Taylor: 0:10

What's up Wizards, it's time for Rule Zero, the show that helps you prepare for the best game of Commander. I'm Taylor.

Shawn: 0:15

And I'm Sean. It's our hope that through our combined 20 plus years experience of playing EDH and cultivating a great playgroup, tons of great decks, and also trying a lot of outside the box variants and homebrew rules, that we can pass that golden knowledge on to you.

Taylor: 0:28

If you're new to the show, be sure to like, comment, share, and subscribe. But with that out of the way, Sean, what's something in the world of Magic that has you excited this week?

Shawn: 0:37

So on May 17th through the 19th, Wizards is doing a limited throwback draft in honor of Dungeons and Dragons 50th anniversary. Each drafter will get one battle for Baldur's Gate collector booster and three draft boosters from the same set and then each player chooses a Venture marker quote unquote of some kind and when any card says venture into the dungeon They have to run through a new giant dungeon based on Baldur's Gate 3 It's kind of ties into our next episode too. This kind of ties in with our next episode too, but I'm hopeful that our shop owner Sharla has my back. I'm just sending this out into the universe for no reason whatsoever and allows me to take home this new oversized BG three dungeon afterward. I figure I've put in the hours to BG three, a little over 700 at this point. and make a lot of changes to my D and D cube. I feel like I'm the top candidate for getting a little extra something reward.

Taylor: 1:32

No, it looks awesome. I do love dungeons and the previews that I've seen for that dungeon. I don't think they do it justice. It looks huge and massive and like a ton of fun to try and navigate through. So I'm excited to get to draft that and, see what changes you get to make to your cube. And hopefully one of those changes is the giant oversized dungeon. I think that'd be a great thing to have.

Shawn: 1:52

I'd like to have minis like for a dungeon marker. So like just having little miniatures, if it's big enough, then you can get your own little D and D mini to walk your way through the dungeon, which is what I'm hoping for.

Taylor: 2:03

That'd be awesome. I'd love to see it. This week, we are talking about, one of the most controversial topics. I think we talked about land destruction last week and this one can beat even that. It's the ban list. We are talking about not only the, commander rule committees, ban list, but our own ban list. Something that we have in our play group. They can help to kind of guide some of our decks that we get to play with. We call these our rule seven decks. And the whole idea here is that we want to have a consistent cap to power so that anybody can sit down to the table and experience a fair level of gameplay. We're going to talk about that ban list, how we got there and what was the inspiration for that? How we had the conversation and how we continued to this day to kind of sculpt that and refine that list because it's not perfect. So Sean, talk to us about, the ban list from the official rules committee.

Shawn: 2:53

For sure. I figured as a baseline for this episode, let's tell you why the ban list is controversial in the first place. I guess, and why it happened in the first place. So the commander rules committee, the CRC is a loose association of commander players, some of whom are in franchise content creators and some are early members who came up alongside the Godfather of EDH, Sheldon Minnery, rest in peace. Currently has five members, Olivia Gobert Hicks, James, Jim, LaPage, Scott Larrabee, Toby Elliott, Gavin Duggan. and they vote these five people and make decisions on a band list for magic's biggest format while also urging players to make their own rules that fit their own play group using a rule zero basically. But if you go to an event with strangers or like a magic con, the baseline band list is run and organized by this small group along with suggestions from a diverse group of players. CAG or community advisory group that is comprised, I think entirely of content creators and it's probably about 15 to 20 members large. So first off, how do you feel about a five person group having sway over the entire format or do you have other initial thoughts about the RC you'd like to share?

Taylor: 4:05

It's tricky. I put it here in the notes that of a five person group is, it seems like a small one and I do not envy the position that they're in to be such a small group of people to have this sway, this control over a game that is played by millions of people. I do not envy them because I know that they get backlash on Twitter, on their YouTube pages, wherever their content is, there's going to be backlash. So I don't envy that. I. Admire them for what they do. And I think something that's most admirable is they don't willy nilly throw around the band hammer. They're really cautious about how they approach it. They really do try and keep a finger on the pulse of the community. And that's where the CAG comes into play. At first I was like, Oh man, they have all of these content creators. Why is that? And I think after some thought process, I think it's important to know that. These are the people that are really trying to cater to, like I said, the millions of people that play this game. And so having this kind of funnel of information is really helpful because it's going from millions of people into this CAG of 15 to 20 people. And then finally up to the rules committee. It makes sense that they can kind of filter out a lot of the noise and really say, here are some problematic cards. Here are some concerns of the community.

Shawn: 5:24

With the CAG being comprised mostly of content creators, and I want to throw this out as a question to you and the audience, like does that present a very particular viewpoint that is being mostly represented that then affects the overall band list? For instance, content creators we know such as like MTG Goldfish, which we talked about last week, Have a very particular need to entertain on the streams that they play on and Does that prevent? them from Seeing what the community at large sort of sees because their games are mostly focused on presenting a fun game But that might mean that some of the cards that are on the ban list at least in my opinion That wouldn't be fun on stream might actually be fun. Otherwise. What are your thoughts on that?

