It seems to me that it's vaguely comparable to Recurring Nightmare.
- a low cost enchantment
- with a very low activation cost
- which isn't even really much of a cost (black can love sac-cing creatures, and green can recover a lot of things from the grave, especially creatures)
- which usually guarantees some value before it dies (RN can be played and immediately used without a chance for reaction despite sorcery speed, Survival can be activated in response to something unless that something has split second)
- and enables rather silly plays (broken reanimation loops with ETB and/or death triggers, instant speed repeatable toolboxing with your entire creature base)
- considering the ETB trend of putting spells on legs that are easily flickered, reanimated, retrieved, copied, tutored for (hi Survival), and just generally abused, I can only assume Survival is going to be more and more of an offender as more copies of effects and as newer, different effects are printed
All of that basically to say that I would prefer it if the RC banned enablers and not creatures like Sly Prime and P. Titty, although I understand full well that P. Titty is himself an enabler for land shenanigans and a way to explosively accrue resources. And yes, I am a slightly bitter green mage lol.
Survival is good but with stuff like staff of domination unbanned I don't see an argument on this card being abusive.
On what exactly are you comparing both cards?
Survival of the Fittest is an auto-include card in every-single-green-deck, due to the fact that it allows them to bypass the normal adventurous feel of the format and just tutor for their broken cards and enablers starting turn 2 all game, every game. There's nothing balanced about this card and there's also no real way to answer it. People often don't bother and save cards to deal with what the player with it tutors for, which is also not a viable option because they end up tutoring for cards to bring back the ones they lost.
The card is very much broken and it will be banned, sooner or later. However, just like Primeval Titan before it, it's guarded by a huge amount of fanboys who protect it with their lives.
It is not an auto-include and if you played with the card rather than against it you'd realize it's not as good as you think. Sometimes its a dead card in your hand. It needs creature-heavy builds to run at top efficiency. And recursion. By itself it's just alright.
I wasn't comparing the two cards. I was saying by having staff unbanned they set a precedent of allowing degenerate cards to be unbanned, as long as they don't run rampant like sylvan primordial.
Survival is obviously a card that gets better with newer cards. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets banned.
Treasonous Ogre will only be banned if Red suddenly becomes popular.
People think Iona is banworthy only because a fast Sisay and/or broken mana enables it. Rid of the enablers and Iona wouldn't even be mentioned. The same goes for any obnoxious cards. They're are expensively costed because they're correctly valued.
Circumventing it with hyper fast mana and dumb tutors are the problems with the format.
Most of the time, you want to play Survival of the Fittest in your Green based deck, I see no reason, nor argument for that matter, against that. Graveyard recursion, artifact / land / enchantment hate / token generation / ramp / card draw / mana doubling: There's nothing this color can't do with its absurd creatures and tons of acceleration, nothing! These are all effects attached to some of Greens best cards. Why would you not like to get them early on and start a simply engine of recursion powered by Genesis for instance? There's other was to do it as well, but all in all, this is a card that bypasses onе of the ideas behind the format, by making games identical. Sure, all tutors do that more or less, but non of those is an enchantment for 1G, that can be activated as much as you like for just one G and fetch you whatever stupid critter you need for the current board state. Over and over again.
When was the last time you were playing and someone casted survival before turn 4 and immediately won the game or locked everyone else out of the game?
Survival of the Fittest is a powerful, cheap, engine, and occasionally a reanimator combo enabler. If you or your playgroup are having trouble turning off someones engine then theres an easy fix:
Run responses
Its an enchantment FFS. Its not like you have to run blue or black to interact with it like with instants/sorceries. The fact that it is a permanent hurts it more than helps it. Every single color has an answer to this card. Even red. Chaos Warp.
To recap:
1. Survival is not as fast as many of the other tutors in the format.
2. It is easier to respond to compared to other tutors.
3. It requires the additional cost of discard, which excludes it from some tricolor or dual-color decks.
4. It does not win games as often as other tutors do.
Edit: Also, things green can't do...
Counter spells. Kill creatures outside of "fighting" them. Look at your hand. Make you discard your hand. Tutor for anything but creatures and lands. Steal other player's permanents.
Most of the time, you want to play Survival of the Fittest in your Green based deck, I see no reason, nor argument for that matter, against that. Graveyard recursion, artifact / land / enchantment hate / token generation / ramp / card draw / mana doubling: There's nothing this color can't do with its absurd creatures and tons of acceleration, nothing! These are all effects attached to some of Greens best cards. Why would you not like to get them early on and start a simply engine of recursion powered by Genesis for instance? There's other was to do it as well, but all in all, this is a card that bypasses onе of the ideas behind the format, by making games identical. Sure, all tutors do that more or less, but non of those is an enchantment for 1G, that can be activated as much as you like for just one G and fetch you whatever stupid critter you need for the current board state. Over and over again.
