The Worst MTG Mechanic Ever - Two Years Later
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 พ.ย. 2024
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It's been over two years since Magic's eternal formats (and Standard) were torn asunder by one of the most broken mechanics ever printed. I take a look back at it's tumultuous history, and it's ongoing legacy.
#MTG #MagicTheGathering #Magic
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Is Ashiok a mono blue card.
Come on, really, really, you want to complain about solitude needing a reprint and you yes you even complain about the cards coming out to fast then winge about it not being reprinted when it was perceived as a bad card. Remember the hype on grief ohh that’s right……..
But there is no spoon.
"Players like commander? Well let's put commander in EVERY format then. That will surely increase the sales, players will love it"
"Well that didn't work... Plan B I guess"
Releases commander decks for every set.
That was literally the extent of the forethought here
"Lets add Yugioh's Extra Deck to MTG" also known as the Companion mechanic
Yeah but it worked. At least to their standard. Tons of sales, record sales even, and with those sales have to also be congruent with player numbers
Commander is the best. Just join us. Put the 60 cards down and upgrade to 100. Games can end just as fast as your 60 card deck
See once I saw the mechanic I, as someone who used to dev test and loves to balance test, thought to myself "why not have it so that in order to add it to your hand, it HAS to be the draw from your draw step." This means your opponent gets an obvious telegraph it is in your hand if you do not cast it that turn (making lutri much less powerful), it also replaces a draw so you are not always plus 1 hand size, and its a choice made during your upkeep meaning that the effect has a set time it can be triggered.
I've been playing since Revised Edition and Mutate is my favorite mechanic in the game. It's just so weird. It's not strong, but it does things that nothing else in a black border ever can.
Did you know you can save yourself from Phage the Untouchable's "Lose the game" trigger with Dirge Bat? Yes, cast Reanimate on her in the GY, her ability goes on the stack, flash mutate her with Dirge Bat, when her ability resolves it checks, did you cast this from hand? Dirge Bat says yes. Ok, you don't lose the game!
I've been slowly building a cromat mutate edh deck for fun.
I play cedh more than anything else and I just found out how good lore drakkis is. It is literally another dockside combo while being a good value piece😂
I feel like the better hearthstone comparison would be Genn Greymane and Baku the Mooneater: deck limitation for a consistent reward that enforces hyper consistency and same-y gameplay. Incidentally, Genn and Baku were rotated out of hearthstone's own standard a full year early, out to the wild format where they still roam, occasionally pushing decks to ludicrous power levels. It's arguably the softest version of a ban that hearthstone has, followed by an outright ban or an errata/nerf
When I saw companions leaked I was like: "Wasn't this just the same mechanic that caused me to quit Hearthstone (and start playing mtg) a couple years ago?"
I used to play a lot of Hearthstone and I remember every single card of this “build your deck a way and get bonuses” sort was strong af, but Genn and Baku’s more specific sort that had “start of game” were something else because of the start of game effect’s raw power. Instant advantage for just running the card with a deck that facilitated it. Sure they were what yugioh players call a “garnet” but the effects they handed you for free were far too big a deal
The other problem was that it kind of annihilated the standard season into the ground. No other deck types mattered nearly as much as weather you could get it to be even or odd. I remember dragon warrior getting some cool cards but it was worthless because those cards didn't fit into the odd/even scheming and thus wasn't worth making at all.
I actually enjoy the idea of gaining powerful effects based on deck building constrictions, companion was just too pushed. The companions should never have been an 8th card in hand. I would’ve been much more ok if they had immensely powerful effects when played but only if you built around it. Keep the same restrictions, change the card advantage.
If they'd been overcosted for the effects it might have been better, too. Lurrus is a 3-mana 3/2 with lifelink that grants you effectively an extra card draw every turn. If he was even 1 mana more to cast that might have made him less broken. 5 mana to cast, and he might have been a fair card.
All they needed to be is just not as pushed.
In fact, if companion had started with the 3 mana cost and lurrus and yorion had not been so pushed, the mechanic would be pretty loved
@@RaunienTheFirst Yeah totally agree, its a cool mechanic that just needed more downside
@@androkguz tbh it would be a nightmare to balance even in the best case scenario. A free resource is a free resource, especially without the extra mana cost they put in for it initially. Any deck that struggled to deal with a certain companion would see its viability plummet.
