Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #713: Head-to-Head – Commander, Part 2

Episode Date: February 14, 2020

This podcast is part two of a two-part series on a Head-to-Head I did on Twitter about possible changes to the Commander format.

I'm pulling on my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so back in December, I did a head-to-head where I took 16 possible changes, or 15 I guess technically, to Commander, and I let people vote on them. And then I am doing two podcasts, this is the second one, in which I'm talking about those changes from the vantage point of a game designer. So let me start with my caveats before I begin. So first off, I am looking at these, A, from a game design standpoint. I do not, Wizards does not oversee the rules for Commander. There's a whole separate group. The people that made Commander oversee Commander.

We do not oversee Commander. So nothing I'm saying today has no actual bearing on anything. I'm not changing anything. I don't have the power to change anything. I'm just trying to look at Commander through the vantage point of somebody who designs games, as a game designer. One of the things that's important to understand is it is my job

to understand all the different ways to play Magic. I talk all the time about how Magic is not one format, but many formats. And so it's my job to understand all those formats. I don't play all the formats. There's way too many formats to play. Most of my play the vast majority of my play for my job tends to be more limited, more sealed and draft because I tend to play

with cards before they're balanced because we haven't got to the play design part yet. But anyway, I do a lot of time and energy paying attention to things, listening to people. And so a lot of what I'm trying to say here is taking into account what people have, what a lot of my notes are as a game designer, sort of observing what people are saying and then acting accordingly within certain principles, which I'll talk about. Okay, so the first one we're going to talk about today is wish boards. Okay, so wishes are a game mechanic that we first made in Judgment, and it's shown up a couple different times.

So wishes allow you to go outside the game and get any card you want within a certain constraint. The wish lets you wish for a certain kind of card, usually. So the original idea of wishes, back when they were first made in Judgment, was they were made as a casual thing where you could go get anything. It's kind of tutor your collection and go get something. Once again, there's parameters of what you can get. But the idea is, go get whatever you want.

In tournament play, it ended up being changed over so you could go to your sideboard. So the idea is you could wish for any card that's in your sideboard. The rules later changed, uh, and added in exile. So now, not only can you go get cards from your sideboard in tournament, not just tournament play, in all play, um, you can also get things that have been exiled, because those are now considered not in the game. So in Commander, there is no outside the game. The Commander rules don't let you sort of go get something from outside the game and bring it in. And there is no sideboard in Commander, so right now the wishes kind

of don't work. You can't use a wish. I mean, I guess technically, technically maybe if something's been exiled, you can use a wish to get it back, maybe, because wishes let you get stuff from exile. But mostly, there's not a lot of reason to play wishes. And so what a wish board is, is the idea that you have some number of cards kind of like a sideboard, but the only purpose of this sideboard is so that you can wish out in it. Now, in my suggestions, I didn't really talk detail. So like, how big a wish board would be can vary. I've heard wish boards as small as like three cards. I've heard them as big as 15 cards. I've heard wish boards as small as like three cards I've heard them as big as 15 cards

the idea essentially being here's a way to make use of wish cards in your format okay my take on it as somebody who likes people being able to play their cards I definitely am sympathetic to doing

things that allow people to get access to the cards now as I talked about in the last podcast, we were talking about the max deck size, and I talked about Battle Wits. And Battle Wits, you can't use Battle Wits unless you have 250 cards, or it doesn't mean anything unless you have 250 cards. So Battle Wits needs to be in a giant deck. But if you don't allow decks to be above 100, you can't play Battle Wits. And I said, oh, well, hey, you know, we make a lot of cards. It's possible that any one format doesn't allow access to some particular kind of card. And so I recognize that, okay, look, there are things that are going to fall by the wayside. Usually the way I, from a game design standpoint, that I care about is,

how many cards are we talking? Is it one card? Not a big deal. Is it a cycle of cards? Less of a deal. Is it a mechanic? Is it a reoccurring mechanic? Is it a deciduous mechanic? Is it an evergreen mechanic? You know, the more often something gets used, the more that I care. So, for example, last time I talked about hybrid, well, hybrid is a deciduous mechanic we use quite a bit there's a lot of over the years there's a lot of hybrid cards that's a pretty big swath of things you're talking about

where something like battle wits is the opposite and it's a single card I think wishes are not nearly at the end of the spectrum of hybrid we don't make that many wishes but it's also not quite one card it's a mechanic we've come back to numerous times. It is something that we do. My gut is let people have their wish boards. You know, I mean, like I