Taylor: 6:13

think the core issue here is what's fun and what's entertaining. And there's this kind of battle between fun versus entertaining. And something that I think a lot about is. Who gets to define what fun is. And I think that that's one of the negative comments that comes up about these groups are, you know, Oh, they can't tell me how to have fun. And they will be the first ones to say, rule zero says you can do whatever you want to. So when it comes to content creators, like MTG Goldfish, And what they do, I love watching their commander clash videos. I do appreciate that they try to create really balanced games or really imbalanced games, or they put these really fun restrictions on it, but I also love watching commander versus and how they do something really similar where they build with some nice restrictions in place, and I think that these two shows can. Display the potential for what a rule zero conversation can actually do. So when we look at things like MTG Goldfish, one of their recent videos was a 10 deck versus a 100 deck versus a thousand versus a 10, 000 deck. And I don't know if you all know this, but Paco and Haldane at 10 is really powerful and can do some crazy things. And I think that showing off content like that can really display to people that are new to the format or maybe entrenched, but think that. Money equals power. It can kind of help break that illusion, which I think is really cool. Then on the second side of things, when we've got content creators like commander versus they really do a great job of walking onto that stage with commander decks that are really at an even power level, because of the restrictions they've placed on themselves. Now, sometimes outliers and things like that happen, but we still get to see some cool things happen. And I think that translates to individual play groups, smaller play groups that can watch that for inspiration and think about it. So for instance, we've done different theme decks. We've tried to play with different power levels. And I think that there is some potential influence for the need for entertainment, the need for getting those stream views. But I think that overall it's for the greater good.

Shawn: 8:24

Fair enough. And I think that the idea of theme is one that stuck out to me as like we use our own, which we'll talk about in this show, our own rules seven deck band list, to create almost like a thematic atmosphere, not so much to create an all encompassing band list, but to give us the opportunity to play the level seven decks against one another. environment that we've created. With that said, I guess we should talk briefly about like what is on the ban list, there's 45 cards, so we're not going to go over all of them, but there are certainly some cards that I thought it would be funny to see. what your opinions were as far as, uh, I would like to unban some. I think I fall on the, the wild, like crazy side of let's unban literally everything and let it sort itself out. But I don't think that everybody's on that list with me.

Taylor: 9:19

Yeah. What's this, first card that you'd like to see? Unbanned.

Shawn: 9:22

One of my favorite cards of all time, Primeval Titan. My first standard decks was Primeval Titan slash Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, and killing Jace the Mind Sculptor over and over again was a thrill that I will never forget. meet again. Taking a mono blue control player and turning them into dust was a love that just kind of, it was like a passion, a spark. My own planes Walker spark ignited at that point, I think. But for commander, I used to play this and then it got banned as well as Sylvan primordial, which plays a similar sort of role and the reasons that the commander rules committee gave at the time were because It got out of hand because people would steal it clone it whatever it became a focal point of the game For our own Groups, I just don't see that happening. Like I don't think many of us even play That many decks that have clone effects or steal effects there's some here and there but I titan becoming an insane feature of our games and not many of us As we've talked about in previous episodes, one run cards that don't destroy lands. I think we're okay with land destruction. Two, we don't run a lot of busted combos. I haven't played cabal coffers or Borgen a decade

Taylor: 10:37

I think when we play card combos like that in the lands package that we run, it's one of those things where you do it once and you're like, okay, cool. I did the thing. And you know, I loved getting to tap cabal coffers for a squillion and then also tap my Nick those for a bajillion more and have all this mana. But I actually had this conversation last night with, my pod and I was talking to Max, a listener to the show. We were talking about his lands deck. And he saw Nyxbloom Ancient that lets you tap for triple. And I said, yeah, that's a great card, but do you have a way to use triple the mana? It turns out he did. He had a couple of X spells. They were kind of some of the win cons in that deck. And so it makes sense to Amplify the mana production in that way. But I think that too often, and we'll talk about this with one of the next unbannings commander players look for the most value, not necessarily the play that moves the game forward. And I think that we have to acknowledge maybe here that the rules committee has a really challenging job because they have to. Balance competition because nobody walks up to the commander game and says, Hey, I hope I lose this except for Carl in one very particular deck. And if you've had the joy of playing against that, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. And they have to balance the desire to win and competition and creating a fair playing field with that social aspect. Because again, nobody wants to feel bad. And so, you know, if you are playing some of these really good cards and you leave Ahead of everyone else at the table. It's not always fun. And that's one of my struggles with this. I struggle with primeval Titan just as a card, because I think that I would be more inclined to run those big value spells and creatures. So for instance, if I had primeval Titan and I could just grab a couple of all coffers and Urborg, then I would just try and win with Torment of Hailfire every time. And I don't think that is necessarily the most fun thing to do, but again, who are we, who is the rule community to say what is fun, but that wins the game. So I don't know. I I'm, I'm torn because I think that too often games last longer than they should. I think that it's okay. If the game ends, we get to play another one. So I'm really torn there.

Shawn: 12:52

fair. And I think that's the beauty of the rule zero conversation in general. And that is why we made the podcast. Because Those are all things that we've all thought about and probably done like I've certainly made decks that I have taken apart Right after I played the first game because I was like, okay, I won I did the thing Vannevar slash protean Hulk was one of those decks. I Did the thing and it literally? Kept bringing creatures into the battlefield that untapped Vannevar That allowed her to then sack that creature for the next thing up the chain and it was a funny experience You but then I realized that every single game would play out identically. And so I just took it apart cause to me it was just boring. So I guess the answer to the question of who gets to say what is fun comes down to your play group. And if your play group sees Prime Evil Titan come out and they don't like it, well, that's the conversation you all get to have. I guess my issue is that like, well, with the CRC saying it's on the ban list, People don't get to have that conversation. They just assume that it's bad. And I don't think it always is.

