What 'game rules' does he break? Are you just making things up now?
Umm, the whole playing creatures as an instant and untapping your mana and guys every upkeep rules? Did I really need to explain this?
LOL? There's rules against that? Are there rules against casting counterspells too? Or how about rules against attacking with creatures?
You seriously are just making up stuff now. I'm done trying to discuss this with you.
To be fair, MtG is an exception-based system. Under normal circumstances you can't cast creature spells at instant speed or untap permanents during an opponent's turn. Not that I'm disagreeing with you on PoK, just saying that is isn't normal to do those things.
Hammer may not understand the idea of exception-based design.
I understand this kind of design very well, thank you. You are just being hung up over semantics here. When I say 'that card breaks MTG rules' I mean it allows one to do things that are against the normal mode of the game. Creatures can only be cast at sorcery speed, can't untap mana etc. are the normal mode of the game.
Prophet could be a 0/1 with defender and she'll still see tons of EDH play.
I would argue that giving prophet defender would make it even better for EDH since then I can never be forced to attack with it and no one can steal it to attack into something else.
The 'normal mode of the game' also means only one card per turn, creatures can't attack the same turn they're put into play and many more things that are routinely 'broken'. Prophet is hardly the first card to do that on a large scale, both Flash for everything and untapping mana have been done before. True, it's a very powerful card and the first that has both these effects at once, but arguing that the 'normal mode' of the game shouldn't be broken seems extremely pointless to me. In fact, I'd say what makes the best cards the most interesting is how they make the game less normal.
Prophet is hard to deal with though, I grant you that. Unless the enemy has left some mana open to kill it at once (and you can't expect all decks to do that all the time), he gives you all the mana you need to protect him and flash so you never have to play something until it's safe. The only limit is the number of cards you have, so opponents can gang up on you with enough removal that you can't counter it even with all your mana. But then, blue also likes to draw a lot.
The 'normal mode of the game' also means only one card per turn, creatures can't attack the same turn they're put into play and many more things that are routinely 'broken'. Prophet is hardly the first card to do that on a large scale, both Flash for everything and untapping mana have been done before. True, it's a very powerful card and the first that has both these effects at once, but arguing that the 'normal mode' of the game shouldn't be broken seems extremely pointless to me. In fact, I'd say what makes the best cards the most interesting is how they make the game less normal.
Prophet is hard to deal with though, I grant you that. Unless the enemy has left some mana open to kill it at once (and you can't expect all decks to do that all the time), he gives you all the mana you need to protect him and flash so you never have to play something until it's safe. The only limit is the number of cards you have, so opponents can gang up on you with enough removal that you can't counter it even with all your mana. But then, blue also likes to draw a lot.
I think it might worth noting here that Prophet only gives creatures cards flash and it doesn't untap all mana sources.
I wasn't arguing that the 'normal mode' should never be broken at all, I was just pointing out why this particular card is so dangerous since it breaks 2 things at once in an efficient cost/body and the 2 best colours in EDH. For instance, leyline of anticipation is a powerful, yet fair card in EDH since it only breaks 1 thing and it has no means of protecting itself. The prophet breaks 2 rules, is easier to recur/search for, and protects itself by untapping all of your lands and mana dorks to leave counter/bounce mana up.
In that case, I understand. I was assuming he was suggesting some "unwritten rules" of Magic or something.
Be that as it may, Prophet is a good enabler but, in my experienced EDH opinion, not within the realm of discussion for "bannable" cards.
If anything, Vorinclex is more a problem than Prophet.
In my experienced EDH opinion, whatever that is, Prophet can potentially generate a ton of value if left unchecked, it is finding its way into most U/G decks, and many people on the various forums are up in arms about him. That makes him a prime candidate for discussing being banned.
In my experienced EDH opinion, whatever that is, Prophet can potentially generate a ton of value if left unchecked, it is finding its way into most U/G decks, and many people on the various forums are up in arms about him. That makes him a prime candidate for discussing being banned.
This is a great point. Having both of these semi-unique abilities on one creature created a HUGE potential for value. The fact that it centralizes the game around itself is a means to get it banned right there. It's pretty much the reason Primeval Titan got banned as well. Once Prophet hits the field the entire game revolves around protecting/killing/stealing/copying it. If left unchecked it can easily provide enough mana resources to take on the entire table single handedly.
The reason Prophet of Kruphix will never be banned is simple and it's already been said. Cards like Prime Time and Primordial are banned because they immediately impact the board state. Prophet not only doesn't immediately do that, but it also requires more cards to make it do anything at all. Those two reasons put it not in the same category of bannable creatures, though Prophet is obviously a strong card in the right deck and with the right hand.
The reason Prophet of Kruphix will never be banned is simple and it's already been said. Cards like Prime Time and Primordial are banned because they immediately impact the board state. Prophet not only doesn't immediately do that, but it also requires more cards to make it do anything at all. Those two reasons put it not in the same category of bannable creatures, though Prophet is obviously a strong card in the right deck and with the right hand.
I'm not sure if immediately impacting the board state is a baseline if we look at everything on the banlist. Griselbrand doesn't immediately impact the board state, nor does Protean Hulk, nor does metalworker, nor does Emrakul. It does require more cards to make it do anything, which so does metalworker. If people didn't spam out SP or PT, they wouldn't be banned, but it happened, and now they are. If PoK get's spammed, it's likely to have a higher chance of being banned.