When was the last time you were playing and someone casted survival before turn 4 and immediately won the game or locked everyone else out of the game?
Survival of the Fittest is a powerful, cheap, engine, and occasionally a reanimator combo enabler. If you or your playgroup are having trouble turning off someones engine then theres an easy fix:
Run responses
Its an enchantment FFS. Its not like you have to run blue or black to interact with it like with instants/sorceries. The fact that it is a permanent hurts it more than helps it. Every single color has an answer to this card. Even red. Chaos Warp.
To recap:
1. Survival is not as fast as many of the other tutors in the format.
2. It is easier to respond to compared to other tutors.
3. It requires the additional cost of discard, which excludes it from some tricolor or dual-color decks.
4. It does not win games as often as other tutors do.
Edit: Also, things green can't do...
Counter spells. Kill creatures outside of "fighting" them. Look at your hand. Make you discard your hand. Tutor for anything but creatures and lands. Steal other player's permanents.
Most of the time, you want to play Survival of the Fittest in your Green based deck, I see no reason, nor argument for that matter, against that. Graveyard recursion, artifact / land / enchantment hate / token generation / ramp / card draw / mana doubling: There's nothing this color can't do with its absurd creatures and tons of acceleration, nothing! These are all effects attached to some of Greens best cards. Why would you not like to get them early on and start a simply engine of recursion powered by Genesis for instance? There's other was to do it as well, but all in all, this is a card that bypasses onе of the ideas behind the format, by making games identical. Sure, all tutors do that more or less, but non of those is an enchantment for 1G, that can be activated as much as you like for just one G and fetch you whatever stupid critter you need for the current board state. Over and over again.
When was the last time you were playing and someone casted survival before turn 4 and immediately won the game or locked everyone else out of the game?
Survival of the Fittest is a powerful, cheap, engine, and occasionally a reanimator combo enabler. If you or your playgroup are having trouble turning off someones engine then theres an easy fix:
Run responses
Its an enchantment FFS. Its not like you have to run blue or black to interact with it like with instants/sorceries. The fact that it is a permanent hurts it more than helps it. Every single color has an answer to this card. Even red. Chaos Warp.
To recap:
1. Survival is not as fast as many of the other tutors in the format.
2. It is easier to respond to compared to other tutors.
3. It requires the additional cost of discard, which excludes it from some tricolor or dual-color decks.
4. It does not win games as often as other tutors do.
Edit: Also, things green can't do...
Counter spells. Kill creatures outside of "fighting" them. Look at your hand. Make you discard your hand. Tutor for anything but creatures and lands. Steal other player's permanents.
Well I can't afford survival of the fittest... but I have beaten it and Jace MS... It was just too slow to beat a curving out Deveri bird aggro. It is going to win a late game but its just not fast enough for me to really fear it. Any slower deck should just kill it on site.
Its good but not oppressive, but it is probably because it is so expensive and old that I don't play agianst it at all.
It's far from an oppressive card, really. It's good, it's solid, but it's not even a staple, it is however a card you can always consider when you play green. But it doesn't create oppressive board states. In the late game, Survival of the Fittest CAN be a wincon, yes, but by that point it's about time someone wins and Tooth and Nail probably wins faster at that point. In the early game, it usually reads: G; toss a creature in the bin, tutor a creature to hand and eat some form of enchantment removal. Provided the opposition isnt a bunch of derping goldfishes.
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First a question: what is the kind of cards or gameplan a deck featuring Kokusho as a general have? Other than using a using a sac outlet like High Market I can't figure out how it would play and draining 5 to every player doesn't sound oppresive enough to me.
I say this because I think that Prosh is a far more problematic general that should be considered to ban if Kokusho is deemed overpowered. Prosh decks are incredibly linear and play the same each match with little space for interaction other than permission or very specific removal spells. Purphoros is hard to remove and then they still have a number of outlets like Food Chain or even Coat of arms to kill opponents quickly, even without considering that Prosh can easily hit for 10 with evasion by himself. To me, Prosh joins Jhoira to the group of generals whose general theme is too powerful, unfun and straigtforward for the average Commander game, except that the deck is more resistant to removal than Jhoira.
Well Purphoros, like one kind soul has mentioned is an enchantment, like Survival of the Fittest. Run removals, as they say. Now if only removals were in hand always...
So.... Red only has Chaos Warp (not including colorless removals) to rid of enchantments. I sure want to have it in my opening hand every game...
As for Prossh, I'm not too sure it's as oppressive as Kokusho or worse... It makes me wonder why legends are banned in the first place as the EDH scene begins to mature... People know what to play and not what to play within their playgroups... I suppose the bannings are there to prevent sharks...