Taylor: 13:57

Yeah, I, I agree with that. I think that we oftentimes forget to have those conversations with our playgroups. Now, this is a bit of a double edged sword, or at least there are two sides to this coin here. First, I think that we 100 percent should be having those conversations with our playgroups, we talk about games, we talk about cards, we talk about decks in our group chat all the time. I mean, We really do. We don't just say that because we have this show. We truly are having those conversations. And I think that's the number one, most important thing. Have that conversation with your play group. But the other side of that coin that I think a lot about is what about the person who doesn't have a play group, or maybe they just are new to the format and they're trying to find that play group. It's really hard to have that conversation. From the outside looking in for that person, for instance, somebody came through the shop and they were just traveling. They brought a couple of commander decks while they were traveling. They showed up to the shop. They Googled game shops in Asheville and they found gamers haunt and they got to come by and play. Now, if that person tries to sit down and they play against. Rule zero deck that we vocate as a play group, it might not always feel so good for that person. And so it's challenging. And I think that's the real issue for some of these things is in the most ideal of worlds, anybody can sit down to the table and play a game together. That doesn't always happen, but in the most ideal of worlds, that's how it should play out. Uh, it's like Candide said, the most perfect of worlds we would have this. I think something to comment on here for the band list is a lot of these cards that are on here are from before wizards was really even thinking about EDH as a format. In the standard environment. Primeval Titan had a very specific use. Like you said, right? Valica to get rid of Jace. That sounds great. Let's do that. But they weren't thinking about it in the context of Cabal coffers and Urborg, just because that wasn't in the standard metagame at the time.

Shawn: 15:56

Certainly. Ultimately I'm glad that the commander rules committee exists and has created a ban list for like the traveling player or the player who goes to cons. But I do want to urge groups to maybe take a look at the ban list overall and see if there are cards that if you do have your play group, which ones would you unban? Which ones would you try to experiment with? I see this all the time with like formats like modern and standard, particularly modern where they've got a band list that's pretty old and content creators will be like, what would modern look like if so and so was unbanned in the format today, often being splinter twin, the combo, because modern now is. Quite often turn two turn three format and splinter twin goes off on maybe turn four But it's a control deck that could potentially potentially fight against some of the grief builds I know we're getting in the weeds here for non modern players, but It's interesting to see what was banned ten years ago What might be able to come off now and I think it's worth a look because otherwise we don't know don't really know. We're just assuming based on the logic of back in the day that it's still bannable and that may not be true always.

Taylor: 17:06

One more comment that I have on primeval Titan. And I think it's interesting to think about, like you said, 10 years ago, what it looked like to today. So primeval Titan, for those that don't know the full mana cost and everything, it's a six drop, it's four and two green trample get to go and search for two lands. They come in tapped now in hour of devastation was printed the card hour of promise. It's four and one green. So five mana sorcery spell that says search a library for up to two land cards, put them on the battlefield tapped. It cares about deserts too. If you've got three or more deserts, you get to make two, two, two black zombie creature tokens, which is cool. Is that worse or better than primeval Titan? I don't know. I mean, I think the fact that you can abuse the primeval Titan with some blink effects is part of the problem, but. On its face value, the card hour of promise does the exact same thing and it can be interacted with at the same exact speed, sorcery speed. So I think that's something interesting to think about because obviously our promise has not been banned. So. Is it better? Is it worse? I don't know. Because you can abuse that as well, especially in band colors again, where you can get back instance and sorceries from the graveyard and cast them again with things like Archaomancer. So I don't know. What do you think about a card like Hour of Promise?

Shawn: 18:23

Oh, I run it all the time cause it has such a powerful effect. Particularly in my desert builds, but also in other builds. I like the idea of getting zombies. It's pretty cool as we're moving on, I know we talked a lot about Primeval Titan, thanks for everybody putting up with my, my plea that goes unheard forever. But, as we're moving on from that, I often look at other decks, even Lands decks that I run, like Ninefingers Keen, and I think to myself, how would Primeval Titan play a role? Yes, it would play a role, but it is nowhere near the most powerful card in that deck, which wins by casting brilliant ultimatum to create an uninterruptible loop to where I get mazes end out and an extra turn spell. And then when, when I look at the devastation that that does and that is legal, I think to myself, primeval Titan is not the worst. It's, you know, it's a game we could play forever, I guess, of comparing things to like what exists now and be like, well, I saw this busted expropriate. Well, you know, that's an, that's a rule zero card for me is like, if you're playing expropriate, we should talk about that before we play. Cause I find that card deeply on fun.

Taylor: 19:35

Yeah. I agree with that. I think extra turns in general. Are rough. And the reason I think they're really rough and multiplayer is because you already have such a long clock in between your own turns. And so adding to that is really challenging. You know, I think on a one V one format, a time walk is not the end of the world, you know, because more often than not, a time walk gets you up a land. Sure. I might let you draw a card or whatever else that happens in the like easiest of scenarios. I recognize this, in vintage, we're seeing time walks. It can do a lot more where you're drawing seven new cards. You're able to play those cards thanks to the mocks, but we don't necessarily have those effects in commander. And instead it's something like expropriate where you end up taking five extra turns in a row. And that's just. Brutal to sit through because you don't know if they're actually going to win or not. So that I think kind of takes us to the next card that you were thinking about potentially taking off the ban list, or it might be a fun one. And I have very strong feelings about this one and I'd like to explain why after you tell us what this card is that you would also like to see off of the.

