Black has a grip of doublers exclusive to themselves. They may not be searching lands out to "ramp" but they can get there just as fast as green. Countering is not removal, it never will be, and bounce is a very sad alternative for removal.
Also, I'm not saying that blue should get everything, I would love to see black get at least 1 decent card to remove an artifact. Same for red with enchantments (outside Chaos Warp). I mean even green got Beast Within to deal with creatures, and the new enchantment that makes any permanent worthless.
Every color should have at least one decent card to make up for their shortcomings.
Blue definitely does not need the help of Academy though.
Blue has:
1) The best card drawing of any color
2) The best artifact interaction, when artifacts are the primary way to ramp and often ramp faster than Green does (Trinket Mage into Mana Crypt is stronger than Wood Elves into Forest)
3) An actual ton of spot removal for every single card type via Bounce, Stealing, Tuck, Countermagic, most of which blue is effectively exclusive in.
4) Some of the best Mass Removal for every permanent type
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[quote from="Cranial_extraction »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/204400-discussion-of-the-official-multiplayer-banlist?comment=22606"]
On the ramp front I'll agree that blue doesn't have as great options as green and black, but it has Tezzeret the Seeker to generate stupid amounts of mana with artifacts, High Tide as a one-shot ramp effect, and Teferi, Temporal Archmage can ramp very hard. Plus there's always Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, which may not be specific to blue but still shines there.
Nyktos can be a good ramp land, but it's pretty useless in an artifact focused blue build. Etherium Sculptor is just a medallion for artifacts, the fact that it exists is great but doesn't put more power at artifacts than a medallion would give to storm or Electormancer gives to melek. Basically I'm saying it's a good card, but the fact that it exists doesn't mean that blue should not get academy. Emerald Medallion also exists, yet green still has cradle. Bloom Tender and Priest of Titania are cards, and so is Somberwald Sage. Saying there are ramp creatures doesn't do anything toward the argument that academy is broken. If you're dumping your hand to a pile of artifacts to make mana, chances are much higher that you don't have a counterspell to stop that shatterstorm. It's a different strategy of playing.
Black has a grip of doublers exclusive to themselves. They may not be searching lands out to "ramp" but they can get there just as fast as green. Countering is not removal, it never will be, and bounce is a very sad alternative for removal.
Also, I'm not saying that blue should get everything, I would love to see black get at least 1 decent card to remove an artifact. Same for red with enchantments (outside Chaos Warp). I mean even green got Beast Within to deal with creatures, and the new enchantment that makes any permanent worthless.
Every color should have at least one decent card to make up for their shortcomings.
All of those cards are color pie violations, so what it really sounds like you're arguing for isn't a card to be legalized, it is for the colors to be homogenized and meaningless.
Black has a grip of doublers exclusive to themselves. They may not be searching lands out to "ramp" but they can get there just as fast as green. Countering is not removal, it never will be, and bounce is a very sad alternative for removal.
Also, I'm not saying that blue should get everything, I would love to see black get at least 1 decent card to remove an artifact. Same for red with enchantments (outside Chaos Warp). I mean even green got Beast Within to deal with creatures, and the new enchantment that makes any permanent worthless.
Every color should have at least one decent card to make up for their shortcomings.
All of those cards are color pie violations, so what it really sounds like you're arguing for isn't a card to be legalized, it is for the colors to be homogenized and meaningless.
This is about Tolarian Academy not the color pie and how other colors deal with artifacts.
This is about Tolarian Academy not the color pie and how other colors deal with artifacts.
I understand that. I was referring for his desire to allow each color to deal with everything, and citing cards which MaRo has gone on record and stated were color pie violations. That's why I said it didn't sound like he was arguing for TA to be legalized.
This is about Tolarian Academy not the color pie and how other colors deal with artifacts.
I understand that. I was referring for his desire to allow each color to deal with everything, and citing cards which MaRo has gone on record and stated were color pie violations. That's why I said it didn't sound like he was arguing for TA to be legalized.
I saw this come up in the thread about the new green enchantment and said discussion about it being a color pie bending card took over the entire thread. I would like to see Academy unbanned personally and I'd hate to get off topic and start talking about beast within and friends instead.