Most of the time, you want to play Survival of the Fittest in your Green based deck, I see no reason, nor argument for that matter, against that. Graveyard recursion, artifact / land / enchantment hate / token generation / ramp / card draw / mana doubling: There's nothing this color can't do with its absurd creatures and tons of acceleration, nothing! These are all effects attached to some of Greens best cards. Why would you not like to get them early on and start a simply engine of recursion powered by Genesis for instance? There's other was to do it as well, but all in all, this is a card that bypasses onе of the ideas behind the format, by making games identical. Sure, all tutors do that more or less, but non of those is an enchantment for 1G, that can be activated as much as you like for just one G and fetch you whatever stupid critter you need for the current board state. Over and over again.
When was the last time you were playing and someone casted survival before turn 4 and immediately won the game or locked everyone else out of the game?
Survival of the Fittest is a powerful, cheap, engine, and occasionally a reanimator combo enabler. If you or your playgroup are having trouble turning off someones engine then theres an easy fix:
Run responses
Its an enchantment FFS. Its not like you have to run blue or black to interact with it like with instants/sorceries. The fact that it is a permanent hurts it more than helps it. Every single color has an answer to this card. Even red. Chaos Warp.
To recap:
1. Survival is not as fast as many of the other tutors in the format.
2. It is easier to respond to compared to other tutors.
3. It requires the additional cost of discard, which excludes it from some tricolor or dual-color decks.
4. It does not win games as often as other tutors do.
Edit: Also, things green can't do...
Counter spells. Kill creatures outside of "fighting" them. Look at your hand. Make you discard your hand. Tutor for anything but creatures and lands. Steal other player's permanents.
I'll have to disagree with T1 Flash Academcy Rector being that great as that requires a combination of at least 3 cards plus a land, then enough draw to hit enter the infinite. Survival is about as good as that imo.
Survival also wins on 1UU mana with as little as 3 activations but more than likely 4 activations. I still stopped running the card though. lol.
Please stop saying "just remove survival and it'll stop causing problems". The fact that a 2-mana enchantment demands removal should tip you off to the fact that maybe it's a little too good. Plus, if you clutter your deck with cheap spot removal, then you just die to the other players because they don't waste their time killing the problem permanents, and if you don't clutter your deck with spot removal then you will definitely have many times where you will not be able to instantly kill problematic cards like survival.
There is absolutely nothing wrong or ban worthy when it come to Survival of the Fittest. It requires you to have cards to pitch for it be useful, or some other way to recoup creatures back to your hand, for it to be useful for long periods of time.
Survival can be problematic in tuned combo decks. As Fedders pointed out, it can straight-up win you the game with just a few activations and a little floating mana.
Sure, you can "just remove it", but if your opponent has green mana up, they can activate it enough times in response that removing it is null. Sure, you need "cards to pitch for it to be useful". As in, any one creature card to start things off.
It looks to me a lot like Gifts Ungiven. It tutors multiple cards for a low mana cost, while also putting multiple tutored cards into your graveyard, and a lot of the time, it's just used to assemble win combos.
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[quote from="civilwargoat »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/204400-discussion-of-the-official-multiplayer-banlist?comment=19584"]There is absolutely nothing wrong or ban worthy when it come to Survival of the Fittest. It requires you to have cards to pitch for it be useful, or some other way to recoup creatures back to your hand, for it to be useful for long periods of time.
[quote from="Fire Fist »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/204400-discussion-of-the-official-multiplayer-banlist?comment=19586"]I'll blatantly use your post in order to showcase how poorly it fits with what really makes cards ban worthy.
Currently, on the ban list we have:
Metalworker: Requires you to have artifacts, not just any cards, but artifacts in your hand in order to do anything at all.
Panoptic Mirror - Requires you to have another specific card in hand while casting this and then use it. So, basically, it does nothing without having something else in order to be "useful".
These are just 2 cards, that are currently on the ban list and they both fall into the card category you describe. I personally think that they are even less toxic, because they are a lot more situational and are FAR, FAR easier to deal with. I don't want to discuss whether or not these cards should remain on the list. Fact of the matter is, they currently are.
The cards that interact/deal with both Metalworker and Mirror are exactly the same cards that interact/deal with Survival so interacting/dealing with them is the same as dealing with Survival.
The category of cards I described of requiring a repeated activitions accompanied by discarding a card, is not a reason for banning a card according to the RC. And while repeated activations of Mirror is a reason for its banning because it circumvents the power level/casting cost, this is not the case for Metalworker which often becomes worse the more you active it because you drain your hand of resources. You seem to not understand why Worker and Mirror were banned in the first place. And those reasons have nothing to do with Survival.
Survival of the Fittest is abusive and easily so, the fact that it requires creatures to function and some form of recursion is also moot, since we're talking about a green card, that's mainly what the color does (plus much more that it shouldn't do). Survival is exactly what the RC is looking for, when it comes to ban worthy cards, it's an enabler for unfun, degenerate and repeating plays.