@@shawnjavery I agree. This would need extensive playtesting - which Wizards doesn't do - to be even remotely balanced. And even if this would have been possible - some card in the future might just break it and push it over the edge again. There's a reason this mechanic is worse than Storm on the storm scale.
One day, I am gonna ask someone to do some anthro furry art of Lurrus, mirroring the classic Freddy Krueger "scratching the wall", just stalking Vince in his dreams, asking PK if he remembers her... When 3 drops were not playable in Modern.
Ikoria was one of my favorite sets for draft, because with the exception of cycling, it was a super fun, deep, complex format. Companions were broken at first, but so fun to draft around, and I do think they are a great addition to commander as a way to challenge your deck building. Ikoria screwed stuff for a little while, but I think the set added way more fun to the formats that most people play (casual and edh) than the damage it did to competitive formats.
100 percent agreed!
Seeing my favorite pokemon on screen in a Pleasant Kenobi video somehow made my day.
But then seeing it next to Lutri killed my soul. Ive just given up with Lutri, because I don't feel like going rule zero "I want Lutri in the 99" every game. But it was _THE_ companion that I fell in love with, cause obviously: it's an adorable Otter. Companion was a mistake, and shouldn't have worked in Commander cause it uses the sideboard.
It will always annoy me we can have a special companion sideboard but we can't have a lesson board.
Both take up spots in your sideboard? Obviously lessons were way less powerful but I’m not sure what you mean here
@@epthopper when a card says 'outside the game' it means from your sideboard, so offically in commander wishs and learn don't do anything. I wish i could build a deck around the mechanic but as the rules are now i cant do anything with learn.
@@LadyBernkastel92 learn can filter through cards tho
What the RC should have done was change the rule to read “another non-lesson”
Bam.
Learn//Lesson now works in Commander. Make it so you can have X number of outside the game cards. That’s literally all they had to do.
Also there is no special companion sideboard, it’s just outside the game.
@@LadyBernkastel92 And I hate that in commander! Maybe make some super special rules for competitive commander, sure, but they make it to where it doesn't work in casual? It literally says "outside the game" not "from your sideboard" so I feel like it's BS they don't allow them to work. Obviously you can overrule that in your play group but it seems silly that you even have to.
its so funny, I played yugioh before I got into magic and the second I saw companions I went ballistic on how broken this is because I've seen it happen in another game. A lot of people told me I'm overreacting right after the reveal. :')
The extra deck mechanics power crept literally every other strategy and the game had to be reblanced from ground up around them. You would have something similar in MtG if they went through with it.
It's funny how close companions were to Genn and Baku in hearthstone (similar only odd or even cost deck building restriction) and they were also totally busted there
I almost quit magic because of the companions. If companions were banned in every single format tomorrow i would not miss it. These cards are completely fine without them being companions.
As a note, we didn't get a special companion zone, we got a revision to the rule. cards can bring themselves into the game but others cannot.
Yep. Getting technical, it exists in a defined space known as "outside the game", which is also where sideboards live. And is a reason companions take up a sideboard slot in competitive play. Outside the game is not a "zone", it's a shorthand for either your sideboard or your card collection in total for casual play.
@@MaxMckayful
I remember when exile used to be THE outside of the game..🤣🤣🤣
I suggest that in Pioneer/ Explorer that Yorion is now in somewhat of a Lutri position. Yorion being the only really playable Companion left standing and only available to White and Blue decks but usually used by Azorius Control.
In the original rukes of companions they weren't in the sideboard, however the errata literally refers to the sideboard, so they shouldn't work anymore
I still disagree with the Lutri banning, not because of his power level in the companion zone, but because the rules of the format shouldn't have been changed in order to accommodate the mechanic. To that end, I've always say heck the rules. If someone wants to bring a commander deck to my home with Lutri at the helm, I say go for it.
Companion = Yugioh's Extra Deck. No, not commanders, since once you play them and they leave the field, they are treated as any other card would, and has specific deckbuilding restrictions to be used, as the Extra Deck monstes have specific summoning conditions.
Not gonna lie, my heart skipped a beat when you mentioned modern Dimir control. So few people gave it a try, but it was one of my favorite decks I've played
Companion was a cool idea but it just wasn't executed properly. The whole EDH sideboard thing always bothered me because it doesn't make sense. Also, I love Modern but I've been priced out of my specific deck. Every deck I had turned into Yorion piles and I couldn't keep up with the prices.
That being said, in my EDH cube I designed custom Companions based on the Elder Dragons and they are a lot of fun.
