When we first saw the companion mechanic, our immediate reaction was “well, this is cool; it won’t work in Commander.” But, looking at the mechanic, there was nothing problematic about it. It was actually the kind of thing we really like to encourage. Brew with restrictions! Since we want the rules of Commander to match up to Magic where possible and healthy for the format, we took a second look.
We still don’t think Wishes and the other get-other-cards-from-outside-the-game are something we want in Commander. We outline our stance on wishes in the FAQ and none of the concerns we have with them applied here. The only issue was that the mechanic referred to outside the game. If the companion started in the Command Zone or Exile, it would have been fine. Since that’s clearly an arbitrary mechanical distinction, how could we adjust the rules to reflect this?
It turns out that it was easy. The problem with all prior mechanics which used outside-the-game was their open-endedness. They brought cards in from a giant unbounded set. All we had to do was change one word in Rule 11:
11: Abilities which bring other card(s) you own from outside the game into the game (such as Living Wish; Spawnsire of Ulamog; Karn, the Great Creator) do not function in Commander.
Companion now works within the framework of Commander – it’s bringing itself in – and nothing else changes. Similar mechanics will be fine in the future as long as they remain self-contained (though if we think they’re problematic, we’ll obviously take another look and ask ourselves why).
We recognize that this does let you go past the 100 card rule that is iconic to Commander. However, a single extra card you have to jump through serious hoops to get is philosophically okay in the same way that a tiny number of cards (like Relentless Rats) are able to violate the even-more-important singleton rule.
Lutri
That left Lutri. We hate the idea of banning a card prior to release. We gave serious consideration to announcing that the card would almost certainly be banned with Core 2021 and letting it be legal rather than break our stance that all cards should be given a chance.
The argument that finally won the day was that not everyone would see that announcement. Many people would buy a legal Lutri as it goes alongside every deck with red and blue in it. Knowing that it would certainly be banned, we were uncomfortable setting up those folks, who are in many ways our primary audience, for far greater disappointment. Better to bend our stance.
This is where we say that it was a one-time thing and we don’t expect it to happen again, but that might not be entirely accurate. Wizards is free to explore weird spaces, and, as demonstrated here, those spaces may occasionally do something really problematic. If another card comes along that also does something novel that is incompatible with the format, we’ll ban it immediately. Note that “stupidly powerful” is not novel; those cards will get their chance to prove themselves.
Flash
Speaking of exceptional decisions, we are banning Flash (the card, not the mechanic). Enough cEDH players who we trust have convinced us that it is the only change they need for the environment they seek to cultivate. Though they represent a small fraction of the Commander playerbase, we are willing to make this effort for them. It should not be taken as a signal that we are considering any kind of change in how we intend to manage the format; this is an extraordinary step, and one we are unlikely to repeat.
We use the banlist to guide players in how to approach the format and hope Flash’s role on the list will be to signal “cheating things into play quickly in non-interactive ways isn’t interesting, don’t do that.”
We believe Commander is still best as a social-focused format and will not be making any changes to accommodate tournament play. Taking responsibility for your and your opponents’ fun, including setting expectations with your group, is a fundamental part of the Commander philosophy. Organizers who want to move towards more untrusted games should consider adding additional rules or guidance to create the Commander experience they want to offer.
They changed rule 11 so companion is allowed
Lutri is banned
And flash got the ban hammer
I really like the elegance of the change they made to accommodate Companions.
Flash being banned fills me with schadenfreude because of all the arguments I had just recently with folk over whether the RC knows what it is doing where their argument was that Flash remains unbanned. My own position was 'they will probably ban it soon but more than likely, there are considerations you are not privy to behind why they are still undecided'.
Apparently, people in competitive EDH circles have been seeing their meta completely warped around FlashHulk since Protean Hulk was unbanned. Unlike the Hulk, Flash is basically only ever used to enable said combo or other broken applications. So, it is a minimal loss for a great gain for a specific sub-set of the player base. Hence why they point out that this is an exceptional decision: only the competitive EDH scene was being affected by it instead of the whole format.