The reason Prophet of Kruphix will never be banned is simple and it's already been said. Cards like Prime Time and Primordial are banned because they immediately impact the board state. Prophet not only doesn't immediately do that, but it also requires more cards to make it do anything at all. Those two reasons put it not in the same category of bannable creatures, though Prophet is obviously a strong card in the right deck and with the right hand.
I'm not sure if immediately impacting the board state is a baseline if we look at everything on the banlist. Griselbrand doesn't immediately impact the board state, nor does Protean Hulk, nor does metalworker, nor does Emrakul. It does require more cards to make it do anything, which so does metalworker. If people didn't spam out SP or PT, they wouldn't be banned, but it happened, and now they are. If PoK get's spammed, it's likely to have a higher chance of being banned.
Griselbrand has an immediate impact because it can draw you 7-35 cards as soon as it hits the board.
Protean Hulk (frequently) has immediate impact because there are a jillion ways to immediately sacrifice it and just win
Emrakul has immediate impact because it gives you another turn when you cast it (like really? can't get much more immediate than that)
Metalworker is IMO not banworthy, but it's banned for producing too much mana too quickly, not for being overcentralizing.
If Prophet is killed the turn it is played, it did nothing for its caster. It needs to live at least until the next untap step before it can do anything. Additionally, it requires that its caster has some instant or creature to cast in order to accomplish anything at that point.
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From your description I would think that you're saying that the main advantage is that it "fixes" the format in a way that you don't think the RC is going to do, thus partially removing them from the equation.
And that's fine as far as it goes, but even if I think more cards should be banned, I would think that banning them individually is the better way to go than a blanket adoption of the Legacy banned list. There are just too many cards on it that don't need to be there and since the RC still has to ban cards on top of that list, that seems like it would be just as unwieldy. I mean, its not like most people that understand the format can't quickly list off the worst of the fast mana cards. If we wanted to ban them, than just ban them, but the RC is not really interested in making a balanced format, for better or worse, which is often very frustrating for people.
Well, it wouldn't have to be unwieldy, it's only that the RC is more or less refusing to look at balance issues. If they could look at a card like Frantic Search and make the determination that's it's not a problem the way it is in Legacy, then fine. But they are not even taking the fact of cards being banned in Eternal formats as a cue that they should be looking at it in the first place. So fast mana, <2 cmc tutors, and busted CA engines like Necropotence and Survival aren't drawing any more eyes, despite having been called out as broken by competition committees that actually look at balance.
Meanwhile, it's hard to say that the current regime isn't itself at least at this level of unwieldy, anyway. Stuff like Protean Hulk, Metalworker, Balance are just different looking bans that the recent roll-out of Sylvan, Prime Time, G-brand, and Sundering Titan. Whether the dates make sense to some or not, their time on the Legacy banlist did precede their bans in EDH. And it's hard to have any real, independent criteria for a ban like Metalworker or Balance, which just like the Mind's Desire combo pieces, are not game-breaking at all outside of 60 card, 4 max.
So essentially, there is already some evidence that the RC did at one point take cues from the Legacy bans. That itself has already created this incongruity. But somewhere along the line, the RC decided that basically any deck winning before 10 could be considered unsporting, looked at what needed to be banned to make that happen, then abandoned whatever inclination they had to look at other formats. Wrong decision, imo.
The reason Prophet of Kruphix will never be banned is simple and it's already been said. Cards like Prime Time and Primordial are banned because they immediately impact the board state. Prophet not only doesn't immediately do that, but it also requires more cards to make it do anything at all. Those two reasons put it not in the same category of bannable creatures, though Prophet is obviously a strong card in the right deck and with the right hand.
I'm not sure if immediately impacting the board state is a baseline if we look at everything on the banlist. Griselbrand doesn't immediately impact the board state, nor does Protean Hulk, nor does metalworker, nor does Emrakul. It does require more cards to make it do anything, which so does metalworker. If people didn't spam out SP or PT, they wouldn't be banned, but it happened, and now they are. If PoK get's spammed, it's likely to have a higher chance of being banned.
Griselbrand has an immediate impact because it can draw you 7-35 cards as soon as it hits the board.
Protean Hulk (frequently) has immediate impact because there are a jillion ways to immediately sacrifice it and just win
Emrakul has immediate impact because it gives you another turn when you cast it (like really? can't get much more immediate than that)
Metalworker is IMO not banworthy, but it's banned for producing too much mana too quickly, not for being overcentralizing.
If Prophet is killed the turn it is played, it did nothing for its caster. It needs to live at least until the next untap step before it can do anything. Additionally, it requires that its caster has some instant or creature to cast in order to accomplish anything at that point.
lol. Fair points. However G.Brand drawing cards still doesn't impact the board state. The potential to effect the board state after drawing those cards has increased, just as the potential to effect the board state has increased with Emrakul and Protean. Protean can still be path'd. It's very likely Emrakul will annihilate for 6. Regardless, the board state is not immediately effected. But I get what you're saying, and I'm not disagreeing that it's very very likely "things gonna happen" to the board state when any of those three creatures land in the battlefield. And in the limit of such a high probability, we can just treat it as such. As if they did.
