NBS MTG — House Rules

No Bull Shit Magic: The Gathering · Commander house rules · one page for the table

1 · Crew & Saddle: Sentient Creatures Only

Only creatures that are reasonably sentient — humanoids, intelligent beings, trained creatures acting under direction — can use the Crew or Saddle abilities.

• Can crew / saddle: humanoid types (Human, Elf, Goblin…), intelligent non-humanoids (Dragon, Sphinx, Angel…), and any creature with a class type (Cleric, Warrior, Druid…).
• Cannot: wild animals with no class (a vanilla Bear, a Wolf token, Insects), and mindless forces (Oozes, non-sentient Plants, mindless Zombie tokens).
• Edge cases: the table talks it out. A Wurm can't crew — but a Warrior can saddle a Wurm.

2 · Flavor Over Loopholes

If a card interaction produces a result that makes no thematic sense and clearly wasn't intended, the table can agree to disallow it for the game. This is a social contract, not a hard rule: the point is to have the conversation, not to police every card.

3 · The NBS Blacklist

We play with a curated card pool: no Universes Beyond / external-IP products, no Arena-only digital sets, and a small number of individually excluded cards. A card is only fully out if every printing is blacklisted — otherwise play a clean printing.

• Check any deck: the Deck Checker on the NBS MTG site.
• Check any card: the card's ruling page, or ask the table.

General Philosophy

• Discuss, don't dictate. House rules work because everyone at the table agrees.
• Consistency over convenience. Apply rules the same way every game.
• Fun is the goal. If a rule makes games worse, drop it.