Apparently, people in competitive EDH circles have been seeing their meta completely warped around FlashHulk since Protean Hulk was unbanned. Unlike the Hulk, Flash is basically only ever used to enable said combo or other broken applications. So, it is a minimal loss for a great gain for a specific sub-set of the player base. Hence why they point out that this is an exceptional decision: only the competitive EDH scene was being affected by it instead of the whole format.
that makes sense
personally i'm indifferent to it since very few in my group even knew it existed, and the ones that did weren't super competitive with it
I am still not happy Companions as Companions are allowed but it is what it is. Outside of Lutri being in every single RU(x) deck, none of them are that powerful or game breaking (especially considering all the deck building hoops you will have to jump through).
I am still not happy Companions as Companions are allowed but it is what it is. Outside of Lutri being in every single RU(x) deck, none of them are that powerful or game breaking (especially considering all the deck building hoops you will have to jump through).
Its the opposite actual.
If your deck for whatever reason CAN play a companion just out of pure randomness of your deck building, then there is absolutely 0 reason not to play that Companion.
So if it becomes an auto-include its the biggest auto-include it could ever be, as its simply an extra card to have.
For that reason alone its a incredible BAD mechanic to have around.
I am still not happy Companions as Companions are allowed but it is what it is. Outside of Lutri being in every single RU(x) deck, none of them are that powerful or game breaking (especially considering all the deck building hoops you will have to jump through).
Its the opposite actual.
If your deck for whatever reason CAN play a companion just out of pure randomness of your deck building, then there is absolutely 0 reason not to play that Companion.
So if it becomes an auto-include its the biggest auto-include it could ever be, as its simply an extra card to have.
For that reason alone its a incredible BAD mechanic to have around.
I can't think of one of the companions where its requirement is so simple (Lutri aside, and why it was banned) that a deck will simply stumble into and be the correct color identity for (because last I checked color identity still applies). You have to consciously build around the restriction and you're going to lose out on good options somewhere. Three basically say "You can't play sol ring", for instance. (Gyruda, Keruga, and Umori if you want to play any non-artifacts.)
I can't think of one of the companions where its requirement is so simple (Lutri aside, and why it was banned) that a deck will simply stumble into and be the correct color identity for (because last I checked color identity still applies). You have to consciously build around the restriction and you're going to lose out on good options somewhere. Three basically say "You can't play sol ring", for instance. (Gyruda, Keruga, and Umori if you want to play any non-artifacts.)
Thats not the point.
If you have a deck that "could" play a companion you simply have to play it, as there is no reason not to.
For literally any card in your actual deck you make a decision to play the card, but for Companion, if you CAN play them, theres simply no reason not to have them as a Companion
----
Jegantha, the Wellspring if your deck is 5 color and happens to have no double mana cost cards, theres no reason not have have this Companion.
So everyone that just happens to have a deck like this, is pretty much forced to have this one.
Kaheera, the Orphanguard if your tribal deck happens to support this, there is again no reason not to have this.
----
As said, no matter the restriction, if your deck CAN play a Companion you will feel very forced to do so (especially as there isnt really much of a choice of Companion if one happens to be viable, the others usually are not, so they are even exclusive, which reduces your viable options to choose form to just that one).
If you make a concentrated effort to play one of them and make your deck "terrible" to do so, fine, but some decks will not need to do that, and in that case the Companion is just added value to that deck for no cost at all.
The thing is, there are no decks that accidentally meet the criteria. I challenge you to find a pre-existing deck that could just slot one in. It's a choice. For example my wife has an elementals deck, but she'll have to cut 9 cards in order to play the g/w companion. And it's weak enough that it's an interesting choice. As long as they keep the designs the way they are I'm fine. Sol ring fits your description better then any of the companions.
Flash Hulk was hardly the biggest offender in "Five million ways to win with Thassa's Oracle Dot Deck." From the notes it seems like people have just been clamoring for Sheldon to ban flash and he's never even seen it go off. Which means my boy doesn't know about Demonic Consultation or Tainted Pact either. Basically Thassa's Oracle is always going to be a problem.
