MTG Salvation

Quote from Serberus_08 »

I don't agree with people voting for cards that were designed for the format. Namely the commanders, seeing people call Derevi, Oloro, and Prossh out I think is confusing. And then to see them actually get banned, it's odd because they were designed for this version of the game with their interactions.

As much as I don't want my beloved Derevi deck stripped of its commander, I have to agree with others that on power level alone, these cards really outdo themselves. The RC has made mention before that they don't just jump on de banhammerz wagon because something is good. Every format is going to have top cards and unplayables (here's looking at you Homelands), but I believe these commanders in particular deserve special notice. I don't really get the mechanics of WHY Oloro is so good, but in the few misfortunate times I've run into him, he has generally been a bit of a wrecking ball. Except for the time I landed a quick Stigma Lasher and shut off his engine lolwut.

Derevi and Prossh's issues I can help explain.

As said before, messing with command zone interactions was dangerous. Prossh is busted for basically one reason. Any time you make an effect scale upwards upon a certain scenario recurring, its possible you've created an infinite combo. This is largely not a big deal since the setup for these combos is often convoluted, and requires subpar cards along the way, while being difficult to assemble without some effort. Prossh rewards you increasingly for getting to the scenario, "I cast my commander again". You bet it can go infinite. And since Prossh is you commander, and is very hard to get rid of in the long run, half your combo is basically unkillable going long and always pre-tutored. Now all you have to do is generate mana for getting creatures. Which isn't hard to do. There is actually quite a bit of redundancy beyond just the infamous Food Chain. Now you've created an infinite engine for creatures. Find a payoff. There's lots of em.

Derevi's issue is partially the fact that, she too is unkillable. Four mana buys her back every time. And she's also a card you want to get RID of forever. Any time R&D messes with tapping and untapping permanent, things can get sketchy. Derevi does both. Lots. Early on, Derevi ensures you can prison people with Winter Orb and its ilk. Once you've achieved that, its effect frees you from the prison a little bit at a time to the point where you are so far ahead nobody has any hope of doing anything again. Or you can just turn three Titan off of Bloom Tender and watch nobody play magic while you have a 6/6. But at least the Titan kills em fast.

Bottom line, I believe Derevi and Prossh certainly belong in a banned list discussion, Oloro as well. But I don't believe a banning is necessary here. The reasons these cards are oppressive keeps them out of casual communities, and in communities better equipped to deal with them, they are good. Like, really really good. But not unbeatable if the table recognizes the threat they pose early on. And since they're generally your commander, you kinda spill the beans the moment you sit down with your 1500 dollar deck complete with Imperial Seal and Prossh at the helm.

As a format, Commander is lucky to be technically casual, while also scaling from look at my hilarious terrible Licid theme deck to Vintage-lite. It's not a perfect solution to every player trying to be "that guy", but being logistically casual allows a player group to decide what's acceptable at their game store or homestead. If something breaks the local power level rules, players can simply push the offending deck/player to another group or reform them. Meanwhile if your deck doesn't stand up to the mana rock storm shenanigans going on, players have the ability to pull from a card pool that literally spans the game to catch up.

In my mind, the " command zone" commanders benefit from this because even thoguh they are very powerful, they are your commanders. They are beatable but they don't ambush a game. You sit down at a table, flip your commander face up, and the people you play with are ultimately free to say "No, you can't play that. Sorry." or free to recognize, I can handle that, but kill on sight. All without the worry of it coming up in the middle of a game and wrecking everything as you now figure out how to deal with a super taboo card being played.

Quote from MCFUser306381 »

Quote from Serberus_08 »

I don't agree with people voting for cards that were designed for the format. Namely the commanders, seeing people call Derevi, Oloro, and Prossh out I think is confusing. And then to see them actually get banned, it's odd because they were designed for this version of the game with their interactions.

