I like the new Nissa. Other than that.... I feel like this set is Kamigawa level of boring. Kamigawa made me take a hiatus and miss the whole Ravnica block :(. Weak on flavor, I don't understand what the set is trying to accomplish mechanically other than waste time. Like I get the mechanics, I just don't see the reason to take time out of my day to play those mechanics. Look at the gods... they just seem like a lot of work to get gods that don't even compare to theros gods... and there's no death themed Anubis. 1/10 because of nissa and a potential new bolas card at some point.
I agree. We should all only play g/x decks because they are the most objectively fun and anyone who disagrees does not know the truth about EDH. Everyone should just play their decks because interaction beyond high fiving about how many land are in play is unfun and equivalent to casting Stasis while kicking puppies. I for one will never play with anyone who casts tutors, removal spells, blue cards, things I arbitrarily decide I don't like but will probably cast myself later.
I agree. We should all only play g/x decks because they are the most objectively fun and anyone who disagrees does not know the truth about EDH. Everyone should just play their decks because interaction beyond high fiving about how many land are in play is unfun and equivalent to casting Stasis while kicking puppies. I for one will never play with anyone who casts tutors, removal spells, blue cards, things I arbitrarily decide I don't like but will probably cast myself later.
I agree. We should all only play g/x decks because they are the most objectively fun and anyone who disagrees does not know the truth about EDH. Everyone should just play their decks because interaction beyond high fiving about how many land are in play is unfun and equivalent to casting Stasis while kicking puppies. I for one will never play with anyone who casts tutors, removal spells, blue cards, things I arbitrarily decide I don't like but will probably cast myself later.
Sigh, Aethurflux Reservoir proves that wotc still have hard times designing cards with commander in mind. First the 13-life tree, now this.
Not at all. They just don't care. Unless it's in a commander product, they balance their stuff around 60 card magic where the life total is fine. That said... the card is really dumb with Sydri. At 51 life, you will win the game 98% of the time.
This set is really starting to feel busted for artifact based commanders.
I agree. We should all only play g/x decks because they are the most objectively fun and anyone who disagrees does not know the truth about EDH. Everyone should just play their decks because interaction beyond high fiving about how many land are in play is unfun and equivalent to casting Stasis while kicking puppies. I for one will never play with anyone who casts tutors, removal spells, blue cards, things I arbitrarily decide I don't like but will probably cast myself later.
Selvala, Heart of the Wilds just made my experiment kraj deck that much more terrifying. This is a decent attempt at fixing rofellos (which is banned). Now all we need is a 4 mana non-legendary braids.
I agree. We should all only play g/x decks because they are the most objectively fun and anyone who disagrees does not know the truth about EDH. Everyone should just play their decks because interaction beyond high fiving about how many land are in play is unfun and equivalent to casting Stasis while kicking puppies. I for one will never play with anyone who casts tutors, removal spells, blue cards, things I arbitrarily decide I don't like but will probably cast myself later.
I know i may be jumping the gun here, but I think we need to ban Narset as a comm- I mean from the format. She has built in hex proof making her very difficult to remove. Even the generals that have hexproof do not enable powerful snowballing combos like she does. Also, she basically gains value once she swings, the player doesn't even have to deal damage or have Narset survive to be able to cast a few time walks. As part of the 99, she becomes a clutch 5 color big spell enabler as well with access to black and green. Overall, her ability coupled with hexproof will make newer players to the format who are not prepared to deal with hexproof get discouraged about the format, leave, quit magic, and potentially kill kittens. Format warping? No. But by swinging, the game state is already undesirable.
I agree. We should all only play g/x decks because they are the most objectively fun and anyone who disagrees does not know the truth about EDH. Everyone should just play their decks because interaction beyond high fiving about how many land are in play is unfun and equivalent to casting Stasis while kicking puppies. I for one will never play with anyone who casts tutors, removal spells, blue cards, things I arbitrarily decide I don't like but will probably cast myself later.
Personally,
But for 9 mana she better have an amazing effect. It's extremely easy to win the game with nine mana (T+N) - when compared to that Iona is not a big deal.
Unless you're playing against 3 mono-colored decks, of the same color, she's really easy to deal with. In my experience she's never sat on the field long and usually has no real lasting effect on the board state.
She's a creature with no resiliency. You kill her, she dies.