Shawn: 20:40

So one of the cards that I would like to see come off the band list And that Taylor would love to tell you why it should never happen is Leovold Emissary of Trust. For a black, a green, and a blue, you get a 3 3 legendary Elf Advisor. He's very, very dainty and regal and he's sitting in his grand office and what he says is each opponent can't draw more than one card each turn. Totally fair, right? Whenever a U or a permanent U control becomes the target of a spell or ability an opponent controls, you you may then draw an extra card. I think that he got banned very quickly out of the gates. I can't remember what it was. It was maybe like two weeks into him being created. He became the nightmare of the format and Taylor will tell you why for sure. But I am, I guess a burn it down sort of guy and I'm like, well, I'm really curious to see what the world looks like with Leovold coming out these days because I see a lot of commanders Sauron, Voja, Miriam, all these cards that are like so bonkers that just go off or are really hard to interact with and Leovold doesn't prevent you from killing him at all. He just gets a card off of it if you doom blade him. So I'm curious, what do you think?

Taylor: 21:59

I think that at the time that he was banned, it seemed really quick, but he was actually around for a year. And I think that was one of the worst years of my life. And I only say that because I think you, Sean, when you build Leovold, you would probably not just include every single wheel. You would really use it as a way to slow down some of those really egregious decks, like you mentioned. Some of those cards really do create these oppressive board states. I think there are two key differences here though. Number one, those commanders cost a good deal more in a really tuned Leo volt deck. You're getting Leo volt out on turn three at the latest. You could potentially do it a little bit sooner, with some fast man. If you've got access to that the most common, I think, follow up play to Leovold on turn three was to Ferry's puzzle box on turn four. And so to Ferry's puzzle box makes you draw an extra card, and then you put them all on the bottom, but because Leovold's out, you don't get to draw your hand like the rest of the card says, and so the problem that we faced for a year of Leovold was people would immediately wheel after casting him or create a board state where, you could use one of the creatures Let's you be a, like Jesus archivist. And so the problem is. You would have the self control, I think, to not build that type of deck. In fact, it would probably be sultai fair deck, but not everyone has that control. And this is where, again, I don't envy the rules committee because they're the ones who have to hold their ground and say, no, we have to keep this on the ban list because we, as humans are inherently going to try and do the most busted, crazy thing. I think when we play this game, because we know that with 27, 000 cards, In magic's history, closer to 30, 000. Now we can find ways to really push some of these commanders to their limits. And I think that's what I want to say about the ban list with a list of 45 cards out of 30, 000 cards. The ban list is so small if you really think about it. And so that's my two cents on it that I wanted to offer for Leo volt. I think that compared to some of these other egregious commanders. He is very low cost, which makes it hard to interact with because you have probably spent your early turns trying to ramp, not necessarily keep a couple of kill spells or counter spells in your hand. And then number two, while one person might build it fairly, I don't think that the general EDH community would build a fairly. We all know and love the professor from Tulane community college he's got a video on building Leovold as egregiously as possible. And I think that people would watch that video and say, Oh, because TCC did it. That means it's okay to build this kind of deck. And again, I think that a lot of people struggle with rule zero conversations because I don't want to tell somebody, no, don't play that. But if somebody pulled out Leovold, I would say, no, don't play that.

Shawn: 24:48

Fair enough. And I agree that for the interest of the public at large, let's say that, Leobold can stay on the ban list, but I challenge anyone to play against a very tuned Nekusar deck that also is totally legal. But especially with our friend Josh, who plays at the shop, His Nekusar list, maybe we can link it in the show notes, looks horrific. And I've had the displeasure of playing against it, but also pleasure. I enjoy Nekusar, I think it's funny, so like I guess if you know you're going into that type of game, then maybe you have your own deck where you're like, well, I can take on a Leo of old or a neck of SAR. I don't know. I'm curious what the listeners think about this endless debate that just goes on and on forever, not just between us, but between everyone in the world. It seems like there's always an unbanned discussion happening. Where do you all stand? And I guess that leads us into why do we make our own man list in the first place?

Taylor: 25:48

Just to kind of segue us over, I think that, I'll have to find the Reddit thread, but there was a post a while back and it basically said, what if we didn't have a band list? And I think the funniest thing that could have happened did happen. And it was a small play group. They all built these crazy, powerful decks. I think that they just proxied them up. But. Lo and behold, the deck that won at the table was a Soul Tide Control deck. I think it had, Tasigur, the Golden Fang as its commander, but in reality, it just played Soul Tide Control and handled the board, but every single card Was actually a cheaty face. And so the way that it worked was once the board was cleared for the umpteenth trillionth time, the player just revealed, Oh, I actually have all these cheaty faces already on the battlefield and then swung out in one. And I think that's really funny. And again, I think that's the best of all possibilities that could have happened, but we can't always account for that and think that that's going to happen. So we decided to come up with our own. Own band lists after listening to a specific command zone podcast episode. Tell us a little bit about that, Sean, what's this one to 10 power scale. What's a seven, where does this fall? What does that actually mean? What did we learn from that? And how did that guide us into starting this conversation about our own band list?

Shawn: 27:06

So that particular episode of the command zone debuted on January 17th this year. It was titled cards that change your decks power level. And they went over a lot of cards that they felt pushed a deck beyond a seven on this sort of amorphous one to 10 power level scale that commander players all know, but really have no concrete evidence or metrics to help explain why they've chosen the number they've chosen. Um, I'm happy to be proven incorrect, but I think I took it as sort of a challenge of like, can we construct a ban list using some of what the command zone talked about, but also our own personal experiences to build actual sevens. I don't think we're perfect by any means. And I think we're still working on it, but I think what we've aimed to do is build strong, but not CDH competitive, but not oppressive. A level of deck that has tons of interaction, but it isn't winning off a simple two card combos. Combos have to be three cards or more in our particular list. We also highly value time and which I don't think the commands don't really took into account, but. In our group we cut out a lot of shuffling and by that Tudor effects that just got any kind of card or a lot of fetches That would just often get the best land or the best triome or whatever for your deck Just to cut down on the amount of shuffle time.

