Welcome to the Commander RC Monday Morning Check-In for the week of 9 August, 2021.

We’re happy to report that more and more streamers and video creators are having their pregame discussions on camera.  While Rule 0 chats are an important element to a positive Commander experience, so we’re pleased to see folks normalizing them. 

The RC will have a special guest this week on stream: the one and only Ben Wheeler.  The action gets underway at 8 ET on twitch.tv/commanderRC.  In upcoming weeks, we’ve decided that each of the four RC members will play an upgraded Forgotten Realms Commander deck for the stream.  We’ve each picked a different one and we’re allowed to swap out ten nonland cards of our choice as well as do a little tinkering with the mana base (without going too far).  Sheldon’s article from yesterday features his; we’ll have to see what the other three come up with.

As always, if you’d like to discuss any aspect of the format or just hang out with some excellent people, head over to the RC Discord server at https://discord.gg/x5Q5PVg and jump into the conversation.  We’re there quite often, so it’s one of the best ways to get a direct line into having a chat with us. 

Welcome to the Commander RC Monday Morning Check-In for the week of 2 August, 2021.    

There’s been some colorful discussion on Wishes and outside-the-game cards in the Discord.  If you’d like to join in, head over to https://discord.gg/x5Q5PVg and jump into the #format-philosophy channel. The short version for us is that we haven’t heard any new arguments on the benefits of changing Rule 11; if you have something on the topic that hasn’t been brought up before, we’d love to hear it.  We have talked about the possibility that Rule 10 is no longer required (it’s a holdover from the early days when such things were less clear), so look for some thoughts on that in the September update.

RC streaming is back on this week, as we welcome one of our Discord friends, Grant Mongin, to join us for Game 2.  The action starts at 8ET on Thursday at twitch.tv/commanderRC.  We’d also love to work on some version of Adventures in the Forgotten Realms constructed for streaming in the near future. There are a few sets that seem D&D-adjacent enough to make a block out of, but haven’t settled on anything yet that resonates. 

The September update will be on us faster than you know; the way the schedules work out, we’ll have our quarterly joint RC/CAG meeting later this month.  If there’s something think is important for us to discuss, hit us up on an appropriate channel on the Discord server, or if it’s short, a ping on social media. 

ADMINISTRATIVE

Appointments to the Commander Advisory Group (CAG): Kristen Gregory and Elizabeth Rice.

Welcoming Kristen and Ellie to the Commander Advisory Group

Kristen and Ellie are both deeply invested in Commander and possess excellent Magic minds.  You may have seen them on recent episodes of the Commander Rules Committee (RC) Twitch stream and elsewhere, or checked out some of their other work, so you’ll know how much they love the format. They bring the kinds of complementary and diverse voices which will make them outstanding additions to the CAG.  You can check out their full bios here.

RULES

Slight modification to Rule 11 to clarify dungeon legality.

Dungeons

Dungeons are a little wonky from a rules perspective since they’re more like emblems than other cards. Once they’re ventured into, they even live in the command zone; they then leave the zone when they’re completed.  They have to be considered cards so that other rules can work, but they’re not otherwise cards in the traditional sense.  They can’t go into your deck; their main function is as a specialized process marker.  To that end, Rule 11 is now worded like this:

Parts of abilities which bring other traditional card(s) you own from outside the game into the game (such as Living Wish; Spawnsire of Ulamog; Karn, the Great Creator) do not function in Commander.

CARDS

Hullbreacher is BANNED.

Hullbreacher

Hullbreacher has been a problem card since its release. Its ostensible defensive use against extra card draw has been dwarfed by offensively combining it with mass-draw effects to easily strip players hands while accelerating the controller. That play pattern isn’t something we want prevalent in casual play (see the Leovold ban), and we have seen a lot of evidence that it is too tempting even there, as it combines with wheels and other popular casual staples. The case against the card was overwhelming. 

There remain a few similar cards that are still permitted, notably Notion Thief and Narset, Parter of Veils. The additional hoops required (an additional color pip for Notion Thief, and sorcery speed for Narset) appear to be keeping them to the appropriate level of play, though we’ll continue to keep an eye on them.

There’s a new card in D&D: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms called Wish. The short version is that the card doesn’t work in Commander.

Here’s a link to the card.

Rule 11 applies to this card, so it doesn’t work any differently than other outside-the-game cards which attempt to bring other cards in from outside the game.

From a Modal DFC that will lead your deck of creepy-crawlies to an instant that will save your best creature and give you some life doing it, these two previews will certainly see play on RC tables.

Free previews courtesy of Wizards of the Coast

Thanks to our friends from Wizards of the Coast, we have these free #MTGTSR previews. They’ll certainly see play in RC games!

For our March 2021 streams on http://twitch.tv/CommanderRC we’ll be playing some games with a light-hearted variant called Snow Battles, using snowy cards from

• Ice Age (IA)
• Coldsnap (CSP)
• Kaldheim (KHM)

Plus these cards from other sets:

Viscerid Drone (AL)
Storm Elemental (AL)
Gargantuan Gorilla (AL)
Winter’s Night (AL)
Centaur Omenreader (FUT)
Ohran Frostfang (C19)
On Thin Ice (MH1)
Iceberg Cancrix (MH1)
Marit Lage’s Slumber (MH1)
Winters Rest (MH1)
Chillerpillar (MH1)
Blizzard Strix (MH1)
Dead of Winter (MH1)
Alpine Guide (MH1)
Rime Tender (MH1)
Saddled Rimestag (MH1)
Frostwalla (MH1)
Glacial Revelation (MH1)
Conifer Wurm (MH1)
Ice-Fang Coatl (MH1)
Abominable Treefolk (MH1)
Frostwalk Bastion (MH1)
Arcum’s Astrolabe (MH1)
Icehide Golem (MH1)

Banned:

• Amulet of Quoz (IA)

CARDS

No changes.

RULES

Clarified Rule 11.

Parts of abilities which bring other card(s) you own from outside the game into the game (such as Living Wish; Spawnsire of Ulamog; Karn, the Great Creator) do not function in Commander.

We’ve had some questions about Karn, the Great Creator’s -2 ability and whether the parts of it that don’t refer to outside the game work. They do, so we added a couple of words to remove any ambiguity from the rule. The goal is to set the default space for outside the game to empty and let playgroups choose amongst themselves if they want to fill it with anything.

ADMINISTRATIVE

Expansion of the Commander Advisory Group.

The Commander Advisory Group continues to be the best idea we’ve ever had.  The passionate and insightful advice we’ve gotten from them on a broad range of Commander-related topics has been invaluable.  We’d like more of that.  

To that end, we will be expanding the size of the CAG.  For now, we’re adding four people who represent some of the marvelous voices filling out the Commander chorus.  Jim LaPage (@JimTSF) is well known for his community-building and keen Magic mind.  Another sharp Magic brain, Rachel Weeks (@wachelreeks) is also co-host of The Commander Sphere podcast and graphic artist who has been a frequent guest on the Commander RC Twitch stream.  DeQuan Watson (@powrdragn) is a long-time Magic community advocate and activist who hosts the Color of Magic podcast.  US Army Major Greg Sablan (@gregorysablan), who we’ve been chatting with for more than a year now, represents the vast global military Commander community.  You can read everyone’s full bios here.  We’re excited to have them on board and happy to have their help taking the format into the future. 

There’s still work to be done and room for a few more seats on the CAG.  We’re aware that we still have underrepresented demographics and locations.  You can expect our efforts to search for, find, and amplify great voices around the world to continue, both for CAG consideration and to further foster the values of our great Commander community.