Many cards are easily abused and according to RC's banned list philosophy Survival doesn't fit any of those categories, and I agree with the RC on this. Is Survival powerful and if left unchecked easily abused and capable of propelling a player to victory, sure. But then again so are many other cards. About the worst thing Survival has going for it is that it can create repetitive game play from game to game. That is to say that a deck looking to abuse Survival will play the same way each game that its owner plays it, and that is hardly a reason to ban a card. If you want Survival banned you should present a better argument for its banning other than the half brained, poorly thought out, cherry picked examples you presented. Blatantly
Even if you wanna "win" a discussion, you shouldn't used words like half-brained to make a statement. Words like these are triggers for a heated debate.
As of now, most of what Sheldon says become gospel quotes for explaining bans. He, however, never officially made a statement with regards to Sol Ring/Mana Crypt, when dubious cards like Metalworker is there. He tai chi'ed his way by saying Prossh is on the watch list. O well.
Anyways, we can probably understand why Survival of the Fittest is on some people's lips. Personally I chose not to use it (I used to) because I think it's lame. Like Kiki Jiki, as more creature cards get printed, both of them will only get more powerful.
Not trying to win a discussion, but defend my post from an antagonistic reply. So I think that it's fair to respond in kind.
Now I don't agree with everything on/off of the banned list(fast mana is one of them), but Survival is hardly a card ban worthy. You still have to cast the cards you get with it, plus you have to discard a card to use it and that is a hefty cost. Sure that cost and be useful when built around but this is the case for many, many cards. Lots of cards become powerful when built around, is the solution to ban every card that gets better when it becomes better when built around?
And I agree that Survival will only become better with the printing of more powerful creatures but that time is not now and preemptively banning a card seems like a bad idea. Also with more powerful creatures being printed doesn't change the fact that you still have to cast the creatures you get or at least set up some graveyard shenanigans, which is just another layer in which your Survival plans can be disrupted.
Please stop saying "just remove survival and it'll stop causing problems". The fact that a 2-mana enchantment demands removal should tip you off to the fact that maybe it's a little too good. Plus, if you clutter your deck with cheap spot removal, then you just die to the other players because they don't waste their time killing the problem permanents, and if you don't clutter your deck with spot removal then you will definitely have many times where you will not be able to instantly kill problematic cards like survival.
LOTS of cards costing from 1 to 10 require answers if you don't want to lose. Yes survival is one of them. Having answers for stuff is not "clutter", its being a good enough deck builder to address a known issue. Spot removal is underplayed, calls for bans on stuff people don't want to answer is overplayed.
As of now, most of what Sheldon says become gospel quotes for explaining bans. He, however, never officially made a statement with regards to Sol Ring/Mana Crypt, when dubious cards like Metalworker is there. He tai chi'ed his way by saying Prossh is on the watch list. O well.
I'll never say never to anything. I won't close my mind to much, but I can't imagine what would add new information to the Sol Ring discussion.
I would call that as definite as it gets with the RC and a banlist comment.
Anyways, we can probably understand why Survival of the Fittest is on some people's lips. Personally I chose not to use it (I used to) because I think it's lame. Like Kiki Jiki, as more creature cards get printed, both of them will only get more powerful.
Exactly, some cards should be regulated by the people or group as to keep them in general circulation for more hard-core groups.
If people are sick of reading about stuff just stop taking part. You have 100% control over what you read. Simic Ascendancy isn't going to get banned just because you didn't tell someone to shut up on the internet.
Now I don't agree with everything on/off of the banned list(fast mana is one of them), but Survival is hardly a card ban worthy. You still have to cast the cards you get with it, plus you have to discard a card to use it and that is a hefty cost. Sure that cost and be useful when built around but this is the case for many, many cards. Lots of cards become powerful when built around, is the solution to ban every card that gets better when it becomes better when built around?
The solution is to ban every card that is broken when built around. Obviously banning every card that gets better when built around will not work, but it bugs me when "it's not broken if you don't build around it" and "it's only broken if you use it to get/cast broken things" are used as arguments to not ban things.
I will state here that I am not on either side for the banning/not banning of survival of the fittest.
I mostly say these things because it is one of the ideas that lead to an inconsistent ban list. People talk about how Kokusho is banned as a commander because if he wasn't, you could build your whole deck around reanimating and sacrificing him and it would be very hard to stop (truth of that statement doesn't matter, only the reasoning). Then we look at cards like hermit druid and ad nauseam, and for some reason, the same arguments don't get any support (again, truth of those arguments are not important). If that's the case, the only thing you can come down to is power level. Is one of these build-around strategies too powerful and the other not? I don't know, but arguments never seem to be about strength of the card when banning them, but always are when unbanning.
