If you don’t know yet, the new rule in Commander is that if your commander would be moved to your library or your hand, you can put it into your commander zone instead. I understand where they are coming from and their heart is in the right place, but apparently no-one in the rules committee is much of a deck builder.

The main problem is this: This will not decrease tutoring. Quite the opposite.

You see, as a deckbuilder, I’m thinking about this from the point of view of pressure on those effects. If there’s a chance my commander gets tucked, its creating pressure on my tutors to use to retrieve him or her. Therefore, I’m trying not to rely too much on my commander, or if I am relying on my commander, I know I’m taking a risk.

Now, if I don’t have to use my tutors for this, I’m free to use them for anything else. Namely degenerate combos.

So, depending on what kind of a deckbuilder you are, you’re either thinking “great, now I can finally play [insert degenerate combo] like I’ve always wanted” or “great, now I have to be able to fight all those degenerate combos”. This will not lead to the battlecruise Magic Sheldon Menery wants, it will lead to combo decks and control decks trying to suppress those decks. In either case, you want more tutors, not less. Either you want to find the pieces (or often a single piece) of your combo, or you want to find the bullet in your deck for this particular situation.

What will this do to play experience? It definitely won’t help. Those decks Menery wants in the format might be completely marginalized.

Before there was a balancing act. You knew at least some of the commanders would probably be tucked, so you tried not to be the one who brought in the worst offender, just to protect your commander. The possibility of tucking was in itself a good way to keep players in line. Now that is gone and I don’t think its good for the format.

I guess banning some cards would be good way to compensate for the changes, but none have been announced as of yet.