5/6/2023 0 Comments Shadow era spiked bolas strike![]() There's no reason to spread the damage around and share the love because you're not achieving anything worthwhile that way. One of the troubles with a Voltron plan is it incentivises exclusively targeting a single player in a game where you have three opponents. Raising The Roofīut even if cognitive load isn't a big problem, that's not to say it doesn't have gameplay issues. The more viable strategies in your average Commander pod, the more diverse range of players the game will appeal to, and with life totals the way they are, Voltron is one of the best outlets for players who want to beat face as their primary plan. This isn't because I adore aggro (okay fine, I have been known to play a bit of Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow ) but because I'm a fan of archetype equality. If you read last week's article, you'll know that I'm a big proponent of aggro having a home in Commander. How many Bruna decks would fade into nothing? How many Urils would retreat into the mist, never to be seen again? How many Narset, Enlightened Master 's would - wait. Which is to say nothing of what would happen to the already underpowered and often underrepresented archetype of Voltron. Would removing commander damage ease this load in any appreciable way? Is it really the straw that breaks the camel 's back when it comes to keeping track of all the moving pieces in an average game? Surely not. The amount to keep track of already borders on the ridiculous and for many players - yours truly among them - this is part of the appeal. This so-called cognitive load is enough that MaRo would actually get rid of the mechanic altogether, and while I see where he is coming from as a designer, I couldn't disagree more.įor one thing, Commander is a multiplayer format with games that last for multiple hours and boardstates that can verge on over a hundred cards in play at a time. We've all played drawn-out games where we've lost count of how many times we've been hit by a certain commander or where someone has accidentally tipped over the die keeping track of it. In episode #771 of his Drive To Work podcast, MaRo noted commander damage creates undesirable cognitive load: an additional thing for players to keep track of and consider. The first thing I want to get out of the way are head designer Mark Rosewater's comments on the issue. ![]() So if Commander has changed, why hasn't commander damage? Removing It Altogether Your commander is as likely to be a demon or a dwarf as it is a dragon, with powers ranging from 0 to 13, let alone a planeswalker completely incapable of dealing combat damage in the first place. To say things have changed drastically since then would be an understatement.
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