If you make a concentrated effort to play one of them and make your deck "terrible" to do so, fine, but some decks will not need to do that, and in that case the Companion is just added value to that deck for no cost at all.
Zirda, the Dawnwaker and Lirrus of the Dream Den do seem like the most busted of these to me. Gyruda and Obosh prevent you from playing a lot of broken cards(Sol ring and Mana Crypt, Vampiric/Demonic) Keruga is slow and only draws you expensive cards, and Umori might have the most specific restriction of all of them, with very few commander pairings available for enchantments, artifacts or planeswalkers... I think going from 8 cards to 9 in commander is a lot less broken than going from 7 cards to 8 in the other constructed formats, and we've already been doing it with Partner commanders . But Zirda and Lirrus do seem potentially scary because of Zirda's combo potential and Lirrus's raw card advantage potential.
I really like the elegance of the change they made to accommodate Companions.
While this change is indeed very simple it does not adress all the issues. To be precise if read as written the color identity restriction does not affect companions as they are not part of the deck.
2. A card’s colour identity is its color plus the color of any mana symbols in the card’s rules text. A card’s colour identity is established before the game begins, and cannot be changed by game effects. The cards in a deck may not have any colours in their colour identity which are not in the colour identity of the deck’s commander.
3. A Commander deck must contain exactly 100 cards, including the commander.
I was waiting to see how they address that and after the announcement I wanted to ask about this in comments for their post but comments are disabled, and forums are no longer available.
Flash Hulk was hardly the biggest offender in "Five million ways to win with Thassa's Oracle Dot Deck." From the notes it seems like people have just been clamoring for Sheldon to ban flash and he's never even seen it go off. Which means my boy doesn't know about Demonic Consultation or Tainted Pact either. Basically Thassa's Oracle is always going to be a problem.
Banning flash is a good move. But I'm confused by the argumentation. Flash was played by much larger part of the community than, lets say, Iona. And yet, the post points out that flash was affecting only " small fraction of the Commander playerbase".
Generally companions will be very rarely used because average decks do not immediately meet their criteria and accommodating them usually requires bigger sacrifice than the benefit they provide. They are very interesting as restriction for building new decks but when the novelty wears off the number of decks that use them will rapidly fall. Same thing happened with partners before - initial rush when everyone who bought precon used partners, an now you see them mostly in competitive pods because they are not that strong in casual deck and good manabase for 4c decks is hard to get.
Oh, so commander rules can be changed to accomodate game mechanics. Huh. Who would have guessed.
Any chance there will be adjustments for the rules to allow hybrid cards to work as intended? Or is that particular subset of cards going to be stuck in legacy rules limbo forever?
Oh, so commander rules can be changed to accomodate game mechanics. Huh. Who would have guessed.
Any chance there will be adjustments for the rules to allow hybrid cards to work as intended? Or is that particular subset of cards going to be stuck in legacy rules limbo forever?
As intended or as intended by maro? Hes a big proponent of that change but frankly it misses the mark. Hybrid cards are multiple colors, therefore they have a multicolored color identity, as long as theyre multiple colors they should be treated like multicolored cards. This is one area where flavor should stay intact
I can't think of one of the companions where its requirement is so simple (Lutri aside, and why it was banned) that a deck will simply stumble into and be the correct color identity for (because last I checked color identity still applies). You have to consciously build around the restriction and you're going to lose out on good options somewhere. Three basically say "You can't play sol ring", for instance. (Gyruda, Keruga, and Umori if you want to play any non-artifacts.)
Thats not the point.
If you have a deck that "could" play a companion you simply have to play it, as there is no reason not to.
For literally any card in your actual deck you make a decision to play the card, but for Companion, if you CAN play them, theres simply no reason not to have them as a Companion
----
Jegantha, the Wellspring if your deck is 5 color and happens to have no double mana cost cards, theres no reason not have have this Companion.
So everyone that just happens to have a deck like this, is pretty much forced to have this one.
Kaheera, the Orphanguard if your tribal deck happens to support this, there is again no reason not to have this.
