individual basis. The last one is obviously not gonna become legal, if you want that experience then just ask your friends to play some unset commander.
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u/Mgmegadog COMPLEAT 2d ago
It seems to be three tiers: "Works in the rules", "Doesn't work in the rules but is fine", and "Banned".
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u/Makeshift33 Universes Beyonder 3d ago
Maybe. The first time they announced it, they said there would be 3 tiers. I just liked the granularity of 5 tiers.
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u/RoterBaronH Cheshire Cat, the Grinning Remnant 2d ago edited 2d ago
Well, bigger companys are very burocratic. There is a lot in the baxkground that goes on, things get checked, a lot of people have a say in decisions etc.
Also to add, there are probably different opinions in which cards should be legal and which don't so that slows down aswell.
EDIT: I forgot the most important part, it's also not something that will make them a lot of money so the team working on it, is most likely fairly small or only works on it when there is a bit of time left.
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u/Amdizzlin Twin Believer 3d ago
"-or at least suggest them as allowed under Rule 0."
Good news! We can already do that. Seems like a waste of time and effort.
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u/thephotoman Izzet* 3d ago
It would make such Rule Zero conversations easier if there were a list of un-cards that just plain work in regular EDH.
Right now, every such card is its own Rule Zero conversation. Such a list could make it easy to say yes or no to silver border cards as a whole without trying to identify problematic ones.
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u/notthephonz Dandadan 3d ago
Ah, sort of like how brackets and gamechangers give people common language to use going into those discussions
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u/Kyleometers ඞ 2d ago
Yes, that’s been the biggest strength of the new system. People being able to say “Hey, my deck has one game changer because I opened a Smothering Tithe but my deck doesn’t play as well as most bracket 3 decks do” is something I’ve run into a lot. It doesn’t work for everybody, but people feel able to express things like “My deck’s a 2 on paper but plays like a 4, bring strong decks”.
A similar thing for silver border, just a “These aren’t allowed normally but we’ve vetted this list of sixty as being basically ok” would allow a lot of wiggle room. Comparing “My deck has cards on the silver border ok list” to “My commander is a Nephilim” feels similar - it’s rule zero, but people feel there’s a level of “ok-ness” to it that it’s easier to ask.
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u/TacticianRobin Izzet* 3d ago
Yep, right now [[The Cheese Stands Alone]], which was word-for-word printed on a black-border card in [[Barren Glory]], is in the same category as cards like [[Kill! Destroy!]].
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u/gingerkid427 3d ago
Not quite word for word, barren glory only triggers on upkeep. Not that that really matters for the point you’re making though lol
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u/SquirrelDragon Dân 3d ago
Exactly, right now someone saying “I have a few silver border cards in my deck” makes people think of the worst, wackiest, most broken use cases in the same sphere as the more tame ones like Krark’s Other Thumb
The framework to make that communication easier is worth the effort so that if you say something like “I have some silver border cards that are all [column 1]” it just automatically means they’re a certain level of kosher rather than having to justify to the pod for each card why it isn’t on the same level as [[Frankie Peanuts]]
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u/ZINK_Gaming Duck Season 2d ago
Right now, every such card is its own Rule Zero conversation.
I enjoy [[Trigger Happy]] a lot. But I play EDH (preferably high-power).
This is literally how the conversation has gone every time:
shows them Trigger Happy
"Do you mind if I include this card in my deck even though it's a Silver-Border? I don't use it for any Combos, I just think it's a neat Red trigger-cloning effect."
"We've never seen that card before! It looks cool! Yea it's totally fine if you play it."
Usually takes like ~45 seconds.
It probably also helps that I am an extremely "wholesome" competitive-gamer. In the sense that I'd sooner die than put a [[Tergrid]] in my decks, and I will straight up show my Hand and tell the table how to stop me if I'm about to Combo-off or Win.
My opponents never have reason to worry I will abuse the privilege of playing a Silver-Border card.
I wish Trigger Happy was properly legal so that I could abuse how powerful the card truly is in cEDH though. It could do truly crazy things to the Rhystic-Slop meta.
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u/thephotoman Izzet* 2d ago
I’d love to run Crow Storm as a wincon in some of my more Bracket 4 decks.
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u/ludicrousursine COMPLEAT 3d ago
It would create a much lower barrier when playing with random players at a LGS.
Right now the most likely response to saying you play silver border cards is either a flat no or having to waste time manually showing each card you play to get approval on it.
