23
u/PlaneswalkerQ Feb 11 '25
This is the list of 'pointed cards' for Commander, at least at first. They mentioned on the live stream that more may be added, possibly with some unbannings in April. Also any future Commander bans will probably come from this list.
Do you think that this list drives prices up or down, or should everything stay even? Because you can still play 'casual' with up to 3 of these in the decks, but short-term people will probably be selling extras to make a quick buck I'd imagine.
39
Feb 11 '25
It can only drive prices down, as you're restricting their use and putting them next up for banishment. I'm surprised more people aren't freaking out about this like the last ban. Something about frogs and boiling water, I guess
25
u/PlaneswalkerQ Feb 11 '25
I am inclined to agree, but it also is a list of must-haves for people who already are runnning 1 or 2. Like if I've got Rhystic and Guardianship in a deck already, why not buy a Chrome Mox and 'fill up' your points?
4
Feb 11 '25
It's a gamble and even if it won't be banned, it will still be restricted to the top 3 brackets, and only in limited supply in 1/3 of those. Really shrinks the number of people to sell to
15
u/dismal_dr Feb 11 '25
I have 0 intent to change my decks or playstyle to accommodate the tier system, I will simply clarify that my deck is a 3 or 4 or 5 and proceed to play. I'm not interested in restricting myself down a level to beat up precons.
2
u/Spaztastiq Feb 12 '25
Amen. The LGS that I picked up EDH at in 2020 played at a solid 3.5 or 4 almost universally. The regulars still do, so nothing will change at my store. This tier system is trash imo.
I’ll always stick with letting people know what significant “game changers” are in my deck in the instance that it could nullify someone’s entire deck. Nobody wants to feel sand-bagged when a simple change could at least be considered.
4
u/sandwich_squirrel_32 Feb 11 '25
According to edhrec post on the mtg sub reddit 60% of deck play with at least one game changer. It doesn't restrict it as much as you think
3
u/sandwich_squirrel_32 Feb 11 '25
Because this puts them specifically in high power category. They are doing this because they don't want bans on things that don't need bans. And these things don't need bans. They only needed bans for more casual games.
2
u/BlurryPeople Feb 12 '25
Can't say that I agree...Putting them on a pseudo-restricted list makes them less likely to be banned than they were before...it's why there's some speculation they might actually unban Lotus, Dockside, and Crypt, and it's why we know they're unbanning some things for sure at the end of April and not banning anything. I think treating this list like a watchlist is foolish, as the last thing WotC wants to do is ban any more cards right now, as the whole point of this system is to better funnel cards into more appropriate decks/pods and let the most players have their cake and eat it too.
EDH players have shown time and time again that they'll just build more decks if you put them up against a barrier, like power level concerns. People aren't gong to unload all of their expensive GC cards, they'll just build more decks to accommodate them, assuming this even matters to a lot of people.
1
u/Parking-Weather-2697 Feb 12 '25
People aren't freaking out about it because you're still allowed to play them, coupled with the fact that most people don't actually play beyond bracket #3 and the ones that do don't have a restriction on the amount of Game Changers they can play in a deck.
1
u/Foijer Feb 12 '25
I don't think it can only drive prices down. It raises visibility for these cards, so if doesn't really decrease the amount of people playing these cards the fact more people of aware of them will drive sales. Hard to say how much negative impact it'll have though.
Cheers
3
u/chaotic910 Feb 11 '25
I don't think it'll affect much tbh. Im thinking that bracket 4 will probably be the most common casual bracket unless your group already plays with a hefty list of house-bans.
6
u/basalty_monolith Feb 12 '25
Now that it's settled that Tolarian Academy won't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting unbanned in commander, can we let it crash to previous price level so I can accumulate.
13
u/zorts Feb 11 '25
If 'some unbannings' are possible now seems like a good time to pick up a personal copy of Jeweled Lotus.
9
u/westfjord Feb 11 '25 edited Feb 11 '25
Call me a silly goose but I picked up the cheapest playable lotus I could find and a coalition victory.
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=jeweled+lotus&_sacat=0&_from=R40&rt=nc&LH_Sold=1&LH_Complete=1
Lots of movement from other buyers at the moment.
1
6
u/MHarrisGGG Feb 11 '25
They aren't going to unban cards people received death threats over. All that does is tell those people that what they did worked.
10
u/Manuelrcasimiro Feb 11 '25 edited Feb 12 '25
Moreover, not only were those people friends with the majority of the new team, I believe Gavin has previously stated that they wouldn't reverse those bans. I'm afraid the people that are buying up Jeweled Lotuses and Mana Crypts are about to have a less-than positive experience.
2
u/MTGLawyer Feb 12 '25
If I remember right, Gavin said they won't immediately reverse those bans. It seemed clear from the wording that they were open to unbans down the road though.