Please talk to me more about those custom companions!
Limited might be a great place for the mechanic :D
@@androkguz Sure! They've went through a lot of iterations. My cube has all 2 color archetypes and the Dragons are the only 3 color cards. The cube is an EDH cube and the companion dragons are supposed to be like a draftable commander.
The restrictions originally read like (Nicol Bolas as an ex.) "Companion - Each card in your deck has the color identity of only Black, Blue, and Red." This got to be too wordy and the restriction was surprisingly hard to draft around. Currently, they have companion with no restrictions. They are a bit overcosted to make them balanced.
As far as abilities go, they originally had an activated ability for each 2 color in their color identity. To use Nicol Bolas as an example again, he would have had a U/R, B/R, abd a B/U ability that is cube archetype specific. This also proved to be too wordy so the abilities were changed to keyword abilities that are 2 color pair specific. All of the dragons also have flying, because... dragon lol.
Power and toughness used to be 7/7 as a callback to the original elder dragons but this was wayyy to strong. Especially because life totals for the cube started at 20. Their cost would also have to be super high since there was no companion restrictions on them. They are currently 3/3 for mana value 6 which seems weak, but with the keyword abilities its almost perfect. I wanted to make them 3/4 but then they just bounce off each other in combat. If I had to make a change, I would lower their mana value to 5 or give them 4 power.
Here is one example of Nicol Bolas.
Nicol Bolas
UBR3
Companion
Flying, Haste, Menace, Flash
3/3
I love where they ended up. They're simple, yet strong. I've learned that as long as the mana cost is overcosted, Companion isn't that busted.
I can understand the companion nerfs/bans...truly seemed like it was getting out of hand with everything but thinking about that keyword made me think about other different keywords we haven't seen in a very long time, like I do enjoy the idea of "Fateful Hour" but sad that it wasn't used more in some sets even if it would've made some more sense to use it again(midnight hunt or crimson vow) another that can be used later down the road is the "Meld" with anytime that eldrazi can come back
The Storm Scale should just be renamed to the Companion Scale at this point
In hindsight it's absolutely hilarious that the first thing I learned of the Companion cards back in the day was that one of them was pre-emptively banned from a format long before Ikoria would even release.
Poor Lutri, she was never given a fair shake ;_; (for the record, I think she should only have been banned as a companion, and allowed as a commander or a regular card)
I am kind of fine with it being this way. Lutri would end up becoming another autoinclude alongside Dualcaster Mage already.
Banned as companion should of been what happened to lutri. Huge mistake on the RCs part
I seriously doubt any playgroup or individual player would be upset if Lutri was your commander or in the 99.
Honestly I don't think Lutri would be an issue anymore, he just isn't anywhere near the powerlevel of commander and other companions and it's not like edh doesn't already have a free creature (in value) at all times
@@dogehkiindogeborn5339 i can definitely see lutri being an issue as a companion. not because of the card's power level, but because it is an extra card that you can access at any time as long as you are playing a commander that has both red and blue in it. there is no downside to run it since it doesnt take up one of your 99 slots in the deck.
i think that the RC getting rid of banned as commander and not making banned as companion was a terrible mistake. you can obviously rule 0 it but that depends on the group you are playing with.
cards like braids and rofellos are definitely an issue as a commander but in the 99 theyre not an issue at all and lutri would not be an issue at all as a commander or in the 99
@@konata8657 Oh so the rules made it so it doesn't take up a slot, that might be an issue then, that truly means that there's no cost in playing him even if you never use it.
If it wasn't like this I'd feel ok about jt because it's just like a extremly overcosted Partner with "Partner with anyone" that can only be used once.
@@konata8657 technically lutri can be played in any deck that can make blue or red mana(unless theres a rule I'm missing) because Lutri is not in your deck at the start of the game, it is not beholden to the color identity rules
Companions might have been a good idea in theory - but how they ended up doing it on paper is just depressing. That mechanic subtracts more from the game than it adds.
I might be on my own about this one... But I really liked Ikoria.. Except for Companion, because that is actually awful.. But I liked Mutate, another return of Cycling, the Human support, and some of the spells.
Biggest favorite was mutate though, since it gave a huge payout for making a single creature, at the risk of getting blown out for making... a single creature. It was a fun high risk-high reward archetype.
I quite liked the set as well. It had some cool cards.