As said before, messing with command zone interactions was dangerous. Prossh is busted for basically one reason. Any time you make an effect scale upwards upon a certain scenario recurring, its possible you've created an infinite combo. This is largely not a big deal since the setup for these combos is often convoluted, and requires subpar cards along the way, while being difficult to assemble without some effort. Prossh rewards you increasingly for getting to the scenario, "I cast my commander again". You bet it can go infinite. And since Prossh is you commander, and is very hard to get rid of in the long run, half your combo is basically unkillable going long and always pre-tutored. Now all you have to do is generate mana for getting creatures. Which isn't hard to do. There is actually quite a bit of redundancy beyond just the infamous Food Chain. Now you've created an infinite engine for creatures. Find a payoff. There's lots of em.

Derevi's issue is partially the fact that, she too is unkillable. Four mana buys her back every time. And she's also a card you want to get RID of forever. Any time R&D messes with tapping and untapping permanent, things can get sketchy. Derevi does both. Lots. Early on, Derevi ensures you can prison people with Winter Orb and its ilk. Once you've achieved that, its effect frees you from the prison a little bit at a time to the point where you are so far ahead nobody has any hope of doing anything again. Or you can just turn three Titan off of Bloom Tender and watch nobody play magic while you have a 6/6. But at least the Titan kills em fast.

I think the anti-tuck rule keeps this conversation going. If you could Chaos Warp Derevi or Prossh or Oloro, for a basic land, then the problem ceases to be a problem. As far the infinite token loop, if you have not etb damage effects like Purphoros or Warstorm Surge(Although the tokens are 0/1s but for Prossh entering) or a haste enabler like Sarkhan, the not quite broken then the loop kinda sucks and doesn't win the game. If you find this happens and Prossh leaves play then he becomes impossible to cast due to coming from the command zone too many times. No longer a possibility for infinite nonsense.

Quote from donfuan »

The whole idea from Wizards to fumble with the commander tax was basically a very bad one, but they just got over the top with Derevi. Flash, fixed costs, and clearly tempting to go stax.

I agree that Derevi was made slightly better down the stretch in a game because of the fixed and flashable 4 cmc from the command zone. Stax is also a given, but, again, this all changes if cards like Bant Charm/Hallowed Burial could actually put her on the bottom, blame the ruling committee for taking that option away.

Quote from donafauna Shaman »

Well, Prophet of Kruphix compared to Shimmer Myr/Vedalken Orrery & Unwinding Clock or Yeva, Nature's Herald & Seedborn Muse shows you how op it is. I mean, i happily take it or clone it whenever i can, but in that regard it shares its centristic effect on the game with Primetime. And it grants the already dominant GU combination even more edge.

And btw any instant speed kill spell can disrupt DEN, you cast it when the soulbond trigger is on the stack. The caster can't answer that with DEN's ability.

I stand corrected to some degree, but it's interactions are still a little more impactful IMO than Prophit's. It's pretty Naive to think that a blue deck has no answer for a kill spell, but my point about Prohpet still stands. It's just as vulnerable to an "instant speed kill spell", it becomes a bigger threat when you untap the five lands you used to cast it on your opponent's untap step. For the record I support both and fully understand the strength that both brings to the table, but i agree it does become the focus at the table if left unchecked (same with Deadeye).

I've brought this up before in the BL thread, but it bears repeating here:

Wizards should be commended for their involvement in this format and encouraging its growth. They and the RC have a good relationship where each group talks to each other when necessary and each trusts that the other has their overall best intentions in mind. In the case of the 2013 generals, the RC trusts that Wizards will explore interesting design space without going overboard, and Wizards trusts that the RC will not let "this was in a precon" cloud their judgement (after all, they banned Trade Secrets). Wizards simply does not have the resources to exhaustively play test every card they design, and making every card predictably safe makes for very boring new cards.

In regards to the three "offenders":

Derevi - She is a three color bird wizard with an effect that encourages attacking. What isn't to love about this? And even cooler, she's really hard to kill. The fact that people only choose to remember the players who build tribal Stasis decks is not the fault of Wizards, nor does being able to tap/one thing a broken deck make. Swap out Jenara or Rafiq for Derevi and tell me how broken your deck is.

Prossh - Giving players increasing rewards for multiple castings is something that burned Wizards in the past with Storm, so I'm disappointed that they missed Food Chain (or didn't alter the card if it was pointed out to them). But that doesn't actually differ all that much from other generals that have two card combos. So again we're left with a flavorful general.

