Magic the Gathering: WOTC Now Runs Commander Rules Committee

 

After the former Commander Rules Committee banned infamous cards like Mana Crypt and Gilded Lotus (which as the latter card was made for the commander format made it practically useless) harbored responses from online screams of indignation to death threats, Wizards of the Coast, makers of the Magic the Gathering collectible card game took over the committee for its most current popular format: 

"The past week has been tumultuous for Commander fans, members of the Commander Rules Committee, and the Magic community as a whole. Along the way, we've seen players and fans share a diverse range of passionate opinions—far too many of which were harmful or malicious.

Over the past week, the conversation has escalated, culminating with unacceptable personal threats to the safety of members of the Commander Rules Committee. This is something we will not tolerate. No matter how you feel about something in Magic, it is never appropriate to threaten somebody. Everyone at Wizards of the Coast is united on this front—we will not hesitate to take action against individuals who threaten to harm community members or employees.

This week has also demonstrated the truly monumental task that faced the Commander Rules Committee.

The Commander RC is made up of five talented, caring individuals, all with other jobs and lives which they must balance with managing the most popular format in Magic. It results in incredible amounts of work, time spent deliberating, and exposure to the public.

Nobody deserves to feel unsafe for supporting the game they love. Unfortunately, the task of managing Commander has far outgrown the scope and safety of being attached to any five people.

So today, in partnership with members of the existing Rules Committee, we are announcing that the Rules Committee is giving management of the Commander format to the game design team of Wizards of the Coast."

They also touched on the future of the format going forward, in particular, the 'power level' of any MTG Commander deck:

"Here's the idea: There are four power brackets, and every Commander deck can be placed in one of those brackets by examining the cards and combinations in your deck and comparing them to lists we'll need community help to create.

 You can imagine bracket one is the baseline of an average preconstructed deck or below and bracket four is high power. For the lower tiers, we may lean on a mixture of cards and a description of how the deck functions and the higher tiers are likely defined by more explicit lists of cards.

For example, you could imagine bracket one has cards that easily can go in any deck, like Swords to Plowshares, Grave Titan, and Cultivate, whereas bracket four would have cards like Vampiric Tutor, Armageddon, and Grim Monolith, cards that make games too much more consistent, lopsided, or fast than the average deck can engage with.

In this system, your deck would be defined by its highest-bracket card or cards. This makes it clear what cards go where and what kinds of cards you can expect people to be playing."

Seems interesting and time will tell (it always does) if this is a good move or not for Magic the Gathering as a whole and commander as a format. 

-Thomas Spychalski

(Via Wizards of the Coast)

TV Review: Merlin- A Servant of Two Masters (S04E06)

The fourth series of Merlin is turning out to be a grand improvement over the first three series of Merlin because of how well things are moving forward during the series and how much the characters are growing at each turn. From Uther's demise at the hands of Morgana despite Merlin's best intentions, starting the reign of King Arthur to Morgana finding out that the mysterious Emrys will be her greatest rival.

Interestingly enough Merlin is made the main baddie by way of Morgana's magic and it again puts a nice spin on the established order of the series. It also leads to Arthur showing just how much Merlin really means to him, despite the fact that Arthur thinks he spends most of his time in Camelot's tavern.

TV Review: Merlin- The Darkest Hour Part 2 (S04E02)

Honor is a thing that is very prominent in Arthurian legends but something that is lacking in our modern society if it ever existed at all. The Darkest Hour's conclusion was a tale all about honor and sacrifice and also the other side of the coin, where greed and selfishness rule.

When we last saw Merlin he seemed as good as dead but knew he would be all right in the end, the name of the show is his after all and we could all quickly imagine how a Camelot without it's dynamic duo of Arthur and Merlin would fall. However that did not mean that the rest of the outcome was so transparent.

Except it was...

But it also wasn't...

TV Review: Merlin- The Darkest Hour Part One (S04E01)

One problem I find in modern television is the inability for a programme to change and grow, to allow the worlds created and the people and creatures who populate it to act like they are actual living beings and change. For us, change is inevitable, a part of life that is coming no matter what whether it be significant change caused by life's many twists and turns or the simple undeniable and unstoppable change of our body's yielding to the passing of time.

Television of course can sometimes forget that change can be used to freshen up what has otherwise become a dull and predictable cycle of the same old character in the same old setting doing a variation of the same old plot. It is for sure why The Simpsons have become less stellar as the years pass, as Bart and Lisa never age and nothing shifts. Compare this to what I consider to be the ultimate 'mover Doctor Who, the design of which allows for a completely different setting each and every time as well as a new face on the title characters if need be.

TV Review: Eternal Law Episode One

Tales of fiction or parables that pit good VS evil are a dime a dozen they are some of the easiest to produce due to the moral quandary we could possibly find ourselves in on a daily basis. They tie themselves into the basic fabric of our existence as well as our faith and religious beliefs.

Which is where the modern medium of television (Which some might argue is the faith of some people) has taken the idea to new heights.

Really high heights.