----
As said, no matter the restriction, if your deck CAN play a Companion you will feel very forced to do so (especially as there isnt really much of a choice of Companion if one happens to be viable, the others usually are not, so they are even exclusive, which reduces your viable options to choose form to just that one).
If you make a concentrated effort to play one of them and make your deck "terrible" to do so, fine, but some decks will not need to do that, and in that case the Companion is just added value to that deck for no cost at all.
I think it's very hard to accidentally build a deck that matches a companion's conditions without trying. Looking at the two examples you use, I have an Elementals based Morophon, the Boundless EDH deck, and at first I thought that Jegantha, the Wellspring was a perfect fit. But then I realized that Avenger of Zendikar and Soul of the Harvest and all of the Cavaliers didn't work. Then I thought, cool, I'll run Kaheera, the Orphanguard! But the deck runs Jodah, the Avenger and Oracle of Mul-Daya and a few other creatures that throw it all off.
My point is just that almost any deck will have to adjust at least a little to make the companions work. I even looked at Kaheera, the Orphanguard for my Gishath deck, but too many of the Dinosaur support cards are humans, and at the end of the day, that companion isn't strong enough to take them out.
I can't think of one of the companions where its requirement is so simple (Lutri aside, and why it was banned) that a deck will simply stumble into and be the correct color identity for (because last I checked color identity still applies). You have to consciously build around the restriction and you're going to lose out on good options somewhere. Three basically say "You can't play sol ring", for instance. (Gyruda, Keruga, and Umori if you want to play any non-artifacts.)
Thats not the point.
If you have a deck that "could" play a companion you simply have to play it, as there is no reason not to.
For literally any card in your actual deck you make a decision to play the card, but for Companion, if you CAN play them, theres simply no reason not to have them as a Companion
----
Jegantha, the Wellspring if your deck is 5 color and happens to have no double mana cost cards, theres no reason not have have this Companion.
So everyone that just happens to have a deck like this, is pretty much forced to have this one.
Kaheera, the Orphanguard if your tribal deck happens to support this, there is again no reason not to have this.
----
As said, no matter the restriction, if your deck CAN play a Companion you will feel very forced to do so (especially as there isnt really much of a choice of Companion if one happens to be viable, the others usually are not, so they are even exclusive, which reduces your viable options to choose form to just that one).
If you make a concentrated effort to play one of them and make your deck "terrible" to do so, fine, but some decks will not need to do that, and in that case the Companion is just added value to that deck for no cost at all.
I can't think of one of the companions where its requirement is so simple (Lutri aside, and why it was banned) that a deck will simply stumble into and be the correct color identity for (because last I checked color identity still applies). You have to consciously build around the restriction and you're going to lose out on good options somewhere. Three basically say "You can't play sol ring", for instance. (Gyruda, Keruga, and Umori if you want to play any non-artifacts.)
Thats not the point.
If you have a deck that "could" play a companion you simply have to play it, as there is no reason not to.
For literally any card in your actual deck you make a decision to play the card, but for Companion, if you CAN play them, theres simply no reason not to have them as a Companion
----
Jegantha, the Wellspring if your deck is 5 color and happens to have no double mana cost cards, theres no reason not have have this Companion.
So everyone that just happens to have a deck like this, is pretty much forced to have this one.
Kaheera, the Orphanguard if your tribal deck happens to support this, there is again no reason not to have this.
----
As said, no matter the restriction, if your deck CAN play a Companion you will feel very forced to do so (especially as there isnt really much of a choice of Companion if one happens to be viable, the others usually are not, so they are even exclusive, which reduces your viable options to choose form to just that one).
If you make a concentrated effort to play one of them and make your deck "terrible" to do so, fine, but some decks will not need to do that, and in that case the Companion is just added value to that deck for no cost at all.
I think it's very hard to accidentally build a deck that matches a companion's conditions without trying. Looking at the two examples you use, I have an Elementals based Morophon, the Boundless EDH deck, and at first I thought that Jegantha, the Wellspring was a perfect fit. But then I realized that Avenger of Zendikar and Soul of the Harvest and all of the Cavaliers didn't work. Then I thought, cool, I'll run Kaheera, the Orphanguard! But the deck runs Jodah, the Avenger and Oracle of Mul-Daya and a few other creatures that throw it all off.
