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Summary:

* Commander-specific mulligan rules are removed
* Rule 4 (mana generation restriction) is removed
* Prophet of Kruphix is banned

Mulligans:

We promised in the last update that, with the advent of the Vancouver Mulligan, we'd be evaluating the mulligan process in Commander. This announcement is the culmination of that research. After examining several popular options, and coming up with a few of our own, we've concluded that the Vancouver Mulligan (with the standard first-one-free in multiplayer and a scry once you go to 6 or fewer) is the best option. The RC continues to use and recommend the Gis ("Mulligan 7s to a playable hand. Don't abuse this") for trusted playgroups, but that's not something that can go in the rules.

Ultimately, the goal of mulligans in Commander is to ensure that you start the game with enough lands to be a participant. With Commander games running an hour plus, it's unfortunate if you can't play anything because you miss land drops and get run over quickly.

We didn't want to solve the problems of Magic itself - mana screw and mana flood are part of the game - and players need to make a reasonable effort with their land counts, but we wanted a mulligan rule that tried to minimize unplayable opening hands. So, we brainstormed, and ran computer simulations. And what ultimately came out was... it didn't much matter. Nothing provided a clear enough upgrade to justify having additional rules for mulligans. For example, with 37 lands, Partial Paris was "successful" (which we defined as playing a 4th land on turn 4) 89% of the time versus Multiplayer Vancouver at 86%, but it came at a cost of about a fifth of a card on average. On the whole, 86% success is a rate that seems reasonable.

If you find yourself playing 1v1 (perhaps while waiting for a friend to show up), you should still use the free multiplayer mulligan. With a deck this size, variance is high enough to make not having the free mulligan potentially punishing - without the free mulligan you drop down to about 80% success rate, which, combined with being the only opponent to focus on, leads to too many unfortunate games.

Finally, it’s not an official rule, but we recommend setting aside the hands you're mulliganning away until you get a keeper. That saves shuffling time, and we're all for minimizing shuffling 100-card decks.

Rule 4:

We still love Rule 4. It's a nice piece of flavor and reinforces the idea that this format goes beyond simple mechanical restrictions into a deeper philosophical approach around color and mana symbols. Its effect on the game was pretty small, but that flavor message made it worthwhile to preserve.

However, the mana system of Magic is very complicated, and trying to insert an extra rule there has consequences in the corners. Harvest Mage. Celestial Dawn. Gauntlet of Power. And now, colorless-only mana costs.

Being able to generate colorless mana more easily in Commander wasn't going to break anything. But, it represented another "gotcha" moment for players, who were now likely to learn about Rule 4 when someone exploited the colorless loophole. We could paper over it (both "mana generated from off-color sources can only pay generic costs" and "you can't pay a cost outside your color identity" were considered), but a lot of the flavor would be lost in the transition, defeating the purpose. Without the resonant flavor, Rule 4 was increasingly looking like mana burn - a rule that didn't come up enough to justify it's existence.

We don't expect removing the rule to have a big impact. Some Sunburst and Converge cards might get a bit more of a look. Sen Triplets works more like you'd expect, as does Praetor's Grasp. The clone-and-steal deck, already one of the most popular archetypes, gets better, but less than you might think. It turns out there really aren't that many impactful non-blue activated abilities on cards that commonly get stolen in Commander. It's OK if you can regenerate that creature you just stole, and you'll need to work for it a bit anyway.

One side benefit to the removal of both the color production and mulligan rules is that, in terms of game play, Commander becomes a normal game of multiplayer Magic with a higher life total and a set of additive rules to bring a new piece (your Commander) into the game. That's good streamlining in terms of teaching people the format and reducing gotcha moments while still preserving the essential flavor of Commander.

Prophet of Kruphix:

This was challenging. Prophet is not a traditionally obvious problem card for Commander, so we chose to take a conservative approach and see if casual groups could adapt. In the past, we've seen unpopular cards generate a lot of outcry, but be handled reasonably well. Powerful cards existing is OK and exploring them responsibly is an essential part of Commander.

This didn't happen with Prophet. Casual groups haven't been able to work around it and problematic play has not dropped off in hoped-for ways. Instead, the primary approach has been to steal it, clone it, run it yourself, or get run over. Ultimately, it seems the card is too perfect - it does everything U/G Commander players want to be doing and it does it in a way that makes counterplay difficult. With traditional boogeymen such as Consecrated Sphinx, you're forced to expend a lot of your mana to cast it and will have a challenge protecting it as the turn goes around the table. With Prophet, it has virtual protection built in, negating that disadvantage almost immediately.