[quote from="Cranial_extraction »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/204400-discussion-of-the-official-multiplayer-banlist?comment=22606"]
On the ramp front I'll agree that blue doesn't have as great options as green and black, but it has Tezzeret the Seeker to generate stupid amounts of mana with artifacts, High Tide as a one-shot ramp effect, and Teferi, Temporal Archmage can ramp very hard. Plus there's always Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, which may not be specific to blue but still shines there.
Nyktos can be a good ramp land, but it's pretty useless in an artifact focused blue build. Etherium Sculptor is just a medallion for artifacts, the fact that it exists is great but doesn't put more power at artifacts than a medallion would give to storm or Electormancer gives to melek. Basically I'm saying it's a good card, but the fact that it exists doesn't mean that blue should not get academy. Emerald Medallion also exists, yet green still has cradle. Bloom Tender and Priest of Titania are cards, and so is Somberwald Sage. Saying there are ramp creatures doesn't do anything toward the argument that academy is broken. If you're dumping your hand to a pile of artifacts to make mana, chances are much higher that you don't have a counterspell to stop that shatterstorm. It's a different strategy of playing.
</blockquote>
Except you're Blue, and Blue has the best card draw in the game.
Dump all Artifacts, Play Draw Spell.
Dump all Artifacts, play Draw spell.
Dump all Artifacts.....
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[quote from="Cranial_extraction »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/204400-discussion-of-the-official-multiplayer-banlist?comment=22606"]
On the ramp front I'll agree that blue doesn't have as great options as green and black, but it has Tezzeret the Seeker to generate stupid amounts of mana with artifacts, High Tide as a one-shot ramp effect, and Teferi, Temporal Archmage can ramp very hard. Plus there's always Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, which may not be specific to blue but still shines there.
Nyktos can be a good ramp land, but it's pretty useless in an artifact focused blue build. Etherium Sculptor is just a medallion for artifacts, the fact that it exists is great but doesn't put more power at artifacts than a medallion would give to storm or Electormancer gives to melek. Basically I'm saying it's a good card, but the fact that it exists doesn't mean that blue should not get academy. Emerald Medallion also exists, yet green still has cradle. Bloom Tender and Priest of Titania are cards, and so is Somberwald Sage. Saying there are ramp creatures doesn't do anything toward the argument that academy is broken. If you're dumping your hand to a pile of artifacts to make mana, chances are much higher that you don't have a counterspell to stop that shatterstorm. It's a different strategy of playing.
</blockquote>
Except you're Blue, and Blue has the best card draw in the game.
Dump all Artifacts, Play Draw Spell.
Dump all Artifacts, play Draw spell.
Dump all Artifacts.....
I'm not sure I see your point. Sure Blue has draw spells, so does green. They don't make academy better than cradle. Green has Harmonize, Garruk, Primal Hunter, Genesis Wave, Chord of Calling (not quite draw, but pretty insane), Collective Unconscious, Greater Good, Regal Force, Soul of the Harvest, Primordial Sage ect... Your argument is based on a specific play style that requires a board full of permanents to power those draw spells. The same strategy can be played in green, yet one land is banned and the other is not. At least in blue your draw spells don't come equipped with 4 to 6 power.
[quote from="Cranial_extraction »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/204400-discussion-of-the-official-multiplayer-banlist?comment=22606"]
On the ramp front I'll agree that blue doesn't have as great options as green and black, but it has Tezzeret the Seeker to generate stupid amounts of mana with artifacts, High Tide as a one-shot ramp effect, and Teferi, Temporal Archmage can ramp very hard. Plus there's always Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, which may not be specific to blue but still shines there.
Nyktos can be a good ramp land, but it's pretty useless in an artifact focused blue build. Etherium Sculptor is just a medallion for artifacts, the fact that it exists is great but doesn't put more power at artifacts than a medallion would give to storm or Electormancer gives to melek. Basically I'm saying it's a good card, but the fact that it exists doesn't mean that blue should not get academy. Emerald Medallion also exists, yet green still has cradle. Bloom Tender and Priest of Titania are cards, and so is Somberwald Sage. Saying there are ramp creatures doesn't do anything toward the argument that academy is broken. If you're dumping your hand to a pile of artifacts to make mana, chances are much higher that you don't have a counterspell to stop that shatterstorm. It's a different strategy of playing.
</blockquote>
Except you're Blue, and Blue has the best card draw in the game.
Dump all Artifacts, Play Draw Spell.
Dump all Artifacts, play Draw spell.