Disclaimer: I am not arguing for her banning but I just want people to truly understand her impact on games as I see this faulty line of reasoning far too often.
Speaking as someone who has abused Iona there are multiple problems with what you are saying.
1) She is not 9 mana in a competitive deck....ever. The ability of a good esper reanimator combo deck to discard and bring back fatties is not to be underestimated. 90% of the time she will cost two mana at most 3. You simply cannot compare her to win conditions like tooth and nail.
2) She is not that easy to deal with. Even not accounting for the built in protection a deck designed to abuse her would include, the smart player looks at the table of players and chooses the removal color that their opponents are in. Spoiler, if someone is running esper you name white. People tend to not run Go for the throat when they have access to Terminus and PtE and friends. This generally shuts down about 40-80% of the removal in your three oponents decks that can take care of her while slowing or stopping their game plan buying you time to find further protection or just combo and win.
3) "She's a creature with no resiliency", As explained above she comes built in with her own resiliency. The "removal kills it" logic is not very good for, I hope, pretty clear reasons considering its been used on primeval titan, Sylvan primordial, and the like which have been proven to be unhealthy for the format and banned.
I really am not trying to be offensive or disrespectful but people need to be aware of the context in which they evaluate cards and perhaps should play with/against them in that context to get a feel for whats actually happening.
Except there are countless better targets and game plans in esper than Iona... Those decks can do the same thing for Gin Gitaxis, Avacyn, or even consecrated sphinx. It just doesn't make sense for a reanimator deck to go "oh man, gotta ramp out that Iona..."
I agree. We should all only play g/x decks because they are the most objectively fun and anyone who disagrees does not know the truth about EDH. Everyone should just play their decks because interaction beyond high fiving about how many land are in play is unfun and equivalent to casting Stasis while kicking puppies. I for one will never play with anyone who casts tutors, removal spells, blue cards, things I arbitrarily decide I don't like but will probably cast myself later.
I guess that depends, if you're the person getting owned by Iona, then yeah the card should be banned. If you're the rest of the table and you just saw a the lead player get locked out, you're dancing.
But that's not true in my experience. Even if shes locking out the "lead player" it's unlikely that's the only causality, and even if it is that's a 'feel bad' moment: your only answer was not letting them cast spells. I agree its not a competitive card (outside fast Kallia, but meh) but it does not need to be competitive to be banned.
Then your experience is different from mine. Let's be frank, Iona is a rude card, but now where near as rude as ptime, griselbrand, or emrakul. I'd be all for banning Iona if tons of decks splashed white just to lock out mono colored decks... but they're not... mono color decks are weak in general in this format. The scenarios where she becomes oppressive and unhealthy are dependent on the construction of every other deck being played in that game at that time.
To boil it down simply. Iona isn't bouncing whole boards or sacing whole boards. Painters servant could lead to that. I also don't want to play against a Llawan deck where PS is in the same format. If she cot 2 white and 4 colorless, I'd hands down agree with banning her.
I agree. We should all only play g/x decks because they are the most objectively fun and anyone who disagrees does not know the truth about EDH. Everyone should just play their decks because interaction beyond high fiving about how many land are in play is unfun and equivalent to casting Stasis while kicking puppies. I for one will never play with anyone who casts tutors, removal spells, blue cards, things I arbitrarily decide I don't like but will probably cast myself later.
My understanding is that Painter's Servant interacts badly in an unintended way with a lot of 'colour matters' hosers from back in the day, as well as All Is Dust.
This is the "official position", but I don't think its nearly as bad as people theory craft it. PS is the most fragile perm type in the game, and most color hosers suck without him in play.
I have to agree with what others have said: Iona should go no matter what, and Painter's is not nearly as unfun as its made out to be,
I guess that depends, if you're the person getting owned by Iona, then yeah the card should be banned. If you're the rest of the table and you just saw a the lead player get locked out, you're dancing. Iona's biggest issue is that she really hurts other players if the game is concentrated in one color, which isn't a real problem anyway. Every color has cheap removal options that not only own Iona, but every other fattie in the game. Personally, it's a value issue, I don't see banning Iona adding any value, but I do see banning Iona and unbanning PS leading to accidental upheavels and all is dusts hitting everything. Yeah she shuts players down, but so does stasis decks and getting mana screwed... should we ban stasis and implement a new rule where instead of drawing a card you can tutor for any land or mana rock/dork you want? No, that's stupid. She's 9 mana, three of which is white and she doesn't impact the board state, if she did, we'd be seeing tons of Ionas being reanimated or mono white Iona decks wrecking house, they're not. She's not really effective in a multi-player format unless every player runs the same color for removal... then yeah... she's God
I agree. We should all only play g/x decks because they are the most objectively fun and anyone who disagrees does not know the truth about EDH. Everyone should just play their decks because interaction beyond high fiving about how many land are in play is unfun and equivalent to casting Stasis while kicking puppies. I for one will never play with anyone who casts tutors, removal spells, blue cards, things I arbitrarily decide I don't like but will probably cast myself later.