My point is just that almost any deck will have to adjust at least a little to make the companions work. I even looked at Kaheera, the Orphanguard for my Gishath deck, but too many of the Dinosaur support cards are humans, and at the end of the day, that companion isn't strong enough to take them out.
Both your arguments support the same conclusion, that Companion is a bad mechanic.
Either the requirement to play with them is so niche that they are virtually never played and thus bad
Or
Your deck happens to be able to support one in such case there is no strategic decision making to not too and thus bad
Both your arguments support the same conclusion, that Companion is a bad mechanic.
Either the requirement to play with them is so niche that they are virtually never played and thus bad
Or
Your deck happens to be able to support one in such case there is no strategic decision making to not too and thus bad
You're missing one more possibility: The power of the companion is enough that it is worth the restriction, so you modify your deck to meet those requirements. Companions are virtually never auto-includes, because no competent deck builder would ever build a deck that "just happens" to meet the conditions.
I am still not happy Companions as Companions are allowed but it is what it is. Outside of Lutri being in every single RU(x) deck, none of them are that powerful or game breaking (especially considering all the deck building hoops you will have to jump through).
Its the opposite actual.
If your deck for whatever reason CAN play a companion just out of pure randomness of your deck building, then there is absolutely 0 reason not to play that Companion.
So if it becomes an auto-include its the biggest auto-include it could ever be, as its simply an extra card to have.
For that reason alone its a incredible BAD mechanic to have around.
Decks that already meet the requirements by sheer chance are so rare as to be nonexistent. A mechanic that's only bad when pigs fly is clearly a good mechanic.
And there's still room even in this incredibly rare scenario for deckbuilding choice. You could add a companion to the deck, or you could revise your deck to not be hot garbage.
Please, mill me. Mill my important cards. Mill my lands. Mill it all. Because I will still deal 20 damage before you can mill 45 cards most every time.
As intended or as intended by maro? Hes a nig proponent of that change but frankly it misses the mark. Hybrid cards are multiple colors, therefore they have a multicolored color identity, as long as theyre multiple colors they should be treated like multicolored cards. This is one area where flavor should stay intact
They are only multicolor cards, because the physical card game unfortunately does not support multiple quantum states. Yes, it'd be great if the green-blue hybrid card would be green and blue and green-blue all at once, but that isn't how cardboard works.
Also what do you mean intended by Maro? Intended by whoever created hybrid cards. Being used as an "or" as opposed to the "and" multicolor cards is their entire purpose. That is literally the one thing they are supposed to do.
And what does flavour have to do with any of that? Flavour has no relevance to this. At all.
Please, mill me. Mill my important cards. Mill my lands. Mill it all. Because I will still deal 20 damage before you can mill 45 cards most every time.
I hate the Flash ban. I played the card entirely fairly, never had anyone complain it was broken. If you try to break something, don't act surprised when it breaks. I really hope this is the only adjustment made for cEDH because we just want such different things from the format.
But it was ok for Flash to hang around for months.
Months? Sorry, but Flash has been hanging around for 24 years - first printed in 1996 in Mirage. It's older than the format and isn't a problem unless people deliberately try to break it.
Any chance there will be adjustments for the rules to allow hybrid cards to work as intended? Or is that particular subset of cards going to be stuck in legacy rules limbo forever?
Please, not this argument here. There are already hundreds of posts elsewhere discussing this and it boils down to one side arguing that by the rules they are multicolor that is simply easier to cast vs. another side saying "we want them anyway."
Any chance there will be adjustments for the rules to allow hybrid cards to work as intended? Or is that particular subset of cards going to be stuck in legacy rules limbo forever?
Please, not this argument here. There are already hundreds of posts elsewhere discussing this and it boils down to one side arguing that by the rules they are multicolor that is simply easier to cast vs. another side saying "we want them anyway."