said, if this was up to me, I think in general, this is a casual format. You want people to have fun, you know, let people have their fun, let people... Oh, the other big thing that I look at when evaluating something is how what I would call opt-in is it. Meaning, the person that wants to do it, how much is it their responsibility to do the thing, and how much of it

is it puts burden on other people. So for example, last time I talked about commander damage, one of the things about commander damage is if you allow commander damage, everybody last time I talked about commander damage, one of the things about commander damage is, if you allow commander damage, everybody now has to care about commander damage. Not, you know, the person who is using the deck that would care, you know, I know some people casually let, make that person track the damage, but since, you know, when you're playing, you want to know how close you are to losing, you do kind of want to track the damage on yourself so you understand where I'm at in the game.

The thing about wishboards is it's pretty opt-in and it doesn't have too much impact on anybody else. Meaning if I choose to play wishes, then I have to have the wishboard. Yeah, I got to tell people at the beginning of the game I have a wishboard. But there's not a lot of upkeep on the other person. Meaning the person who chooses to do the wishes has the burden of doing the wishboards. So I think that is... I care a lot about sort of where the burden is.

The other thing I care about is sort of when you include something, how happy does it make the people that want it and how sad does it make the people that don't want it? I think for people who want wishes, wishboards that says, hey, you can play wishes. I think wishes are fun. The negative side of wishboards, the people that complain about wishboards, usually is a matter of, there's high variance in the game.

You know, normally if I want to get a card, I've got to put it in my deck, and the chance of drawing it, there's 100 cards in my deck, The chance of drawing it is 99, plus the commander. The chance of drawing it is not so great. I think some of the critics of wishports are like, Oh, it lets people get too fine a card. My answer to that is, well, yes, there's a lot of tutors that are banned in commander. Not all the tutors are banned. Like, if you let a tutor in, you let a tutor in.

You know what I'm saying? Wishes are just basically tutors. So, I don't know. I feel like the idea that, you know, oh, these let you get specific cards. Commander allows cards, let you get specific cards. You know, this is a casual format. It's a lot of fun.

People like Wishes. They're very popular. So I lean on the side of, hey, let is a casual format. It's a lot of fun. People like wishes. They're very popular. So I lean on the side of, hey, let people have their fun. Let people play with the thing they want to play with. I don't see the downside to that bad. Like I said, it's opt-in, so the people that don't want to play wishes don't have to play them. There's not a lot of burden to the people that don't want to play them. And the people who choose to play them, it's on them to do the wishboard. So I guess I would say I am pro-wishboard. Okay, next. Change mulligan rules.

Okay, I believe the main rules for Commander is you play the same rules, the same standard mulligan. What we now call the London mulligan. mulligan, what we now call a London mulligan. Now, if your playgroup plays with other mulligans, in general, my belief on mulligans is I care about the following. I care about how serious the format you're playing is, and I care about the game length. Those are the two big things I care about. So, if you're playing a very competitive format,

mulligans are a big deal because how you build your deck will get warped around the rules of the mulligans. Mulligans very much impact how you make your deck when you take mulligans. And you've got to be very careful there because if you give too liberal of mulligans,

it will cause problems in the system because people will take advantage of that fact in how they build of mulligans, it will cause problems in the system because people will take advantage of that fact in how they build and mulligan. In a more casual setting, I'm definitely much more free. I have the attitude of I think casual formats can be a little more free for their mulligans, especially in the support for Commander, if you have a long game time. And the reason for that is most games in a more competitive setting are short. You know, they take 5, 10, 15 minutes.

In Commander, they can take, you know, well over an hour, sometimes multiple hours, depending on your group and how many people are playing. And so, getting bad mana has a much bigger impact on you if you're playing an hour plus than if you're playing an hour plus than if you're playing five minutes. You know, if you have a bad mulligan game in a short, you know, in a format that has quick games,

like, oh, I'll get to the next game pretty fast. If you have bad, you know, bad draws in a longer game that takes a long time, well, then you have the problem that I had to sit through the longer game saying, like, bad mana matters more. So in general, I'm much more willing.

I believe that looser mulligans are more acceptable. I don't know if I say looser. I mean more willing to, you know, minimize the chance of having the bad distribution. I think in competitive, you have to be careful, like I said, because we do things. I mean, I think mulligans are important. I like mulligans in competitive you have to be careful like I said because of abuse things I mean I think mulligans are important I like mulligans in competitive play but I think you have to have

tighter mulligans in competitive play and in casual play you can have looser mulligans so I'm all for if your group I mean if your group just follows the normal

magic mulligans yeah do that but if your group is already willing to have little looser mulligans yeah I'm willing to entertain the idea

of looser mulligans with people who want to do that. Okay, next up was, uh, no change. So I'm not, I mean, this isn't really a change because it's no change. Uh, but one of the things I did in my poll is I let people pick not to change anything. Um, it was interesting that no change did okay, but didn't make it to the finals. I thought that was interesting. But I don't know if we need to discuss no change. Life total change.

