Commander Rules Update: No More Tuck

That's right. It's official. No more tuck.

From the rules post, here are the four reasons why:

1) We want to engender as positive an experience as we can for players. Nothing runs the feel-bads worse than having your commander unavailable to you for the whole game. 

Yeah, alright. That makes sense. I feel like we are losing the "tradeoff" for focusing too much on our Commanders, but this format is called "Commander" for a reason. I will miss tucking Uril and then dragging the game out while they desperately try to dig for him again only to eat a Hinder when they do.

I'm evil like that.



2) The presence of tuck encourages players to play more tutors so that in case their commander gets sent to the library, they can get it back—exactly the opposite of what we want (namely, discouraging the over-representation of tutors).  


Yeah, alright. That makes sense, too. I find myself dialing back the tutors just to keep things interesting. I never considered running a bunch of tutors just to get my Commander, though. Maybe I don't run the kind of deck that heavily relied on my Commander.




3) While we are keenly aware that tuck is a great weapon against problematic commanders, the tools to do so are available only in blue and white, potentially forcing players into feeling like they need to play those colors in order to survive. We prefer as diverse a field as possible. 

Yeah, alright. I am guilty of jamming white specifically for running sweepers that tuck Commanders. There's nothing quite like cartwheeling down a miracle Terminus and tucking all the Commanders in one go.



4) It clears up some corner case rules awkwardness, mostly dealing with knowing the commander’s location in the library (since highly unlikely to actually end up there).  



Yeah, alright. I would see guys show up with Commanders in custom card cases and sleeves, only to get totally confused when Spin into Myth gets dropped on them. "Are you sure I have to put my Commander into my library?" Oh yes, my friend. I'm sure.



All things considered, I never liked the inconsistency for handling Commanders leaving the battlefield. This rule change helps to bring the expected behavior more in line. Sadly, Hinder and Spell Crumple lose some of what makes them unique as counters.



In the end, we'll all adjust. But, I'll miss it. There are a few powerful Commanders out there that I felt were balanced by the fact that they could be dealt with semi-permanently by shuffling them into the library. The people who ran those Commanders had to play it safe to protect them, and had to run more tutors to stay in the game when the inevitable tuck happened. Now, the rest of us have to run more removal or more oppressive cards to slow them down.

Is it worth the tradeoff?