A Message from the Walking Archive

Hi, this is now an archived blog!

Sorry if you’re looking for a ban list or rules, let me get you those links.

Tiny Leaders Reborn Ban List

Tiny Leaders Rules Supplement, authored by the TL:R team

The Tiny Leaders: Reborn community can primarily be found on Their Discord

If you are trying to reach the format creators, Charlotte and Steven have moved onto other projects, including advising the Tiny Leaders: Reborn team in a limited role. They most easily can be found @charlottebraix.bsky.social and @shamonic.bsky.social

They also have authored retrospectives on the creation and history of Tiny Leaders, which can be found on this blog.

Thank you for your visit, have a wonderful day in the multiverse!

2021 Format Update: Rules Clarification, Ban List Update.

Tiny Leaders has been on hiatus for several years.

This update is not a guarantee that we're back, but more a clarification and ratification of some other groups' testing and notes.

CLARIFICATION- Modal Double Faced Cards and Their Legality in the Format.

Modal Double Faced Cards are a relatively new addition to Magic. They are akin to split cards but do not share Mana Value across both halves of the card, rather they have the Mana Value of the front face; while the back face is considered an alternate casting cost.

For the purposes of Tiny Leaders: Modal Double Faced Cards are only legal IF: the front face and the back face would both independently be legal to play in your deck.  This means that cards like: Rowan, Scholar of Sparks, Valki, God of Lies, and Blex, Vexing Pest are not legal in the format; while Plargg, Dean of Chaos is legal.

BAN LIST UPDATE- Five Colour and Thassa's Oracle.

Since we banned our last card, Najeela, the Blade Blossom, Wizards has printed two more Tiny Leaders playable five-colour legendary creatures: Codie, Vociferous Codex and Sisay, Weatherlight Captain. Following the direction set by the Najeela ban: Codie and Sisay are also banned.

Multiple sources and our own experience has shown that Thassa's Oracle is a very powerful, simple win condition.  Given the deck size and consistency of the card, we are banning Thassa's Oracle at this time.

I hope this update finds you well, stay tuned here for potential updates in the future.  Thank you for your patience.

-Steven

Ban list update 07/06/18

Due to the format philosophy and the established rules, we will be banning Najeela, the Blade Blossom

This is a tough choice, but we feel it's correct for the format.

As always, we hope you continue to have fun playing Tiny Leaders, keep testing out those planeswalker commander decks!

-Steven

Tiny Leaders Format Changes for Dominaria

Hello Wonderful People!

Hope you're all enjoying your matches of Tiny Leaders- and these fun new Dominaria legends we're seeing!  I'm coming to you with a couple of interesting changes- one we're testing and one that's long term.

Wizards introduced a format called "Brawl" and it's very interesting- so interesting we've decided to take a page from their book.  We'll be implementing a rule that changes what type of card you can have as your commander- adding Wizards' idea of having Legendary Planeswalker cards as commanders.  This allows you to play all your favourite Planeswalkers as Tiny Leaders: from Liliana to Tibalt.

The second change is to partner commanders- we've been looking at ways to mitigate the card advantage of starting with two commanders in your command zone.  The solution is elegant and simple "Each player's starting hand size (before mulligans) is 8 minus the number of cards in their command zone".  This means Partner commanders' starting hand size will be 6 as opposed to the normal 7.

Both of these changes start at the full release of Dominaria, when the set becomes legal for Tiny Leaders play.

Have fun, and good luck against my sweet Ashiok deck.

Steven Hamonic

Ban List

Ban list for Tiny Leaders

• All Ante and Manual Dexterity cards

• Ancestral Recall
• Balance
• Black Lotus
• Black Vise
• Channel
• Codie, Vociferous Codex
• Counterbalance
• Demonic Tutor
• Earthcraft
• Edric, Spymaster of Trest
• Fastbond
• Goblin Recruiter
• Grindstone
• Hermit Druid
• High Tide
• Imperial Seal
• Library of Alexandria
• Karakas
• Mana Crypt
• Mana Drain
• Mana Vault
• Metalworker
• Mind Twist
• Mishra's Workshop
• Mox Emerald, Jet, Pearl, Ruby, Sapphire
• Najeela, the Blade-Blossom
• Necropotence
• Shahrazad
• Sisay, Weatherlight Captain
• Skullclamp
• Sol Ring
• Strip Mine
• Survival of the Fittest
• Sword of Body and Mind
• Thassa's Oracle
• The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
• Time Vault
• Time Walk
• Timetwister
• Tolarian Academy
• Umezawa's Jitte
• Vampiric Tutor
• Wheel of Fortune
• Yawgmoth's Will

Additionally, these Legendary creatures cannot be used as Commanders:

• Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
• Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary

• Derevi, Empyrial Tactician

The ban list is subject to scrutiny and testing- if you think a card should be banned or unbanned, contact the review board with your argument, comment on this post, or post to the TinyLeaders subreddit/ official Tiny Leaders facebook page and discuss it there.