Okay, so in Commander you start with 40 life. So the question is, once again, I don't talk parameters. Technically speaking, when you say life total change, it could go up or it could go down. The people that ask for life total change tend not to ask for to go up. It's not like, man, my commander games, they just take a little longer. Can we have 50 life please? Normally what people are asking for is a lower life total. And

the two major ones I've heard is 30 is the most often one I hear. Sometimes it's 35. 30 is the most often one I hear. Sometimes it's 35. So this is my take on the life total change, which is whenever I look at a change, I look at sort of, is it a change I would make now, or is it a change if I had to do it all over again,

I would change it. I talk a lot at Magic about how, like, for example, the instant super type. If I had Magic to start all over again, I would make instant not a card type, but a supertype. And what you now know as instants would merely be instant sorceries. Creatures with flash would be instant creatures, for example. But the reason I don't change it, people are like, oh, why don't you change it now? I was like, well, we have 27 years of inertia, and it's one of those things where the change is problematic, because it would use words

that exist on current magic cards, where those words would mean different things. So, for example, if I say, return target sorcery from your graveyard to your hand, in the future, when instant was a supertype, let's say, what that means is

return any instant or sorcery to your hand. But there'll be cards in the past that say return target sorcery, and what they really mean in the future would be return target non-instant sorcery. And so the problem there is there'll be words on cards that will be printed on the cards that have a function that work under the rules at the moment, but don't match what it means.

So, for example, that's the kind of example where there's inertia into the rule, and changing it would cause a lot of problems. I think my total's kind of like that. From a game design standpoint, I talked about this last time, I think one of the weaknesses, I mean, in general, I think

Commander's a very good format. I'm just looking at strengths and weaknesses. One of the weaknesses of it is it's game-length. It is long, and it just makes it harder to play because, you know, it takes a lot of time to play. If I had to start all over again, once again, I didn't make this format, but if we were remaking it, I would be tempted, I mean, I would do some testing. One of the things that you need to do when making rules changes is actually test and understand the ramifications of them.

But the idea of having a lower life total, like one of the things I know from talking to a lot of people about Commander is aggro strategies are really almost impossible, I mean, not completely impossible, but aggro strategies are really curved, and game time length is long. So one of the things I would entertain if we were starting all over again is, yes, I would entertain a life total change because maybe 30 or 35 would allow, you know, aggro strategies a little more of a foothold. Maybe it would allow, you know, games just to not take quite as long. Now, once again, the reason you would test that is you know, maybe the you would test that is, you know, maybe the secret sauce to Commander is the fact that people have more time to get set up,

and maybe if you change it, that would cause problems. But I will say, looking at the format and seeing how aggro is so weak and how game length is an issue, I would be tempted, if starting over, to look at that. That said, that's the kind of thing I would be tempted, if starting over, to look at that. That said, that's the kind of thing I would not change now. It is too ingrained in the nature of how the format works and how the format plays. I don't think it's something you can change now. So, talking about what I would do is like, well, it is definitely something that I have some sympathy for why people want to change it. Like, I get, I get why the people that want to lower it want to lower it. There is things about

the format that it being larger really plays into. But I think we've passed the window where that's a change we can make within the current constraints. So I would say, yeah, I would change it if we had it to do all over, but no, I would not change it now. Okay, Planeswalker has commanders. Okay, so from a game standpoint, from a design standpoint, one of the great things about commander, I think, is the commanders themselves. The idea that you have a deck, and that deck is built around a character,

is very strong. I've talked about this before. People relate to people. Characters are very powerful. One of the reasons that stories are so powerful is you see people, and it's very easy to invest yourself in other people. And in the game of Magic, we've learned this, that characters are quite powerful.

Having this identity and being somebody that you can connect your deck to, I think is a big plus of the format. One of the secrets of the format, you know, one of the secret sauce of the format is this idea that my deck has identity and that identity is tied to a character is very cool. One of the problems, and this is where this request, this is one of the most popular requests when people ask, I mean, people don't realize that I can't change things. But when people talk to me and request changes, because people request changes of all kinds to me, there's many things I don't control that people ask me about.