Was a blast to draft
I absolutely loved the draft format. Cycling was sadly overpowered but despite that most of the archetypes played really well. Humans was a fun deck. Sometimes combined with the also very powerful sacrifice deck. and all sultai combinations made for powerful and fun mutate decks as well. Even Companion which is obviously horribly broken in constructed (and like many people I find it incredible that they didn't notice this) is in my opinion a great mechanic for drafting since all the companions are buildarounds that are worth the hassle of changing up your entire draft order to play them and thus make for really varied drafting experiences (though they were also too powerful in draft I just didn't mind it as much). only the UB flash theme fell kinda flat.
I only play casually with friends, but I had fun with mutate even if it got weirdly complicated when interacting with certain effects. I do hope they expand on the mechanic eventually since it would be great to have more mutate effects. Tbh though, I really liked the aesthetic of the set more than anything.
I don’t think commander players complained about not being able to use Lutri as a companion. I think they were just confounded that Lutri died for the sins of the companion mechanic in a format that banned wish mechanics.
I have a burning wish AND a mastermind’s acquisition. I wish I could have sideboard for commander. We already allow vampiric tutor on upkeep.
Black red to play Umori with all creatures that had adventure was great until they made casting it cost three more unplayable. The rule change bothered me so much and I have not played a companion since. It was great cool to do black red knights with spell effects on the creatures. Sigh. Then once pioneer got really flush lurrus was everywhere with some yorion.
To me, Lutri is fine in the 99 and as your commander, but just not as a companion. It’s an easy fix, and I don’t think he should’ve gotten a blanket ban.
honestly a video about cards that are banned not for power level but tournament logistics would be cool.
I thought this video was gonna be about Storm
1:17: spot on, Vince. Couldn’t have said it better myself.
I feel very connected to Ikoria, it's one of my favorite sets of all time overall, so it makes me sad that the design mistakes in it justifiably sour it in memory
The Triomes and the Ultimatums are also there in the identity of Ikoria. They aren’t that forgettable.
Would really love seeing all companions banned in every format and then we forget they ever existed
Or just ban the mechanic, Yorion for example is a cool card without the companion mechanic it might still see play as one or two copies in some decks like Esper Doom foretold in historic and explorer.
@@silverdeathgamer2907 No, I have a better solution. We ban all ten companions in all formats, or ban each as a companion from each format.
Then, upon our return to Ikoria, we can get new versions of all ten. Hopefully without companion. Soulbond maybe?
Agreed. Anymore now I just quit if I see one.
@@Commander_Skullblade Yeah that is what I am saying just ban the companion mechanic, they already changed it once so they clearly can do it again.
@@silverdeathgamer2907 thats what I've been saying since the errata
I just want to be able to play 3 lurrus in my main board in modern
Magic Spoon cereal is alright but their breakfast bars are pretty bangin'. So anyone interested should check those out.
I think the most busted part of companion was actually the fact that you could put them in the main deck. If you were forced to play them as a companion they got slightly worse especially with the rule that you had to pay 3 to put a companion into your hand. But you could also just run 2 or 3 main deck lurrus and still get the value especially if you had ways to tutor or dig and you didn't have to keep every card under 2 mana for companion.
The things with storm and dredge is that they are decks, you build around them, they’re their own thing. Companion is a build in, you take and existing deck and just shove a companion in because it just makes the deck better
You definitely should do some videos on the lore of formats and archetypes, I played from 1993/1994-2008 and only got back in through Arena and Prerelease play in 2018. I love reminiscing about how things used to be and about how broken and dumb some things were (Ante and Dexterity mechanics, I'm looking at you!) It would be great to see more videos about those things and some of the classic "Vintage'/"Type 1" archetypes that have come and gone.
Lurrus found its way into my Tormod and Akiri Commander list - both recycling Capsules and making sure Akiri never costs more than WR as long as this kitty remains around.
I agree that companion is broken, but you touched on it in the video. It's not just having the 8th card in hand. It's much more powerful because it gives you an almost unprecedented level of consistency. In classical magic, the most powerful decks are ones that have redundancy so that they can consistently play to their wincon. With a companion card, you are able to just take one of your wincons out of your deck and hold onto it for easy access at any point. It doesn't need to take a card slot in your deck because you won't need to draw into it.
In commander that isn't broken because in 100 card singleton, building redundant mechanics isn't easy. This means that the impact of having a commander you can just have access to is lessened because in most cases, the commander is one part of what could be multiple engines. In addition, commander games are slower and thus people have access to more and better responses so the effect of being able to access your commander immediately is lessened. It's broken in single player vs player 60 card magic because you can actively select for a combo piece and sit on it with no ability to even interact until you bring it into your hand.
