For ages the balance was this- wizards makes cards for Magic the Gathering. Commander, a fan generated format, chooses how to use them and which cards to use. The problem started when wizards began making cards for *Commander* instead of for Magic the Gathering.

Because before, it didn't matter how hybrid worked or what tools white or red had. You took the game pieces they made and adapted them to your needs, often making wild workarounds to patch holes and challenges

When wizards started making cards specifically for commander, we got nonsense like dockside and arcane signet and so on, and more demands from corporate that the fan format start following the rules of Magic the Gathering as designed.

And now that wizards has commander in house entirely, why bother with the artifice? Why even ask about rules you obviously want changed? The answer because wizards knows that the things that make commander special are incredibly important and require audience buy in before you knock the pillars down

Commander has more in common with dandan than it does with standard. It is a novel way to use gamepieces that were printed for a different game entirely.

It is like using the rules of a tabletop miniatures war game to tell lengthy, persistent, evolving stories that follow a single party of characters over time

And when the designers come and say, hey, you aren't using the pieces we made correctly, is that a genuinely valid concern? People are having a blast working within the rules they made with your toys. They are still buying Legos, just not building the picture on the box

What the question of hybrid is really asking is not about color identity, it is about whose game we are playing. And real talk, wizards took commander in-house. The battle, as it were, is over. Does it even matter what we think? When a kid puts a rw hybrid soldier in a mono-w deck, who really cares?

I think the rules should stay as they are. I think they're easy to understand and keep the aesthetics and core idea of the game pretty. But I am not gonna do more than shrug if they change, because I put harsher build restrictions on myself than the rules ever will.