Then there's the other one where "things are only broken if you use them for broken strategies". Why is gifts ungiven banned? Because you can tutor a combo with it? So what? If you don't use it to find combos, it is a cool tutor that can be used in reanimator/dredge strategies that can also help find answers for given board states in a pinch. It's the same argument people use for demonic tutor and vampiric tutor.
Even with Prossh in Sheldon's article, he is trying to show that Prossh is too powerful "when you don't build the deck for him". What the hell is that trying to prove? Why does it matter? Who would build a deck that purposely ignores their commander's abilities, and even if they did, why would it matter if their commander is still powerful? If you want to compare the idea of this argument to something, look at Kokusho. Kokusho is banned for the entirely opposite reason.
Banning cards is always about how casuals can use the cards, but unbanning cards is always about how competitive players can abuse them. It makes no sense.
EDIT:
I want to add that the reason I brought all this up is because cards should be banned for power level. That way, when people ask why panoptic mirror is banned, you can say "it's too powerful" instead of coming up with some weird set of rules that for some reason are ignored on other, similar cards. Note that I am not saying panoptic mirror is too powerful, but that it is the reason it is banned. Some cards could be disagreed upon, but then you are arguing purely about power level and not dancing around all of these inconsistent reasons for banning cards.
The solution is to ban every card that is broken when built around. Obviously banning every card that gets better when built around will not work, but it bugs me when "it's not broken if you don't build around it" and "it's only broken if you use it to get/cast broken things" are used as arguments to not ban things.
How long do you think that list would be? How is 'it gets better when built around' vs 'its broken when built around' going to be consistent?
I want to add that the reason I brought all this up is because cards should be banned for power level. That way, when people ask why panoptic mirror is banned, you can say "it's too powerful" instead of coming up with some weird set of rules that for some reason are ignored on other, similar cards. Note that I am not saying panoptic mirror is too powerful, but that it is the reason it is banned. Some cards could be disagreed upon, but then you are arguing purely about power level and not dancing around all of these inconsistent reasons for banning cards.
Using one criteria, power, that is so ill-defined and not allowing anything else you just get inconsistent results with less criteria. "It is too powerful for EDH" is not a defined thing.
If people are sick of reading about stuff just stop taking part. You have 100% control over what you read. Simic Ascendancy isn't going to get banned just because you didn't tell someone to shut up on the internet.
The solution is to ban every card that is broken when built around. Obviously banning every card that gets better when built around will not work, but it bugs me when "it's not broken if you don't build around it" and "it's only broken if you use it to get/cast broken things" are used as arguments to not ban things.
How long do you think that list would be? How is 'it gets better when built around' vs 'its broken when built around' going to be consistent?
It's consistent because then we are banning cards for being too powerful. There will obviously be some borderline cards that are questionable on either side, but the reasoning would be much more consistent (ie this card is not too powerful vs this card is too powerful).
I want to add that the reason I brought all this up is because cards should be banned for power level. That way, when people ask why panoptic mirror is banned, you can say "it's too powerful" instead of coming up with some weird set of rules that for some reason are ignored on other, similar cards. Note that I am not saying panoptic mirror is too powerful, but that it is the reason it is banned. Some cards could be disagreed upon, but then you are arguing purely about power level and not dancing around all of these inconsistent reasons for banning cards.
Using one criteria, power, that is so ill-defined and not allowing anything else you just get inconsistent results with less criteria. "It is too powerful for EDH" is not a defined thing.
With this kind of criteria, when you see a card that is not banned, you can assume it is not considered too powerful for EDH rather than not knowing why it isn't banned when other, similar cards are banned. Each card would still have to be debated, but we don't need anything like magic rules of thumb that allow us to ban mana rocks that are too powerful. You simply ban the cards that are too powerful for the format.
I think there would still be room for other criteria, but "power level" being ignored when banning cards is what leads to such inconsistency.
I think there would still be room for other criteria, but "power level" being ignored when banning cards is what leads to such inconsistency.
I just don't think that is true. The issue is any useful ban criteria applied to the whole set of Magic cards will return some inconsistent results. I think tolarian academy would be banned in this 'power only' list despite fast mana not being a criteria. 'Power level' really seems like a catch all for cards that do broken junk, but that list is always going to have holes. If they switched the list to power levl but still left metalworker on as too powerful, the complaint would be that it is not, but no one would have anything to back that up, as 'power level' is just as subjective as 'too much mana too fast'.
I don't think adding power level as a ban criteria does anything useful, and it certainly should not be the only criteria.
At the very least you agree that it creates identical games and ruins the feeling of a singleton environment. After this, however, I disagree with you. First of all, this is very important, the card doesn't need a deck build around it to work. It's exactly the opposite to that! Even Birthing Pod requires a lot more though then Survival. You just have to play creatures, which you often already do in the first place and with Survival you get to have access to them early. Survival of the Fittest is a toolbox all by its own, which I find oppressive and quite powerful, at least worthy of a check by the RC.
