June 7, 2020 Commander rules change

[Oversoul]

June 7 Announcement on Dies Triggers | Official Commander Website

mtgcommander.net

If a commander is in a graveyard or in exile and that card was put into that zone since the last time state-based actions were checked, its owner may put it into the command zone.

If a commander would be put into its owner’s hand or library from anywhere, its owner may put it into the command zone instead. This replacement effect may apply more than once to the same event.

This is a good change.

 

[Mooseman]

What was the offending event?

 

[Oversoul]

According to their explanation, it was simply that someone in the Commander Advisory Group tried to use Elenda, the Dusk Rose in the intuitive way, only to learn that if the card was put back into the command zone with Commander Rule #7, it wouldn't trigger. Players all over the world had been running into this issue with stuff like Child of Alara, Kokusho, etc. for years, but the Rules Committee never seemed to care before.

So hey, maybe the CAG is good for something after all?

 

[Mooseman]

That's odd, since CR #7 is a replacement effect. I guess they had to clarify that it is a replacement effect.

 

[Oversoul]

That's odd, since CR #7 is a replacement effect. I guess they had to clarify that it is a replacement effect.

CR #7 is exactly what is being changed. The new rule will be the little quoted excerpt I included in the first post of this thread. If a commander is in a graveyard or in exile since the last time state-based actions were checked, its owner may put it into the command zone.

Players who didn't closely follow the rules and who just learned that you could put the commander back into the command zone sometimes missed the significance of the fact that this had implications for "dies" triggers. People would build Child of Alara decks thinking that you could kill your commander to get its trigger, but still send it to the command zone. You couldn't. Only now, with the rule changing, you will be able to.

Elenda is newer, but might be an even better example. It's a lot better as a commander if you can get the "When Elenda dies" trigger and send the card to the command zone. But CR#7 didn't allow for that. Lots of players, including a member of the CAG, assumed that it would work and wanted it to work.

It goes the other way too. Under the old rule, if I had something that triggered from a creature dying, I'd be incentivized not to use it on commanders because my opponents might just send them to the command zone as a replacement effect. And because commanders are often important targets to kill, this made cards with those triggers artificially worse than they really could have been.

 

[Mooseman]

That is actually are fairly big change to the rules.

 

[SEALTEAMBILL]

If you put your commander back in the Commander's own you got to pay for it to come back out and every time you put it in the Commander's own it increases in cost. I play Commander tournament in I feel that this new rule is unjust... you should be able to put your commander into your hand or into your library so that you can cast it at its normal cost or take it out of your library and put into play at no cost I like that roll better there's always somebody complaining about something

 

[Mooseman]

You should still be able to allow your commander to go to the GY or your library or hand as a result of resolution of any spell or ability.