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Magic: The Gathering Upkeep
Magic: The Gathering (MTG) created by Richard Garfield (The first modern Trading Card Game (TCG)).
Similar to Pokémon Magic is a card game where you the player uses monsters to defeat an opponent, but unlike Pokémon, MTG was designed to be played with 2 or more players. -
Standard Format Ruleset
60 total cards in a deck
20 starting health points
max of four on the same named card in a deck (Except basic lands)
starting hand size is seven: if you have more than seven cards in hand by the end-step discard down to 7
GAME PHAES
1.untap
2.upkeep
3.draw
4.main phase
5.2nd main phase
6.end step
7.CARD TYPES
8.Lands and Basic Lands
MAIN SPELLS:
1.Creature
2.Sorcery
3.Instants
4.Enchantment
5.Artifact
6. Plainswalkers -
Adam Staley: Building a Legacy
The founders of the commander format or back the day it was referred to as "Highlander" and the ruleset then was a lot different from how it is today.
Starting Health Points (HP): 100HP compared to 20HP in standard
Normally two players
KEY RULE: no cards in a deck can share the same name except basic land (card type) -
Elder Dragons
On this date MTG released the "Legends expansion set" which was the third expansion pack that was released, but the significant of the expansion was the five Elder Dragons that dropped from that. Those dragons being Arcades Sabboth, Chromium Rhuell, Nicol Bolas, Vaevictis Asmadi, and Palladia-Mors -
Adam Staley: The 1st Main Phase
Two Years after the Third expansion pack, Adam Staley build a Highlander deck with one of the Elder Dragon's. Nicol Bolas as his Commander Adam renamed the format he created and from there Elder Dragon Highlander was born. -
Adam Staley: The 2nd Main Phase
A few years later by the time MTG had time to build a large community of standard and EDH players, the competitive scene had a chance to build like The Pro Tour. The Pro Tour is an official competitive tournament hosted by "Wizards of the Coast"
IMPORTANT: they only hosted Standard Tournaments In these tournaments people still played EDH but it was more of a casual thing played in downtime -
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In The Command Zone
In 2004, Sheldon Menery, one of the Pro Tour judges wrote an article about EDH which is sent to SCG (Sportscard Guaranty Corporation) 2005, Scott Larabee (someone who worked at WOTC) was introduced to EDH by the Pro Tour judges. Scott loved the idea and would proceed to support the format for the next 6 years -
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In The Command Zone: Godfather of Commander/A1
Written in "Star City Games: The Genesis" Sheldon talks about how for 6 years Sheldon Menery begin to forefront the development the format. He became very interactive with the voices in the community without taking away from them spirit of the game and deciding on what cards should be banned. Sheldon because the first main voice of the Commander community, giving him the nickname Godfather of Commander. -
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In The Command Zone: The EDH Wizard
Scott Larabee the "Senior Operations Manager" at WOTC had spent years working with members of the community, people like Sheldon Menery and other to build up to what players now consider "The Commander Rules Committee" one of the three major group that are in charge of the Commander format -
Commander Format Ruleset
99 total cards in a deck
40 (21 commander damage) starting health points
max of four on the same named card in a deck (Except basic lands)
starting hand size is seven: if you have more than seven cards in hand by the end-step discard down to 7
GAME PHAES
1.untap
2.upkeep
3.draw
4.main phase
5.2nd main phase
6.end step
7.CARD TYPES
8.Lands and Basic Lands
MAIN SPELLS:
1.Creature
2.Sorcery
3.Instants
4.Enchantment
5.Artifact
6. Plainswalkers -
First Commanders
Magic: The Gathering, Created the First set of Commander pre-cons (pre-constructed decks).
The first set of Commanders were:
1. Kaalia of the Vast: Heavenly Inferno
2. Riku f Two Reflections: Mirror Mastery
3. Ghave, Guru of Spores: Counterpunch
4. Zedruu the Greatherted: Political Puppets
5.The Mineoplasm: Devour for Power -
Commanders on the battlefield
MTG had by this point already made pre-cons for standard, but the introduction of a commander pre-cons caused a major change in a deck building. Before the original idea is to gather cards to fit a central theme, but a commander gave people a sense of constancy on how to play about the goal of the deck and allow of higher-level strategy on how to play about a player's central theme -
The Three Pod
WOTC to make Commander brought a question of how to maintain the format, so WOTC and the notable faces in the community came together to create the three main groups of power:
The MTG Commander Advisory Group (high respected members of the Commander space like; content creator and one day player) The Commander Rules Committee (group of people who worked close with Scott Larabee to help officiate the format) Wizards of the Coast management of the Commander format (the company) -
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Subject: Parker Slough
In an interview with current president of "Magic: The Gathering UTK" Parker S, he shares his personal experience with MTG and how it has changed. Originally starting out playing Standard, he moved to EDH as he viewed as more fun, because how commander saw a change in deck building. Specifically, the deck's win-con and it didn't have the same pricing issues that Standard has.
His response to the bans was that he felt there was a better way to go about it -
Sol Ring: Community Value/A2 1/2
Sol ring is THE most played card in MTG so you would think that it would be worth more than something like Mana Crypt, but sol ring is worth $1. Part of the reason sol ring is at such a low price is due to the many reprints and the fact it is available in every format. This balanced out the price of sol ring because WOTC realized how valued it is to the community for it to be accessible. -
Ban list/A3
Mana Crypt is where the main point of controversy was. MC was a card famous for in cEDH and was marketed around $170 on the official TCGplayer before the time of the bans, and on the time of the ban the price dropped dramatically, at one point the market value dropped down to $0.50 at 8:00pm that day (I watched drop live) -
BANNED CARDS: Nadu
Nadu, Winged Wisdom is banned. (Everyone was happy) -
BANNED CARDS: Jeweled Lotus
Jeweled Lotus is banned. (50/50) -
BANNED CARDS: Dockside Extortionist
Dockside Extortionist is banned. (Majority positive) -
BANNED CARDS: Mana Crypt
Mana Crypt is banned. (People need to calm down) -
The Bans: The Effects
The outrage caused some members of the community to goes too far. Members of "The Commander Rules Committee" were sent death threats and doxing threat in response to the ban of Mana Crypt. big issues came from this- The Commander Rules Committee disbanded out of fear for themself and their family 2.WOTC have taken over completely the format and are reworking the whole ban list now
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The Bans: Community Responses
the community response to the commander bans was very negative, as bans in any game can help/hurt players. all the bans had some mixed opinions, but the outrage from the ban of Mana Crypt was something no one was prepared for. Mana Crypt played the same role that a card like Sol Ring,
1. If you banned Mana Crypt, why wasn't Sol Ring Banned
2. almost $200 dollar card that is only legal to play in commander is worthless now
these were the main counterpoints of some player to the bans