Personally I don't think Prophet is banworthy, however I'm still of the impression if something like it were to get spammed hard enough, it could wind up on the chopping block.
From your description I would think that you're saying that the main advantage is that it "fixes" the format in a way that you don't think the RC is going to do, thus partially removing them from the equation.
And that's fine as far as it goes, but even if I think more cards should be banned, I would think that banning them individually is the better way to go than a blanket adoption of the Legacy banned list. There are just too many cards on it that don't need to be there and since the RC still has to ban cards on top of that list, that seems like it would be just as unwieldy. I mean, its not like most people that understand the format can't quickly list off the worst of the fast mana cards. If we wanted to ban them, than just ban them, but the RC is not really interested in making a balanced format, for better or worse, which is often very frustrating for people.
Well, it wouldn't have to be unwieldy, it's only that the RC is more or less refusing to look at balance issues. If they could look at a card like Frantic Search and make the determination that's it's not a problem the way it is in Legacy, then fine. But they are not even taking the fact of cards being banned in Eternal formats as a cue that they should be looking at it in the first place. So fast mana, <2 cmc tutors, and busted CA engines like Necropotence and Survival aren't drawing any more eyes, despite having been called out as broken by competition committees that actually look at balance.
Meanwhile, it's hard to say that the current regime isn't itself at least at this level of unwieldy, anyway. Stuff like Protean Hulk, Metalworker, Balance are just different looking bans that the recent roll-out of Sylvan, Prime Time, G-brand, and Sundering Titan. Whether the dates make sense to some or not, their time on the Legacy banlist did precede their bans in EDH. And it's hard to have any real, independent criteria for a ban like Metalworker or Balance, which just like the Mind's Desire combo pieces, are not game-breaking at all outside of 60 card, 4 max.
So essentially, there is already some evidence that the RC did at one point take cues from the Legacy bans. That itself has already created this incongruity. But somewhere along the line, the RC decided that basically any deck winning before 10 could be considered unsporting, looked at what needed to be banned to make that happen, then abandoned whatever inclination they had to look at other formats. Wrong decision, imo.
I still don't understand why the Commander RC should take cues from a format which is designed for competitive 1v1 play and the goal is to kill your opponent as quickly as possible. The two ban lists are almost polar opposites, and many of the cards which are shared are simply banned in this format due to their price being the tipping point. The only similarity between the two formats is the available card pool. If your group plays Commander as a race to kill each other the fastest, then maybe you SHOULD adopt a Legacy ban list. But Commander is intended to be a less competitive, longer game and almost every card on the Legacy ban list is not ruining games in Commander.
So cards like Vorinclex aren't a problem enough to be banned but Prophet is?
I find it hard to believe that an easily dealt with 5-mana 2/3 creature is such a problem. This is comical. If you and others are having so many problems with Prophet, I wanna play in your playgroups because I have some bomb cards that would love to waltz all over you.
Heck, even my Fauna Shaman makes me a force to be reckoned with.
Point is: in comparison Prophet of Kruphix is a middle-of-the-line threat in EDH. If you can't deal with him, you probably can't deal with any of the real bomb threats like the ones I just mentioned.
Maybe instead of crying for a ban every time you lose to a card, you can figure out a way to deal with it.
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lol. Fair points. However G.Brand drawing cards still doesn't impact the board state. The potential to effect the board state after drawing those cards has increased, just as the potential to effect the board state has increased with Emrakul and Protean. Protean can still be path'd. It's very likely Emrakul will annihilate for 6. Regardless, the board state is not immediately effected. But I get what you're saying, and I'm not disagreeing that it's very very likely "things gonna happen" to the board state when any of those three creatures land in the battlefield. And in the limit of such a high probability, we can just treat it as such. As if they did.
Personally I don't think Prophet is banworthy, however I'm still of the impression if something like it were to get spammed hard enough, it could wind up on the chopping block.
"Board state" is really a misnomer. "Game state" is much more important. You really can't argue that drawing double digit cards or taking another turn is not board state impact. And if you take another turn with Emrakul, you're virtually guaranteed to Annihilate 6, as there are very few ways to kill him at instant speed that don't involve targeting him with a colored spell.
Protean Hulk is shakier. I don't think the card is personally banworthy, but with any of a number of other cards it can be immediately sacrificed and there's no opportunity to Path it or anything.
Prophet and Seedborn seem fine to me because if they are removed (even if they aren't removed immediately), the game state pretty much reverts to how it was before that card comes down. Sometimes, they'll get the chance to cast multiple spells they wouldn't have otherwise been able to and pull irrevocably ahead, but it's not like blowing up a ton of lands (S Titan, S Primordial), ramping a ton (Primetime, S Primordial), or drawing a ton of cards (Griselbrand) without a lot of extra effort.
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So cards like Vorinclex aren't a problem enough to be banned but Prophet is?
I find it hard to believe that an easily dealt with 5-mana 2/3 creature is such a problem. This is comical. If you and others are having so many problems with Prophet, I wanna play in your playgroups because I have some bomb cards that would love to waltz all over you.