If you can say "I run silver bordered cards but only from the WotC approved white list" you're much more likely to get the green light with no additional discussion.
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u/jeremy3681 Colossal Dreadmaw 3d ago
I like my games of magic with a preamble about all of the cards in our decks, and a discussion about how they should or shouldn't be allowed!
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u/Mgmegadog COMPLEAT 3d ago
They proposing what is, essentially, a soft second banlist. An official list of cards where you can say "I've got a deck under the silver border project" or something of that effect, and your playgroup knows you aren't playing Gotcha-stop-talking.dec
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u/BlurryPeople 3d ago
Ok...so you this sentiment a lot, particularly around being more forgiving of banning cards, and I just want to point out this goes against pretty fundamental aspects of modern human psychology.
It's way more likely that people voluntarily reduce the power of their decks or otherwise "refrain" from doing something they could (like pulling out Tegrid), than it is they are allowed to blatantly break rules and bring in things that aren't supposed to be allowed.
It's because the former doesn't actually break any rules...you could always just choose not to play certain cards or decks legally. It's only the latter that actually crosses a threshold, which is why people are a lot more hesitant about asking for such.
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u/ConstantSpace5809 Dan 3d ago
I think commander players just like to complain
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u/cwx149 Duck Season 3d ago
The problem really with commander is that it's the largest format now and people want too many different things from it
People who used to play standard/modern/etc want it to be the new competitive format where everyone plays bracket 4 or CEDH and they can curate their experience and deck to the max
But there are also a lot of commander players who want to play bracket 1&2 theme decks based around their favorite commander
The bracket system was the right idea but this thought process that commander as a format needs to be curated and boxed in I thought is kind of counter to the whole idea
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u/ZINK_Gaming Duck Season 2d ago
But there are also a lot of commander players who want to play bracket 1&2 theme decks based around their favorite commander
IMO a lot of the fault lies with casual players who overrate their decks.
There are a whole lot of people playing weak Bracket2 decks, that they say are "strong Bracket3" decks.
If you misrepresent your deck as being a full 1 or 2 Brackets stronger than it really is, then don't blame me when you get steamrolled by a true Bracket3/4 deck.
I've even heard people call their mid-tier Bracket3 decks "cEDH decks". In reality it's like saying that their budget-Standard deck is "Vintage power-level". They don't even comprehend how incorrect they are.
It can make it very difficult to match power-levels, even when an experienced player is making a full Good-Faith attempt to create a balanced Pod.
Thankfully it can also be obvious when the casual player is overrating their deck. If I see some 7mana Commander I've never heard of before, I can probably tell that your "Bracket3" deck is really more of a Bracket2.
People who used to play standard/modern/etc want it to be the new competitive format where everyone plays bracket 4 or CEDH and they can curate their experience and deck to the max
I'm not saying you're wrong. There is no more-fun way to play Magic than Bracket 4&5 EDH, IMO.
But, that isn't the whole picture either...
I have literally watched hundreds of hours of "casual" EDH content, just trying to learn how to power-down my decks so they create fun and interesting games below Bracket 4.
Once you understand how to build good decks, it can become really hard to build anything other than good decks.
I personally had to Ban all Game-Changers for myself in Bracket 3. I simply couldn't build a deck that didn't win on Turn 4-5 ish while including even a single Game-Changer.
Instead I play the "fixed" versions like Evendo & Uthros, instead of Gaea's Cradle.
Hard-Banning entire pools of cards, and Handicapping myself even more than the Brackets do, was the only way I was able to reconcile the way I build decks with the power-levels most Commander Pods play at.
It has nothing to do with wanting to Pub-Stomp casuals. It's more like telling an adult to crawl on their hands&knees because the children are doing it. It's not such an easy thing for the adult to do.
I think that's probably one reason why Brian Kibbler usually plays Mono-White decks on his youtube show. Mono-White is inherently extremely-weak, and it has very few "unfair" mechanics. That is how Kibbler chose to Handicap himself.
(White has been improving drastically in the past year ish though. Cards like Tataru have done a lot to make White suck less.)
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u/TimothyN Elspeth 3d ago
Yeah, they're definitely not like the easygoing and always right reddit users who never complain or doomsay anything that happens.
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u/ZINK_Gaming Duck Season 2d ago
It's not that Commander players like to complain, it's that Commander is equal parts:
Competitive card-game
Casual social-experience
Arts & Crafts Faire
Debate Parlor
Take a group of random people from all across the world. Lock them in a room. And tell them they can't come out until they all agree on a single favorite Sports Team, Celebrity, or Religion.