Taylor: 28:28

So when we look at our list, we have approximately 30 cards that we've added on to the band list. And they can kind of be grouped into a few different categories and they line up pretty well with that command zone. Episode and what they were really talking about kind of pushed decks beyond it. And the first big broad stroke category that we have is fast mana. And so in these rule seven decks, we don't even play soul rings because, soul ring is a crazy card. I don't think people realize just how insane soul ring actually is because it's so ubiquitous because it's placed into all of the commander pre cons. It's a really powerful card. And if you see this played in vintage, it is off the rails and people don't realize just how much getting two mana for one man actually is that sticks around. And so that then applies to things like the mana crypts of the world, the jeweled lotuses, even lands like ancient tomb. And so when we can accelerate beyond what we should be able to, I think it creates this lack of parody. And so player one that has a crazy start, say. Basic island into a soul ring into an arcane signet when it comes back to them on turn two, they're starting the term with four mana. That's crazy. So any other comments on fast mana that you want to throw out there

Shawn: 29:47

I Think that the only comment I have is that this rule seven kind of stipulation We've set does make it so that My Zuladok deck does not really function where it should, but I think that's more a flaw of the Zuladok or Eldrazi deck build than it is of our ban list. Because in my personal opinion, I've found in playing that deck, I either win with a horrific board state very early, Or I do nothing and neither one is really that fun unless you're just having a maniacal time Annihilating things which I have been known to do But it's not fun for anybody else. That's for sure

Taylor: 30:27

I think that's a bit of a comment on some of the commander design in recent history too, right? And we mentioned some of this with really egregious commanders like voja, Cosmo, so on and so forth. If we have this spectrum where it's so lopsided, either it works really well, or it doesn't work out at all. I think that's an issue with card design from R and D not necessarily the intended power or the pilots intended power of the deck, because I know you love your big spaghetti monsters and getting to play them as a lot of fun, but yeah, facing down crazy 10, 10 on turn three. We're for, I mean, I've seen some really insane potentials with that deck and that's not on you. I think that's on the card design itself. It's hard to play Eldrazi in a kind of a fair way. And that's, again, I don't think that's on anybody that wants to play their spaghetti monsters, do it, do it, have fun. But if I'm sitting down to play my. Theme Nadar deck against that. It's just really unbalanced and it's not going to be fun for me as a player and that's challenging. So rule seven helps to limit that. So then the dark can actually stand a chance. The next big kind of broad general strokes area that we have are a lot of stacks effects and. We kind of lumped these together on our, we've got a Google doc and we'll share this with people that want to see it and maybe it can help inform you for your band lists, but we say that. Some really serious stacks effects go against the spirit of the game and what this multiplayer experience is supposed to do when we say stacks effects. We mean the really strong ones like stasis and winter orb and some pillow fork cards, because it can be a bit of a challenge to win at this. Level beyond just combat damage. So talk to us about some of these tax cards, Sean.

Shawn: 32:17

Yeah, I think that I mean there's not too too much to say I think most people are kind of they hear the word stacks and they have shivers that run through them unless they're sadistic like I am sometimes um You But even me after building a captain sissy stacks deck I immediately took it apart despite taking like over a year to build it because I wanted to get a lot of cool Cards like a thorn of amethyst and stuff in it that cost a little bit of money But after I played it The whole table didn't have fun. I was playing in a pot of five and then by turn four or five I had shut down everyone They all take turns look at cards in their hands realize they can't play them And, uh, then pass. And I was just struggling to win fast enough, which is why Elish Norn was helpful in that deck, but it was, not a great experience overall. And I was kind of left wondering why did I even build this? So with rule seven, I think we tried to just prevent that experience from happening. And some of the Staxi effects that we've had on our list, I think are something we're willing to debate. One of our players, Carl often plays the sort of combat stacks effects that are sort of like, you cannot attack me literally at all. Sometimes if he's playing his Umbress deck, but, things like ghostly prison propaganda, if those things start to accrue over time, yes, you can remove one or two, but if you're running 10 in a deck, it can feel like now my combat base deck literally cannot do anything against this player. And that's pretty tough

Taylor: 33:52

I think that kind of to the, the point of our ban on tutors, getting past something like a pillow fort strategy is really difficult to do. If you're not running a combo. And so if I don't have a way to win outside of the combat step, one of the most common ways to do that is through combo. And so I think that that, again, when we have to walk this fine line of what do we ban, what do we not ban they say something like coalition victory, which at first I thought, yeah, that should be unbanned, but then I started thinking about it and I realized no with triumphs out there with. The different shock lands out there. Coalition victory says, if you control a permanent of each color and a land type of each basic land type, you win the game. And at first I think to myself, yeah, for an eight mana spell, that should be totally fine. But you can cast that. Very early, you can win the game for just having a five color commander, which is even more doable now. And so we have to kind of watch out for some of these play patterns and what they would either propose or prohibit. And, and so it's really challenging. So. As much as I think that we should allow for some, some safety, right? I think that we could probably take off of this list, propaganda and ghostly prison, but I think a card like web of inertia, which sees really great effect. You can't really interact with that on the same axis, right? Because with ghostly prison, sure, I can save up two minutes in my biggest boy that way. But with something like web of inertia, which is the same cost as propaganda two in a blue, it says that I have to exile a card from my graveyard. And I can't always do that, but I can oftentimes plan on paying two mana to get a creature through. And so Again, just spit balling here, but I think that's an adjustment that we could make and why I would see it being okay for one and not the other.