Heck, even my Fauna Shaman makes me a force to be reckoned with.
Point is: in comparison Prophet of Kruphix is a middle-of-the-line threat in EDH. If you can't deal with him, you probably can't deal with any of the real bomb threats like the ones I just mentioned.
Maybe instead of crying for a ban every time you lose to a card, you can figure out a way to deal with it.
I agree, While Prophet is annoying its not really banworthy, its not as bad as say Cyclonic Rift.
Prophet is basically taking Seedborn Muse and a weaker version of Leyline of anticipation and meshing them together.
So cards like Vorinclex aren't a problem enough to be banned but Prophet is?
I find it hard to believe that an easily dealt with 5-mana 2/3 creature is such a problem. This is comical. If you and others are having so many problems with Prophet, I wanna play in your playgroups because I have some bomb cards that would love to waltz all over you.
Heck, even my Fauna Shaman makes me a force to be reckoned with.
Point is: in comparison Prophet of Kruphix is a middle-of-the-line threat in EDH. If you can't deal with him, you probably can't deal with any of the real bomb threats like the ones I just mentioned.
Maybe instead of crying for a ban every time you lose to a card, you can figure out a way to deal with it.
Half the cards on your attempt at a "lol noob you suck at edh" list are French vanilla creatures that are nothing more than creatures to turn sideways after they etb. You don't have to deal with them, and if something makes.them worse.you deal with that enabler. And since all but one of them are just as easily dealt with as Prophet, I don't understand your point.
Half the cards on your attempt at a "lol noob you suck at edh" list are French vanilla creatures that are nothing more than creatures to turn sideways after they etb. You don't have to deal with them, and if something makes.them worse.you deal with that enabler. And since all but one of them are just as easily dealt with as Prophet, I don't understand your point.
My point is that the creatures I mentioned have more direct impact on the board state (and consequently, the game) than Prophet, and if you don't "deal with" Vorinclex, you will be so far behind that it won't matter what deck you're playing. Prophet is an enabler, not a bomb itself - which is why it's not close to be ban-worthy. Prophet is useless if you don't follow it up with something, whereas the creatures I mentioned all directly effect the game.
I'm not trying to attempt to say "lol noob you suck at edh" or else I would directly say that. I'm saying that it's pretty sad that I have to take this long to explain how Prophet, in comparison, is not remotely close to being as Godly as everyone seems to making it out to be. Yes, I've played against it in Roon decks and Prime Speaker decks. He's a good enabler but that's the extent of it.
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I don't play U/G but there is a regular Animar player in my playgroup.
Prophet of Kruphix is a card we respect quite a lot. Usually we will try to kill it immediately. I've even Strip Mined a Karoo to deny him mana on the untap. I can only remember him running away with the game one time off Prophet, which happened because I had a black sorcery to give all his creatures -5/-5, he flashed in Creatorhoof Behemoth so all his creatures lived and then cloned the Behemoth next turn to kill 2 players. I think the card is super powerful, but my main deck Jaya Ballard, Task Mage is quite good at dealing with small utility creatures like Prophet, but at the same time I know monored is a rarity. My experience playing against Prophet is that I must answer it immediately, but I also have a very good tool to do that with Jaya. I'd imagine that in a "normal metagame" the card has quite a bit more power then it does against me being able to hate it out.
One other thing, if you remember back to Sheldons article on SCG about the 10 cards he would ban if he had to. There are a few things to take away from his list:
One thing that doesn't get talked about often is that even for a format with such a vast card pool, there can be a shortage of EDH caliber instant speed removal.
Now, Magic has no shortage of cards that kill creatures, but the color pie often keeps mana removal spells from being valuable in EDH. White gets mostly conditional removal that can only kill attackers or blockers. Red relies on burn for 2-4 damage which is often insufficient in an EDH metagame. Black has the best creature removal, but even it can have trouble killing artifact or black creatures. Blue gets countermagic, we all know how powerful that is.
Now, there is still a lot of great instant speed removal; Path, Swords, Exile, Hero's Downfall, Mortify, Putrify, Terminate, Unmake, etc. etc., but are people playing enough of it? You have only a 1% chance to see each card in your deck, so if you want to run enough instant speed point removal to make sure that you can kill each problem creature, I think a good number to play would be 10; 10 seems very high but it does mean that you have a good chance of drawing at least one in your opening hand or within the first few turns when a creature like Prophet is going to hit play. But who seriously runs 10 dedicated kill spells? I imagine that most decks only have a handful 3-5, which means that a very powerful card like Prophet or Card Sphinx actually has a decent chance to live long enough to at least generate a little value until someones sorcery speed removal can kill it. Granted, these cards do force you to have answers to them, either instant speed or a sorcery in the next few turns, because the amount of mana you'll generate from Prophet if it sticks around is astronomical and you could easily run away with the game because of it.
Half the cards on your attempt at a "lol noob you suck at edh" list are French vanilla creatures that are nothing more than creatures to turn sideways after they etb. You don't have to deal with them, and if something makes.them worse.you deal with that enabler. And since all but one of them are just as easily dealt with as Prophet, I don't understand your point.
