Dominaria United Spoiler Season has been extremely explosive. Only a day in the past, we hadn’t had a single spoiler card in weeks. Over someday, we now have dozens of them! Of all of the spoiler playing cards launched, one caught out probably the most. That’s as a result of this spoiler card stoked a dialogue about participant collusion ruining the entire level of the cardboard. Can an impact like Ramses, Murderer Lord, really work in Commander?
Ramses, Murderer Lord
Ramses, Murderer Lord, is the Victory Dragon from Yu-Gi-Oh! that MTG has been lacking. If an Murderer you management assaults a participant who loses the sport in the identical flip, Ramses will enable to win the sport, basically killing three gamers for the value of 1 in Commander.
Sadly, the character of Ramses’ means causes a whole lot of issues. When one participant’s dying impacts the entire desk, participant collusion threatens to have a heavy affect. Conceding earlier than Ramses will get the prospect to assault can out the Ramses participant a win in opposition to the desk. Whereas informal Commander teams could make up their minds on the best way to method this one, aggressive Commander has been rising in popularity over time. Cassius Marsh is even internet hosting a match the place the winner will get MTG’s costliest card ever!
Easy methods to Repair Salt From Ramses
Any card with ‘you win the sport’ in its textual content is certain to draw consideration from many gamers, and Ramses is not any exception. Quickly after its spoiling, Commander Advisory (they make choices on the Commander Ban checklist) group member and Spike Feeders member Jim Lapage took to Twitter to deal with rising considerations about participant collusion with Ramses’ means.
To start, Lapage introduces a bit guidelines pattern for gamers trying to concede to Ramses sooner or later. If an Murderer assaults you and also you concede in response, Ramses will nonetheless win the sport. The Murderer may go and kill itself for all Ramses cares. It doesn’t matter the way you die, but when an Murderer that the Ramses participant owns assaults you on the flip you die, Ramses wins.
The second level here’s what some MTG gamers are involved about. Ramses spoiling is getting used to spotlight a a lot greater challenge with aggressive Commander as a format. As this fashion of taking part in the sport slowly turns into extra standard, play teams that go to tournaments could have alternatives to take part in kingmaking. Which means that these gamers can scheme to do unsportsmanlike actions to boost the prospect of somebody of their group profitable the sport. Issues can go rather a lot additional right here since these play teams can agree to separate up any prizing that the king wins between gamers within the group.
Lapage has referenced an instance of a doable rule that might be applied for Commander match play to deal with this concern. There may be apparent room for enchancment right here, however it’s a begin. Right here’s what it reads:
Commander Social Etiquette
To spherical issues off, Lapage makes use of Ramses’ spoiling to the touch on one other extra important drawback with the Commander format. One participant’s concession has an opportunity of negatively impacting the sport state relying on the intention behind it. Suppose one participant is hoarding a bunch of playing cards that Dockside Extortionist to set off of, for instance, and the desk is aware of there’s a great likelihood that the Dockside set off may win the sport. In that case, the desk ought to (so long as they’ll’t cease it) enable the road to play out and shuffle up for spherical two. Suppose the one participant decides to concede in response to Dockside Extortionist on the stack. In that case, these artifacts and enchantments will not be counted, which might destroy the Dockside participant’s line and considerably change the sport’s consequence for a foul cause.
Whereas I select to not play with these folks after it occurs as soon as, ought to this be a typical challenge in your playgroup, chances are you’ll wish to take into account arising with some floor guidelines. Possibly the desk can resolve that big affect playing cards like Dockside Extortionist should not enjoyable, or three gamers can persuade the fourth that leaving mid-trigger is extremely detrimental to the playgroup general. That is, in any case, a social drawback, as Lapage places it. You must deal with it as one.
Commander is a Social Sport
Even for aggressive gamers, Commander ought to at the start be a social sport. Truthfully, should you’re hellbent on aggressive integrity, there are higher codecs to play. Murderer tribal isn’t precisely a strong archetype, and the possibilities of Ramses changing into a Commander menace isn’t too excessive, for my part. That stated, I could look into constructing a Ramses deck myself, as I take pleasure in unintuitive win circumstances when taking part in Commander.
Here’s a abstract of every little thing MTG to make amends for from August 18 thus far:
