General The Commander Hybrid Mana Rules Change, and Why I'm Frustrated with Commander Players

[MilesOfficial]

I just don't get it. I used to be Maro-level upset that cards like these were available in green:



It felt wrong! Green's not supposed to get these kinds of things!

But then Tarkir came out and I listened to Drive to Work and realized I was getting heated for literally no reason. I decided still that in my Cube, I wouldn't play with things that I felt were counter to the spirit of the color pie, but like, it's really not that serious.

WotC has made some design mistakes in hybrid. They're almost all from Eventide. None of them are more egregious than the green cards I listed above. Both the intent and the literal purpose of hybrid is to be "either/or" and it's really annoying to see the Commander community being so semantically obtuse that it's negatively effecting WotC's design space. I loooooove hybrid. It's so great for draft, and thus great for Cube. There's literally no reason to stop people from playing Afterlife Insurance in their mono-white decks or mono-black decks.

 

[Seeker]

Also, to make a non-shitpost argument:
These people are trying to convince me that if they sit down opposite someone playing Isamaru, Hound of Konda as their general who goes turn one Isamaru, Kobolds of Kher Keep, Crookshank Kobolds, their reaction is anything other than "haha nice"?

They do not have the heart of a 12-year-old on a picnic table with a 78 card unsleeved deck that has like an Avatar of Might and a Searing Wind in it or something. They will never capture a legendary Pokemon.

 

[ravnic]

Hmm, a rules change for Hybrid riiight before Lorwyn Eclipsed when Wizards/Hasbro will have a financial stake in having the rules change go through...

Sadly, ECL seemingly won't have much more hybrid than other current sets, based on number crunch. Ashlings Command is probably one of the first multicolor cards (they put them together) at 205 and Blood Crypt is the first land, most likely, at 262. That leaves up ~60 cards, but there would also be colorless cards among these. So if they're generous, we'll get 50 cards with ci=2. Being generous again, maayybe we get 35 hybrids in this set.

Yeah, I know. I was also hyped to get at least double that from the shadowmoor half.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

Sadly, ECL seemingly won't have much more hybrid than other current sets, based on number crunch. Ashlings Command is probably one of the first multicolor cards (they put them together) at 205 and Blood Crypt is the first land, most likely, at 262. That leaves up ~60 cards, but there would also be colorless cards among these. So if they're generous, we'll get 50 cards with ci=2. Being generous again, maayybe we get 35 hybrids in this set.

Yeah, I know. I was also hyped to get at least double that from the shadowmoor half.

This is probably the single largest issue with the standalone set era: sometimes they aren't able to fit the volume of certain mechanics we would like into the single set.

I can't really think of a solution to this other than bleeding themes more between sets. I think not doing blocks has been a net positive for set design, but I think they need to be a little more proactive about building throughlines between sets.