My point is that the creatures I mentioned have more direct impact on the board state (and consequently, the game) than Prophet, and if you don't "deal with" Vorinclex, you will be so far behind that it won't matter what deck you're playing. Prophet is an enabler, not a bomb itself - which is why it's not close to be ban-worthy. Prophet is useless if you don't follow it up with something, whereas the creatures I mentioned all directly effect the game.
I'm not trying to attempt to say "lol noob you suck at edh" or else I would directly say that. I'm saying that it's pretty sad that I have to take this long to explain how Prophet, in comparison, is not remotely close to being as Godly as everyone seems to making it out to be. Yes, I've played against it in Roon decks and Prime Speaker decks. He's a good enabler but that's the extent of it.
But one piece of spot removal gets rid of everything on your list, and 'run removal' has never been a valid response or else we wouldn't need a ban list. Now I fully agree that the fact PoK doesn't do anything until the next turn is a huge strike against it, and likely what keeps Consecrated Sphinx legal. But the fact that.it sees.play in most U/G decks, can generate a big advantage, and has lots of vocal support for banning it means it is a card that the RC should look at.
I run the heck out of it, I regularly face it, and I can honestly say that I don't think the format would be better off without it.
If you don't think Prophet is one of the top 5-7 creatures in EDH then you haven't played against it enough, or your playgroup doesn't have many strong control decks. In a serious Simic, Bant, BUG, or RUG control deck (or a bum-rush deck like Animar) it's often pretty backbreaking.
I run the heck out of it, I regularly face it, and I can honestly say that I don't think the format would be better off without it.
Then why are you defending the idea to ban it. Makes no sense.
My point this whole time has been that Prophet is far from broken, and effects the game much less than TONS of other cards = does not warrant a ban.
All this is moot anyways because the Wizards official EDH banlist is more a suggestion than a strict guideline. Different playgroups all have their own ban lists and rules anyways. If I find myself playing with a group that says Prophet is banned, I'll chuckle and lock them out of their mana with Vorinclex. GG.
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So essentially, there is already some evidence that the RC did at one point take cues from the Legacy bans.
Way back in the early days, the idea of using the Legacy list as a baseline was floated a couple times, but quickly discarded. Taking inspiration from Legacy - arguably the format most antithetical to Commander - seems counterproductive. Any overlap is coincidental.
I still don't understand why the Commander RC should take cues from a format which is designed for competitive 1v1 play and the goal is to kill your opponent as quickly as possible. The two ban lists are almost polar opposites, and many of the cards which are shared are simply banned in this format due to their price being the tipping point. The only similarity between the two formats is the available card pool. If your group plays Commander as a race to kill each other the fastest, then maybe you SHOULD adopt a Legacy ban list. But Commander is intended to be a less competitive, longer game and almost every card on the Legacy ban list is not ruining games in Commander.
Well, aside from Demonic, Mystical, Vampiric, Sol Ring, Crypt, on and on...?
I mean, despite all the legalese trying to dodge around this fact, there is such a thing as abstract "power level". Maybe not entirely "abstract", because it's still relative to other cards, but certainly relative to how a card will be used along with the set of 15,000+ other possible cards. Regardless, there is some element of power that is not very relative at all, and it will always be the case because of the nature of a card game where you draw 7 to start, and 1 per turn after. Certain cards in that construct will always be exceptionally powerful. Demonic Tutor is busted everywhere it shows up. It's more busted the more combo-style a deck is, but it is still busted everywhere else.
The Legacy competition committee keeps its eyes on cards like that. They also keep their eyes on decks as a whole, which decks may only be playable in 60 card 4-max, but they do keep their eyes on objectively powerful cards. The EDH RC does not. Either it refuses to, or it doesn't see itself as capable. Probably a bit of both. I've heard it said that if they were ever to think about banning Vampiric and Demonic, that they would have no idea how to stop the slide down the slippery slope of banning Diabolic Tutor as well. I mean, Diabolic? A card that has never been played anywhere in a serious way? This crew still feels it appropriate to make that comparison. As if 2 extra mana and 2 extra turns for Control to get its counter wall up is just a wash. What are you doing playing non-ramp cards before Turn 4, you Spike? It's literally no difference to this crew if combo goes off Turn 5 or Turn 9. So bottom line, the RC has no comprehension of "power level", has denied that it exists, and so cards that are clearly out of hand in terms of abstract power level will continue to run amok, while the Legacy committee has taken no small amount of care to fish these things out.
Taken from the other end, is there any one of these cards that screams out and demands to be included in a "casual" format? Goblin Recruiter? Who sees a Necropotence laid down on the other end of the table and thinks to themselves, "Oh great, I love casual games!". If it's warranted a power-level ban in Legacy, it is just not a casual card.
I look at the Commander banlist sort of like a guideline containing examples of types of cards that are generally frowned on in casual play. Not very useful for balancing the format for competitive play but that's fine because that's not the purpose of their banlist. It's about encouraging building fun decks for casual play and it seems like it does a good job of doing that as it stands. Since I don't think it's broke I'm not in favor of trying to fix it.