Why is Griselbrand banned in a format where three people must potentially have answers for him, but not banned in a format where only one person has answers to him?
Because the majority of players do not want to have to have an answer for something. For every removal spell or counter spell, that's one less creature you can turn sideways.
I agree. We should all only play g/x decks because they are the most objectively fun and anyone who disagrees does not know the truth about EDH. Everyone should just play their decks because interaction beyond high fiving about how many land are in play is unfun and equivalent to casting Stasis while kicking puppies. I for one will never play with anyone who casts tutors, removal spells, blue cards, things I arbitrarily decide I don't like but will probably cast myself later.
I would sooner see the ban list dramatically increased in size than see it shrink enough to warrant taking Griselbrand off. He is the poster boy for WOTC pushing EDH too far in recent years.
Though, to be fair to WOTC I don't think they ever expressed that he was "made for EDH" and as I understand it he sees play in eternal formats.
I think the RtR Primordial cycle was the climax of Wizards pushing EDH. Hopefully they took a hint from Sylvan Primordial.
The gods? Team america khan? Prossh? I think they're just getting us lubed up.
I agree. We should all only play g/x decks because they are the most objectively fun and anyone who disagrees does not know the truth about EDH. Everyone should just play their decks because interaction beyond high fiving about how many land are in play is unfun and equivalent to casting Stasis while kicking puppies. I for one will never play with anyone who casts tutors, removal spells, blue cards, things I arbitrarily decide I don't like but will probably cast myself later.
I still see people using Avenger + Craterhoof as a TaN pair that actually gets searched for.
HELLO? Anyone home? You have to have a global haste outlet for that combo to do anything, which means it's more than just the "one card combo" people are making it out to be.
No one seems to debate that when you cast Omniscience, which costs 10, you basically win the game. So why is potentially winning the game through a 9 mana sorcery spell an issue? Especially when it is limited to just creatures and also allows them to be targeted via removal even after resolving, which can't necessarily be said of a person playing their deck out with Omniscience. There are also a limited amount of 2 creature combos that actually win the game outright.
I agree. We should all only play g/x decks because they are the most objectively fun and anyone who disagrees does not know the truth about EDH. Everyone should just play their decks because interaction beyond high fiving about how many land are in play is unfun and equivalent to casting Stasis while kicking puppies. I for one will never play with anyone who casts tutors, removal spells, blue cards, things I arbitrarily decide I don't like but will probably cast myself later.
The biggest issue I have with Craterhoof Behemoth is that it should never have been a green card to start with. I've no idea why WotC have been trying so hard to make Green better these past few years, but adding Haste to creature like that was just over the top for me. Not that it often matters if he attacks or not, but that's my personal issue with the card. To the people saying that it's just an overcosted Overrun, I'd say that they haven't played against the card enough. It has very little to do with the Sorcery, because it's a creature in the color which has no issue tutoring it and it doesn't pump for +3 +3, but rather for at least 3 times that. The card is quite overpowered and terribly un-greenish, due to the ability to end the game on the spot, in a color that currently has no drawback to it. Avenger of Zendikar is usually enough to end 2 people with the Behemoth, so there goes the need for a "great board state", something which you naturally get just by playing the color.
As for the Kiki-Jiki complaints: I do have to agree with most people, that his addition to the 99 is more often, then not as a combo enabler. However, I do have great worries that due to the new policy adopted by the RC, if he gets banned, he's banned for good. Which is not something I look up to when I look at the deck I've build and played for so many years. Kiki might be a tad toxic, as part of the 99, but he's no where near broken as a general, especially since the release of the new disgusting commanders designed for this format.
They keep making green better because green's cards and top performers are always getting banned lol.