Dump all Artifacts.....
I'm not sure I see your point. Sure Blue has draw spells, so does green. They don't make academy better than cradle. Green has Harmonize, Garruk, Primal Hunter, Genesis Wave, Chord of Calling (not quite draw, but pretty insane), Collective Unconscious, Greater Good, Regal Force, Soul of the Harvest ect... Your argument is based on a specific play style that requires a board full of permanents to power those draw spells. The same strategy can be played in green, yet one land is banned and the other is not.
</blockquote>
But how many decks play All-In-Green versus those who play A-Lot-Of-Artifact-Ramp.
8 Mana and 6 cards (in the color of ramp) is a lot less than 12 cards and 15 mana. Does that help explain why Tolarian is a little more busted than Cradle?
I think your green "god" hand is understated. If you have 8 mana and 5 creatures on the board it's more beneficial to drop Regal Force and draw 5 while putting 5 power down or Genesis Wave for 5 and just put 5 more cards straight into play. Dryad Arbor has summoning sickness so it's hard to say how much mana you really have. However if one of your 'one drop elves' is heritage druid or really any mana dorks things get more complicated/explosive.
In your examples turn 3 Tolarian taps for 5 mana. In your green example Gaea's Cradle taps for 6 on the same turn. Your green mage could be dropping all kinds of degenerate elves, but these are left unspecified. In addition both players are dumping nearly their entire hands just to go 'all in' on one 'draw' spell. You're also ignoring Azusa...
I think your green "god" hand is understated. If you have 8 mana and 5 creatures on the board it's more beneficial to drop Regal Force and draw 5 while putting 5 power down or Genesis Wave for 5 and just put 5 more cards straight into play. However Dryad Arbor has summoning sickness so you don't have that much mana, however if one of your 'one drop elves' is heritage druid things get more complicated.
In your examples turn 3 Tolarian taps for 5 mana. In your green example Gaea's Cradle taps for 6 on the same turn. Your green mage could be dropping all kinds of degenerate elves, but these are left unspecified. In addition both players are dumping nearly their entire hands just to go 'all in' on one 'draw' spell. You're also ignoring Azusa...
Ok, so let's throw in Heritage Druid T2; tap those three elves to play.... one more elf (Note that that is eight cards; Forest, Mystic, Cradle, Visionary, 2 nameless elves and Heritage druid, one more elf) Draw a tenth card, play a land, play Regal Force for 7 cards and five power.
Throw in Asuza, and again; T2: Cradle, Azusa, Forest, Dryad Arbor, Heritage Druid, Elf. T3: Play Regal Force for five cards. Due to not playing Elvish Visionary, you only have one card in hand T3.
Throw in Genesis Wave, and you get a White player reaching for his Wrath of God, hence why I was focusing mostly on Cards in Hand as opposed to permanents. In the event of a Wrath, the green player has a Forest and Gaea's Cradle on the field, with no cards in hand. In the event of U w/ TA, you have Island, TA, and 7 cards in hand.
The blue player has a much safer board state than the green.
Not to mention Academy Ruins to start recycling the artifacts.
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I think your green "god" hand is understated. If you have 8 mana and 5 creatures on the board it's more beneficial to drop Regal Force and draw 5 while putting 5 power down or Genesis Wave for 5 and just put 5 more cards straight into play. However Dryad Arbor has summoning sickness so you don't have that much mana, however if one of your 'one drop elves' is heritage druid things get more complicated.
In your examples turn 3 Tolarian taps for 5 mana. In your green example Gaea's Cradle taps for 6 on the same turn. Your green mage could be dropping all kinds of degenerate elves, but these are left unspecified. In addition both players are dumping nearly their entire hands just to go 'all in' on one 'draw' spell. You're also ignoring Azusa...
Ok, so let's throw in Heritage Druid T2; tap those three elves to play.... one more elf (Note that that is eight cards; Forest, Mystic, Cradle, Visionary, 2 nameless elves and Heritage druid, one more elf) Draw a tenth card, play a land, play Regal Force for 7 cards and five power.
Throw in Asuza, and again; T2: Cradle, Azusa, Forest, Dryad Arbor, Heritage Druid, Elf. T3: Play Regal Force for five cards. Due to not playing Elvish Visionary, you only have one card in hand T3.