It is a great toolbox for sure, but saying it creates identical games is disingenuous. People often use toolboxes to find ANSWERS, and every game is different and requires different interactions. Sure someone could combo with it ASAP, but Tooth and Nail or dozens of other tutors do it cheaper. Power does not equal oppression.
If people are sick of reading about stuff just stop taking part. You have 100% control over what you read. Simic Ascendancy isn't going to get banned just because you didn't tell someone to shut up on the internet.
It is a great toolbox for sure, but saying it creates identical games is disingenuous. People often use toolboxes to find ANSWERS, and every game is different and requires different interactions. Sure someone could combo with it ASAP, but Tooth and Nail or dozens of other tutors do it cheaper. Power does not equal oppression.
This. I've yet to blame the loss of a game on Survival, but that's because the people I've seen use it are usually grabbing answers, as they're public enemy number one when it hits the field. I won't go into my own experience using it, because I'm an oddball who thinks combo is boring, so I typically don't even have the option to grab any kind of game winning combo with it that doesn't require a ton of mana and the stars to align.
But then again, my group is control heavy, so not only is green itself an uncommon color, it's not easy to resolve your tutored up combo.
On the issue of power level as ban list criteria, what defines it? A card like Deadeye Navigator might not meet a competitive players criteria for a broken card, but it might for a casual player. The reverse is true for a card like Hermit Druid, so you'll still have people arguing inconsistency. There are cards that most parties may agree on, but different people have different definitions of broken, and the argument of Survival of the Fittest more than proves that.
I think there would still be room for other criteria, but "power level" being ignored when banning cards is what leads to such inconsistency.
I just don't think that is true. The issue is any useful ban criteria applied to the whole set of Magic cards will return some inconsistent results. I think tolarian academy would be banned in this 'power only' list despite fast mana not being a criteria. 'Power level' really seems like a catch all for cards that do broken junk, but that list is always going to have holes. If they switched the list to power levl but still left metalworker on as too powerful, the complaint would be that it is not, but no one would have anything to back that up, as 'power level' is just as subjective as 'too much mana too fast'.
Fast mana is broken (so fast mana cards would be banned), and tolarian academy is probably too powerful for this format. There is an abundance of artifacts that are very useful (namely ramp outside of green), so this will just accelerate pretty much any deck too easily. However, the point is that I am arguing about its power level, and not "it depends on what you cast with it" or "it's only good if your deck is built around it".
By this criteria, you can approach cards more objectively. Tooth and nail wins at 9 mana whereas panoptic mirror can win at 5. Maybe that is enough to have the mirror banned and tooth and nail not banned. Who knows. At least you are arguing something rather than saying things about banned cards that you can say about unbanned cards or vice versa. That's most of what I've seen in arguments about banning/unbanning cards.
It is not an auto-include and if you played with the card rather than against it you'd realize it's not as good as you think. Sometimes its a dead card in your hand. It needs creature-heavy builds to run at top efficiency. And recursion. By itself it's just alright.
I wasn't comparing the two cards. I was saying by having staff unbanned they set a precedent of allowing degenerate cards to be unbanned, as long as they don't run rampant like sylvan primordial.
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Treasonous Ogre will only be banned if Red suddenly becomes popular.
People think Iona is banworthy only because a fast Sisay and/or broken mana enables it. Rid of the enablers and Iona wouldn't even be mentioned. The same goes for any obnoxious cards. They're are expensively costed because they're correctly valued.
Circumventing it with hyper fast mana and dumb tutors are the problems with the format.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
When was the last time you were playing and someone casted survival before turn 4 and immediately won the game or locked everyone else out of the game?
Tutors that do win you the Game before turn 4: Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, Imperial Seal
Tutors that don't: Survival of the Fittest, Numerous others.
Survival of the Fittest is a powerful, cheap, engine, and occasionally a reanimator combo enabler. If you or your playgroup are having trouble turning off someones engine then theres an easy fix:
Run responses
Its an enchantment FFS. Its not like you have to run blue or black to interact with it like with instants/sorceries. The fact that it is a permanent hurts it more than helps it. Every single color has an answer to this card. Even red. Chaos Warp.
To recap:
1. Survival is not as fast as many of the other tutors in the format.
2. It is easier to respond to compared to other tutors.
3. It requires the additional cost of discard, which excludes it from some tricolor or dual-color decks.
4. It does not win games as often as other tutors do.
Edit: Also, things green can't do...
Counter spells. Kill creatures outside of "fighting" them. Look at your hand. Make you discard your hand. Tutor for anything but creatures and lands. Steal other player's permanents.
Etc.
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RGRRuric Thar, the UnbowedGRG
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Outside of AN and HD, what is winning before T4?