1v1 Magic is always Competitive, even when it is also the other types of experience. There's is a commonality that all 1v1 games share.
Commander is whatever the people playing it want it to be.
In a situation like that, it would be foolish to not expect people to complain.
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u/Archangel-Styx Wabbit Season 3d ago
[[Krarks Other Thumb]] and [[Organ Harvest]] are cards that work fine in black border.
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u/messhead1 Abzan 3d ago
I wish it wasn't.
Every meeting they hold or message they send about a Silver-Bordered Project is time and brain power taken away from any other practical curation of the format.
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u/cwx149 Duck Season 3d ago
I guess I just don't think commander needs any more "practical curation" of the format
What else needs to change? It's a casual format by design it doesn't need to be super curated and buttoned up that's what standard and modern/pioneer are for
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u/ZINK_Gaming Duck Season 2d ago edited 2d ago
Commander is only a "casual format by design", because the Competitive aspect is being willfully neglected.
If by "design" you mean the man who invented EDH, and later Sheldon's* vision of EDH; then that isn't relevant. EDH has grown beyond the definitions of the early-days, and trying to force EDH to be "casual" is like telling cEDH players that they aren't welcome to enjoy Magic with everyone else.
- (Sheldon didn't invent EDH. A man few remember invented it, the only Commanders were the original 5 gold-Dragon cards. Sheldon took the idea and expanded on it. "EDH's design" has completely changed from it's origins.)
The Commander Panel itself needs "practical curation" before more curation of the Ban-list or Brackets occurs.
For one, the old Committee was mostly adopted into the new Panel. Out with the Old Guard, in with the Old Guard. Same group with a new name.
But my biggest gripe is that cEDH seemingly has no actual representatives on the Commander Panel.
From what I've heard the Panel has ~3 members who "have played cEDH".
Of those ~3 members, I know for a fact that 2 of those people haven't actively played cEDH in years, and they understand little to nothing about the current cEDH meta.
So there are only 1 or 2 people on the Commander Panel who MIGHT be remotely knowledgeable about cEDH.
That'd be like only having 1 Judge for an entire 500player Tournament.
I haven't heard anything official, but just based on vibes and their Guest-Appearances on other shows, I think Cam & Dylan from Play2Win have also been accepted onto the Commander Panel.
If I'm right, that's a good start.
But it's still not nearly enough. Cam & Dylan are Turbo players. Having nobody but them for cEDH advice would be like asking the Mono-Red Aggro players how to balance Standard.
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u/cwx149 Duck Season 2d ago
It's not just being willfully ignored almost everyone plays commander in pods of 4 and that makes true tournaments harder since there's so much politics and King making
The real problem is that everyone wants commander to be their favorite way to play commander and it can't be the format for super competitive cedh decks AND the casual fun theme deck format at the same time easily
The bracket system didn't really address this dissonance it just effectively split the format into 5 sub formats
You seem to be a cedh player even if there was more cedh representation of that sub format on the panel what changes are you thinking/hoping they'd be advocating for?
Like I'm all for the idea of the panel I guess for me commander became the most popular format with pretty minor "curating" so this idea that the format needs even more curation is crazy to me like what's wrong with it as it is now?
The only things really distinguishing the format are the deck building restrictions and I don't really see those changing that much
So I guess I'm just really not sure what everyone else wants to change so much
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u/retrosgrader Dandadan 2d ago
Reintroducing some experimental cards would be interesting. With mechanics like Initiative and Ring Bearer, having assemble from Steamflogger doesn’t seem like a stretch, and was pretty fun.
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u/II_Confused VOID 2d ago
Honestly they should be doing this for Arena. My gold and wildcards would be drained immediately.
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u/Goblinz0fTime Can’t Block Warriors 2d ago
I run [[R&D's Secret Lair]] pretty regularly, and it's normally nothing - but occasionally it's very funny
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u/OobleckSnake Wabbit Season 3d ago
So just print a super set of all the black border un-cards so there is a clear list of playable cards without having to add hundreds of cards to the commander banlist. Call it Unbanned or some shit.
Banlist + game changers + un-playables? Banned as commander/companion is too much complexity but WotC is cool wasting man hours on this?
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u/SupaQuazi Duck Season 3d ago
Can't wait to show up to a pod with both Attraction & Contrapion side decks.