So this is nothing new. So one of the things that comes up a lot is the characters that we, from the game standpoint, push the most are the planeswalkers. We are a game about a multiverse, about seeing different planes and the story we want to tell wants to go across planes because we only stay in any one plane for three or four months and we move on. Okay, every once in a while we stay for more than one step, but we often go to new worlds

and the flux of worlds is a big part of what the game is about. And you, the players, are flux of worlds is a big part of what the game is about. And you, the players, are planeswalkers, and the characters that sort of embody what the ethos of the game is, is the planeswalkers. You know, the idea of we can explore various worlds and that shapes our worldview, you know, is the planeswalker. So from an IP standpoint, we really, the planeswalkers are our major characters. There is sadness that here's a format that's the major, you know, one of the major ways to play Magic,

for sure the biggest casual way to play Magic, it's character-centric. It's all about characters. And the characters that we make players care the most about, because they're the most central to what we do, most of them can't be played as commanders. Yes, we made occasionally we make the double-faced cards that go from creature, you know, they spark into the Planeswalker.

Those you can play as commanders. Twice we've made commander decks where we made commanders that can be your commander. But in general, there's a lot of very popular Planeswalkers that just can't be commanders. And so, being that it's a casual format and being it something where I want as much as possible to let people dip

into what's exciting for them, I do want people to revel in the characters and have fun with the characters. So, it does sadden me that people can't... I mean, notice when we made Brawl, we let you do it in Brawl. I mean, part of that was there was less choice of characters. But I also, we fundamentally understand

you care about the characters and we want you to care about the characters. And so that is something, like from a game design standpoint of, okay, one of the big selling things of our game is our Planeswalker characters. One of the big selling points of this format is the connectivity to characters.

That is something that, yes, I would I, from a game design standpoint, you want to connect those. Those not connecting is a disconnect from a structural standpoint, you know. The fact that, you fact that the most popular format that revolves around characters

doesn't let you use all the characters that we've really got you to fall in love with through the game. Now, the negative of it, I have heard from a bunch of players, I've heard both sides, and that it is true that planeswalkers that aren't designed

to be played as commanders are not ideal. I get that the gameplay is not... You know, it is... They don't tend to make the best commanders. But part of my saying of this is look, let people who want to do it do it. I don't think a lot of people will do it

because there are better choices from a gameplay standpoint. But if someone really identifies with the character and really cares about the character, you know, I do want to give opportunity for those people. One second. Sorry. Safety first. Sorry.

Make sure I'm not hitting anybody in the car. Okay. I want people to have that opportunity. I mean, if I was in charge, I'm not. I do think that tapping into that is important. I want people to have that opportunity. I mean, if I was in charge, I'm not. I do think that tapping into that is important. I want people to identify with the characters. And I guess you could say to me, from a game design standpoint,

oh, I love Elspeth. I really want to play Elspeth as my commander. I just want to go, okay, play Elspeth as your commander. I understand probably there's a few things you might have to ban, but I do think it just makes happiness. Once again, the thing I look at is how happy does it make the people who

want it, and how sad does it make the people that don't want it. The people that identify with characters, like there's a lot of people, I get a lot of letters and stuff, and like, oh, this is my favorite character, because I really, they embody something that represents something to me, and Elizabeth, for example, I know people really connect with, because when we killed her, I got the letters.

So I really, I get the emotional bonding and the importance of characters have to people. And our planeswalkers really do matter to a lot of players. And so, yeah, I would let people play with their planeswalkers. That would bring a lot of happiness and mean a lot of things to people. There's a little bit of unhappiness. I get they're not optimized as commanders. But I kind of feel like, what's the point of the format?

The point of the format is to let people sort of tap into their more casual side. And I think part of that is identification with the characters. One of the reasons that I think Commander is so powerful is that it does that. Okay, change to partner attacks. So we made a mechanic called Partner in some of the Commander decks, and what Partner says is I can choose two different characters,

two different legendary creatures, that both have Partner, and then I can play them together and they combined are my Commander, that I can have multiple characters. We did this originally because we were trying to find a way to get four color in. Four color commanders are tricky. But anyway,

partner is something that players like. So the way partner works is with commander tax, and that's what we're talking about here, is if I play my commander and then it dies or whatever, and I choose to play it again, I pay what's called a commander tax. I pay two more to play

the same commander again. In the rules for partner, each partner has its own commander tax is the way it works. And so the idea is that when you are playing partner and you

say you're partner A and partner B. If partner A, and you say partner A and partner B, and partner A dies, and now I want to play partner B, I don't have to pay a tax. The first time I play partner B, I don't have to pay a tax. The suggestion here is, and I think I'm behind this one, the idea that the partner tax should apply to both characters, meaning if I play A or B and then it dies, when I go to play my commander again, regardless if it's A or if it's B, I would pay the commander tax.

