This has been a year of constant changes inside and out of the game and our beloved format. Most countries have implemented social distancing policies that affected the way all of us played. We hope you all stay safe in these uncertain times.
We as the technical group have been testing and analyzing rules, mechanics, new cards, and old cards that interact pretty well with new stuff going on.
Hard times ask for changes and we delivered.
Ban as companion Category
Many of you were worried about the new mechanic how it would work in our format. The feeling of having an extra card available at the start of each game and safe from hand disruption seemed strong. Luckily, WotC updated the way the new mechanic works but still, we believe this category should exist. To know if any companion will get banned the Ban Update will be posted on the 15.06.2020.
Commander Swap
As a format, we do not have access to a sideboard between games and certain matchups require a different approach to increase the odds of success. Combo and control have had the upper hand lately and midrange and aggro strategies need new tools to help balance the metagame.
Commander Swap Rules
After each game players decide if they want to keep using the same commander or swap for another.
Players decide at the same time not knowing if their opponent is choosing to change or not. Each player shuffle his or her commander(s) into his or her deck and present either the same one(s) or new commander(s) from the same deck before each following game begins during each round.To ensure the information is not revealed both players place their commander face down and flip them up as the next game starts.
If you choose to swap, your previous commander is shuffled into your library. The color identity of your deck has to remain the same. For Example: If you start with a Dragonlord Ojutai (UW) as your commander, you can only swap to other commanders with UW identity, making Geist of Saint Traft a legal option and Vendilion Clique (U) illegal.
Players cannot swap to commanders that are on the Banned as Commander List.
Players are allowed to swap from a single commander to having two in the case of partners and vice-versa.
Starting Hand Size Rule - Partners
Players start each with seven (7) cards in hand. But in case you choose to start with more than one commander by playing two (2) cards with the partner ability the starting hand size changes as following:
If a player uses partner commanders then he or she draws seven (7) cards and puts X cards in the bottom of their library in any order, where X is 1 plus the number of mulligans taken.
This way if players start the game with two (2) commanders and choose to take no mulligans, X will be one (1) and the player will have to put a single card from their hand on the bottom of their library. If they choose to mulligan once the number of cards put on the bottom of their library will be two (2) and so on in the same way for more mulligans.
15 Poison Damage Rule
Poison damage was intended to work in an environment where players had only twenty (20) Life Points. As a format, we stand at thirty (30) starting Life Points and we decided to make the move to increase the amount of poison damage needed to lose the game to fifteen (15).
We hope that the changes introduced by us will be welcomed by all or most of the players. ;)
As always we are looking forward to your feedback.
Your comitee:
Wojciech Kopański, Justo Chacon, Piotr Dyczkowski, Diego Rivera, Ondřej Mašík.