Wizards should ABSOLUTELY bring back the "Banned as Commander" list and add a "Banned as Companion" list. Personally I don't see any issue with companions in EDH. I rarely see anybody even use a Companion in EDH.
Companionder:
1) Companion now fumctions like partner for commanders, except that you must meet the Companion's requirement to include it as a secondary (or tertiary) commander. It therefore provides additional colour identity to your deck.
2) The companion is cast from the command zone lile a commander, and is affected by commander tax. You do not pay 3 to add to hand.
3) While the Companion acts like a commander, when in play and when played, it is a Companion and therefore does not trigger or register as a Commander for cards, effects or state based actions.
I think that would technically make a format that works? Although I'd be tempted to ban the use of the Partner mechanic for commander selection - or at least, that they are mutually exclusive?
But yeah, I feel like many of the companions would otherwise still see some play in just commander if they didn't have the companion mechanic at all. The mechanic itself seemed to be a way to try and justify the inclusion of edh style cards within a standard set where they didn't really fit.
There was an Interview with a guy who played hundreds of games of no ban list commander with his playgroup and basically the only thing he had to say to lutri was: It's good that its banned because every deck that can run it runs it. But we really just pitch it to force of will, it's never been cast... :D
What happens when Magic makes one extra deck card ie yugioh status
And don't make the cards have weaker effects to balance their ease of accessibility.
Marketer: This cereal makes you feel the happiness from your childhood!
PleasantKenobi: What do you mean by happiness?
"...the set was largely forgettable..."
From Sept 2013 for a whole year we were on new plane Theros three times in the old old block system and then had a base set. We got a pretty good feel for that at the time.
From Sept 2020 over the year we were on Zendikar for 1 set, then on the new plane of Kaldheim for 1 set, then on the new plane of Strixhaven for 1 set, then in the shared IP of Forgotten Realms for 1 set.
How could anyone care about these? Was smart to create 10 new color pair names for a Harry Potter knock-off plane they would throw away for a while in 3 months?
Wizards could invest in the current planes and settings IP, but they keep throwing more IP at the wall in mechanically disconnected sets as if they were Rob Liefeld creating Youngblood.
“How else would we double our profits in 3 years and still foist inflation costs on our consumers?”
@@johnbuscher There are things about cashing in, but this isn't really about that. These are still 4 base sets like every year since just about the beginning. There are more cards in 2 of the sets, but it's not that much.
Secret Lair and Commander and Master Blaster Masters and Arena are the extra things for profit and that's certainly an issue. But those could happen in a 3 set block system or the current system.
It does make the overselling situation feel even worse, though. Having 4 disconnected sets creates a feeling of head spinning while still selling the same base sets. It creates more IP in some sense, but devalues the existing stuff and the new stuff is largely worthless.
Don't forget the new 3 color names in New Capenna, as if you didn't have enough of them as it is
@@einstein951 They were in the stupidly long version of my comment before I realized how badly I was droning on :)
If Companion exists there should be an Instant you can use as a Companion that is colorless and states “Counter Target Legendary Creature Spell”
As a player who got into Magic post-Ikoria release and slowly got into older formats, I still feel like companion is nowhere as broken as people make it to be. Sure, it is a VERY powerful mechanic (and can be too powerful under the right meta), but post-nerf the 3-mana tax is a meaningful restriction that makes it actually feel pretty balanced. And unlike some other broken mechanics, it feels actually both fun to play and play against (unless it's involved in some kind of auto-win combo). If I get to choose to "un-print" a mechanic, it probably wouldn't even make it to my top 5.
Ikoria? What's that? I'm still trying to figure out what War of the Spark card goes in my Elf deck
Hey Vince, I'm someone who can't eat carbs due to a health condition. I'd love this Magic Spoon stuff as I've not had cereal for something like 5+ years. However, they don't have good EU shipping options that I could find (i.e. ones which are not going to result in lots of customs & import charges). Please feed back to them that if they get that sorted - I'm onboard for a load.
Mutate was/is awesome in so many ways. There is nothing more fun than building a battlecruiser yourself or destroying one in limited.
dude i dont know why but seeing the "links in the description" scene with you pointing down is so fucking funny, bloody hell
it's not easy to make a mechanic more absurd than Phyrexian mana, but there it was
Hey man I watch all your vids. Haven't watched this one yet cause I'm at work. But saw the title and had to say preemptively, "nah fam. It's whatever necropotence does."