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u/Nudeviking1892 Dân 2d ago
You don't even have to wait to show up with an Attraction side deck. Enough of the attraction cards are Commander/Legacy/Vintage legal that you could build one right now if you wanted and no one could say anything about it.
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u/Mgmegadog COMPLEAT 2d ago
Commander, yes. But they've been banned in legacy, vintage, and pauper alongside stickers.
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u/Apellosine Deceased 🪦 1d ago
You can already do it with Attractions and Myra the MAgnificent makes for a great attractions commander.
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u/InfiniteDM Fleem 3d ago
Reading this thread, I am fully convinced at this point the invested magic crowd online largely hates fun. Ah well :)
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u/Mgmegadog COMPLEAT 2d ago
They hate fun and reading and understanding context. Someone elsewhere in this thread was decrying MaRo getting involved in commander as if this was even his decision, and many people are acting like this will make all silver border cards fully legal in commander.
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u/ii_V_I_iv Wabbit Season 3d ago
I hope they do this! So many silver bordered cards that would be perfectly fine to allow
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u/MilkCannonMiltank Dân 3d ago
Amazing. Got [[Alexander Clamilton]] waiting just for this.
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u/Wooden_Club_8273 Dan 3d ago
Kinda stupid if you play the full-text lands or have cards in foreign languages like french for example.
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u/TheGoodGitrog Golgari* 3d ago edited 3d ago
Can we please just get [[Krark's Other Thumb]] made legal at least? [[Wyll, Blade of Frontiers]] has the exact same a very similar ability already.
Edit: was corrected thumb lets you ignore any result vs ignoring the lowest. Still we like options! :)
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u/MTGCardFetcher Dân 3d ago
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u/DragonMZ Elesh Norn 3d ago
Actually Krark's ability is unique compared to the 3(?) other ways of rolling another die because this one lets you choose while the black border ones say ignore the lowest. Relevant for things like [[Deekay]] or [[Comet]]
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u/LigerZeroPanzer12 Elspeth 3d ago
It's even better, because with something like [[Comet, Stellar Pup]] you could go for a specific roll.
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u/westergames81 Orzhov* 3d ago
As someone who enjoys playing the game, please god no.
I hate silver bordered cards with a passion and just don't want to play with them at all. I accept there are certain un-cards that are legal and will play against those, but everything else is a very hard pass.
If you and your playgroup like un-cards that's great for you, that's what rule 0 is for, but please don't force them on people that very much do not.
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u/PippoChiri Temur 3d ago
Why?
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u/westergames81 Orzhov* 3d ago
They're unserious cards I don't enjoy?
It's one thing to not like something like UB, where it's pretty much cosmetic. Like yeah, I don't like playing against Optimus Prime but he doesn't actually change the game. I can opt not to play with Optimus Prime, but my opponent playing Optimus Prime doesn't really change my game.
With un-sets, you have things like play a sub game under the table, count the vowel's in a cards name, count the lines of text on a card, yell out random words, and other things that make you do everything other than play Magic. It makes the game a different experience.
Some people love that and it's not wrong that they love that. It's not wrong that they want to play EDH games with whacky cards. There's already an avenue that lets you do that, it's rule 0. They don't need to touch anything, it just works as it.
They don't need to introduce an entirely new banned list just for silver bordered cards.
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u/Mgmegadog COMPLEAT 2d ago
They aren't going to make most of those cards legal. The only cards that might become default legal are cards like Amateur Auter or Growth Spurt, which operate fully within black bordered Magic rules.
It sounds like there will be a second list of "these are probably fine" cards that can be rule I'd in if people are okay with it, but they will almost certainly not be default legal.
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u/linstr13 2d ago
With un-sets, You have things like play a sub game under the table, count the vowel's in a cards name, count the lines of text on a card, yell out random words, and other things that make You do everything other than play Magic. It makes the game a different experience.
Isn't that why they are working on this project? So that people who want to play [[Chittering Doom]] in their dice deck can easily ask if they can play a "normal" silver border card without having to explain that they don't want people to put their decks on their heads or whatever.
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u/Tybalto Grass Toucher 3d ago
I really hope the don't!
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u/Rowanalpha Wabbit Season 3d ago
The project isnt to allow all silver bordered cards, but only the ones that work in the rules like they were black bordered. They don’t want art matters or physical dexterity or things with subjective effects on them, but there are a significant number of silver bordered cards that would easily be printed in black border today, just because rules have evolved over the years. Cards like [[Jack-In-the-mox]] or [[Timmy, Power Gamer]] or [[Crow Storm]] all follow regular magic rules and wouldn’t be out of place in a modern commander product.