Shawn: 35:45

This conversation exemplifies for the listeners, it's always a give and take a sort of discussion that you need to have on the fly. As far as like, is this enough? Is this too much? We can scale back. The idea of a living document is that you can change it. And so I'd be more than happy to try that change out. to see what happens. But I do agree with something like web of inertia and the deck we're talking about, particularly that deck also runs things like lay line of the void. So the idea that you're going to have any cards to exile doesn't exist because the deck is also built around exiling every card that exists. So you're just not going to have the fuel to get through it. And that can feel pretty difficult if you don't have a combo win of some kind.

Taylor: 36:28

Yeah. And mentioning Ley Line of the Void takes us to, I think our next big kind of group of cards that we've banned. And some of these are just broad strokes. They're banned. And these are the. Non zero CMC spells that can be cast for free. And so Leyline of the Void, all of the ley lines, if you have them in your opening hand, you can reveal them. You can put them onto the battlefield for free without paying their mana costs. And some of them are fine. And they're not necessarily egregious. Uh, I think Leyline of Sanctity says you have hex proof, which I don't. Is fine. I mean, is it a bit of a pain? Maybe, but oftentimes you can get rid of the enchantments or there aren't that many spells that we're playing and commander that target one player in particular, they oftentimes say each opponent. And so that gets past that. When we combine things like Leyland of the void with the web of inertia that creates this scenario for our listeners, we're going to say this. And we're talking about this band list in the context of our own play group and our own meta. Take all of this with a grain of salt. You need to have this conversation with your play group, or maybe your local shop has a discord and you all can start this conversation there. But I do think it's important to recognize that we have this band list for the context of our play group specifically, but maybe you can take some of this and apply them to your own now, Sean, I know that you're not the biggest fan of the free commander cards from a Korea. But even some of the things like you mentioned in modern, that's turned it into a turn to turn three format with the modern horizons, two incarnations, what are your thoughts on these free spells?

Shawn: 38:00

I Think we can reference Zooladoc that we just talked about Why is Zooladoc so powerful because it says cascade cascade? So you're getting so much free value off the top of the deck that it snowballs and in that spirit I think the command zone and also what we're trying to do with our own ban list came to the conclusion that if a player is able to interact for free and It does bump their decks power level up a lot because no longer is the built in tension of magic in existence Which is mana Every time that wizards has made a card That is free. It has led to a ban I'm pretty certain of that in whatever format it's been in whether it was Eldrazi winter Or, or like reducing mana cost, maybe not necessarily free, but in, in modern, actually, they banned, one of the incarnations cause they probably should have banned both, but that are problematic. At least it just always leads to problems. So for our own rule seven decks, the idea that somebody has tapped out should have a tension that is inherent in it. Like, should I tap out now or should I leave up mana to protect myself? Not have both my cake and eat it too

Taylor: 39:13

Yeah. I think that one of the cards that I. Was thinking about when we were looking at their show notes for this episode in potentially unbanning was biorhythm and biorhythms are really expensive sorcery, but it can literally do hundreds of points of life total swings in one turn. And if you tap out, you don't always expect that to happen. And so it creates this weird, like you said, tension. But if somebody has a counter spell for that and they get to do it for free, that really does. Change the dynamic of the game overall, I think, because we, as magic players are looking at this board state and part of the game design is that it's twofold, right? I think of magic as a combination of poker and chess, I think poker, you've got hidden information that you're working with, but you're also trying to bluff, but you've also got certain cards that are common knowledge for everyone. And then chess, it's a strategy game. And you're able to look at the board state and say, okay, I'm in an advantageous or a disadvantageous position. And then when you look at this and you think that you're in an advantageous position, and then they can just do something for free and they're breaking the rules of the game, it creates this really feel bad moment of, Oh, I should. Not have had that happen to me because it's like we're playing chess and somebody breaks out their sledgehammer. Oh, surprise. I got to hit your King anyways. And it shouldn't happen that way because like you said, I think it's inherently against the design of the game. Sure. They're fun and they're really powerful, but I don't think that they're in the right place in a casual seven setting

Shawn: 40:50

For sure and I was just trying to look up the new free counterspell from modern horizons 3

Taylor: 40:55

flair of something

Shawn: 40:57

denial maybe

Taylor: 40:58

flair of denial. Yeah.

Shawn: 40:59

Yeah, I was just looking it up because I was thinking to myself. Well, what? Now, how many free counter spells do we have? So if somebody were to tap out for a bio rhythm ask effect or a torment of hail fire and they totally tapped out, well, you're looking at like fighting against pact of negation, force of negation, flare of denial, force of will. Like this person could have accrued a number of counter spells in their hand that costs nothing to try and get that through. And I think the rule seven banlist eliminating those free cards just makes the games in one. But also it like prevents the lack of interactivity, I guess it's a weird line. I know people are going to say, well, like force of will is a interactive spell. Yes, but it's like a preventative interactive spell. I don't know. I don't know where I'm going with this.

Taylor: 41:48

Well, I think that part of what we want to see in commander are these big splashy plays, right? And so if you've been holding on to that torment of hail fire since turn one, like it was in your opening hand and you've been building this board state to get to this point where you can cast it and end the game and in a really flashy fashion, if somebody just says, Nope, just kidding. You don't get to do that because I had this free spell. That's really tough on the flip side of that. I think it's entirely okay to hold up to red mana and play a reverberate and just copy it and do it first, because again, it might be unexpected, but it's not always unaccounted for. You can see that that red player has mana open and shirt. You might not have this encyclopedic knowledge of the card pool for this game, but you at least know that something could potentially happen because there's mana open. And available to that player versus when somebody is completely tapped out and they just toss two cards, a force of will and something else and pay a life to counter that. Torments of hail fire. That's a real feel bad, especially if you say maybe play something like an astronaut's altar and you had to sacrifice your board to get that X up really high thinking, yes, I'm going to sacrifice my board, but in so doing I'm going to end the game. We're going to shuffle up and play another one. They just force of will that. And now you've got no board state. Oh, talk about a feel bad.

