Two more: Banned List.

(I'm not pushing for this, in case that wasn't obvious. Just saying would absolutely happen if they did make this change).

Another rule changes: No Commander damage


I hope it is something they allow in Commander.


I don't really see a problem here. There are currently 30 planeswalkers that could be Commanders in decks with Doubling Season and the scariest are Tamiyo, Field Researcher and Sarkhan Unbroken. In both cases you are spending two cards (one of which is your commander) and 9 or 10 mana to theoretically win the game on your turn (although Tamiyo doesn't win the game without additional cards on her side). I'm pretty sure that people could come up with a long list of other two-card combos that work with a Commander that cost a total of 10 or less mana.


I doubt they will do anything about it. Those cards just won't be played as Commanders because of a lack of available lands, Although there are currently around 20 non-basic lands that don't have coloured mana symbols in them, so maybe that's enough for a skimpy deck.

18. 19 with the one spoiled so far for Dominaria. That's not enough for a 60 card deck. But if they're going to push this format, they can't intentionally gimp one (or two) decks like that.

1 - how is that intentional, it's just a product of the rules, like haakon being uncastable from the command zone.
2 - more colorless lands probably will be printed. 19 is already pretty reasonable. A couple more and you'e basically at normal levels.
3 - you can play with 18 lands if you really want to, it's not THAT bad. Some decks run 12 or 14 in legacy I'm pretty sure. Having fewer lands would be FAR from the worst thing about playing a colorless singleton standard deck.
4 - I'm pretty sure you're the only person in the universe who cares about this.

I think this format could be fun. I like the idea of going balls-to-the-wall competitive without that resulting in boring games that always end with the same combo or whatever. Whether it has sticking power remains to be seen.

people keep assuming this, but doubling season isn't a colorless card, it can't actually go in every deck, and half the decks it could go in have no reliable way to tutor for it because they don't have access to W/U/B. The only card that makes doubling season any more powerful than it already is would be bant tamiyo, and she's not any more degenerate than the rest of the ubiquitous combo cards still legal in edh

On the topic of Sideboards (and by extension, wishboards):

https://twitter.com/GavinVerhey/status/ ... 8230398976

"Brawl does not use sideboards, so Mastermind's Acquisition will end up playing out just like you have found in Commander. Smile #wotcstaff"

On the topic of lack of colorless lands:

https://twitter.com/GavinVerhey/status/ ... 7335322624

Wastes are not legal - though you can almost get there with colorless lands. (There are 17 before Dominaria, I believe.) #wotcstaff

I think they could do something... but eh... they choose not to.

Question: Is there merit in allowing Brawl-legal planeswalker commanders as commanders in Commander proper?

Nothing about Brawl has changed the reasons we don't think mass Planeswalker Commanders are a good idea. It's kind of necessary to ensure there's sufficient Commanders available for Brawl, but that's not a problem for us.

Does the RC have any comment on a format created from/inspired by* their format that WotC is administrating?

*not gonna say ripped off, but if the shoe fits....

Seems odd that Wizards would "invent" a format that is "Standard Commander" and not hand it off to you guys to look after.

I wouldn't call for all planeswalker cards to be legal commanders, but what about just the ones that are/were legal in Brawl's history? It would make for a smoother transition from Brawl to Commander proper.

I’m surprized that this brawl format didn’t go with the frontier cutoff. (Everything from khans forward, aka the new modern border)

if it had at least encompassed the last two standard seasons, I might have actually bothered to try it, but standard only with standard being in such a terrible state right now, why bother?

I don't think the state of the current standard is going to have much to do with the state of Brawl, they are going to be very different formats. The similarities will be the heavy feature of mechanics and themes from the sets that are legal in both.

I think the benefit of being Standard, at least for WotC, is a format that is like Commander, but still regularly rotates and that ensures players will continue to buy new cards. Regular Commander decks are like Legacy decks where existing decks only get a couple of cards, at most, from any new set that is released. The only time that changes in when a new set comes out that creates an entirely new Commander deck, but even then that's generally just a single legendary creature and a handful of cards from the same set that work with it and then a ton of legacy and modern legal cards.

With Brawl, you are basically guaranteed that each new set is going to change every deck in the format, that makes Brawl players excited by each new release.

Any eternal format is going to have the same problem. Power levels can only ever rise, and each new set either has to power creep and/or only have a few cards from it be relevant to the format. Sure, frontier is pretty wide-open now, but give it 10 years.

People hate rotation but it's actually a brilliant, even necessary, idea for constructed formats. The main thing saving commander from being incredibly stagnant is that, as a casual format, people can play with weaker, newer cards without getting steamrolled by whatever the existing best deck is.