Pointed Discussion

I like it better than Cancel, and eventually you will get it back.

Sits great next to my hinder in all of my blue EDH decks. 5 stars

Great for putting generals back into librarys.

I don't really understand why they made a card so similar to hinder. Obviously every EDH deck with blue will run both. Shrug.

"Hey, hinder ain't that good in commander/EDH, let's make a recurring one!" This just in: Blue is king of M:tG

Actually people, I think it was meant to be a "nerfed" Hinder. IMO, with all the graveyard recursion going on in Commander, it's actually easier to return a card from your graveyard than it is to tutor it from your library. That being said, my Jhoira of the Ghitu EDH is happy to be able to run what is essentially a second copy of the same powerful spell. :D

After they Spell Crumple your general, you Tunnel Vision them naming Spell Crumple, thus making this worse than Hinder.

If you have a reliable tutor, you can dig this back out of your library, making this better than Hinder.

Overall, it's a Hinder variant (barely).

no dragon for you!

One of the best 3 mana counterspells in Magic. It's not as good as Dissipate, but it sends Flashback and Dredge spells to a place opponents can't get to...It even recurs when used with shuffle effects! 5/5

You're all wrong. Commander is funny. Unlike 60-card 4-of, Commander is 100-card Singleton.

Which means, obviously, that one of the first things you need to think about is how to make your deck more consistent. Straight up card-drawing, while still great, doesn't do as much as being able to find, say, 5-6 cards with different names that are near functional reprints.

In 'normal' Magic, this is Hinders 5-8. In Commander, this is Hinder 2. And it's completely deliberate, because just having 2 Hinders is nothing like having 8. It's not 'nerfed'. It's not significantly 'better' or 'worse' than Hinder. It's just 'different' enough to justify a new name, and a new card. This is your second Hinder in every deck that uses Hinder, plain and simple. They can't do this sort of thing in Standard, like making Mana Leak 5-8, or, just to be ridiculous, Squadron Hawk 5-8.

That's why Commander is just so awesome. Each new functionally similar card is just one little card more in a 100-card giant stack of cards, which means there is less pressure on the Designers and Developers to not break the format in half, and you can have a very diverse palette of staple effects to choose from. Just think how boring the game would be if there were no other card except Doom Blade, Counterspell, Lightning Bolt, Rampant Growth, and Wrath of God that did those effects. At all.

Spell Crumple's presence is very telling about the kind of game Commander really is.

Functioning Archmage Ascension. Good game.

Both players with no cards in hand, nothing in play but lands and a single card in each library - one Spell Crumple versus one would-be lethal Fireball.

Yet another way to draw games due to persistent game state, after Platinum Angel + Abyssal Persecutor (again with no cards in library etc)!

If only the flavour text had been: "Commander? What comander?"

What a nasty card. 5/5 just for the simple fact, that this will screw with my opponent.

you can use it in commander but i know how to get your commander back, even worse get my commander back in commandzone the same turn as it whas counterd and get a 2/2 zombie to just use the ability of Cellar Door and then say "ok and i mill a.....oh gosh i mill my commmander i totaly did't expect that to happen"

3/5

A variant of Hinder; no more, no less.

I completely agree with Mister Action. Commander is a casual set. This isn't the type of card that should be printed in Commander- this is the type of card that should be banned in Commander. In a lot of ways, the EDH format is fundamentally different than 60 card magic- even multiplayer 60 card formats . A good game of EDH, played amongst friends, can go on for over an hour. Spell crumple is a three mana casting cost card that can force a person to sit at a table for a long time and watch their friends have fun. That's not good for the game- not good for that particular game and not good for Magic in general. Plus, there's enough tutors and recovery cards there that it would be really easy to build an EDH deck based around tutoring for spell crumple and recurring it. That's the type of crap that makes people quit playing MTG.

I'd like to see both Spell Crumple and Hinder banned from EDH for the good of the format.

Or, an alternative could be changing the format rules so that if a general is going to be put back in the library, the player has the option of returning him to the command zone. I think that would be a good idea, because currently any creature bottom of the library effect (see bant charm) is a problem in EDH.

@MisterAction, stop thinking in absolutes, that's how children think. EDH, like any other Magic format, is at base, a game. The entire point of a game is to win, no matter what the game promotes, in this case talking and being social. 5/5 for being an awesome card in EDH, and 0/5 for you, ***.

Half an extra star for the illustration. In other words, 5/5.

Mister Action plays how I play. +1,000,000 to him.

I don't care if this card bugs you. Don't punch your friends.

@MisterAction
RAAAAAAAAAAGE QUIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!
Yes.

They need to make a new ruling in EDH... If your general would be put into your library, put it back into the commander zone instead. Ruins the spirit of the game....

Which begs the question... why print a hated commander card in commander.

This card is great in my Volrath's Shapeshifter deck. No worries on covering up my top creature card.

If you think this card is a problem, then don't use it. Tell your friends that it probably shouldn't be used if you don't think it's fun.

I don't think it's very fun, but it has to exist--generals are very powerful, and there does need to be a way to kill them a little more permanently, albeit they can still be recurred from the library (and shuffling the library makes you able to draw it as well.)

I don't like the idea that moving it from the library to the command zone should be an option. I think these cards are helping to keep the format healthy--players need to learn to not have to be reliant on their generals.