As for the spirit of the ban list, certainly I've heard it before that it's a guideline. But on the other hand, it's talking out the other side of the mouth for the RC to mention how WotC employees and such would come up to them expressing concern about how the SP/PT bans were going to affect their private games. If it is really just a guideline and no more, then people wouldn't be so concerned about it. The reality is that it's got the same weight of authority as the ban list of any other format. WotC promotes EDH through specific product releases, and it supports playing the format on MTGO. WOTC and the RC both know that the game is being played across hundreds of public settings, by people with no play experience with one another. But to hear Sheldon tell it on SCG, you have to find your own private playgroup, whether online or off, in order for the format to work right.
If the format working right is no winning before Turn 10, games where Diabolic Tutor is the exact same as Demonic for all intents, then they're probably right. But if working right is fun and interactive games, they are selling their own format short if they believe that no set of rules will make it suitable for public games. There is a conscious decision not to support public play. Not even the most obvious power-level bans are being made. So complete unplayability in a public setting is a totally fair price to pay in their minds to keep intact each player's private right to insist on not having to deal with things that win before Turn 10. Nevermind that fun, interactive, and creature-based games are to be had well within that turn window. The ban list just isn't doing anything to resolve that conflict, in either direction.
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Be that as it may, Prophet is a good enabler but, in my experienced EDH opinion, not within the realm of discussion for "bannable" cards.
If anything, Vorinclex is more a problem than Prophet.
I understand this kind of design very well, thank you. You are just being hung up over semantics here. When I say 'that card breaks MTG rules' I mean it allows one to do things that are against the normal mode of the game. Creatures can only be cast at sorcery speed, can't untap mana etc. are the normal mode of the game.
I would argue that giving prophet defender would make it even better for EDH since then I can never be forced to attack with it and no one can steal it to attack into something else.
Prophet is hard to deal with though, I grant you that. Unless the enemy has left some mana open to kill it at once (and you can't expect all decks to do that all the time), he gives you all the mana you need to protect him and flash so you never have to play something until it's safe. The only limit is the number of cards you have, so opponents can gang up on you with enough removal that you can't counter it even with all your mana. But then, blue also likes to draw a lot.
In my experienced EDH opinion, whatever that is, Prophet can potentially generate a ton of value if left unchecked, it is finding its way into most U/G decks, and many people on the various forums are up in arms about him. That makes him a prime candidate for discussing being banned.
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This is a great point. Having both of these semi-unique abilities on one creature created a HUGE potential for value. The fact that it centralizes the game around itself is a means to get it banned right there. It's pretty much the reason Primeval Titan got banned as well. Once Prophet hits the field the entire game revolves around protecting/killing/stealing/copying it. If left unchecked it can easily provide enough mana resources to take on the entire table single handedly.
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I'm not sure if immediately impacting the board state is a baseline if we look at everything on the banlist. Griselbrand doesn't immediately impact the board state, nor does Protean Hulk, nor does metalworker, nor does Emrakul. It does require more cards to make it do anything, which so does metalworker. If people didn't spam out SP or PT, they wouldn't be banned, but it happened, and now they are. If PoK get's spammed, it's likely to have a higher chance of being banned.
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StaffGriselbrand has an immediate impact because it can draw you 7-35 cards as soon as it hits the board.
Protean Hulk (frequently) has immediate impact because there are a jillion ways to immediately sacrifice it and just win
Emrakul has immediate impact because it gives you another turn when you cast it (like really? can't get much more immediate than that)
Metalworker is IMO not banworthy, but it's banned for producing too much mana too quickly, not for being overcentralizing.
If Prophet is killed the turn it is played, it did nothing for its caster. It needs to live at least until the next untap step before it can do anything. Additionally, it requires that its caster has some instant or creature to cast in order to accomplish anything at that point.
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Well, it wouldn't have to be unwieldy, it's only that the RC is more or less refusing to look at balance issues. If they could look at a card like Frantic Search and make the determination that's it's not a problem the way it is in Legacy, then fine. But they are not even taking the fact of cards being banned in Eternal formats as a cue that they should be looking at it in the first place. So fast mana, <2 cmc tutors, and busted CA engines like Necropotence and Survival aren't drawing any more eyes, despite having been called out as broken by competition committees that actually look at balance.
Meanwhile, it's hard to say that the current regime isn't itself at least at this level of unwieldy, anyway. Stuff like Protean Hulk, Metalworker, Balance are just different looking bans that the recent roll-out of Sylvan, Prime Time, G-brand, and Sundering Titan. Whether the dates make sense to some or not, their time on the Legacy banlist did precede their bans in EDH. And it's hard to have any real, independent criteria for a ban like Metalworker or Balance, which just like the Mind's Desire combo pieces, are not game-breaking at all outside of 60 card, 4 max.
So essentially, there is already some evidence that the RC did at one point take cues from the Legacy bans. That itself has already created this incongruity. But somewhere along the line, the RC decided that basically any deck winning before 10 could be considered unsporting, looked at what needed to be banned to make that happen, then abandoned whatever inclination they had to look at other formats. Wrong decision, imo.
lol. Fair points. However G.Brand drawing cards still doesn't impact the board state. The potential to effect the board state after drawing those cards has increased, just as the potential to effect the board state has increased with Emrakul and Protean. Protean can still be path'd. It's very likely Emrakul will annihilate for 6. Regardless, the board state is not immediately effected. But I get what you're saying, and I'm not disagreeing that it's very very likely "things gonna happen" to the board state when any of those three creatures land in the battlefield. And in the limit of such a high probability, we can just treat it as such. As if they did.