Bringing up what the rules already are in a discussion about what the rules should be is a meaningless contribution. The fact of the matter is that hybrid cards are not functioning as intended. They are only multicolored because the game doesn't handle multiple contradictory things simultaneously being true very well. Just look what happened to split card CMCs.
Please, mill me. Mill my important cards. Mill my lands. Mill it all. Because I will still deal 20 damage before you can mill 45 cards most every time.
Any chance there will be adjustments for the rules to allow hybrid cards to work as intended? Or is that particular subset of cards going to be stuck in legacy rules limbo forever?
Please, not this argument here. There are already hundreds of posts elsewhere discussing this and it boils down to one side arguing that by the rules they are multicolor that is simply easier to cast vs. another side saying "we want them anyway."
Bringing up what the rules already are in a discussion about what the rules should be is a meaningless contribution. The fact of the matter is that hybrid cards are not functioning as intended. They are only multicolored because the game doesn't handle multiple contradictory things simultaneously being true very well. Just look what happened to split card CMCs.
except they're also considered multicolored when determining color for things like protection too... so... yeah, they're multicolored, it functions just fine, and it fits the flavor of the format just fine too
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They changed rule 11 so companion is allowed
Lutri is banned
And flash got the ban hammer
Now protean hulk unbanning is no longer scary
Flash being banned fills me with schadenfreude because of all the arguments I had just recently with folk over whether the RC knows what it is doing where their argument was that Flash remains unbanned. My own position was 'they will probably ban it soon but more than likely, there are considerations you are not privy to behind why they are still undecided'.
that makes sense
personally i'm indifferent to it since very few in my group even knew it existed, and the ones that did weren't super competitive with it
Its the opposite actual.
If your deck for whatever reason CAN play a companion just out of pure randomness of your deck building, then there is absolutely 0 reason not to play that Companion.
So if it becomes an auto-include its the biggest auto-include it could ever be, as its simply an extra card to have.
For that reason alone its a incredible BAD mechanic to have around.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
I can't think of one of the companions where its requirement is so simple (Lutri aside, and why it was banned) that a deck will simply stumble into and be the correct color identity for (because last I checked color identity still applies). You have to consciously build around the restriction and you're going to lose out on good options somewhere. Three basically say "You can't play sol ring", for instance. (Gyruda, Keruga, and Umori if you want to play any non-artifacts.)
But it was ok for Flash to hang around for months.
Thats not the point.
If you have a deck that "could" play a companion you simply have to play it, as there is no reason not to.
For literally any card in your actual deck you make a decision to play the card, but for Companion, if you CAN play them, theres simply no reason not to have them as a Companion
----
Jegantha, the Wellspring if your deck is 5 color and happens to have no double mana cost cards, theres no reason not have have this Companion.
So everyone that just happens to have a deck like this, is pretty much forced to have this one.
Kaheera, the Orphanguard if your tribal deck happens to support this, there is again no reason not to have this.
----
As said, no matter the restriction, if your deck CAN play a Companion you will feel very forced to do so (especially as there isnt really much of a choice of Companion if one happens to be viable, the others usually are not, so they are even exclusive, which reduces your viable options to choose form to just that one).
If you make a concentrated effort to play one of them and make your deck "terrible" to do so, fine, but some decks will not need to do that, and in that case the Companion is just added value to that deck for no cost at all.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
Zirda, the Dawnwaker and Lirrus of the Dream Den do seem like the most busted of these to me. Gyruda and Obosh prevent you from playing a lot of broken cards(Sol ring and Mana Crypt, Vampiric/Demonic) Keruga is slow and only draws you expensive cards, and Umori might have the most specific restriction of all of them, with very few commander pairings available for enchantments, artifacts or planeswalkers... I think going from 8 cards to 9 in commander is a lot less broken than going from 7 cards to 8 in the other constructed formats, and we've already been doing it with Partner commanders . But Zirda and Lirrus do seem potentially scary because of Zirda's combo potential and Lirrus's raw card advantage potential.
I was waiting to see how they address that and after the announcement I wanted to ask about this in comments for their post but comments are disabled, and forums are no longer available.