I agree. We should all only play g/x decks because they are the most objectively fun and anyone who disagrees does not know the truth about EDH. Everyone should just play their decks because interaction beyond high fiving about how many land are in play is unfun and equivalent to casting Stasis while kicking puppies. I for one will never play with anyone who casts tutors, removal spells, blue cards, things I arbitrarily decide I don't like but will probably cast myself later.
I will flat out pay the RC $500 bucks per person for this rule change. At one of my play groups, tuck = a trip to the exile zone. But... they don't play commander damage.... so... yeah.
If they don't play by the rules now, why would they play by them if they changed?
Pray tell, how will White tutor back it's (non-Heliod) general? Or how will Boros, for that matter, unless they happen to draw their one Gamble? Do you want every deck to be "85 cards and 15 tutors.dec" ? I sure as hell don't...
If they are not now, tuck/no-tuck won't change it.
I have friends in other play groups that worship the RC, their banlist, and rules?
I agree. We should all only play g/x decks because they are the most objectively fun and anyone who disagrees does not know the truth about EDH. Everyone should just play their decks because interaction beyond high fiving about how many land are in play is unfun and equivalent to casting Stasis while kicking puppies. I for one will never play with anyone who casts tutors, removal spells, blue cards, things I arbitrarily decide I don't like but will probably cast myself later.
I will flat out pay the RC $500 bucks per person for this rule change. At one of my play groups, tuck = a trip to the exile zone. But... they don't play commander damage.... so... yeah.
I agree. We should all only play g/x decks because they are the most objectively fun and anyone who disagrees does not know the truth about EDH. Everyone should just play their decks because interaction beyond high fiving about how many land are in play is unfun and equivalent to casting Stasis while kicking puppies. I for one will never play with anyone who casts tutors, removal spells, blue cards, things I arbitrarily decide I don't like but will probably cast myself later.
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Not at all. They just don't care. Unless it's in a commander product, they balance their stuff around 60 card magic where the life total is fine. That said... the card is really dumb with Sydri. At 51 life, you will win the game 98% of the time.
This set is really starting to feel busted for artifact based commanders.
Except there are countless better targets and game plans in esper than Iona... Those decks can do the same thing for Gin Gitaxis, Avacyn, or even consecrated sphinx. It just doesn't make sense for a reanimator deck to go "oh man, gotta ramp out that Iona..."
Then your experience is different from mine. Let's be frank, Iona is a rude card, but now where near as rude as ptime, griselbrand, or emrakul. I'd be all for banning Iona if tons of decks splashed white just to lock out mono colored decks... but they're not... mono color decks are weak in general in this format. The scenarios where she becomes oppressive and unhealthy are dependent on the construction of every other deck being played in that game at that time.
To boil it down simply. Iona isn't bouncing whole boards or sacing whole boards. Painters servant could lead to that. I also don't want to play against a Llawan deck where PS is in the same format. If she cot 2 white and 4 colorless, I'd hands down agree with banning her.
I guess that depends, if you're the person getting owned by Iona, then yeah the card should be banned. If you're the rest of the table and you just saw a the lead player get locked out, you're dancing. Iona's biggest issue is that she really hurts other players if the game is concentrated in one color, which isn't a real problem anyway. Every color has cheap removal options that not only own Iona, but every other fattie in the game. Personally, it's a value issue, I don't see banning Iona adding any value, but I do see banning Iona and unbanning PS leading to accidental upheavels and all is dusts hitting everything. Yeah she shuts players down, but so does stasis decks and getting mana screwed... should we ban stasis and implement a new rule where instead of drawing a card you can tutor for any land or mana rock/dork you want? No, that's stupid. She's 9 mana, three of which is white and she doesn't impact the board state, if she did, we'd be seeing tons of Ionas being reanimated or mono white Iona decks wrecking house, they're not. She's not really effective in a multi-player format unless every player runs the same color for removal... then yeah... she's God
Because the majority of players do not want to have to have an answer for something. For every removal spell or counter spell, that's one less creature you can turn sideways.
The gods? Team america khan? Prossh? I think they're just getting us lubed up.
Because Omniscience is blue.
They keep making green better because green's cards and top performers are always getting banned lol.
I have friends in other play groups that worship the RC, their banlist, and rules?
I will flat out pay the RC $500 bucks per person for this rule change. At one of my play groups, tuck = a trip to the exile zone. But... they don't play commander damage.... so... yeah.