The thing with Companions is that it seems that it just doesn't matter when one gets banned; players just move on to a different Companion. Since the Lurrus ban in Pioneer I've run into a few Gyruda decks at my LGS and on Arena. And of course Yorrion and Jegantha are still everywhere.
The worst is people playing Historic on Arena, a Format that looked originally to be a more accessible version of Pioneer that got completely screwed to the point that you have power level cards from Alchemy played with Lurrus and Yorion.
9:58 How can Lurrus be a nightmare when it can't shit wherever it wants?
Totally agree with the last part. Companion was a massive win for Wizards. All the fuss about them made them legendary.
Loved the video, I wish more content creators called WotC out on there just horrible design decisions.
Kitchen Finks isn’t playable in my Alesha deck because it has 3 power so she can’t revive it lmao
Id love a video on Dredge. When I was first into magic back during the release of Ravnica, City of Guilds it felt super weak to me. I took a 10 year break and i come back to the banning of Golgari Grave troll the throw away rare from the 10$ precon for Golgari. I want to know if it was a nutty at release or if it was additional mechanics later that enabled dredge to become busted.
I know it has been some time, but to answer your question, Dredge became more powerful within formats like Modern because the dredge coat became a plus for many Jund or Golgari decks where they'd intentionally mill their deck for cards that can jump out of the graveyard through certain conditions.
The Grave Troll was the biggest offender of this as he was one of the most used cards in those decks until he got booted out. The weaker dredge cards became more popular, but somewhat spread out so the mechanic still exist, but restricted
Yeah companion was terrible.
Companion, Storm, Dredge. Not a lot of other keywords come close when looking at it beyond standard, or modern.
"Affinity, Companion, Storm,
_I can't take it anymore!!"_
I have a deck with Lurrus of the Dream-den as the actual Commander. It is a Rat Colony deck that kicks ass.
I love being on the other side of this coin. I absolutely find no issue with companion as I'm a cEDH nerd and it's just another commander which yes, means you can run Yoshimaru/Miara/Lurrus, but since the 3mana to hand nerf they really don't show up competitively, and trust me, I've tried.
Sad part is Obosh wasn't broken like Lurus.
They neutered the one companion I liked making it unusable because they couldn't help themselves.
Outside of companion wishes should be playable, i'd say we should have say a 10 card commander sideboard. Especially in cedh this would allow people to submit a deck list but change it slightly for the field, but also give us wishes which would be grand.
We did so many ikoria prereleases because we had so many spare, i bought some last month at 50% because they were left over. The triomes were worth £12 for a prerelease.
HOLLLLY SHIT, the honky horn from Yorion fuckin' murdered me hard. Godspeed, sir.
We had a local game store that ran private commander and draft all throughout the pandemic (they shut down so I feel no issue in admitting this). For the entire time companion was out, I don’t recall seeing any commander decks or casual decks that attempted to run companions, but it really was an untested cashgrab at putting commander into all other formats. I see how it was format warping elsewhere though. I should keep yorions and zirdas in my trade binder. I feel they’ll be chase cards in time.
both: "ONLY two years?", but also, "only TWO years!"
Oh man, showing Reno on there brought me right back to Shadow Anduin Reno combo. Loved that deck....Was I the baddie? 😅
My friends and I do mostly casual commander and my favorite deck is flicker with Brago, King Eternal as the commander. The deck is already strong, things like Cathar's Crusade and Divine Visitation can immediately dominate the board after a turn or two, and when looking at flicker cards, I found Yorion, and that's the first time I learned of the companion mechanic. I knew I could easily put it in my deck, it would make it objectively much more powerful, but because it was just stronger for hardly any cost, and I hated it. It just makes some decks like mine more powerful and provides an unfair advantage that isn't even accessible to decks that don't fit into the color or themes of the available companions. It was disgusting, and people think my deck is too dangerous already, and when it was brought up later by my friends, they knew about the card and just prayed that didn't find out and start using it. I hate the companion mechanic and don't plan on using it.
Well, you can't play Yorion as a companion in Commander because the minimum and maximum deck size are the same. But it seems good in the main deck for Brago. It's true that Brago is kind of nasty in casual already though.