Shawn: 43:09

Yeah, I think the baseline comes to seeing the mana untapped. I think that's kind of where it falls. If you see mana untapped, you know to expect something. For instance, even for one mana, like a bolt bend or something like that, that we highly recommend. Versus deflecting swat, which you don't need any mana untapped. So it doesn't signal to the table that that player may have some interaction. And I think if you're trying to build a seven. It doesn't have the power to interact for free and You just know that going in So that the expectation is set if they have even the littlest amount of mana They will try to interact with me with maybe a swan song or something like that But if I can get them to expend all of that mana Like as a player by like I'm gonna give you some bait to try and counter with your little hidden gym there Then If it goes tapped out, I should be good to go. And I think that adds to the strategy element of you trying to push your combo through. It's like I had known information. If I can get through that hurdle, then I deserve to go off because I've, I've built up a hand to do so.

Taylor: 44:13

We've got two more kind of categories to talk about here for our band lists. One of them are the tutors and I know you mentioned this earlier, but tutors that search for. These are things like demonic tutor and tomb that just say, search for a card and put it somewhere. That's pretty broken. And I think that it creates some, again, hidden information that isn't necessarily in the spirit of the rule seven. So talk to us about some of those tutors, Sean.

Shawn: 44:42

Absolutely. So again, grain of salt, everybody do as you will with your own group. But for us, the idea. was the difference between a tutor of what is unknown versus what is known creates a level of interaction that we want to promote with a rule seven deck. So for instance, demonic tutor, two mana, one in a black, I can go get any card in my deck. I don't have to tell you what it is, but with like an enlightened tutor, one mana instance speed, I have to reveal the card to you and then put it on top of my deck. And by revealing the card, I think that's totally fine in a rule seven deck because you're giving people information with which to interact. Whereas with demonic tutor, you could just combo off and the same term that you come, you tutor for it. And then nobody really knows what to expect. But I like the tension that's created of like, look what they just put on top of their deck. Right? All the other three players get to be shields up. And I think in a newer group in particular, or people that are newer to the game of EDH, we've been playing for a long time. Like we have an, a large knowledge of like what could be happening. But you get somebody who's like a year in, they see somebody demonic tutor. They have no clue what this person could be doing. We can maybe look at the commander and then kind of see like, Oh, I know where this is going. I have familiarity with these combos, but I think for rule seven, it's better to have it known information how you're trying to win. I think it just creates a better, more friendly environment.

Taylor: 46:19

It dovetails really well with, The idea of the free spells, right? Part of what makes, I think a rule seven table work really well as having this clear exchange of knowledge. And in this case, if it's hidden, then it's not a clear exchange because part of what we have to do at the table is create the social environment. That's what the rules committee argues for. It's one of the main tenants that they want to have a social environment. And if we just have a demonic tutor, how am I supposed to know? Or how are we supposed to know as a table that you actually just demonic tutored for the land you need to make that land drop for turn three. You might've done that. I have done that before, but you also could have gone to go and get. A combo piece and you're going to win on turn three. That's never a feel good. And so I think in exchange, you mentioned enlightened tutor. Okay. I'm going to go get an artifact or an enchantment and put it on top. Everyone's going to know what that is. And they're going to, like you said, stay shields up halfway to interact with it, because maybe they are just going to get an artifact. That's going to help them ramp up. They're in a mono white deck and they want to have a worn power stone. Have I ever enlightened tutor for a worn power stone? Never will I know, but maybe that's the play pattern they're looking for. Maybe they're. Going to go get their walking ballista Heliod combo, but now the table knows that that's a possibility. So that's for the tutors. We have this exchange of knowledge. I think that's a really great thing to think about for your rule. Seven tables is that at this table, we should be able to compete and play together with the same level of knowledge as the rest of the table. Okay. This last section I think is a really interesting one because it works with one of your new commanders. I think you really enjoy this deck. I think it's a really cool deck, but it's fetch lands. We've had this conversation about fetch lands and how you mentioned earlier, how they increase shuffle time, but some decks need them. So this is an ongoing conversation that we're having around fetch lands at this very moment. What we're talking about are the. Onslaught and Zendikar fetchlands. So these fetch for a card that has one of those land types. So a scalding tarn can go and get a mountain or an island, and that can be a shock. It can be a basic, it could be a triome. There are a lot of things here, but talk to us about these fetchlands, Sean, why we banned them and why you have an argument to unban them.