Throw in Genesis Wave, and you get a White player reaching for his Wrath of God, hence why I was focusing mostly on Cards in Hand as opposed to permanents. In the event of a Wrath, the green player has a Forest and Gaea's Cradle on the field, with no cards in hand. In the event of U w/ TA, you have Island, TA, and 7 cards in hand.
The blue player has a much safer board state than the green.
Not to mention Academy Ruins to start recycling the artifacts.
Let me just re-work the green one to be more specific for you.
Assuming God Hands:
Green:
T1: Forest, Elvish Mystic, pass.
T2: Gaea's Cradle, Tap Mystic and Forest, Drop Heritage Druid, Llanowar Elves, Tap cradle for 3 mana Cast Priest of Titania and Nettle Sentinel. (you've played 7 cards, 2 in hand)
T3: Dryad Arbor, cradle can tap for 7 mana since you have 7 creatures in play. You tap cradle + Elvish Mystic to cast Regal Force... Draw a large number of cards, and you still have Priest and Heritage druid to play some of those cards which probably includes drawing more...
The amount of mana you have after this point is completely arbitrary. The two lands themselves tap for roughly the same amount.
Green, however, is countered by a single Wrath of God. Mass Artifact Destruction is A) More limited in number and B) Easier to recover from, due to everyone losing a Sol Ring amongst other things.
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Let me just re-work the green one to be more specific for you.
Assuming God Hands:
Green:
T1: Forest, Elvish Mystic, pass.
T2: Gaea's Cradle, Tap Mystic and Forest, Drop Heritage Druid, Llanowar Elves, Tap cradle for 3 mana Cast Priest of Titania and Nettle Sentinel. (you've played 7 cards, 2 in hand)
T3: Dryad Arbor, cradle can tap for 7 mana since you have 7 creatures in play. You tap cradle + Elvish Mystic to cast Regal Force... Draw a large number of cards, and you still have Priest and Heritage druid to play some of those cards which probably includes drawing more...
The amount of mana you have after this point is completely arbitrary. The two lands themselves tap for roughly the same amount.
Sure, but if we play the "god hand" game, blue can get rolling ON TURN ONE
Green, however, is countered by a single Wrath of God. Mass Artifact Destruction is A) More limited in number and B) Easier to recover from, due to everyone losing a Sol Ring amongst other things.
People want to ignore that fact. Just like they want to ignore summoning sickness, or that the green scenario listed above requires you to play Elf tribal, whereas the blue example is just blue doing what it does best (play a ton of mana rocks to compensate for its lack of blue-based ramp).
Mana dorks basically all
A) have summoning sickness
B) cost at least as much to cast as they produce
and
C) have the inherent weakness of being creatures, meaning they die to a stiff breeze
While there are a ton of artifacts that produce more than they cost and ETB untapped and can be used immediately.
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How is it easier? Shatterstorm, Granulate, Stony Silence, Creeping Corrosion and a boatload of green cards all hinder artifacts. Hell there's even artifacts that hinder artifacts in Null Rod, Kill Switch, Damping Matrix. There is literally no way Cradle is more fair than Academy in a singleton format. We're talking parity here, and if every other color gets absurdly strong mana lands (Cabal Coffers, Crypt of Agadeem, Gaea's Cradle, Serra's Sanctum) then blue should as well. Literally every other color has permanent ways to effectively ramp mana except blue. Throw us a bone here.
If you think there's parity between Cradle and Academy, you've never actually seen Academy played.
If you think Crypt of Agadeem is even in the same zip code as the other lands mentioned, I think you need a sobriety test.
This example made me chuckle a bit (cloud of faeries so OP lol), but I think you're right in that this is the type of thing people are afraid of with Academy. But most of the time it's just as fair as cradle.
Green, however, is countered by a single Wrath of God. Mass Artifact Destruction is A) More limited in number and B) Easier to recover from, due to everyone losing a Sol Ring amongst other things.
People want to ignore that fact. Just like they want to ignore summoning sickness, or that the green scenario listed above requires you to play Elf tribal, whereas the blue example is just blue doing what it does best (play a ton of mana rocks to compensate for its lack of blue-based ramp).
I chose elf tribal for my example because I assume if you're building with these lands you'll build with the best way to abuse them. Elves comes to mind as the best, though elves is not my personal favorite strategy so I may not have even come up with the 'best' scenario. Summoning sickness doesn't matter when you're playing cards like heritage druid, and can be completely negated with a 1 drop, not to mention what you're ramping into also can have haste.