Doomsday
Damia http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=410191
DDFT Legacyhttp://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=505247
Domain Zoo http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=10212429#post10212429
Its good but not oppressive, but it is probably because it is so expensive and old that I don't play agianst it at all.
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I say this because I think that Prosh is a far more problematic general that should be considered to ban if Kokusho is deemed overpowered. Prosh decks are incredibly linear and play the same each match with little space for interaction other than permission or very specific removal spells. Purphoros is hard to remove and then they still have a number of outlets like Food Chain or even Coat of arms to kill opponents quickly, even without considering that Prosh can easily hit for 10 with evasion by himself. To me, Prosh joins Jhoira to the group of generals whose general theme is too powerful, unfun and straigtforward for the average Commander game, except that the deck is more resistant to removal than Jhoira.
So.... Red only has Chaos Warp (not including colorless removals) to rid of enchantments. I sure want to have it in my opening hand every game...
As for Prossh, I'm not too sure it's as oppressive as Kokusho or worse... It makes me wonder why legends are banned in the first place as the EDH scene begins to mature... People know what to play and not what to play within their playgroups... I suppose the bannings are there to prevent sharks...
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
Turn 1 flash academy rector into omniscience tutor for enter the infinite
Gisela: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=530741
I'll have to disagree with T1 Flash Academcy Rector being that great as that requires a combination of at least 3 cards plus a land, then enough draw to hit enter the infinite. Survival is about as good as that imo.
Survival also wins on 1UU mana with as little as 3 activations but more than likely 4 activations. I still stopped running the card though. lol.
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StaffSure, you can "just remove it", but if your opponent has green mana up, they can activate it enough times in response that removing it is null. Sure, you need "cards to pitch for it to be useful". As in, any one creature card to start things off.
It looks to me a lot like Gifts Ungiven. It tutors multiple cards for a low mana cost, while also putting multiple tutored cards into your graveyard, and a lot of the time, it's just used to assemble win combos.
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I shouldn't but I guess I will. Blatantly
Metalworker is banned because it produces too much fast mana. You can look here for the RC explanation here http://mtgcommander.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1499 Survival doesn't produce any mana.
Panoptic Mirror is banned because of it power level/mana cost ratio. Don't take my word for it you can look here http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/multiplayer/21451_Embracing_The_Chaos_The_Banned_List.html
Survival doesn't circumvent casting costs or unbalance power level/mana costs.
The cards that interact/deal with both Metalworker and Mirror are exactly the same cards that interact/deal with Survival so interacting/dealing with them is the same as dealing with Survival.
The category of cards I described of requiring a repeated activitions accompanied by discarding a card, is not a reason for banning a card according to the RC. And while repeated activations of Mirror is a reason for its banning because it circumvents the power level/casting cost, this is not the case for Metalworker which often becomes worse the more you active it because you drain your hand of resources. You seem to not understand why Worker and Mirror were banned in the first place. And those reasons have nothing to do with Survival.
Many cards are easily abused and according to RC's banned list philosophy Survival doesn't fit any of those categories, and I agree with the RC on this. Is Survival powerful and if left unchecked easily abused and capable of propelling a player to victory, sure. But then again so are many other cards. About the worst thing Survival has going for it is that it can create repetitive game play from game to game. That is to say that a deck looking to abuse Survival will play the same way each game that its owner plays it, and that is hardly a reason to ban a card. If you want Survival banned you should present a better argument for its banning other than the half brained, poorly thought out, cherry picked examples you presented.
Blatantly
As of now, most of what Sheldon says become gospel quotes for explaining bans. He, however, never officially made a statement with regards to Sol Ring/Mana Crypt, when dubious cards like Metalworker is there. He tai chi'ed his way by saying Prossh is on the watch list. O well.
Anyways, we can probably understand why Survival of the Fittest is on some people's lips. Personally I chose not to use it (I used to) because I think it's lame. Like Kiki Jiki, as more creature cards get printed, both of them will only get more powerful.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
Now I don't agree with everything on/off of the banned list(fast mana is one of them), but Survival is hardly a card ban worthy. You still have to cast the cards you get with it, plus you have to discard a card to use it and that is a hefty cost. Sure that cost and be useful when built around but this is the case for many, many cards. Lots of cards become powerful when built around, is the solution to ban every card that gets better when it becomes better when built around?
And I agree that Survival will only become better with the printing of more powerful creatures but that time is not now and preemptively banning a card seems like a bad idea. Also with more powerful creatures being printed doesn't change the fact that you still have to cast the creatures you get or at least set up some graveyard shenanigans, which is just another layer in which your Survival plans can be disrupted.
I would call that as definite as it gets with the RC and a banlist comment.
Exactly, some cards should be regulated by the people or group as to keep them in general circulation for more hard-core groups.
The solution is to ban every card that is broken when built around. Obviously banning every card that gets better when built around will not work, but it bugs me when "it's not broken if you don't build around it" and "it's only broken if you use it to get/cast broken things" are used as arguments to not ban things.