Personally I don't think Prophet is banworthy, however I'm still of the impression if something like it were to get spammed hard enough, it could wind up on the chopping block.
I still don't understand why the Commander RC should take cues from a format which is designed for competitive 1v1 play and the goal is to kill your opponent as quickly as possible. The two ban lists are almost polar opposites, and many of the cards which are shared are simply banned in this format due to their price being the tipping point. The only similarity between the two formats is the available card pool. If your group plays Commander as a race to kill each other the fastest, then maybe you SHOULD adopt a Legacy ban list. But Commander is intended to be a less competitive, longer game and almost every card on the Legacy ban list is not ruining games in Commander.
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I find it hard to believe that an easily dealt with 5-mana 2/3 creature is such a problem. This is comical. If you and others are having so many problems with Prophet, I wanna play in your playgroups because I have some bomb cards that would love to waltz all over you.
Heck, even my Fauna Shaman makes me a force to be reckoned with.
Point is: in comparison Prophet of Kruphix is a middle-of-the-line threat in EDH. If you can't deal with him, you probably can't deal with any of the real bomb threats like the ones I just mentioned.
Maybe instead of crying for a ban every time you lose to a card, you can figure out a way to deal with it.
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Staff"Board state" is really a misnomer. "Game state" is much more important. You really can't argue that drawing double digit cards or taking another turn is not board state impact. And if you take another turn with Emrakul, you're virtually guaranteed to Annihilate 6, as there are very few ways to kill him at instant speed that don't involve targeting him with a colored spell.
Protean Hulk is shakier. I don't think the card is personally banworthy, but with any of a number of other cards it can be immediately sacrificed and there's no opportunity to Path it or anything.
Prophet and Seedborn seem fine to me because if they are removed (even if they aren't removed immediately), the game state pretty much reverts to how it was before that card comes down. Sometimes, they'll get the chance to cast multiple spells they wouldn't have otherwise been able to and pull irrevocably ahead, but it's not like blowing up a ton of lands (S Titan, S Primordial), ramping a ton (Primetime, S Primordial), or drawing a ton of cards (Griselbrand) without a lot of extra effort.
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I agree, While Prophet is annoying its not really banworthy, its not as bad as say Cyclonic Rift.
Prophet is basically taking Seedborn Muse and a weaker version of Leyline of anticipation and meshing them together.
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Half the cards on your attempt at a "lol noob you suck at edh" list are French vanilla creatures that are nothing more than creatures to turn sideways after they etb. You don't have to deal with them, and if something makes.them worse.you deal with that enabler. And since all but one of them are just as easily dealt with as Prophet, I don't understand your point.
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My point is that the creatures I mentioned have more direct impact on the board state (and consequently, the game) than Prophet, and if you don't "deal with" Vorinclex, you will be so far behind that it won't matter what deck you're playing. Prophet is an enabler, not a bomb itself - which is why it's not close to be ban-worthy. Prophet is useless if you don't follow it up with something, whereas the creatures I mentioned all directly effect the game.
I'm not trying to attempt to say "lol noob you suck at edh" or else I would directly say that. I'm saying that it's pretty sad that I have to take this long to explain how Prophet, in comparison, is not remotely close to being as Godly as everyone seems to making it out to be. Yes, I've played against it in Roon decks and Prime Speaker decks. He's a good enabler but that's the extent of it.
Prophet of Kruphix is a card we respect quite a lot. Usually we will try to kill it immediately. I've even Strip Mined a Karoo to deny him mana on the untap. I can only remember him running away with the game one time off Prophet, which happened because I had a black sorcery to give all his creatures -5/-5, he flashed in Creatorhoof Behemoth so all his creatures lived and then cloned the Behemoth next turn to kill 2 players. I think the card is super powerful, but my main deck Jaya Ballard, Task Mage is quite good at dealing with small utility creatures like Prophet, but at the same time I know monored is a rarity. My experience playing against Prophet is that I must answer it immediately, but I also have a very good tool to do that with Jaya. I'd imagine that in a "normal metagame" the card has quite a bit more power then it does against me being able to hate it out.
One other thing, if you remember back to Sheldons article on SCG about the 10 cards he would ban if he had to. There are a few things to take away from his list:
1. There were more creatures then noncreature cards on it.
2. Every creature card except for Magister Sphinx required instant speed removal to stop someone from being able to net value off it. (Prophet, Seedborn Muse, Kiki-Jiki. Mirror Breaker, Dead-Eye Navigator, Consecrated Sphinx)
One thing that doesn't get talked about often is that even for a format with such a vast card pool, there can be a shortage of EDH caliber instant speed removal.
Now, Magic has no shortage of cards that kill creatures, but the color pie often keeps mana removal spells from being valuable in EDH. White gets mostly conditional removal that can only kill attackers or blockers. Red relies on burn for 2-4 damage which is often insufficient in an EDH metagame. Black has the best creature removal, but even it can have trouble killing artifact or black creatures. Blue gets countermagic, we all know how powerful that is.