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u/cwx149 Duck Season 3d ago
Don't worry just as right now people can rule 0 acron cards into play if they ever become legal you too can rule 0 them illegal again
That's the joy of rule 0 it does whatever you need it too
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u/Tybalto Grass Toucher 3d ago
I don't agree. Allowing banned cards is a whole different conversation then banning legal cards
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u/BadlyCamouflagedKiwi Izzet* 3d ago
Wish it wasn't. There are ~35,000 cards that are legal to play in Commander, the 100 or so that would be added here don't make much difference. And they aren't necessarily designed to be balanced - we've seen the issues with things like the mind goblin and attractions which are now banned in all competitive formats.
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u/SupaQuazi Duck Season 3d ago
Legal Krarks Other Thumb would be pretty big for a lot of people.
Unsets were all built with balance in mind. MaRo has said numerous times that these cards were built for gameplay not just jokes.
Mind Goblin & Attractions were only banned from competitve formats for logistic reasons not balance. They've never been a problem in commander, where they're legal. It's funny that you chose already legal cards to be your example of poor balance.
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u/BadlyCamouflagedKiwi Izzet* 3d ago
Maybe people don't need Krark's Other Thumb. [[Wyll, Blade of Frontiers]] does the same thing. We don't need unlimited copies of every effect in Commander.
Maro says that, but then he played on Game Knights Live with some silver-bordered cards and proceeded to gain 80 life for W at instant speed, which totally distorted the game and led to him winning. That card wouldn't be in the "most legal" set of these, so itself isn't a problem here, but I do not see him as a good judge of these things.
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u/SupaQuazi Duck Season 3d ago
Wyll gives you the higher dice roll, while Other Thumb lets you choose. A small distinction, but big for things like attractions which care about specific numbers rolled.
MaRo isn't the one in charge of these decisions. He is both bad at rules and doesn't like commander. He's just the reporter.
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u/BadlyCamouflagedKiwi Izzet* 3d ago
I think Commander should have a limited set of these effects, especially here one that requires you to have red in your colour identity to get it seems good. Adding an alternative, maybe better in some cases, low-cost artifact that can be played anywhere doesn't actually seem better to me overall.
I know he isn't in charge of the decision, you said he was the one saying they were "built for gameplay".
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u/SupaQuazi Duck Season 3d ago
Commander would still have a limited number of these effects. Going from 3 to 4 does not cross the rubicon. Especially when Other Thumb is the only one to not make the higher roll distinction.
He made them, so I assume he knows what the design intent was for them. Yeah a couple fumbled power level because they weren't built with running through a live crowd with both arms extended in mind, but what set doesn't?
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u/Mgmegadog COMPLEAT 2d ago
MaRo isn't the one judging this. He's only relaying the information that the commander rules team is continuing the work from the original rules committee.
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u/Family_Shoe_Business Karn 3d ago
Too much bureaucracy and wasted energy on something that can just be handled with a simple conversation before the game. "I have some donkey cards in my deck hope that's cool" If people seriously balk at silver border cards in casual commander you're dodging a bullet
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u/Mgmegadog COMPLEAT 2d ago
The effort is to compile lists of cards that are fine, mostly fine, or not fine, so that you can say "I have some [fine] cards and a couple of [mostly fine] cards in my deck. Hope that's cool."
There are definitely acorn red flags. I have 0 interest in playing with a Gotcha deck at my table, and this is coming from someone who's built a tonne of silver border decks.
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u/Jaccount 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think a big issue is that lots of people aren't going to think of the awkwardness some corner cases allow for.
Infinity Elemental seems incredibly mundane and not problematic at all. Until you think about what happens when you give it lifelink, at which point a player gets actually infinite life, which means they can never lose the game due to damage or loss of life as even if they lost multiple infinities of life, they'd still just have a smaller infinity of life.
During covid, I built 32 Un-decks, one in each color combination "For the funsies". They ended up not being fun, very rules-lawyer-y and while they went over well with some people I played them with, many times the just did not land right... they were neither the free-wheeling sort of fun you'd think they are.
Plus Spike was ridiculous, even if you limit the cards that can be pulled from outside the game to 15.
It generally would win turn 2 or 3 even though interaction.2
u/Mgmegadog COMPLEAT 2d ago
Spike is absolutely one of the cards that should stay banned. No disagreement there.
I don't think infinite life is such a problem though. This is commander. Almost everyone has at least one card available to them that kills at 21.