Both strategies rely on permanents that are easy to destroy, and are very "all in".
The difference is, the "non-god hand" ways those two decks play are very skewed in favor of the Academy deck. A Llanowar Elf or two isn't going to ramp you too much, and will get blown out by the first wrath of god to hit. An early Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Grim Monolith, etc will catapult you ahead in mana and likely won't die until the fifth or sixth round when Nevinyrral's Disk or Austere Command effects start flying.
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The difference is, the "non-god hand" ways those two decks play are very skewed in favor of the Academy deck. A Llanowar Elf or two isn't going to ramp you too much, and will get blown out by the first wrath of god to hit. An early Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Grim Monolith, etc will catapult you ahead in mana and likely won't die until the fifth or sixth round when Nevinyrral's Disk or Austere Command effects start flying.
These artifacts always come up, because they are also broken. Grim Monolith also goes infinite with a simple Power Artifact. Does that mean they they need to be banned? My answer is no. These cards are all powerful, but they are also very fun to play with.
At this point the original argument of the Academy being on par with Gaea's Cradle has long gone out of the window. Face it, the way Artifacts work, it's just too stupidly easy to get bizarre bursts of early game mana that the Cradle can't even HOPE to mirror - and in blue, that's a lot scarier than it is in Green.
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
At this point the original argument of the Academy being on par with Gaea's Cradle has long gone out of the window. Face it, the way Artifacts work, it's just too stupidly easy to get bizarre bursts of early game mana that the Cradle can't even HOPE to mirror - and in blue, that's a lot scarier than it is in Green.
I hate to say it, but there are two very valid opinions here and pretending like either isn't worthwhile is bigoted or short-sighted.
On a perfect hand comparison level, yes, Academy is stronger. Anyone arguing against this is simply wrong.
However, EDH isn't a format in which most cards are banned because of power level. The banned list generally consists of cards who create undesirable game-states. Generally speaking most playgroups are responsible for managing the power level of their games via the social contract policy that is in place. While there are plenty of decks that could be designed to abuse an opening godhand with either Academy or Cradle, we're ignoring the part where these would be played in formats in which others would have an equally meaningful early game.
Personally speaking I don't think it would ruin the format if Academy was unbanned, but I believe the banned list as it is has created an already "ruined" format. If people want to do broken things they can and will find ways to (attempt to) do so. Academy in a deck that isn't trying to abuse it isn't somehow innately more broken than Cradle is. If the banned list goal is to prevent broken things, drawing the line somewhere between Academy and Cradle seems arbitrary at best. If the RC wants the banned list to create a non-broken format, they have proven themselves woefully unqualified for doing so; but they've said time and again that the social contract is intended to regulate "broken" playstyles and they simply manage the cards which are inherently able to produce undesirable boardstates. I do not believe Academy innately does that.
All this said, there's no one 'right' opinion. Those that see Academy as potentially powerful aren't wrong; those who see Academy as a fun card to play with which doesn't require abuse to be fun aren't wrong. Assuming that your opinion on how the format should be is any more right or valid than someone else's is, however, wrong.
The thing is that the original unban argument was "Gaea's Cradle is on the same level as Tolarian Academy", which sparked the discussion. This was proven false. Hence my specific comment.
Cradle is much easier to keep in check, requires more investment (Due to the way Mana Rocks vs Mana Dorks work) and the permanents it works with have a LOT more wipes in the format than Artifacts do. That, and due to the colors given, the Academy goes excessively easily infinite or into silly stuff like T2 Omniscience.
Now I'm not discounting any opinions, I'm merely stating a fact about the power level of the two cards. I think the Academy is bizarrely easily broken (Just thinking about putting it in my Niv makes me uneasy as to how easy things will go), but I understand some would want to play with it. I just don't think it'll lead to actual fun.
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Having random people who probably play decks in the format often run it is ridiculous.
Do you realize who's on the RC? They're all quite intelligent people, and certainly not random. Several members are high-ranking judges (Sheldon was an L5 before he retired from judging, and Toby is an L5 -- there are only a small handful of L5 judges worldwide; I believe the current count is five), and one of them is a manager at WotC.
Maybe because Gifts Ungiven is so much better than Intuition? The difference between the two cards isn't as big as Academy vs. Cradle, but one is clearly better than the other.