I never got a chance to play with the companion mechanic due to the pandemic and the awful arena economy. As a primary in person card player I was just left listening to people talk about it. While I initially was interested in it and didn’t see the inherent brokenness, I lack the personal experience with the mechanic. It still bewilders me that playing an additional 20 cards is good.
I absolutely hate that 80-card Yorion is now the default Death and Taxes, all the major content producers for the deck are on it. Like, I get that it's "better", but it isn't what I bought into the deck to play.
Yeah, Asia getting Ikoria early was weird. Ended up ordering a Lurrus from Japan to get it before release
I totally agree with the hard stance line. Sideboards don't exist in commander. The companion clause was only a problem in commander if it does. They could still be commanders in and of themselves, so still a draw to that crowd. Hard line.
In all other formats, it was a problematic mechanic from the get go. Still is, for two of them in particular...
It was a mechanic that would have required a new cycle of companions every set to help balance meta, it would have become Magic The Companion
Here's my stance on Commander as a Commander player: Lutri being playable in any deck that is Blue and Red is strong, but Rule 0 Exists. You can speak with your group before hand. Now, this doesn't instantly fix any and all issues, BUT it points out the flaw in cards like Thassa's Oracle or Tergrid being unbanned because of the stance by the Commander Rule Committe to 'just talk about it beforehand with your group.'
I think Companions are great, but they suffer from the issue of being a guaranteed card.
I feel like each companion should have been more busted but can only be played from the companion zone.
WOTC with their great idea's companion and Modern Horizon sets,
remember when suplementary sets didnt affect modern, i do! adding pre 8th edition cards is fine to me, but adding brand new and pushed card into isnt
After playing on MTGA for 2 days after the drop, I knew I would win when I saw my opponent didn't have a companion.
It's funny that MarRo wrote an article about 4-6 years ago talking about how a standard companion mechanic would break the game.
The Ikoria's trailer song kinda fits WoTC making companions: I don't give a damn about my (lack of proper playtesting) bad reputation.
Even with that errata Lurrus is just absurdly strong. In older formats most cards are low CMC (outside certain archetypes)
The only reason Lurrus was even banned in Vintage, is because restricting it to one copy, the normal fix for Vintage, doesn't do anything (because you still always have one in your companion zone)
It's not like Lurrus was just so incredibly powerful, you couldn't even allow one copy. It's just because restriction doesn't work.
If Wizards removed the Companion mechanic from tournament Magic, Lurrus probably wouldn't even be Restricted in Vintage.
You made me think about Reno Jackson and that did emotional damage
They didn't put companions into a special "companion zone" to let them function in Commander, because Commander not having a sideboard isn't why companions wouldn't have worked otherwise: the sideboard is not a game zone recognized by the game rules, and thus *no mechanic* ever relies on it being there to function, or is ever going to directly reference it within the comp rules for their mechanics - it's simply a tournament-specific rule for where cards have to be "placed/pulled from", when considering how to process "outside of the game effects", so that people don't bring entire long boxes of cards when they play wish effects like they could in a casual game, under the base rule set of Magic.
The reason they wouldn't have worked in Commander is that there was a rule that just stipulated that cards can't be pulled into a game of Magic from outside of it in the Commander format, so all they had to do was tweak that to say that no card could pull "other cards" into games of Commander from outside the game; the card that companions pull into games is just themselves, hence why they now work and wishes still don't.
Also pretty much any reasonable playgroup would let you put Lutri into the 99, or run the otter as the commander of a deck, via house rules... and I say that as someone who is *absolutely* a stickler that would not otherwise let someone play a banned card or violate any other format rule (like hybrid mana, where I quite intensely disagree with your perspective), if I have any say in the matter; there's nothing at all ban-worthy about Lutri if the card is taking up an actual slot in your deck, the issue was only that you could (or would feel obligated to) free-roll it if you were in those colors.
For all intents and purposes, it is literally a companion specific version for Commander. I dont understand why your being so pedantic about it.
@@PleasantKenobi Well for one... I'm just very pedantic in general, and the typical explanation people bandy about "lack of sideboards" being why companions/wishes/lessons don't work in particular formats like Commander that are played without sideboards is simply incorrect...
...but also because what went down reads very differently, in terms of implications of potential kowtowing to corporate overlords by the rules committee, when you consider that companions only ever "didn't work" within the format in the first place because of a format-specific "wish effects do squat all in our format, because we say so" rule, that was just incidentally hitting the brand new thing doing something a bit different within that "outside the game" space in the process; prior to that mechanic, there was no reason for the RC to take "cards that pull themselves into games from outside of the game" into consideration when phrasing the rules to deliberately break wish effects, because there weren't any of those.