(Updated August 02, 2021- Adventures in the Forgotten Realms)

Tiny Leaders Format Changes for Ixalan

Hello Tiny Leaders Community!

Some quick notes before I get to the format changes- We've been in contact with a large group of players in France who have been gathering testing data, so we will be resuming banlist updates as they become apparent.  We also have some rules changes in regards to split cards, making things simpler for analyzing whether a split card is legal in deck construction or not.

Format Changes: Split cards now check the CMC of the card to see if it's legal for deck construction, instead of checking both halves.  This means that Fire//Ice has moved from "Two 2 mana spells, legal to play" to "A 4 mana card, not legal to play"

Ban List Changes: From our testing partners in France we've found that some newer cards have been seeing a lot of play, namely Baral as the leader of a High Tide storm deck, and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale in a Lands shell.  Reviewing the data, we have decided to act on High Tide and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, but leave Baral for now.

Banned: High Tide, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale.

We hope to have more testing and results for you in future months, and we hope you have fun playing Tiny Leaders!

Community Update: November 12, 2016.

With the release of Commander's 2016 edition, we got a few very interesting things- including the Partner mechanic.  We had a lot to discuss with this update, some rules to figure out and a bunch of things to decide.

One of the major decisions we came to early on in the format's creation was that we wouldn't support a four or five colour proxy general.  With Partner's official release, we had to decide if and how it would be implemented.

Officially, we will support Partner, but there will be a special rule implemented for Tiny Leaders:  "Partner commanders are only legal if their combined colour identities are less than four total colours".  This ensures the original ideology of the format stays intact, while allowing you to play with this new and interesting set of commanders.

We will have an official rules update for you within the week.  Have fun with Commander 2016!

-Tiny Leaders Rules Committee.

Community Update 9/30/2016

Hello, everyone-

It's been a while since you've really heard from us, and that makes a lot of sense- since it's been a while since we've really had any time to do much aside from school/ work.  A lot has happened in the last year or so- Bram quit Magic, Matt defended his thesis, and I (Steven) wrapped up my second last (but first most hectic) year of University.  All that stuff didn't leave a ton of time for Tiny Leaders- ban list testing fell to the wayside, set updates were sparse -or in the case of Eldritch Moon, missing- and we basically let things stagnate.

Now, I'm sure some of you are convinced we've entirely given up- I'm here to tell you that's entirely not the case, we're busy folks and the testing we've done in the past takes a lot of time: True-Name Nemesis alone took more than 200 games to gather enough data on to make a decision.  This is where we're looking to find some ways to bring in outside help; I'm fine with the amount of time it takes to sift through the data and make a firm decision on things, but there's no way I'm going to be able to enjoy playing Magic if all the time I'm spending on the game is testing repetitive matches for raw data numbers.

I'm not entirely sure yet as to what form this community testing initiative is going to take, but what I can ask you all to do is to submit tournament results and deck lists- along with your feedback.  If there's a card we see popping up in every 1st or 2nd place deck in every event, we'd have something to go on when it comes to what to test sooner rather than later.

If you do want to help us do large quantity testing, I will be working on a spreadsheet guideline for recording matches; for now, follow these guidelines when testing problematic cards:

• Note who won.
• Note who was playing what deck.
• Note whether the problem card was drawn in the opening hand, or at any other point in the game.
• Note the number of mulligans.
• Note if the problem card was cast.
• Note if the game is pre-sideboard or post-sideboard.
• Play an even amount of pre-sideboard and post-sideboard games, since both are relevant data sets.
• Have both players play both decks an even amount of times, this will help level any skill differences present.
• Record your pre-sideboard and post-sideboard deck lists.
• Try to not test more than one problematic card at a time.

On the topic of problematic cards- our current list (in no particular order) includes:

• Gaea's Cradle
• Crucible of Worlds
• Ezuri, Renegade Leader
• Isochron Scepter
• Channel (Possible Unban)
• Survival of the Fittest (Possible Unban)
• Imperial Seal (Possible Unban)

If you do find a problem and want to test out a ban or unban in your play group, talk with them- test out unbanning or banning things.  I would rather see you try to make your own fun than leave the format, so do it!

Tiny Leaders Format Changes for Kaladesh

After some discussion, an update to the rules regarding the production of colours of mana outside your commander's colour identity.  You may now produce mana of any colour, regardless of your deck's colour identity (Ex: A Leovold deck's Masterpiece Chromatic Lantern can produce White or Red mana if necessary).