Deadeye has to get a creature to bond with, and the Soulbond trigger needs to resolve. Yeah, if you get DEN going with a nasty ETB or LTB creature it can be backbreaking (but still answerable, since that Soulbond trigger needs to resolve each and every time you blink either DEN or his partner), but Sylvan Primordial and Primeval Titan don't need his help to polarize a game. I've seen my share of T2 Primordials and games which become all about Primetime as soon as the green deck sits down at the table. Many of those had absolutely nothing to do with DEN. I'd much sooner see them ban Consecrated Sphinx, and I'm not even certain that's necessary.
Rofellos is only banned because they removed the "banned as commander" category. I don't think there's many people who think he's degenerate in the 99, but having access to 6-drops T3 every single game is not comparable to a 5-drop T3 sometimes, if you're lucky that you get with Sol Ring.
Now, whether the "banned as commander" category should have been removed or not is an entirely different topic of discussion.
For that matter, why is Panoptic Mirror banned at all? Because it goes inifnite with time walk effects? There are literally hundreds of infinite combos possible in EDH but this one requires 5 + a minimum of 5 more mana and dies to Shatter and a multitude of other things.
You can respond to Panoptic Mirror's upkeep trigger, so without ramp or rocks you can achieve the infinite turns you're talking about on the upkeep of your 6th turn.
How many 2-card infinite turns combos can you name (which are legal in the format)? How many of those require only 5 mana on the table? I can't speak to the RC's reasoning, but I don't see any problem with banning Panoptic Mirror, myself.
Gate to Phyrexia is a great black card to deal with artifacts.
Blue definitely does not need the help of Academy though.
Blue has:
1) The best card drawing of any color
2) The best artifact interaction, when artifacts are the primary way to ramp and often ramp faster than Green does (Trinket Mage into Mana Crypt is stronger than Wood Elves into Forest)
3) An actual ton of spot removal for every single card type via Bounce, Stealing, Tuck, Countermagic, most of which blue is effectively exclusive in.
4) Some of the best Mass Removal for every permanent type
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Nyktos can be a good ramp land, but it's pretty useless in an artifact focused blue build. Etherium Sculptor is just a medallion for artifacts, the fact that it exists is great but doesn't put more power at artifacts than a medallion would give to storm or Electormancer gives to melek. Basically I'm saying it's a good card, but the fact that it exists doesn't mean that blue should not get academy. Emerald Medallion also exists, yet green still has cradle. Bloom Tender and Priest of Titania are cards, and so is Somberwald Sage. Saying there are ramp creatures doesn't do anything toward the argument that academy is broken. If you're dumping your hand to a pile of artifacts to make mana, chances are much higher that you don't have a counterspell to stop that shatterstorm. It's a different strategy of playing.
All of those cards are color pie violations, so what it really sounds like you're arguing for isn't a card to be legalized, it is for the colors to be homogenized and meaningless.
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This is about Tolarian Academy not the color pie and how other colors deal with artifacts.
I understand that. I was referring for his desire to allow each color to deal with everything, and citing cards which MaRo has gone on record and stated were color pie violations. That's why I said it didn't sound like he was arguing for TA to be legalized.
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I saw this come up in the thread about the new green enchantment and said discussion about it being a color pie bending card took over the entire thread. I would like to see Academy unbanned personally and I'd hate to get off topic and start talking about beast within and friends instead.
Except you're Blue, and Blue has the best card draw in the game.
Dump all Artifacts, Play Draw Spell.
Dump all Artifacts, play Draw spell.
Dump all Artifacts.....
I'm not sure I see your point. Sure Blue has draw spells, so does green. They don't make academy better than cradle. Green has Harmonize, Garruk, Primal Hunter, Genesis Wave, Chord of Calling (not quite draw, but pretty insane), Collective Unconscious, Greater Good, Regal Force, Soul of the Harvest, Primordial Sage ect... Your argument is based on a specific play style that requires a board full of permanents to power those draw spells. The same strategy can be played in green, yet one land is banned and the other is not. At least in blue your draw spells don't come equipped with 4 to 6 power.
But how many decks play All-In-Green versus those who play A-Lot-Of-Artifact-Ramp.
Assuming God Hands:
Green:
T1: Forest, Elvish Mystic, pass.
