Hey Mark on the discussion people had about the commander text being on freerunning, I actually wanted to ask: why does commander text have to stay clear from other formats? I don't think Standard or Modern need commander zones, but why is it an issue to have say a Planeswalker in Standard set with the "Can be your commander text". I've always thought these limits were weird because it makes Magic feel like seperate games entirely instead of a unified single game with many formats.

We just have limits where we put rules text that calls out a specific format.

I would like to counterweight and say I love freerunning. I run aggressive commanders, so the fact it rewards decks other than the Ezio assassin deck I’m making is exciting. I think it is thoughtful about Commander as a format because it requires the Commander itself to get in and rewards low to the ground aggressive strategies and investment in the status of attackers and blockers in combat. EDH often disincentivizes those strategies, so I’m thrilled they get a boost.

Glad you like it.

As someone who primarily plays commander I really dislike how it's been stapled on to Freerunning. Cards don't need to work in every deck. In fact, it feels much more rewarding when you stumble across cards that only work in the deck you're trying to build. Freerunning as an assassin's only thing would've been great. Cool mechanic, cool flavor, fits the IP. Including commander makes it feel forced and too direct. I get commander is the most popular format and you want to cater to it, but this is the absolute worst way to do that in my opinion. Just make cool cards with niche abilities and have them be legendary from time to time.

Assassin typal is pretty narrow. Note how Outlaws of Thunder Junction had to also attach Rogue and Mercenary and Pirates and Warlock to make it mechanically relevant. (There were only 87 Assassins in the game - not counting Changelings - before Assassin’s Creed released.)It just isn’t good game design to make a mechanic (the only new one, no less) one that can only be played in under .1% of decks. But it’s Assassin’s Creed, Assassin’s in the title. It’s the core role of the game. So Corey (the lead design of the set) decided to find additional mechanical space to broaden it. Commander traditionally has trouble with aggression (aka not a lot of Commanders attack regularly) so Corey found a way to make the mechanic relevant in Commander.Even though every Commander deck has a Commander, free running doesn’t push in a way that makes every deck want or need it. I hear the message that some people don’t want us to design cards for Commander, but it’s a 800-pound gorilla that dominates tabletop play. If you go to many game stores, it’s the only pick-up game you can find. So to make our new mechanic (again, the only new mechanic in the whole set) something unplayable in our most popular format isn’t very viable. There is a truism in game design. “You design for the game being played.” You have to understand how your cards will be used by the players and lean into it. There are so many formats you can play that we (mostly) don’t design for, if that’s important to you. Magic is great in that you the player have so much agency in how you play. But we’re going to design for the format that dominates tabletop play.

Can Freerunning be used on cards outside the ACR IP?

The mechanic can. I’m not sure about the name.

"Where are Assassins on the beeble scale? Um, you might want to check out Assassin’s Creed. It has an Assassin typal theme. At the preview panel at MagicCon, we showed off freerunning, a mechanic with a cost you can cast if you dealt combat damage with an Assassin or your commander." Isn't the Beeble scale for Standard?

You are correct, it is. We do Assassin’s with some regularity in premier sets. I’d call them a 3 on the Beeble Scale.