Re: Leadership Vacuum; I think in a vacuum it is just a bounce and tax, but in the context of a full game where that tax is added to each cast it feels like "Exile target commander" because most players would put their Commander in the command zone anyways in response to that effect

Blue gets bounce, which (usually) means putting it back from where it was cast from. Bounce also kills tokens which isn’t something blue traditionally does. Bounce can interact strangely with certain things.

Is Leadership Vacuum a break? It acts basically the same as Murder for commanders.

It’s more like a bounce spell (with some taxing) as the Commanders can be cast again.

When you create a card like Leadership Vacuum, which specifically only works in commander (and variants), do you, at any point, talk to the Rules Committee about their view on the effect?

Commander design teams always talk with the Commander Rules Committee.

In commander, the death/exile of a commander is lessened by the ability to put them into a command zone. When a commander is "taxed" from the command zone, it is an effect of death. Though the rules of commander make death less permanent for all colors, giving blue access to the tax in the name of bounce expands blues color pie in a way that circumvents a historical weakness of blue in commander (no access to the command tax). In other words Leadership Vacuum is at the very minimum a harsh bend.

The color pie is format agnostic. We make decisions for the color pie based on how its mechanical function matches the overall philosophy of the color. If the rules of a format make a color act quirkily within the confines of that format, that’s what happens. This is the same philosophy that makes us design commons to match their defined function as a common and not make commons just because it would work well in Pauper. Formats come and go while the color pie is a constant throughout the game no matter how you play. Blue sending creatures back to the zone they were cast from so they can be cast again is just something blue does. If that happens to give blue some extra functionality in a particular format, then that’s what it does. That’s not a bend.

Nobody is saying Leadership Vacuum isn't in Blue's color pie. We're saying becauae of thw rules surrounding commander and command tax, it basically give Blue targeted removal. Either WoTC shouldn't have printed it bc of the rules, or maybe it bounce target players commander to their hand.

Let me try this from a different approach. Often in design we make effects we’ve never made before. When we do, we have to figure out where in the color pie we want to put them. We do this by looking at the component effects and matching them. After that, we have to take a step back and look holistically at the decision. By doing this are we doing something that will undermine a weakness of a color? With that said, let’s examine Leadership Vacuum. All the component pieces can be done in blue. Okay, let’s take a holistic view at the card. One of blue’s weaknesses is it can’t permanently destroy permanents. In this case, is it doing that? No, it’s specifically putting the card in a zone that it’s owner is allowed to recast it from. Yes, there’s a tax, but that isn’t undermining blue’s weakness. Blue is secondary in taxing. So, yes we’ve made a new effect in a color in a format, but it doesn’t violate the color pie, so we’re okay doing it. That’s what making new effects is all about.

Calling Leadership Vacuum a bounce effect is disingenuous. All players can interact with cards bounced to a player's hand and many cards care about being played explicitly from their owner's hands. "Return to command zone" doesn't afford this. The card is giving Blue new space where it doesn't belong and the sad fact is that it could have been easily avoided by just sending the card to their owner's hand.

Here’s what happened. We wanted to create a card that bounced commanders back to the command zone. It was a new effect that made sense in a Commander product. We examined the ability from a color pie perspective. What color would return a creature back to the zone from which it was cast (and it could be recast from?) That was an easy call as only one color does that - Blue. The fact that the Commander rules make Murder act like a bounce spell does not make bounce-like effects not blue. I feel like I’ve said about all I can on this topic, so to save a whole bunch of more emails, I’m going to put this topic on hiatus for now. I’ve explained our rationale as best I can. If you’re going to continue to be upset, I can just say we’re going to have to agree to disagree.

Why didn't Leadership Vacuum return the commander to the owner's hand?

I had nothing to do with its design, but my guess was they wanted to create a spell that did things a little differently and, as this was a Commander product, they could reference the command zone in rules text.

Hi Mark Commander 2019's new Blue Instant, Leadership Vacuum, is concerning. This is hard removal for Commanders that have already resolved and bypasses protection/hexproof/shroud/indestructible AND cantrips. Blue is supposed to have the worst post-resolution removal. This should have sent them to their owner's hand. As it is now, the card may as well Exile the targetted player's Commander(s).

It’s sending them to a zone where they can get recasted. That feels a lot like unsummonjng and feels fine for blue.