The reason for that is I think partner is already a mechanic that's kind of pushed a little bit. Meaning it's combinatoric and it's something that definitely can get better as you make more of them. It's a mechanic that we have to be careful with. So I definitely understand the idea of trying to take some opportunities to help keep it in line. I think that the more that we aren't careful with partner,

the more stress it puts on it, the harder it is to make more partner. And so I do think it's a rule that helps balance partner a little bit. It's already a mechanic that's a little bit on the push side from a structural standpoint. Okay. Commander dies triggers.

Okay. So in commander, when your commander leaves the battlefield and goes to another zone, you are allowed to then send it to the command zone. But the way the rules work is, if I have a Commander with a death trigger, means something happens when it dies, I cannot both have the death trigger happen and have it go back to the command zone.

I have to choose if I want the death trigger that's stranded in my graveyard, where I now can't cast it again. So, my problem with this rule and the reason I would change it is I don't think people know it. Like, it's not intuitive. It's not what you think happens. Leaves play effects work. Like, other zone change effects work.

Just for very behind-the-scenes rules reasons, it doesn't work. And I think that's a mistake. I don't think most people know that. And in fact, because most people don't know that, because it's unintuitive, we, in standard illegal sets,

don't put death triggers on legendary creatures. Like, if I design a really cool creature that has a death trigger, I specifically won't make it legendary because it's non-intuitive. People don't understand what happens. Too many players don't make it legendary because it's non-intuitive people don't understand what happens too many players don't play it right and so when we catch that people aren't playing right we have two options

one is we can change the rules so it plays correctly the way people intuit or we can make it so we don't make cards that do that well we don't control the rules on this so the only option available to us is not to make cards that play unintuitively because that's not good we don't want to rules on this, so the only option available to us is not to make cards, you know, that play unintuitively,

because that's not good. We don't want to make things that are unintuitive. So, in commander products, like Gerard does this, we have come up with wording that's kind of mucky wording that we're willing to do in a commander product that's extra words

that if you know it's a commander product, hopefully you understand why the extra words are there. We won't use those words in a standard legal product. So the game designer in me says, behind the scenes, we could fix this. I've talked with Eli. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get that we're scotch taping some stuff behind the scenes

and the rules end of it. But for 99.9%, like for most people, it just doesn't work or doesn't work. We go, yeah, it works, and then they'll be happy, and they'll do what they do. Yeah, the people that understand the rules behind the scenes, you know, we have to find some answers for it. I've heard some answers that work. I mean, there are answers that do work. Yes, it revolves, you know, mucking up behind the scenes, but we do that all the time, you know, like, it is much better for the people that understand the rules to go, okay, here's

what we did to justify it so it works within the rules so that the actual people playing with it just does what you think it does. And my issue with the commander death is it doesn't do what people think it does and that's generally not a good thing. Like, of all the rules that I want to change, the two I care most about

which are hybrid and the commander death rules is just, it's not the way people think they work. It's not the intuitive way. You're fighting intuition. I do not like to fight intuition. If you ever listen to my podcast, I do not like to fight intuition. Those are the two things I care most about. Also, there are the things that impact how we design. Like I'm saying, not having commander the death triggers means we don't make commander death triggers in standard legal sets because it's unintuitive. And so when things are unintuitive,

we are forced on our side to then sort of design around it. And so from a designer standpoint, yes, I would like to fix things. I don't like having design cards around things if I can help it. I'd rather things just work the way people think they work.

That it leads to much better gameplay. Okay, the final thing on my list is allow Silver Border. Okay, so, Silver Border are not allowed in any tournaments of the nature of Silver Border. When Unstable came out, Commander

for, I don't know, two months or so, let people play with Silver Border. Okay, here is what I would do if I was in charge, which, once again, I am't know, two months or so. Let people play with Silver Border. Okay, here is what I would do if I was in charge, which, once again, I am not. I would make a second format, what I would call Uncommander. And then I would make an official list of here are the cards that are banned in Uncommander,

and I would put it up on my website and say, hey, hey, casual players, if you enjoy this casual format, you know, casual set of cards, there's a way to play Commander. It's not official Commander, but it is an alternate. It's a variant to Commander,

but it's a variant that we want to support in a way that lets you see, like, if you're going to play it, all on Commander means it's Commander as you know it. The only difference is Silver Border cards are allowed. Here's a ban list.