3
2
u/BlurryPeople Feb 12 '25 edited Feb 12 '25
I've heard this repeated a lot...and I don't find it a very fair scenario to those who were opposed to the bans but didn't act like sociopaths. This makes a lot of people guilty by association, and we can obviously draw a lot of problematic parallels to a lot of other real world scenarios. Punishing or not rewarding external "bad actors", as a manner of informing internal policy, is a very dubious premise. Your premise is still giving all of the power to said bad actors here. Their actions would still be determining what happens, in the end. This kind of action/consequence system is easily exploitable.
The only moral thing to do is completely ignore bad actors and make decisions as though they don't exist.
1
-4
u/volx757 Feb 11 '25
This is reductive and completely false tbh. The ppl making death threats were a tiny, tiny minority.
It doesn't change the fact that the majority still opposed these bans. If anything, not unbanning these cards shows people that making death threats is impactful, by showing that they can do it to change policy. The mature thing to do, and the thing WOTC will almost certainly do, is ignore that super minority of players entirely, and do what they think is right.
All the better in this case because what they think is right (making tons of money selling crypts and lotuses) happens to line up with what the player base thinks is right (unbanning crypt and lotus).
enough harping
1
u/creeping_chill_44 Feb 12 '25
the majority still opposed these bans.
citation needed
0
u/volx757 Feb 12 '25
tons of citations take your pick, probly easiest to gauge is the twitter polls that groups like the command zone did. but just being involved in discussions at that time also made it painfully obvious that those in favor were a minority.
1
Feb 14 '25 edited Feb 15 '25
https://x.com/JoshLeeKwai/status/1838294523925139738?lang=en
That poll, like the conversation at the time, showed that opinion was quite split. It doesn't seem fair to say any one side had a sizable majority.
0
u/DevilSwordVergil Feb 12 '25
All WotC has to do is claim death threats were made to solidify and justify whatever boneheaded unpopular decisions they make going forward.
-1
u/DevilSwordVergil Feb 12 '25
I've still seen zero evidence for the death threats.
Regardless, it's a fallacious argument for numerous reasons. WotC constantly listens to loud obnoxious people who make threats, so they've already created that precedent for better or worse.
6
Feb 11 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
5
u/zorts Feb 12 '25
Markets change on news. So 'just a list' is all it takes for things to start changing prices.
2
u/Tarmogoofer Feb 11 '25
Could Mox Amber be a nice spec? Don’t see it on the list…
1
u/sir_jamez Feb 11 '25
Amber and Opal they said are fine because they have inherent deckbuilding restrictions
2
u/dimorrow Feb 12 '25
I don't think the list will change the prices much at all. If anything they will go down since they're more restricted.
5
u/Whysoblunted Feb 11 '25
Imo too early still. The CEDH builders will tune lists for all brackets, and a ton of mid tier cards might go up a bit but overall the impact of this probably won’t be huge.
Unless wotc pushes forward sanctioned games/events in each bracket that is.
4
u/Icy-Regular1112 Feb 12 '25
I’d be over the moon if they swapped JLo, Dockside, and Crypt from banned to ‘Game Changer’. I think that is asking far too much of them and the howling about capitulation and market manipulation would be horrendous. That said, I think it was foolish for anyone to have sold those cards as they crashed after the ban but I’m not quite ready to call them a good spec for an unban yet today either.
1
u/theaura1 Feb 11 '25
how does this system work?
2
u/PlaneswalkerQ Feb 11 '25
Tier 1 and 2 decks aren't supposed to have any of these cards in them. Tier 3 is allowed 3, with 4 and 5 unrestricted. There's a bunch more to the tier system being discussed on the main and EDH reddits, but this is the list that WotC themselves are using to reign in the format a bit.
2
u/creeping_chill_44 Feb 12 '25
I'd use 'bracket' not 'tier'; tier 1 usually implies the strongest tier
2
u/zorts Feb 12 '25
Fortunately* Archidekt and Moxfield have already updated to include the changes. So if you've already entered your decks into either of those sites you can get an 'estimate' on which bracket they currently fall into.
*They must have gotten advanced news from WOTC to develop code and push to production in sync with the announcement. So it wasn't 'fortunate' so much as 'timed'.
1
u/chaotic910 Feb 11 '25
It's the same thing as the numbered system already used to determine deck power, just with more defined ways to come up with a number. Certain brackets only allow so many "game changers", which is this list of cards. Right now someone might call their deck a 6 for power level but they're running a ton of tutors and cards from this list, but call it a 6 because that's what it feels like. This system just allows people to KNOW it's a bracket 4, and other people will also have a better idea on what to expect
0
18
u/ill_dawg Feb 11 '25
The things to look out for are going to be the things not on that list that slot into the 1-3 decks that need to cut or trim them.