Ah, the Fable of Monkey and Weasel, true to this very day.

I mean i totally get you, i am just bewildered by the Sower comparison. Haha. In an old group we used to have Prime and it was the most powerful card but it was okay everyone was ramping like crazy because we didn't have stuff like Cradle/Coffers/Temple generally.

I think the other factor too is that O Sower is colorless, and provides a sizeable creature and massive ramp to colors that don't normally have to those things. And for good measure, it's ability is quite difficult to interact with. Combined, I think we see the affects of O Sower more frequently than PT in our group.

Cast triggers are way more difficult to abuse than ETB triggers. While it seems like there might be an OSower/PT comparison, there isn't much of one.

I think this sums it up. A single PT is almost never a problem. It is the inevitable clones and reanimation that end up making it a format-warper.

And I totally agree, they aren't directly comparable. It's just that, in our group which runs a sufficient amount of Graveyard hate, exile effects, etc., PT doesn't alter games like it used to. I'm I calling for an unban? For the average person, probably not. But, for us, its a card we don't loathe anymore than deadeye navigator, consecrated sphinx, new ulamog, and so on.

In its absence, we discovered the power of casting a six drop colorless spell that, with out much set up, can double your mana in one non-interactive cast trigger. Lands inevitably end up in graveyards, and graveyards are inevitably exiled. As I mentioned earlier, it's common for an O Sower to snag 10 lands in our games. Should this card be banned? Absolutely not. But to clarify, my comparison was not direct. It was how games became about casting O Sower (especially for the non green decks) in the absence of PT.

I got to Surgical extraction some Urza lands in modern before casting Sower once. Mmmm.

I actually really wish PT was legal.

My current playgroup allows planeswalkers as commanders. Two players have tried, me being one. I played a few games with Nicol Bolas and switched to his creature version for balance and fun. I'll let the other guy run Tibalt if he wants to.

Also, we do not allow players to gain individual control over another player's commander. Thank Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker grabbing a Sliver Hivelord. My friend's jimmies never got unrustled and he proposed the rule during our first vote.

I'm sort of the group leader. We always meet at my house and I call votes. It's my skill and experience, I never asked to sit at the head of the table. I did suggest all votes be unanimous as we're seven players at best. I generally bend with the wind, going whichever way the vote is. I do want the control rule revoked. Hivelord has enough protection once Crystalline Sliver gets out, and I've informed the group that this particular rule is living on numbered days.

My old playgroup was smaller, just four of us. We began as constructed players who switched to commander almost immediately after trying it. I loved it, and proposed the change because we almost never played one on one, and I was very tired of building decks with one opponent in mind; then playing a four player game where my decks would not perform well. So we went with it.

After a few months we encountered our first format warping card: Omniscience. Each player was relying on it and it was stifling creativity-every deck was blue, if not mono blue. Then I built Narset and abused it worse than my brother had abused Teferi, Temporal Archmage. Not long after that we banned Omniscience and any extra turn sorcery which did not exile itself upon resolving.

We don't have a banned list now, in my new playgroup, except the official list, and I agree with it fairly well. There is a civility between us, and we seldom go infinite even if some of our decks can. We may take a few extra turns activating Ral Zarek, but will only do so once a game. My aforementioned friend and I are constantly discussing changes, and bring them to the group. I used to be competitive with this format because you can really go big, but I've come around to the philosophy of fun and social play. I'm trying to help temper the playgroup accordingly.

Sounds like a nice success story. Glad things are going so well.

Thank you, Sheldon.

Has anyone else ever had or heard of a house rule about gaining control of other players' commanders?

No. Usually by that time its either dealt with or the game is over. Its rare for a control effect to end up lasting for more than a turn.

You might try a house rule that control effects on commanders end at the end of the turn. Then you can get fun stuff like "borrowing" a commander for a combat phase going.

We voted that in last night, Niheloim. Thank you for the helpful suggestion, I don't know why it didn't occur to me or any of us. Two of our members suggested an alternate plan, where you pay an upkeep cost to keep control of another player's commander. I like the idea, and we will try it soon. But thank you, once again.

sweet. I hope its a positive change to your games.

One thing my group doesn't enjoy is the mass land destruction. Several cards that can do that are on our house rules ban list. Memnarch is on the list too, but that's from him being used in a situation where he was broken powerful that we agreed shouldn't happen again.

One house rule we do use is that commanders can't be copied or taken control of by another player. The no taking control happened after an 'incident' with Blatant Thievery while every commander was on the field. The copied part was more of an afterthought.

How is that ban worthy? Wipe the board and move on. Guy pays seven mana for a blowout effect and it works once... Guess we should ban that from ever happening again instead of being mindful of it in the future. That makes certain generals and strategies even more broken.