I recently started playing during EOE. Was pulled in by Final Fantasy and did not understand what the big deal about UB was. This was before Spider-Man of course. I wanted to play the game but it was really intimidating to try to get into 60 card formats without understanding the meta. I watched a bunch of TCC and Command Zone and loved the casual but high powered nature of Commander. I bought a pre con and played a few times at my LGS and had a blast!
Then I went to my first pre release (Lorwyn Eclipsed) and discovered Limited. I’ve become primarily a draft player and I noticed it seems the game was intended to have limited flow into standard flow into pioneer flow into modern etc etc
But….. it seems those formats are dying. And cards are becoming very very powerful and it appears that it’s because they’re being made to be moved to Commander instead of Standard. I know I’m new but I’m sad I might’ve missed a big sweet spot where the flow of cards and the meta has been kinda ruined in favor of over powered cards created for a format that’s 4 player in a game that was originally 2 player?
And now I’m hearing most 60 card formats are either dead or only playable on Arena (due to cost).
When I look at Strixhaven as a set then look at the Commander pre cons I can’t help but feel like Commander is like a different game. And this set has been awesome, don’t get me wrong, but with the news of Standard not rotating for like forever and Pioneer losing a lot of viability it seems like 60 card formats are dying in favor of a way of playing the game in a way that it wasn’t intended.
I don’t hate commandeer! I don’t think the cards are slop but I’m sad to see the Standard format kind of die :(
I’m still pretty new so I may be romanticizing these formats I never got to experience when there were only 4 In universe sets a year/blocks etc etc
TL;DR
As a new player that wants to play 60 card and seeing the treatment 60 card formats are getting and the power creep I can’t help but feel it’s Commander’s fault (not that there’s anything wrong with Commander) and it feels like WotC is developing cards for two different games; not just two different card formats.
Edit: I posted this with the “discussion” flair but the auto mod changed it to “EDH” and I’m not trying to aim this at EDH players, just trying to ask if I’m crazy or not for wishing I’d been a part of a time period that may or may not have existed