Banning flash is a good move. But I'm confused by the argumentation. Flash was played by much larger part of the community than, lets say, Iona. And yet, the post points out that flash was affecting only " small fraction of the Commander playerbase".
Generally companions will be very rarely used because average decks do not immediately meet their criteria and accommodating them usually requires bigger sacrifice than the benefit they provide. They are very interesting as restriction for building new decks but when the novelty wears off the number of decks that use them will rapidly fall. Same thing happened with partners before - initial rush when everyone who bought precon used partners, an now you see them mostly in competitive pods because they are not that strong in casual deck and good manabase for 4c decks is hard to get.
Oh, so commander rules can be changed to accomodate game mechanics. Huh. Who would have guessed.
Any chance there will be adjustments for the rules to allow hybrid cards to work as intended? Or is that particular subset of cards going to be stuck in legacy rules limbo forever?
As intended or as intended by maro? Hes a big proponent of that change but frankly it misses the mark. Hybrid cards are multiple colors, therefore they have a multicolored color identity, as long as theyre multiple colors they should be treated like multicolored cards. This is one area where flavor should stay intact
I think it's very hard to accidentally build a deck that matches a companion's conditions without trying. Looking at the two examples you use, I have an Elementals based Morophon, the Boundless EDH deck, and at first I thought that Jegantha, the Wellspring was a perfect fit. But then I realized that Avenger of Zendikar and Soul of the Harvest and all of the Cavaliers didn't work. Then I thought, cool, I'll run Kaheera, the Orphanguard! But the deck runs Jodah, the Avenger and Oracle of Mul-Daya and a few other creatures that throw it all off.
My point is just that almost any deck will have to adjust at least a little to make the companions work. I even looked at Kaheera, the Orphanguard for my Gishath deck, but too many of the Dinosaur support cards are humans, and at the end of the day, that companion isn't strong enough to take them out.
Both your arguments support the same conclusion, that Companion is a bad mechanic.
Either the requirement to play with them is so niche that they are virtually never played and thus bad
Or
Your deck happens to be able to support one in such case there is no strategic decision making to not too and thus bad
You're missing one more possibility: The power of the companion is enough that it is worth the restriction, so you modify your deck to meet those requirements. Companions are virtually never auto-includes, because no competent deck builder would ever build a deck that "just happens" to meet the conditions.
Decks that already meet the requirements by sheer chance are so rare as to be nonexistent. A mechanic that's only bad when pigs fly is clearly a good mechanic.
And there's still room even in this incredibly rare scenario for deckbuilding choice. You could add a companion to the deck, or you could revise your deck to not be hot garbage.
They are only multicolor cards, because the physical card game unfortunately does not support multiple quantum states. Yes, it'd be great if the green-blue hybrid card would be green and blue and green-blue all at once, but that isn't how cardboard works.
Also what do you mean intended by Maro? Intended by whoever created hybrid cards. Being used as an "or" as opposed to the "and" multicolor cards is their entire purpose. That is literally the one thing they are supposed to do.
And what does flavour have to do with any of that? Flavour has no relevance to this. At all.
Personally, Akiri, Line-Slinger + Thrasios, Triton Hero + Lurrus of the Dream-Den might be fun, but it would make my deck look like it could have black when it can't.
Dominus of Fealty in Thassa, Deep-Dwelling
Growing Ranks in Riku
Evershrike in aura decks
Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner in monocolor
Saheeli, Sublime Artificer in esper, mono blue, or Daretti artifact decks
Waves of Aggression in Zndrsplt & Okaun
And that's just the ones I've run into building my own decks. And I don't see any color pie breaks by playing those cards in those decks.
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
Because I have more decks than fit in a signature
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Bringing up what the rules already are in a discussion about what the rules should be is a meaningless contribution. The fact of the matter is that hybrid cards are not functioning as intended. They are only multicolored because the game doesn't handle multiple contradictory things simultaneously being true very well. Just look what happened to split card CMCs.
except they're also considered multicolored when determining color for things like protection too... so... yeah, they're multicolored, it functions just fine, and it fits the flavor of the format just fine too