Please don't play these. If you're playing uncommand or don't play these cards and this is a format you can opt into the reason i would make this more formal rather than informal thing is i've heard from a lot of people that really enjoy silver border cards and their play group wants to allow it but it sort of feels like oh but the rules say we can't and you know and they write to me very sad saying saying, please, please, please, can you do something? I unfortunately tell them I can't do something. But if there was an official, official, in quotes, official

format that sort of said, hey, if you want to do that, here's the rules for it. I think there's people that have playgroups that, like, if there were just rules existing, would let them do that. And the reason I, here's the reason I care about that. If you look at the spectrum from very serious tournament level play,

very, you know, competitive play to very casual social play, the uncards are all the way as far as you can get on the social side of things. As formats go, I mean, there is a competitive commander, I get it,

but most of the commanders lead toward the social, casual aspect. So the cards that are most made for that audience and the format that's most made for the audience, I love that there's opportunity to put that in. And I do get, if you play with your group and your group will allow silver border cards, great, you can play with silver border cards. I just would love to see something that's a little bit more formal that says, hey, if you want to play with silver border cards, here's a way to play

commander, the most casual format, with silver border cards, here's a way to play Commander, the most casual format, and Uncards, the most casual cards together. I would love to see that. Anyway, ooh, I had a good day. I did not have a lot of traffic, so I definitely zoomed through here. So anyway, I hope the whole point of these two podcasts

is my caveat again. I'm not the rules team. I'm not the person doing this two podcasts is my caveat again. I'm not the, I'm not the rules team. I'm not the person doing this. This is not my responsibility. I just want you to see, like, I think it's fun sometimes to look at things from a designer standpoint of,

you know, sort of how we think. And it lets, lets you see how we think about things. We think about things a little differently. And so it's interesting to take a format that that I don't day in and day out. You know, this is not a format that we oversee, so it's not something where we're having these meetings.

But, it is, anyway, I just thought I'd give you guys some input. I do want to say the following before I end. Some people think that I do not like Commander. I'm a big fan of Commander. I don't play a lot of Commander. I don't play a lot of constructed formats. I have a family. I don't have a lot of Commander. I don't play a lot of constructed formats. I have a family. I don't have a lot

of, like, the time for me to play is at work, and for work I have to play more limited for what I do for my work. I'm not... I mean, Commander, I mean, I don't play a lot of constructed, and I admit that for my personal taste of how I play Magic, I don't play a lot of

political stuff. That's just my personal taste. But I don't dislike the format. I actually am a big fan of the format. I like casual Magic. I don't play a lot of political stuff. That's just my personal taste. But I don't dislike the format. I actually am a big fan of the format. I like casual Magic. I like... I love how it has been embraced by the audience. I love how many people get joy from it. I love how, you know,

it really has brought in a social aspect to the game. You know, the... I love... Like, for example, I'm the guy behind the Uncards. I like Magic at behind the Uncards. I like Magic at its most social fun. That is where I really enjoy seeing Magic be.

I get Magic's competitive. I'm glad we have all the ways to be competitive, and that's a really important part of the game. But I also like the fact that it can be casual. And I really do appreciate that Commander is there. And as somebody who designs for the game, I spend a lot of time caring about Commander. I know way more about Commander than I should for the amount of times I've played Commander, which is a handful, but not a lot. Mostly on camera.

But Commander is a really cool format. It does a lot of very positive things. And the reason that I talk about it, or I bring it up or anything is mostly because I do care about the format and I do a lot of people talk to me and a lot of where this came from

was just conversations that I have with people almost everything on my list was because you the audience said hey I would like to see this that's why I'm talking about it my goal here is really not to I'm not trying to. My goal here is really not to, I'm not trying to ruffle feathers or upset anybody.

I'm just trying to give my vantage point. That's really the whole point of these two podcasts. So I have great respect for the Rules Committee. I think they do an awesome job. I think they, you know, being someone who has, you know, has overseen other stuff, it is a thankless task. It is very, very hard to do.

And so hats off to them. I think they do a great job. And me talking through stuff is not, is not trying to besmirch them in any way. I have great respect for them. I'm just trying to give my vantage point, which is a different vantage point. That is all. So anyway, I'm now at work. So we all know what that means. And this is the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. Thanks for listening guys. Talk to you next time.