We also decided to remove Sultai, and the Errata on Ana Battlemage, since Wizards of the Coast was so wonderfully helpful in providing us with Leovold, Emissary of Trest.  We did leave Glass, the colourless proxy option, in case anyone still wants to play without a colour identity.

Check out Version 1.3 of the Tiny Leaders Comprehensive rules: Here!

No ban list changes.

Tiny Leaders Format Change For Shadows Over Innistrad

With the announcement of (c) as a mana type (represented as a diamond symbol) in Oath of the Gatewatch, we made some changes to the format, but missed one thing- in the rules section, when incriminating the cost of a Commander after casting it, we incorrectly stated it increased by "{2} colourless mana" ({c}{c}), this is not the case; Commander costs increment by {2} generic mana (the traditional {2}).

We hope this was not the source of any confusion.

There are no ban list changes at this time.

Tiny Leaders Format Change For Oath of the Gatewatch

With the announcement of (c) as a mana type (represented as a diamond symbol) in Oath of the Gatewatch, we decided to add another proxy Leader to your arsenal.

As of Oath of the Gatewatch, you will be able to play with:

Glass  (c)(c)(c)
Legendary Creature

3/3

The Proxy general "Sultai" has also had its power and toughness changed to 3/3.

There are no ban list changes, as at this point, any changes would be based on guesswork, not statistical model analysis.  We are very sorry for this, and if anyone wishes to test problem cards, let us know and we can provide instructions on how to report data.

Tiny Leaders Format Changes Battle For Zendikar

For the Battle For Zendikar rules changes, the Tiny Leaders format will be adopting the Vancouver Mulligan rule:

103.4. Each player draws a number of cards equal to his or her starting hand size, which is normally seven. (Some effects can modify a player's starting hand size.) A player who is dissatisfied with his or her initial hand may take a mulligan. First, the starting player declares whether or not he or she will take a mulligan. Then each other player in turn order does the same. Once each player has made a declaration, all players who decided to take mulligans do so at the same time. To take a mulligan, a player shuffles his or her hand back into his or her library, then draws a new hand of one fewer cards than he or she had before. If a player kept his or her hand of cards, those cards become the player's opening hand, and that player may not take any further mulligans. This process is then repeated until no player takes a mulligan. (Note that if a player's hand size reaches zero cards, that player must keep that hand.) Then, beginning with the starting player and proceeding in turn order, any player whose opening hand has fewer cards than his or her starting hand size may scry 1.

The optional Sultai Leader, a generic 2/2 for UBG can be substituted with a legendary version of Ana Battlemage, retaining the name Ana Battlemage, but gaining the Legendary supertype.

There are no ban list changes.

We hope that these changes are well met, and that the Sultai change encourages people to play that colour combination more in the future!

Thank you for your continued support, and look forward to more updates in the future.

Ban List Update 7/13/2015 - Magic Origins

Update--- July 13th 2015

Banlist changes:

Banned: Grindstone

Unbanned: Painter's Servant

Notes- The inclusion of both of these combo pieces is likely too powerful, Painter's Servant is an interesting card to build with and with a less-powerful version of Grindstone being printed in Sphinx's Tutelage, we found this would be a fun way to shake up the format.

Testing is underway on Gaea's Cradle, Day's Undoing (and Timetwister)- and with finished testing on True-Name Nemesis, preliminary results show there is no need for a ban, as the card's power level is well within the acceptable range (<65% game win rate when cast).  Data on True-Name Nemesis' testing will be available when formatting is complete, but I'm going to be pushing more testing rather than data reformatting.

04/01/15 Ban List Update (April Fools!)

Update--- March 31, 2015

Banlist changes:

Banned:

• True-Name Nemesis (99% win rate when drawn)
• Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest (Dominant in tournament results) 
• Steel of the Godhead (Makes Geist of Saint Traft decks too strong)
• Sensei’s Divining Top (Proven to make games take 26 minutes longer on average)
• Sword of Vengeance (Everyone wants the Swords banned, might as well start somewhere)
• Hero’s Blade (Fits in every deck, way too powerful)
• Bronze Sable (Also fits in every deck, power level similar to Goku’s)

News: Trademark and Fair Use

Hey, everybody- we at Tiny Leaders are super sorry if our trademark and fair use policy was confusing or unclear.  I'm here to put some rumors to bed, because people seem to have the wrong idea of why we're doing this.

1) "They're Trademarking _____!"

We have trademarked the name "Tiny Leaders", that's it.

2) "Rule 1, you don't talk about Tiny Leaders"

No, we're not that thing that happens thursday nights in the basement of the bar, Tiny Leaders' trademark is just to legitimize us as the rules and ban list people.  The name is still open for use, honestly, the trademark doesn't change anything.

3) "You guys are just trying to make money off of it!"

