The most important part of Magic the Gathering, from a gameplay perspective, is the variance from one game to the next. Companion has undermined that. I get that you were inspired by Commander, but there's a difference: Commander is held together by unwritten social rules that prevent it from being turned into an un-fun game for your playgroup. Competitive formats are not. When there are people in your community calling for a ban in Vintage of all things, you messed up. Please understand this.
People called for us to get rid of Standard when it was introduced (called Type 2 at the time). People wanted Sixth Edition Rules removed when we introduced them. I got letters saying double-faced cards were the death of the game. Players historically react strongly to new and different things.
What history has shown us is to give new things some time to breathe and let the world adjust to their existence. Players tend to overcompensate at first as everyoneâs focused on the new thing. If, after the dust settles (and remember the vast majority of Magic players havenât even played with the cards yet), things are problematic in certain formats, we have tools to adjust those formats to correct issues.
The game has lived through Necro Summer, Combo Winter, affinity, storm, dredge, etc. it can and will adapt when necessary. But for everything on that list, there were other things that at first seemed problematic, but eventually the players figured out ways to adapt to it and it didnât end up needing intervention.
I agree that companion has potential to be something we will need to adapt to. iâm just asking to follow the lessons of history and give the system and the audience time to absorb it first.
How absolutely FUCKING TONE DEAF