Now, there is still a lot of great instant speed removal; Path, Swords, Exile, Hero's Downfall, Mortify, Putrify, Terminate, Unmake, etc. etc., but are people playing enough of it? You have only a 1% chance to see each card in your deck, so if you want to run enough instant speed point removal to make sure that you can kill each problem creature, I think a good number to play would be 10; 10 seems very high but it does mean that you have a good chance of drawing at least one in your opening hand or within the first few turns when a creature like Prophet is going to hit play. But who seriously runs 10 dedicated kill spells? I imagine that most decks only have a handful 3-5, which means that a very powerful card like Prophet or Card Sphinx actually has a decent chance to live long enough to at least generate a little value until someones sorcery speed removal can kill it. Granted, these cards do force you to have answers to them, either instant speed or a sorcery in the next few turns, because the amount of mana you'll generate from Prophet if it sticks around is astronomical and you could easily run away with the game because of it.
But one piece of spot removal gets rid of everything on your list, and 'run removal' has never been a valid response or else we wouldn't need a ban list. Now I fully agree that the fact PoK doesn't do anything until the next turn is a huge strike against it, and likely what keeps Consecrated Sphinx legal. But the fact that.it sees.play in most U/G decks, can generate a big advantage, and has lots of vocal support for banning it means it is a card that the RC should look at.
I run the heck out of it, I regularly face it, and I can honestly say that I don't think the format would be better off without it.
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I wouldn't ban it though. Definitely not.
Then why are you defending the idea to ban it. Makes no sense.
My point this whole time has been that Prophet is far from broken, and effects the game much less than TONS of other cards = does not warrant a ban.
All this is moot anyways because the Wizards official EDH banlist is more a suggestion than a strict guideline. Different playgroups all have their own ban lists and rules anyways. If I find myself playing with a group that says Prophet is banned, I'll chuckle and lock them out of their mana with Vorinclex. GG.
Way back in the early days, the idea of using the Legacy list as a baseline was floated a couple times, but quickly discarded. Taking inspiration from Legacy - arguably the format most antithetical to Commander - seems counterproductive. Any overlap is coincidental.
Well, aside from Demonic, Mystical, Vampiric, Sol Ring, Crypt, on and on...?
I mean, despite all the legalese trying to dodge around this fact, there is such a thing as abstract "power level". Maybe not entirely "abstract", because it's still relative to other cards, but certainly relative to how a card will be used along with the set of 15,000+ other possible cards. Regardless, there is some element of power that is not very relative at all, and it will always be the case because of the nature of a card game where you draw 7 to start, and 1 per turn after. Certain cards in that construct will always be exceptionally powerful. Demonic Tutor is busted everywhere it shows up. It's more busted the more combo-style a deck is, but it is still busted everywhere else.
The Legacy competition committee keeps its eyes on cards like that. They also keep their eyes on decks as a whole, which decks may only be playable in 60 card 4-max, but they do keep their eyes on objectively powerful cards. The EDH RC does not. Either it refuses to, or it doesn't see itself as capable. Probably a bit of both. I've heard it said that if they were ever to think about banning Vampiric and Demonic, that they would have no idea how to stop the slide down the slippery slope of banning Diabolic Tutor as well. I mean, Diabolic? A card that has never been played anywhere in a serious way? This crew still feels it appropriate to make that comparison. As if 2 extra mana and 2 extra turns for Control to get its counter wall up is just a wash. What are you doing playing non-ramp cards before Turn 4, you Spike? It's literally no difference to this crew if combo goes off Turn 5 or Turn 9. So bottom line, the RC has no comprehension of "power level", has denied that it exists, and so cards that are clearly out of hand in terms of abstract power level will continue to run amok, while the Legacy committee has taken no small amount of care to fish these things out.
Taken from the other end, is there any one of these cards that screams out and demands to be included in a "casual" format? Goblin Recruiter? Who sees a Necropotence laid down on the other end of the table and thinks to themselves, "Oh great, I love casual games!". If it's warranted a power-level ban in Legacy, it is just not a casual card.
As for the spirit of the ban list, certainly I've heard it before that it's a guideline. But on the other hand, it's talking out the other side of the mouth for the RC to mention how WotC employees and such would come up to them expressing concern about how the SP/PT bans were going to affect their private games. If it is really just a guideline and no more, then people wouldn't be so concerned about it. The reality is that it's got the same weight of authority as the ban list of any other format. WotC promotes EDH through specific product releases, and it supports playing the format on MTGO. WOTC and the RC both know that the game is being played across hundreds of public settings, by people with no play experience with one another. But to hear Sheldon tell it on SCG, you have to find your own private playgroup, whether online or off, in order for the format to work right.
If the format working right is no winning before Turn 10, games where Diabolic Tutor is the exact same as Demonic for all intents, then they're probably right. But if working right is fun and interactive games, they are selling their own format short if they believe that no set of rules will make it suitable for public games. There is a conscious decision not to support public play. Not even the most obvious power-level bans are being made. So complete unplayability in a public setting is a totally fair price to pay in their minds to keep intact each player's private right to insist on not having to deal with things that win before Turn 10. Nevermind that fun, interactive, and creature-based games are to be had well within that turn window. The ban list just isn't doing anything to resolve that conflict, in either direction.