I will state here that I am not on either side for the banning/not banning of survival of the fittest.
I mostly say these things because it is one of the ideas that lead to an inconsistent ban list. People talk about how Kokusho is banned as a commander because if he wasn't, you could build your whole deck around reanimating and sacrificing him and it would be very hard to stop (truth of that statement doesn't matter, only the reasoning). Then we look at cards like hermit druid and ad nauseam, and for some reason, the same arguments don't get any support (again, truth of those arguments are not important). If that's the case, the only thing you can come down to is power level. Is one of these build-around strategies too powerful and the other not? I don't know, but arguments never seem to be about strength of the card when banning them, but always are when unbanning.
Then there's the other one where "things are only broken if you use them for broken strategies". Why is gifts ungiven banned? Because you can tutor a combo with it? So what? If you don't use it to find combos, it is a cool tutor that can be used in reanimator/dredge strategies that can also help find answers for given board states in a pinch. It's the same argument people use for demonic tutor and vampiric tutor.
There's also things like panoptic mirror vs tooth and nail. They can both be used fair and "for fun" or for ending the game as soon as possible, but panoptic mirror is banned and tooth and nail isn't.
Even with Prossh in Sheldon's article, he is trying to show that Prossh is too powerful "when you don't build the deck for him". What the hell is that trying to prove? Why does it matter? Who would build a deck that purposely ignores their commander's abilities, and even if they did, why would it matter if their commander is still powerful? If you want to compare the idea of this argument to something, look at Kokusho. Kokusho is banned for the entirely opposite reason.
Banning cards is always about how casuals can use the cards, but unbanning cards is always about how competitive players can abuse them. It makes no sense.
EDIT:
I want to add that the reason I brought all this up is because cards should be banned for power level. That way, when people ask why panoptic mirror is banned, you can say "it's too powerful" instead of coming up with some weird set of rules that for some reason are ignored on other, similar cards. Note that I am not saying panoptic mirror is too powerful, but that it is the reason it is banned. Some cards could be disagreed upon, but then you are arguing purely about power level and not dancing around all of these inconsistent reasons for banning cards.
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Using one criteria, power, that is so ill-defined and not allowing anything else you just get inconsistent results with less criteria. "It is too powerful for EDH" is not a defined thing.
It's consistent because then we are banning cards for being too powerful. There will obviously be some borderline cards that are questionable on either side, but the reasoning would be much more consistent (ie this card is not too powerful vs this card is too powerful).
With this kind of criteria, when you see a card that is not banned, you can assume it is not considered too powerful for EDH rather than not knowing why it isn't banned when other, similar cards are banned. Each card would still have to be debated, but we don't need anything like magic rules of thumb that allow us to ban mana rocks that are too powerful. You simply ban the cards that are too powerful for the format.
I think there would still be room for other criteria, but "power level" being ignored when banning cards is what leads to such inconsistency.
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I don't think adding power level as a ban criteria does anything useful, and it certainly should not be the only criteria.
It is a great toolbox for sure, but saying it creates identical games is disingenuous. People often use toolboxes to find ANSWERS, and every game is different and requires different interactions. Sure someone could combo with it ASAP, but Tooth and Nail or dozens of other tutors do it cheaper. Power does not equal oppression.
This. I've yet to blame the loss of a game on Survival, but that's because the people I've seen use it are usually grabbing answers, as they're public enemy number one when it hits the field. I won't go into my own experience using it, because I'm an oddball who thinks combo is boring, so I typically don't even have the option to grab any kind of game winning combo with it that doesn't require a ton of mana and the stars to align.
But then again, my group is control heavy, so not only is green itself an uncommon color, it's not easy to resolve your tutored up combo.
On the issue of power level as ban list criteria, what defines it? A card like Deadeye Navigator might not meet a competitive players criteria for a broken card, but it might for a casual player. The reverse is true for a card like Hermit Druid, so you'll still have people arguing inconsistency. There are cards that most parties may agree on, but different people have different definitions of broken, and the argument of Survival of the Fittest more than proves that.
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Fast mana is broken (so fast mana cards would be banned), and tolarian academy is probably too powerful for this format. There is an abundance of artifacts that are very useful (namely ramp outside of green), so this will just accelerate pretty much any deck too easily. However, the point is that I am arguing about its power level, and not "it depends on what you cast with it" or "it's only good if your deck is built around it".
By this criteria, you can approach cards more objectively. Tooth and nail wins at 9 mana whereas panoptic mirror can win at 5. Maybe that is enough to have the mirror banned and tooth and nail not banned. Who knows. At least you are arguing something rather than saying things about banned cards that you can say about unbanned cards or vice versa. That's most of what I've seen in arguments about banning/unbanning cards.
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