When Wizards of the Coast took control of the Magic: The Gathering Commander format at the end of last month, it was very keen to deflect all attention away from the question of bannings. Instead, it pointed to its new plans to introduce ‘power brackets’, so that finally Commander players would be able to discuss how strong their decks were.
And, even though the loss of the RC at the end of last month was under unpleasant circumstances, even though I’m not sure Wizards itself will be better stewards of MTG Commander, even though it’s going to be hard to make this system work, I have to admit it’s a cracking idea.
The most unpleasant moments I’ve had playing Magic are when I’ve felt like I misjudged the power level of my deck. It’s taken me a while to realize it, but I would rather be completely mana screwed and lose, than win by stomping a table to the ground (unless that’s what everybody signed up for).
I’m also awful at predicting how powerful my deck – or anyone else’s deck for that matter – will be. This has led to loads of games where I brought out something too weak that didn’t stand a chance, and a few games where it’s gone wrong the other way, and I (an experienced worrier) felt sheepish and uncomfortable.
As a result, there’ve even been times where I’ve deliberately pulled back, saving a Sol Ring in my opening hand until turn 3, or making a less optimal play that kept the game more even. If you, the reader, have ever beaten me at a Commander game, please take it as read that this is what happened. You’re welcome.
I think most players would agree that some form of yardstick we can use to measure the strength of EDH decks is long overdue. That said, I don’t think there’s such a thing as a perfect system, and while it was still early days when it was described by the designers earlier in the month, I’m not sure the one Wizards of the Coast is devising will work.
The main trouble I foresee is that Wizards is using its tier system to rank card’s both in terms of power and in terms of general ‘unpleasantness’. That’s why so many of the cards on the list were stax pieces: players hate it when you run cards that stop them ‘doing the thing’.
But, while card strength is to some extent subjective and most Magic cards will be busted in some situations and mediocre in others, ‘toxicity’ is way, way moreso. Most can agree that mass land destruction is a little toxic, but after that everyone has something different that they hate.
For some, it’s counterspells; for others, it’s card theft. Some hate mill; others can’t stand stax effects. Me? My own personal bugbear is extra turn spells. If I had my way, every single one would be in the highest Wizards’ tier, but I have to admit my hatred of them is a little irrational. Who’s to say which of these strategies are worth locking behind a higher tier?
Furthermore, what about cards that are useless by themselves, but enable broken combos? Towards the end of Gavin Verhey and Aaron Forsythe’s Weekly MTG discussion two weeks ago, they touched upon the concept of MTG combos, suggesting that each one would have its own position on the tier list. But I don’t think they can have been serious, because at that point the entire thing starts to look like an overcomplicated monster, not to mention an incredibly laborious undertaking.
So I’m doubtful that a perfect power ranking system will ever exist. I expect there’ll be a broad range of power levels among decks that are all officially within the same tier. But that is still miles better than what we had before – a power ranking system based on personal guesses that everyone acknowledged was a joke.
And when a Tier 2 deck outperforms expectations and blows up a pod, at least now we’ll be able to shake our fists at Wizards instead of one another.
So, it’s a good start for Wizards’ management of the Commander format. No doubt it’ll do something to upset everyone sooner or later. For me, that would be unbanning the cards the RC took out. For other players, it might be leaving them on the Commander banlist. A bunch of banned cards have exploded in price over the last few weeks, so someone’s definitely going to be disappointed if they stay struck off.
Source: Wargamer