I'm not going to sit here and argue that companions were somehow "not" a gigantic design blunder that shouldn't have ever happened or anything - they absolutely were, we're 100% on the same page there - but I think we can both agree that as egregious and format-warping/ruining as they may be, companions are not the same thing as wishes; by default new cards should just function as they were designed to, unless there's a specific reason to mandate otherwise, and that wasn't the case with companions in Commander - they only wouldn't have worked because the RC couldn't see the future when considering their specific phrasing.
"Lurrus was re=printed in an event deck with updated wording and then banned afterwards"
Did they keep the same logic to a banned card in a structure deck then where you can play the deck with its banned cards if no cards were added or removed?
yeah, faceless haven in the most recent pioneer precon was banned before the precon was released lmao. same thing you can use the deck as long as no edits
Magic at times wishes it could emulate monetization and mechanics from other card games like yugioh. Multiple rarities and treatments and an outside zone where you could play your favorite cards feel like things to emulate.
What that does to deck building and what one calls the spirit of the game changes irreversibly.
Outside main zone spells and effects bump up consistency at the cost of what considerations normal deck building brings.
If ever we get a Thoracle in the command zone that also pips for black, someone will go out of their way to accelerate the emptying out their decks.
I wonder if these companions could come back to just reward certain types of play styles in commander and be built for commander in general
I know I'm late to the party here, but I'm compelled to comment on sideboards and wishes.
1) Sideboards are a part of the Magic Tournament rules and not a fundamental part of Magic and thus only relevant in tournament settings.
2) Those rules limited anything that references cards outside the game to your sideboard.
3) Commander does not use the tournament rules, so there is no sideboard any reference to outside the game means any card not in your deck or the command zone.
4) Companions start the game outside of the game, in tournaments that means your sideboard (as mentioned previously), in any casual game that just means outside of the game.
5) Wishes get cards from outside the game. Again in tournaments that is limited to your sideboard. In Commander that's any card you own.
With that out of the way, the lack of sideboards has nothing to do with why wishes don't work in Commander. Comparing companions and wishes and referencing sideboards misses the point entirely.
Wishes don't work, because the RC doesn't want them to work in Commander. They expand the size of your deck to the size of your collection. They don't want that, so they don't work. Adding sideboards while it would limit the expansion, is still fundamentally doing the same thing: expanding the size of your deck.
Companions only bring themselves into the game from outside of it once. They do not bring any other cards from outside the game into, which makes them fundamentally different from wishes.
This is why the RC made a slight change to the Commander rules to allow companions and wishes still don't function. They do fundamentally different things and whether there are sideboards or not has nothing to do with it.
Me, who soley plays EDH: "People are actually using companions???"
Besides Lutri, Companion wasn't broken in Commander and the 3 mana tax should have never been added in Commander. I will die on this hill.
6:05 I mean, Lutri is a free roll and he's decently statted, but there's more to CA than just "moar cardz." Like, lets play a game. You get a 9 card opening hand with no max hand size and can draw two cards a turn, playing a deck of 25 Forests and 35 Willow Elves. I play normally running some world championship deck. Who are you betting on? :P
I'll be honest, when Companion was spoiled I really didn't think it would cause issues other than Lurrus. I figured Lurrus was busted but I thought he was really the only one that would break anything. I actually thought that Kaheera and Umori would see the next most play not because they were good but because I figured their restrictions were relatively minor and they'd just be free, but turns out neither are really worth much. I never would have thought Yorion would be played so frequently, and I guess it makes sense since it took a while before he picked up attention in formats other than standard or historic (especially given how much lower power Historic was at the time).
I also assumed we'd see more of them in the main deck compared with what we saw. A lot of them have decent abilities but were too restrictive on their companion cost like Gyruda and Zirda but nope. I really did poorly on my analysis of the mechanic other than Lurrus
The absolute Chads at the different highlander formats saying yes, all 10 creatures are totally legal, there just isn't a sideboard so you have to put all cards that you want to play into your deck (imagine, what a concept).
The whole time I thought you were talking about a card named Louis.
I think the RC should've only banned Lutri as a Companion.
He's only broken as an 8th card in hand, but in your 99, he's totally fine. I wanna play my 3 mana 3/2 Dualcaster Mage.