No banned list - every Magic card ever printed is legal.

Play for ante, all cards go to winner, but players can, of course, make if-I-win bargains during play. So while Black Lotus is legal, it's pretty damn big risk to play.




basically I want to play in a format where Contract From Below and Chaos Orb are legal.

Unfortunately, the game sets listed are all MTG Sanctioned. There isn't a way to have a deck with banned cards be considered "legal".

However, when playing home games, every card is legal. It is up to you whether to have added a card or not.

Most players play by "sanctioned" legality. And decks are built around this. But every card ever printed in MTG is legal AND unrestricted if all players agree to it before the game.

I don't think it is possible for a deck to be classified as "home game legal" since MTG doesn't sanction it and DB links up to MTG's legality.

Obviously, I'm not talking about this taking off as a officially-sanctioned format. (And while WoTC acknowledges Commander, it's actually an "unofficial format" as the rules and banned list are maintained by fans, not the company) and many Commander groups play with their own banned list (usually to eliminate decks that are unfair in the local meta, but also to sometimes allow for someone with a card that's a little overpowered but not quite broken -- for instance I think that both Balance and Library of Alexandria are banned for historical reasons, not because they are more powerful than other things that are perfectly legal in official Commander).

Anyway, I'm just speculating. I think it would be fun to get to use some of the older cards that are almost never played with. Sharazad (which shouldn't be banned in Vintage -- your opponent can just scoop the second game if they're worried about the clock, you just lose half your life, which isn't an overpowered effect by Vintage standards) could make Commander games very interesting.

cartel1982 wrote:basically I want to play in a format where Contract From Below and Chaos Orb are legal.

Chaos Orb IS legal in EDH based on the ban-list posted on mtgcommander.net.

I can definitely see the argument for people not wanting to use ante cards, but then again, if you can convince your local players to do it, then I guess it's fair game.

Nah, Chaos Orb isn't legal. Anything banned in Vintage is automatically banned in EDH.

And Chaos Orb shouldn't be legal in most formats, the most commonly cited reason is that it's discriminatory against handicapped players, which is true, but infrequently as an actual problem, its a slim group of people who can play a card game that requires as much reaching around the table as Magic who can't lift a card up a foot off of that table. The real reasons are that a judge would pretty much have to stand by the table, and the card punishes your opponent even more if you're playing on a small area. I wonder if the old Magic urban legend of players using two-sided tape or magnets to attach their cards to the bottom of the table when someone brought out a Chaos Orb is true. I hope so.

I stand corrected on the Chaos Orb... although I always thought the people who tore their copies up and then tossed it like confetti to completely clear the board were more fun.

Being a college student and mostly poor, I would hate playing for Ante. BUT I love the idea of any card ever printed being legal. I have a whole bunch of Unset cards with Zedruu written all over them. Psychic Network anyone?

Speaking of a commander variant, I'm sure others have thought of it as well, but Planeswalkers as commanders. Of course anyone who has Jace will use him. I would likely use Gideon Jura or Elspeth, Knight Errant

Well the rub is, if you can build a killer Pauper commander deck, maybe with a few (cheap) ante cards in the mix, you could clean up.

As for Planeswalker commanders, it's a common idea. I don't know if having always available, automatically recurrable Planeswalkers is too unbalancing. And also while J:tMS is obviously a top pick, his abilities aren't as stellar in a multi-player format, and he's automatically the pace car since $120 card. The new Elspeth might be a better pick, and also people are going to prefer multi-colored Planeswalkers in general. There will be a lot of Nicol Bolas. And that might be the biggest problem with the format, that not enough color combinations have been printed yet.

I have always thought that it should always be any card ever printed should be legal. It's been one of my pet peeves about this game that they keep changing the rules (ie what's allowed, what's not, how to mulligan, how many cards to play at the start up....used to be you rolled a dice and if you won the roll then you got to go first, none of this if you go first you don't draw crap. It was plain and simple).

In my mind, they have always just pumped out the cards to make money, not because the cards added a whole lot more to the game. The game has changed so that there are so many variants and rules now that it's intimidating to new players (and to old ones that have been off the scene for awhile.... my dad used to play all the time. Now since he has been away from it for a few years he is reluctant to get back in because he feels that too much has changed and he doesn't want to look like a noob when he really isn't. And I don't blame him because I felt the same way when I came back into it).

I think that if you make a card then it should be playable, plain and simple. Perhaps restrict the lethal combos (ie instead of banning a card, ban what it can be played with in a deck so that you don't have those situations arising that made the cards banned in the first place). What was the point in even making the card otherwise? It would definitely make the designers have to stop and think more about how certain cards play well with others. None of this "well if it don't play nice then we will sit little Johnny card in the corner for a time out".

I payed good money or did good trades for some cards and now all that has to happen is let a few years go by and my good money card(s) becomes common because of all the reprints or the changes in the rules that make them practically useless. It's kind of disheartening really. It's set up so that if you want to play in legal tournaments it forces you to dish out money and buy the latest cards. I guess that's why I mostly prefer to play at home. Then I can play my favourite cards that I have had for years.

I probably wouldn't go for the ante thing either, but I definitely like the idea of playing with anything that was printed.

Sorry for the rant. I think that is all my pet peeves spelled out in one little rant session.... I think.