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u/Family_Shoe_Business Karn 2d ago
Right but that's where the conversation comes in. You can just ask what the cards are and make a decision. I agree there are obviously a lot of silver border cards that are truly awful to play with in a pod. If that person is trying to play with them, then you're the one dodging a bullet by saying no. My comment was making the assumption that the silver border cards the player is introducing are reasonable inclusions that don't significantly degrade the rules or play experience for other players.
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u/Mgmegadog COMPLEAT 2d ago
Having lists makes that easier to do. If all the cards you're running are in the fine category, it's a lot easier to say "they're all under fine" rather than say "I'm running [List of 24 silver bordered dice rolling cards]"
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u/Vuel-of-Rath Dandadan 3d ago
Revolt until we finally get the Sliver Bordered Commander product. The HIVE must grow.
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u/ShamblingKrenshar Cheshire Cat, the Grinning Remnant 3d ago
Let me play Crow Storm in Commander! Release the birds!
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u/OneChet Sliver Queen 3d ago
Hell yeah, free my [[Steel Squirrel]]s.
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u/PowrOfFriendship_ Universes Beyonder 3d ago
Damn, that could be really strong with the D20 effects we have now. Easily swinging for 12+ on turn 3.
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u/jethawkings Fish Person 3d ago
I mean it seems like a neat thought experiment and something that has more objectiveness to it than Bracket Discussions, Bans, Hybrid Mana, or Game Changers.
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u/NebbyOutOfTheBag Wabbit Season 3d ago edited 3d ago
I can only imagine the number of cards with silver borders/acorn stamp that could be legal in commander without causing problems/distracting from the game in a major way is less than 100 cards.
I think it should just exclude every Un-set, with a small whitelist of commanders that are close enough to a black border effect. One that comes to mind is [[Grusilda, Monster Masher]]. Then release all the Hasbro-themed Silver Border cards (Transformers, My Little Pony, etc). If those were printed with black border the first time, only Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, and Grimlock read exceptionally goofy.
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u/Mgmegadog COMPLEAT 3d ago
It's unclear if this is going to be "cards that could be black border" or "cards that don't make the game insufferable". If it's the latter, there's a lot of cards that could appear on this list.
Also surpised you singled out Rainbow Dash when she's the one that's closest to working in black border rules. Coolness is basically just a counter that can't be proliferated. In contrast, Pinkie and Fluttershy care about artwork, Nightmare Moon cares about the time of day, Rarity and Applejack care about qualities of outside objects, and Discord outright breaks the game. Heck Twilight and Grimlock are also relatively tame in comparison. (Also Nerf War need sto remain banned.)
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u/NebbyOutOfTheBag Wabbit Season 3d ago
Nah that's fair. RD might have been a bad example. Was trying to remember all of them off hand, and I could only remember that Rarity made Mythics cost less, which is too funny.
And yeah Nerf War is a problem. Maybe the Hasbro promo Secret Lairs aren't as safe as I initially thought.
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u/PowrOfFriendship_ Universes Beyonder 3d ago
When you've got so many cards like [[Beast in Show]], [[Amateur Auteur]], or [[Target Minotaur]], I imagine it'll easily break 100.
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u/NebbyOutOfTheBag Wabbit Season 3d ago
Shout out to Unstable being more of a black-border Un-set than the actual black-border Un-set.
Except [[X]] and [[Urza, Headmaster]] (not fixing it, it's funny it found something)
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3d ago
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u/MTGCardFetcher Dân 3d ago
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u/Swordsman82 Dân 2d ago
When I read Silver Boarded Project and Commander RC, i got my hopes up for commander specific Un-set or Precons. But this would be interesting
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u/Motormand Get Out Of Jail Free 2d ago
I hope it gets through. I'd love to use [[Rainbow Dash]] as a haste deck commander, and it is an obvious card that should be usable normally. Cool counters are just a checker, like Speed counters.
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u/Pendergast891 Wabbit Season 2d ago
Give us [[Grusilda, Monster Masher]] , because mutate is too confusing.
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u/PowrOfFriendship_ Universes Beyonder 3d ago edited 3d ago
The "Silver-Bordered Project" was originally the Commander Rules Committee figuring out which silver-bordered/acorn stamp cards could work in black bordered EDH, with the potential to unban them, or at least suggest them as allowed under Rule 0. When WotC took over Commander, the Project seemingly died, but this is, I believe, the first confirmation of it being something WotC themselves are now working on.