T2: Gaea's Cradle, Elvish Visionary, three more 1 drop elves.
T3: Dryad Arbor, have access to 8 mana, cast collective unconscious.
Blue, With Academy:
T1: Mox Opal, Tolarian Academy, Sol Ring, pass.
T2: Seat of the Synod, Thran Dynamo, Gilded Lotus, pass.
T3: Island, Blue Sun's Zenith for 12UUU
8 Mana and 6 cards (in the color of ramp) is a lot less than 12 cards and 15 mana. Does that help explain why Tolarian is a little more busted than Cradle?
Edit: Green hand wasn't godly enough.
I can't answer this question, I don't know numbers, nor do I care which is more popular.
I think your green "god" hand is understated. If you have 8 mana and 5 creatures on the board it's more beneficial to drop Regal Force and draw 5 while putting 5 power down or Genesis Wave for 5 and just put 5 more cards straight into play. Dryad Arbor has summoning sickness so it's hard to say how much mana you really have. However if one of your 'one drop elves' is heritage druid or really any mana dorks things get more complicated/explosive.
In your examples turn 3 Tolarian taps for 5 mana. In your green example Gaea's Cradle taps for 6 on the same turn. Your green mage could be dropping all kinds of degenerate elves, but these are left unspecified. In addition both players are dumping nearly their entire hands just to go 'all in' on one 'draw' spell. You're also ignoring Azusa...
Ok, so let's throw in Heritage Druid T2; tap those three elves to play.... one more elf (Note that that is eight cards; Forest, Mystic, Cradle, Visionary, 2 nameless elves and Heritage druid, one more elf) Draw a tenth card, play a land, play Regal Force for 7 cards and five power.
Throw in Asuza, and again; T2: Cradle, Azusa, Forest, Dryad Arbor, Heritage Druid, Elf. T3: Play Regal Force for five cards. Due to not playing Elvish Visionary, you only have one card in hand T3.
Throw in Genesis Wave, and you get a White player reaching for his Wrath of God, hence why I was focusing mostly on Cards in Hand as opposed to permanents. In the event of a Wrath, the green player has a Forest and Gaea's Cradle on the field, with no cards in hand. In the event of U w/ TA, you have Island, TA, and 7 cards in hand.
The blue player has a much safer board state than the green.
Not to mention Academy Ruins to start recycling the artifacts.
Let me just re-work the green one to be more specific for you.
Assuming God Hands:
Green:
T1: Forest, Elvish Mystic, pass.
T2: Gaea's Cradle, Tap Mystic and Forest, Drop Heritage Druid, Llanowar Elves, Tap cradle for 3 mana Cast Priest of Titania and Nettle Sentinel. (you've played 7 cards, 2 in hand)
T3: Dryad Arbor, cradle can tap for 7 mana since you have 7 creatures in play. You tap cradle + Elvish Mystic to cast Regal Force... Draw a large number of cards, and you still have Priest and Heritage druid to play some of those cards which probably includes drawing more...
The amount of mana you have after this point is completely arbitrary. The two lands themselves tap for roughly the same amount.
Sure, but if we play the "god hand" game, blue can get rolling ON TURN ONE
T1: Tolarian Academy, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Mox Opal, tap everything for 3UUUU, cast Recurring Insight to draw 7 cards and still have U floating, play Chrome Mox, Mana Vault, play Cloud of Faeries, tap Academy for UUUU with 2 still floating from the vault, cast Mind over Matter, pitch two cards for UUUU each, cast Time Spiral. Draw a fresh seven with UU floating and Academy untapped, play some more artifacts, every card in your hand is now worth 6+ mana, cast Treasure Trove, draw your deck and produce infinite mana (using Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre to reshuffle), win the game.
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People want to ignore that fact. Just like they want to ignore summoning sickness, or that the green scenario listed above requires you to play Elf tribal, whereas the blue example is just blue doing what it does best (play a ton of mana rocks to compensate for its lack of blue-based ramp).
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A) have summoning sickness
B) cost at least as much to cast as they produce
and
C) have the inherent weakness of being creatures, meaning they die to a stiff breeze
While there are a ton of artifacts that produce more than they cost and ETB untapped and can be used immediately.
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If you think Crypt of Agadeem is even in the same zip code as the other lands mentioned, I think you need a sobriety test.
