Ben Brode
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benbrode.bsky.social
Ben Brode
@benbrode.bsky.social
Chief Development Officer and Co-Founder @ Second Dinner
Marvel SNAP | Hearthstone | Commander @ Home guest | Rapper
whew got it
November 3, 2025 at 6:26 PM
dammit i moved my meetings around for the email time now I'll be in a meeting at 9AM 😭
November 3, 2025 at 4:10 PM
somehow it got worse
November 3, 2025 at 4:07 PM
That’s why we start games with “hey we play with no sol rings. If you draw it, just remove it and draw again. Cool?”

That way when you play with folks who ain’t cool you can still have it
October 31, 2025 at 5:19 PM
People forget, or want to keep it for when they play against heathens.
October 30, 2025 at 7:53 PM
no, you're right. It's why i've taken out most board wipes and put in more win conditions. But most decks aren't winning with Commander damage even after 2 hours anyway. :-/
October 29, 2025 at 3:40 AM
autospotters are game changers
October 29, 2025 at 3:35 AM
But difference for difference sake doesn't feel quite right to me. I think each difference bears some cognitive load and we should analyze each one to decide if it's worth its cost. Hybrid Mana doesn't cross that line for me personally, regardless of where the right place on the spectrum is.
October 23, 2025 at 5:07 PM
And to date, as it has removed rules to make it more similar to the rest of Magic, it has grown in popularity. Remember when you couldn't generate mana outside your color identity?

We could continue to differentiate it - I have long been a proponent of a Life Cap, for instance.
October 23, 2025 at 5:07 PM
i often like to think about these things as a gradient. Is Commander better if it is less unique and different? Should it be more unique and different? What are the chances that it is exactly at the perfect point on that spectrum right now?
October 23, 2025 at 5:04 PM
I’m not saying that’s good or bad. I’m just saying that this isn’t actually the wall we get to use to influence what cards they make or don’t make. Because they drive tanks.
October 23, 2025 at 5:35 AM
I agree working within limitations is fun. But as designers it’s good to analyze whether these are the right ones, or would other ones be better. I think the rule that you couldn’t generate mana outside your identity was an example of a not great imitation. The removal didn’t hurt Commander.
October 23, 2025 at 5:33 AM
I mean, they can brute force it if they want like with “this card can be your commander.”

They can make hybrid cards that say “can be used in decks with any color identity”

I don’t think Commander Committee has the power it used to.
October 23, 2025 at 5:30 AM
wait what? every color can tutor

moxfield.com/decks/gcH0ru...
Tutors - Colorless - None
A deck created using Moxfield.
moxfield.com
October 23, 2025 at 3:55 AM
how do you feel about colorless mana? it's the least restrictive of the mana symbols. If you don't like hybrid (which is designed to be OR), do you also not like colorless (which is designed to be ALL)?

Do you think designers should only be able to design AND and ANY cards but no OR cards?
October 23, 2025 at 3:53 AM
Feels like they addressed these in the article
October 21, 2025 at 10:32 PM
You’re thinking from the rules you already know. What you said isn’t weird at all from the broad perspective of MtG
October 21, 2025 at 10:31 PM
Also this affects mostly mono color decks and maaaaybe 1-2 cards in those decks. It’s not gonna have much of an impact besides making it easier to understand and reducing the barrier to learn.
October 21, 2025 at 8:47 PM
It was very weird to me that a card that is designed to be played in a mono color deck and is playable in a mono color deck in every other format suddenly couldn’t go in a mono color deck.
October 21, 2025 at 8:46 PM