Prophet becomes only the second multicolored card on the banlist (after the structurally-problematic Coalition Victory). It's telling just how pervasive Prophet is despite such a restriction. Yes, U/G is the most popular color combination in Commander, but we've reached the point where Prophet is driving U/G deck choice, rather than vice-versa. That's centralizing in ways we can't ignore, so it's time for Prophet to take a break.

Whenever we decide to ban a card, we take a long look at the current list to see if any cards can come off, as we believe a casual format is better served by a minimalist banlist. After extensive discussion, however, we concluded that everything on the list served a purpose, so we won't be unbanning anything. It's been two years since the last (non-consolidation) card got banned, which is an acceptable growth rate!

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About ****ing time.

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Originally posted by aethertech:
Oh wow, they banned Prophet.

About ****ing time.

Finally, the RC does something reasonably intelligent. Now, they just need to hit Survival of the Fittest. One can hope...

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EDH is really the last place you can play a toolbox deck. Do you really want to take that away from me? Don't be an evil turd!

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Originally posted by flam flawless:
I can see why prophet got the hammer...was insane with consecrated Sphinx to just unload guys you draw at the end step of each players turn.

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It has consistently been my go-to "get this into play" creature since it was printed. It always draws groans from the table when it hits the board. If it wasn't getting killed, it was getting cloned or stolen.

It may have needed other components to be truly busted, but I fully believe it warped games and needed to go. Pretty much felt the same about Primeval Titan, another card I loved to run but fully accepted its time was done.

__________________
Wisconsin - smells like dairy air!

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Originally posted by aethertech:
Finally, the RC does something reasonably intelligent. Now, they just need to hit Survival of the Fittest. One can hope...

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Originally posted by choco man:
For COP: Red, can I bank mana into it like a regeneration shield?

That is, can i just put mana into it without anything else on the stack and for the rest of the turn if a red source would damage me prevent it?

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Yes

Was that the reason mana burn went away? I was always under the impression that it was complicated and made new players cry...

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Originally posted by Nicksmagic:
Was that the reason mana burn went away? I was always under the impression that it was complicated and made new players cry...

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All 3 reasons were cited in the article by Mark Rosewater after the 2010 rules change. The Mirrodin version of Mindslaver is the only true loser.

__________________
30th in refs on Motl!

#1 Ref's for Arizona!

I offer 3rd party trading services. Email if interested.

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Originally posted by revenger:
Pardon my ignorance, but where is Emrakul in the latest set?

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Slumbering, wandering the blind eternities, starting to probe Innistrad. Hard to say as I don't think it's actually been mentioned. Most of the BFZ storyline focused on Ulamog. Kozilek didn't even show up until the tail end during the battle at Seagate.

__________________
Wisconsin - smells like dairy air!

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Originally posted by DJSmurfy:
Magic: the OldSchoolening continues, as I build Psychatog, Fires, revised-only U/W control, and continue tweaking Madness. Trix might make it's way into this too. Old Magic was so fun.

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Jar? Academy.dec (whatever it was actually called)? Replenish? Bargain/skirge familiar/corrupt.dec?

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Originally posted by dfitzg88:
All 3 reasons were cited in the article by Mark Rosewater after the 2010 rules change. The Mirrodin version of Mindslaver is the only true loser.

Edit: and of course The Fallen. Almost forgot about that (mages consumed by mana burn)

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At the time the controlling player rules prevented mana burn. Mindslaver was unaffected.

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Originally posted by Pail42:
At the time the controlling player rules prevented mana burn. Mindslaver was unaffected.

Mana Cache, on the other hand, is drastically worse.

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Originally posted by ryan2754:
What is rule 4

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It's literally on this page.

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Originally posted by James_Hetfield2:
Can't believe how many people I've met whose parents have given them $100k plus to invest/spend on Magic.

My parents gave me a kick out the door

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Originally posted by oneofchaos:
Did I read that correctly? 100,000 dollars? To invest in magic? Doesn't sound like these parents are in a bad position even if their child had invested in splinter twins.

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I hope it wasn't the same person who bought a box of Stronghold and didn't pull any rares.

__________________
30th in refs on Motl!

#1 Ref's for Arizona!

I offer 3rd party trading services. Email if interested.

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Originally posted by aethertech:
Daumn.

Someone give me $100k to invest in magic, and I'll give them the $100K back in a few years with 10% interest, and still have a $100k left for myself.

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Sure until the bubble bursts.