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This example made me chuckle a bit (cloud of faeries so OP lol), but I think you're right in that this is the type of thing people are afraid of with Academy. But most of the time it's just as fair as cradle.
I chose elf tribal for my example because I assume if you're building with these lands you'll build with the best way to abuse them. Elves comes to mind as the best, though elves is not my personal favorite strategy so I may not have even come up with the 'best' scenario. Summoning sickness doesn't matter when you're playing cards like heritage druid, and can be completely negated with a 1 drop, not to mention what you're ramping into also can have haste.
Both strategies rely on permanents that are easy to destroy, and are very "all in".
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Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
I hate to say it, but there are two very valid opinions here and pretending like either isn't worthwhile is bigoted or short-sighted.
On a perfect hand comparison level, yes, Academy is stronger. Anyone arguing against this is simply wrong.
However, EDH isn't a format in which most cards are banned because of power level. The banned list generally consists of cards who create undesirable game-states. Generally speaking most playgroups are responsible for managing the power level of their games via the social contract policy that is in place. While there are plenty of decks that could be designed to abuse an opening godhand with either Academy or Cradle, we're ignoring the part where these would be played in formats in which others would have an equally meaningful early game.
Personally speaking I don't think it would ruin the format if Academy was unbanned, but I believe the banned list as it is has created an already "ruined" format. If people want to do broken things they can and will find ways to (attempt to) do so. Academy in a deck that isn't trying to abuse it isn't somehow innately more broken than Cradle is. If the banned list goal is to prevent broken things, drawing the line somewhere between Academy and Cradle seems arbitrary at best. If the RC wants the banned list to create a non-broken format, they have proven themselves woefully unqualified for doing so; but they've said time and again that the social contract is intended to regulate "broken" playstyles and they simply manage the cards which are inherently able to produce undesirable boardstates. I do not believe Academy innately does that.
All this said, there's no one 'right' opinion. Those that see Academy as potentially powerful aren't wrong; those who see Academy as a fun card to play with which doesn't require abuse to be fun aren't wrong. Assuming that your opinion on how the format should be is any more right or valid than someone else's is, however, wrong.
Cradle is much easier to keep in check, requires more investment (Due to the way Mana Rocks vs Mana Dorks work) and the permanents it works with have a LOT more wipes in the format than Artifacts do. That, and due to the colors given, the Academy goes excessively easily infinite or into silly stuff like T2 Omniscience.
Now I'm not discounting any opinions, I'm merely stating a fact about the power level of the two cards. I think the Academy is bizarrely easily broken (Just thinking about putting it in my Niv makes me uneasy as to how easy things will go), but I understand some would want to play with it. I just don't think it'll lead to actual fun.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Do you realize who's on the RC? They're all quite intelligent people, and certainly not random. Several members are high-ranking judges (Sheldon was an L5 before he retired from judging, and Toby is an L5 -- there are only a small handful of L5 judges worldwide; I believe the current count is five), and one of them is a manager at WotC.
Maybe because Gifts Ungiven is so much better than Intuition? The difference between the two cards isn't as big as Academy vs. Cradle, but one is clearly better than the other.
Deadeye has to get a creature to bond with, and the Soulbond trigger needs to resolve. Yeah, if you get DEN going with a nasty ETB or LTB creature it can be backbreaking (but still answerable, since that Soulbond trigger needs to resolve each and every time you blink either DEN or his partner), but Sylvan Primordial and Primeval Titan don't need his help to polarize a game. I've seen my share of T2 Primordials and games which become all about Primetime as soon as the green deck sits down at the table. Many of those had absolutely nothing to do with DEN. I'd much sooner see them ban Consecrated Sphinx, and I'm not even certain that's necessary.
Rofellos is only banned because they removed the "banned as commander" category. I don't think there's many people who think he's degenerate in the 99, but having access to 6-drops T3 every single game is not comparable to a 5-drop T3 sometimes, if you're lucky that you get with Sol Ring.
Now, whether the "banned as commander" category should have been removed or not is an entirely different topic of discussion.
You can respond to Panoptic Mirror's upkeep trigger, so without ramp or rocks you can achieve the infinite turns you're talking about on the upkeep of your 6th turn.
How many 2-card infinite turns combos can you name (which are legal in the format)? How many of those require only 5 mana on the table? I can't speak to the RC's reasoning, but I don't see any problem with banning Panoptic Mirror, myself.
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