That would be awesome, but no- we're only looking to protect ourselves from losing opportunities- it's like if you were to take something Wizards owns, say... the clan symbols or guild symbols- and print off a bunch of shirts and sell them?  That would get you in trouble.

4) "You're going to sue us!"

I don't ever want to even think of going through the hassle of litigation.  Honestly, the legal action statement is more of a safety net in case things go horribly wrong in some unforeseeable way.

5) "The EDH guys didn't do it."

The Elder Dragon Highlander development team didn't do a lot of things we're doing, does it make either of us wrong? I don't think so, you might, and you're entitled to that opinion- we're going to continue down this path, and hope things work out for us.

6) "Wizards won't be able to recognize it as a real format if they do this"

The beautiful thing about the law and ownership is that you can change it.  If Wizards wants to bring Tiny Leaders into the fold, they can talk to us and I think everyone is more than happy to do that.

7) "We can't make any money writing about Tiny Leaders!"

Run ads on your site, we do!  It's not up to us to say what you can and can't write about us- but we can ask you to make your articles about Tiny Leaders free to access, because it's the internet and information is important- that's a value we all share.

Trademark and Fair Use agreement

[Updated: 1/28/2015]

Hello everybody, it's come to this- time to become the layman's lawyer and get some of this information to you guys!  This page is your one-stop shop for what you can and can't do in regards to the Tiny Leaders brand- The Trademark statement lets you know we came up with and own the name, and the Fair Use terms give you an outline as to how you should go about making your Tiny Leaders pages and articles.

Tiny Leaders Trademark statement:

"Tiny Leaders™" is a trademark of Bramwell Tackaberry and Steven Hamonic 2013-2015.

In layman's terms: we have the exclusive rights to sell and distribute merchandise bearing our trademark, and you can't go claiming you thought up the idea, because that's just not cool.

Fate Reforged Release notes.

Tiny Leaders has experienced some changes with the release of Fate Reforged.

Fate Reforged, and all further sets will be legal to play in the Tiny Leaders format upon release- that means you have a week between pre-release and release that you can't play the new set in Tiny Leaders.

We now have access to a Mardu (white, black, red) Leader, and a Jeskai (blue, white, red) Leader.  So we have removed the format exclusive Dega and Patriot placeholders.

We also get another Temur Leader, so that's interesting!

I will note here, these Leaders are untested by our overlords committee, and will be undergoing rigorous tests in the coming months (mostly because we're always excited to play with new toys!), so expect to see an update on the facebook page with some information about them.

We hope you all are as excited as we are to welcome Yasova, Shu Yun and Alesha to our growing ranks- and I for one welcome our new wedge overlords.

Have fun building with our new toys, And Wizards- we're still waiting for that Sultai Leader! (Just kidding, guys, we love you- keep making Magic fun.).

-The Elated Overlords.

Frequently Asked Questions

F.A.Q.

(Updated 12/01/2014)



Q: What's the deal with X spells? Can I play my Genesis Wave, ____ Sun's Zenith?

A: The converted mana cost of a card is the sum of the numbers and mana symbols in the cost.  Cards with X in the cost treat X as 0 when determining the converted mana cost of the card.  Note that the word "card" is used, since the converted mana cost of an X spell (when the card is on the stack) is determined by what value you have chosen for X, plus all other numbers and mana symbols in the cost of the card.



A (short): count the symbols and numbers, treat X as 0. Did you count to 0, 1, 2, or 3? yes? you can play it.


Q: Split cards, do those work?

A: The comprehensive rules have been worded in such a way as to allow for some split cards to be played.  If a split card's individual sections both have a converted mana cost less than 4, it is legal in the format.  Split cards are still subject to the colour identity rules- so be sure that both halves are legal in your deck.

A (short): you can play: Far // Away, Turn // Burn, Night // Day, Dead // Gone, Life // Death, Stand // Deliver, Trial // Error, Rise // Fall, Fire // Ice, Give // Take, Hide // Seek, Illusion // Reality, Profit // Loss, Pure // Simple, Ready // Willing, Supply // Demand, Wear // Tear, Toil // Trouble, Wax // Wane

11/08/14 Ban List Update

Update--- November 08, 2014

Banlist changes:

Unbanned: Bazaar of Baghdad

Notes: Testing shows no problems with the card, as usual please report inconsistencies- submit decklists that abuse the card, and enjoy your new piece of dredge tech!  

Yours, truly
-The Overlords

08/13/2014 Ban List Update

Update--- July 13 2014

Banlist changes:

Unbanned: Serra Ascendant

Notes: Banlist updated to reflect changes made in testing- honestly, we kind of just forgot to take her off the list when life totals swapped to 25 from the original 30 after testing.  Original ban was to save on having to errata the card as it is in the Duels of the Planeswalkers (2012) game.

Have a wonderful day,

 -Your forgetful Overlords