I just sigh and put my general at the bottom, then win since they spent 3 mana on a counterspell and can't counter my bomb. That being said, there should be several bombs in a deck, and your general shouldn't be your only win-con.

Spell Crumple isn't as bad as you're making it out to be, guys.

People here aren't noticing that they could Mystical Tutor for Distant Memories and get their General back. Hey, maybe even they will say no and you'll get your General back and draw three cards

What a horse-shit card to be printed just for EDH, a format designed for casual fun. What's fun about a loophole in the rules causing you to no longer have access to the one card around which you built your deck?

If you play to win, fine. But I'm taking this out of my precon (Devour for Power doesn't even have any other countermagic, it's just in there for you to be a dick), and I've promised at least one friend that if he ever uses this card on my general outside of a tournament, I will punch him and then immediately concede even if I still have a chance to win. You kill my fun, I kill yours.

@KingJCa, you tell me to stop thinking in absolutes and then claim the opposite absolute. Good show. Magic is a game, you gain absolutely nothing by winning. If you're not having fun, you're wasting your time. If you use mean cards to win in un-fun ways, you're wasting someone else's time.

@Kirbster, don't worry, I didn't punch anyone. The threat of not playing anymore was more of a deterrent. We just house-ruled that a spell-crumpled commander can go back to the command zone and all was well.

@Kryptnyt, you do have a point but it's a little different from the standard rage quit. I don't quit when I'm losing, I quit when I'm not having fun (and yes, I have quit when I was so far ahead that it stopped being interesting). Magic is a game, which means if I'm not having fun there's absolutely no reason to keep playing. And Commander without a commander is not fun. I'd rather just tell the spell-crumpling player they win and be done than spend another 20-30 minutes watching them kill me while I hope I draw a tutor so I can waste one of the most useful cards in my deck to get access to a card that I'm supposed to always have access to as an inherent rule of the format.

"I summon my Commander-"
"Nope, Hinder!"
"... Wait, seriously."
"Yep!"

*several turns and much shuffling later*

"Aha! Look who's back it's my Comm-"
"Spell Crumple!"
"... I tap two fingers and bring out my Switchblade."
"I'm not sure you can play that..."
"It's okay. It's an artifact."

@MisterAction: fun is a very subjective thing. A lot of people would agree that denial cards like this and Hinder shape a funnier meta than bombs like the Titan cycle.

Sometimes a commander is bad enough that a break from it is crucial. It is a fail safe for the Commander format. Yes, it is disappointing to not have your commander, but it adds suspense, tension, and variety. I think it would have been better though if it shuffled both libraries though.

Really needs to be errata'ed for edh commanders...

I disagree that shuffling commanders into their library shouldn't be allowed. Some Commanders are so powerful or ruining the game so much, that it's the only possible way to still have fun.

Not to mention that I simply add a bunch of tutors in each deck to counter such effects. For example, just any of the Harbingers if the tribe fits (like Treefolk Harbinger if your commander is a treefolk), or Vedalken Æthermage if your Commander is a wizard, or whatever. Not to mention you can always add regular counterspells.

Combos with opponent commander.

Commander = casual fun... like 60-card = casual fun
If you have a problem with the idea that competitive Commander exists, then gtfo and make a houserule.

My first EDH general was Uril, the Miststalker, and the entire deck is dependent on getting him out quick and nailing people to the wall with commander damage. The deck barely functions without him, and as someone who's completely General dependent, I have to say this card is legit. Stop whining.

Yes, the format is geared to having access to your commander, and yeah, you're supposed to build your deck around him. But as with any deck built around a card or concept...if you only have one win condition, you have no right to complain when someone finds a way to stifle it. You could easily say that generals like Zur the Enchanter and Arcum Dagsson break the spirit of the format by utilizing every turn search in a hundred-card singleton format, ensuring just about every game devolves into the same formula. It's not your place to decide what's fun and what's not for everyone. When Uril gets Spell Crumpled or Hindered, I accept it and move on.

Across all five colors, there are only a handful of cards that put your General into your library, and it's a perfectly acceptable and interesting way to balance a varied casual format. If you don't like it, build your deck to be more versatile, or if you love him so much, incorporate ways to work around it...tutors, counterspells, whatever. Otherwise, remember you're playing Magic, and that your strategy IS going to have a weakness. It's not the end of the world.

@misteraction. Your comment makes me die a little inside. Commander yes is all about having fun but building a commander deck only around you commander and calling him your only win con is amateurish. What happens when someone sends him to the bottom of your deck via banishing stroke or terminate? Do you rage quit on that too? Honestly who cares if your general is on the bottom of your library? Yea it's an inconvenience but a properly constructed edh deck will find a way to deal with that.

Cards like these are one of the tests of EDH. If your deck can't operate without your general or reliably tutor it, that means your deck is seriously flawed because one cleverly used counter-spell and boom ... game over. I'm not going to argue with the sentiment that losing to this sucks. Commanders are meant to be useful in the deck itself seeing as it is your 8th card in every game. But, cards like these don't ruin the spirit of the format. They force decks to adapt to play around or beat these cards. WoTC doesn't want to just hand you the victory every game; It's a lot more satisfying to win after having your general tucked then to win having everything go according to plan. Most of the time it doesn't tuck someone's general anyways. All you have to do to beat this card is play a high density of solo threats or play good cards like Primal Command, Increasing Ambition, or even Planar Portal. Should Academy Ruins or Maze of Ith be banned because you don't run Ghost Quarter?