Shawn: 48:45

Fair enough. And I am torn on this. So briefly, I think we can all imagine what a Jodah, the unifier deck can do if Jodah is allowed to come out on say turn three or four. And I think that is the height of like your danger zone as far as why these fetch lands should be, or should remain on a rule seven ban list. Cause I've had Carl straight up tell me like this deck is too powerful. I just can't even, I can't even compete on the axis it is competing on because it runs almost all the triomes and shocks and it has a perfect mana base for a deck that used to have restrictions. So five color decks used to be really hard to build. You were taking a risk building Progenitus because there was no certainty you were ever going to be able to play a lot of your five color cards. That no longer exists in the world of triomes and fetches. Two, I think that time restrictions, you're playing every fetch in your deck. You can play off color fetches, which I think is a flavor fail personally, but you can do what you need to do. I won't judge you too hard, but that adds a lot of time. My argument against it is that this really kills landfall decks yuma proud protector is a deck that I do enjoy but it's eight mana And it costs less if you have lands in the graveyard So if i'm stuck to teramorphic expanses in a desert deck that requires me to run like a bunch of bad lands already I may be able to get him out by like turn six or seven Maybe if i'm lucky fetches help me get him out early and start doing what the decks wants to do So I feel bad and handicapping landfall decks in particular as much as that strategy, I think at its top end is a little annoying. Like scutes warming it up for 400 little insects is a, come on, we've got some things to do here. And plus my computer can't handle it on MTG arena. So it just shuts down if somebody tries to do that against me, which is funny in its own right. Yeah, I don't like the idea of shutting down landfall decks completely. So I'm curious if we could change it to just off color fetches, our band, just to see how that would work for us.

Taylor: 50:51

Yeah. So just to clarify for an off color fetch for Yuma, it's a Naya deck. That means it has green, red, and white. I could technically play a scalding tarn in that deck because it has a red in it. Now it also has blue in it and that's not one of the colors in Yuma's color identity. And so it would be considered an off color fetch. I think that in the most competitive of decks, we need things like that. In my first iteration of. Octavia, which is a mono blue commander. I ran all the fetches I could because I wanted to be able to grab mystic sanctuary, which is an Island. And that's a really cool play pattern, I think, but it adds to that time. Like having to shuffle it adds an extra step to the game that doesn't necessarily have to be there. So I'm with you. I think that we can maybe adjust this. I'm still a little tentative because I don't know. I worry to see what some landfall decks could do, because some of them could be kind of egregious. Like you said, uh, It just, it just happens and there's not much you can do about it. Gary, who has played with us a few times, he has a Simic deck and I've seen it in one turn, play an Avenger of Zendikar and then put six plus one plus one counters on. All the plants that the Avenger of Zendikar made, and that's without running any of the fetches. So it can still be really powerful by playing things like an exploration and Azusa lost, but seeking, and also playing the basic things like teramorphic and evolving wilds. Those. Interactions and setups can do some really crazy things. And so I'm a little cautious, but I also really like your Yuma deck and I'd love to see it flourish in this setting.

Shawn: 52:32

And I think that leads us kind of to our final thoughts about this whole topic perfectly. I am a okay running Yuma as a non seven deck. My final thoughts about your own band list that you might want to introduce to your own group. Or the ban list in general is that it's good to have a variety of decks Like I also like to have some kind of pre con ish build or some really powerful build and This rule seven for us as a play group is just another way to have a thematic restriction We have a rule seven or deck or two in our bags Just in case we want to play that kind of game But we also should probably have a pre con deck that runs a soul ring which would be out of our rule seven list or a powerful level eight or level nine deck if we have cedh players who kind of stop in and might want to test the limits of what is possible in the game of commander. I think it's good to have a variety and not have just a ban list across the board.

Taylor: 53:33

My final thought kind of plays into that in a slightly different angle I think that one of the best pieces of advice that I ever received when it came to playing magic is just because you have the card doesn't mean you have to play the card. This can happen in two ways. Number one, you don't have to include it in the deck you're building. But number two, you don't actually have to play it. Even if you drew it, you can practice some self constraint. In a game last night for FNM, I was playing my new peripherals deck. It's a retooled version of my dreaded deck. You might be happy to know that I'm not playing micro synth lattice and dark seal forge anymore, but I had a course of recruiter, which is a zealous conscript style effect on ETB. I can gain control of target creature. Untap it, give it haste, that kind of effect. And I had a kiki jiki in my hand. Now I could have won that game many turns in a row just by playing the kiki jiki, tapping and making a copy of the course of recruiter, untapping the kiki jiki and popping off that way. Sean, I sat with that in my hand for no less than four turns. But nobody else at the table was ready for that game to be over with yet. I didn't have to play that. I ended up losing that game, but I still had a lot of fun because I was playing against a mill deck and I was playing a goblin welder and I love goblin welder. I think it's one of my favorite creatures. And so. At one point I was able to weld in some really cool creatures and I wouldn't have been able to do that had I just cast that kiki chiki and won the game. That's not fun. So two things here. Number one, I think you can sit down and play with a really high power level deck at a table with pre cons. If you're willing to have some self control. So that's my call to action for our listeners is practice that self control. I know you want to win. I know you want to do these really cool, crazy combos, but is that for the good of the table? And can you find fun in other aspects of the game? I really enjoyed meeting a new person last night. And if their first impression of me had been playing that kiki jiki, I don't think I would ever get to sit down and play with them again. So keep that in mind. That's my final thought. Just because you have the card doesn't mean you have to play the card.

Shawn: 55:40

Sounds excellent. I think we can kind of wrap this one up in a bow. Listeners, tell us your experiences with this topic. It's a tough one. What do you feel about the CRC? Share in the comments or email to us or on Twitter slash X.

Taylor: 55:56

Next week, we're talking about your D and D cube. I'm really stoked to see what you have to say. I've been back on the cube kick for a while now. If you regularly listen to us on YouTube, you can check out our podcast on any of your streaming services. It comes out a day before the YouTube video does feel free to email us your thoughts, questions, comments, and concerns at rule zero podcast at gmail. com. That's the number zero. If you'd like for us to highlight one of your decks and one of our deck tech episodes, we'd love to just reach out to us and don't forget.

Shawn: 56:26

In magic, there's no problem that a rule zero conversation cannot solve.