Oloro - This is the one I am surprised does not get the most hate and I feel is the most against the spirit of EDH. This is a format where you are encouraged to interact with other players and build around a general, and Oloro was built such that you are rewarded for NOT casting your general.

These generals share two things in common: they all dabble around with the command zone, and they all get a bad rap because players choose to build a certain style of deck around them. I'm not sure why any of that should make them banworthy.

I feel bad about Prossh because I love her design and what she does. My problem is more in that its really hard to build her in any way that isn't just massive mashing the I win button. The cards that you naturally want to run with this commander all naturally break the game so the option is sort of to not build at all around the natural abilities of the card or see how many wraths / counters your opponents can come up with.

I think all three of them are really cool and yet really lame all at the same time. Its not that I feel they need to be banned but all of them sort of leave me feeling dirty when playing with the concept of playing them.

Quote from cryogen »

These generals share two things in common: they all dabble around with the command zone, and they all get a bad rap because players choose to build a certain style of deck around them. I'm not sure why any of that should make them banworthy.

As much as I agree that they shouldn't be banned, but for different reasons, and really do like the way these commanders play with the concept of the command zone, this particular argument feels flawed. Or inversely the banned list in any non strictly competitive format is flawed because of this argument.

Magic players, and people in general, gravitate towards being the best, doing the best with what they've got. When you have a general that rewards you infinitely more for playing one way than another, you can bet that the majority of people are going to choose the best way. It's why netdecking is a real thing. It's why sideboard guides are included in pro articles about decks. People have a real interest in doing the thing that's good, that gets results. There may be mavericks who do the cool thing instead, and there may be multiple different things that are similar enough power level to share the top spot in a format. But once you choose these commanders, time and lots of playing has repeatedly shown that there is clearly a best way to build with them that produces the best results that are far and away better than most other builds. Results oriented as we are, enough players are going to consistently build these decks the "best" way since they have access to the information and card pool nowadays that the argument, "But there are other cool things to do with thes commanders" is largely moot. There will still be enough copies of the dirty versions of the deck floating around that there will need to be another reason not to ban the commander who enables the whole deck.

Quote from cryogen »

These generals share two things in common: they all dabble around with the command zone, and they all get a bad rap because players choose to build a certain style of deck around them. I'm not sure why any of that should make them banworthy.

I could not agree more.

Quote from donafauna Shaman »

I'm with you. But just imagine: you cast DEN for 4UU, let's pretend you don't have a 0-counter on hand but a simple Counterspell. Then you need another 1U to get it going. That's 10 mana, if your playgroup can't handle it at this stage you either a) successfully ramped like a maniac, b) denied the opponents the necessary resources to answer or c) they all tapped out and you cast it for 8. In each case, you deserve the benefit. cheers!

Granted I usually rock a Pact when I try to drop either of these cards to circumvent the disruption of my win cons, but I see your point and I agree.

Funny thing is that a couple of friends started playing playing each of these cards, and only until I got over my U stigma and started to play these cards in my decks (seeing great success and efficiency) did they start to pour on the salt. Needless to say, I tell them coyly "That I have a low sodium diet..." and continue to play on.

I can agree with ISB and Vexing Shusher on the issues of Prossh and Derevi. You need to do no more than play with the idea of what they do, and they become oppressively powerful in a lot of groups. But, I also don't think that they should be banned.

The ban list makes the game what it is. It's the set of cards you're allowed to play. It shouldn't be what the Modern ban list is, that we get to have such and such format for a while, have fun with it, then go along and do something else once we're done having fun with that. Banning a card should be a statement that it's so out of place that it simply doesn't belong in casual Magic. A card, general, or deck being played out, bothersome, or boring shouldn't be ban criteria. And unless someone is telling me that these decks can't be beaten, then that's all that's really being said. Wizards shouldn't be concerned whether some 6-drop Dragon is going to force people to run disenchant. They should be concentrated on developing cards that are unique and interesting to play with.

Case in point, Oloro being mentioned in the same sentence. I know of no universe where gaining 2 life per turn is oppressive. It may be that you are sick of dealing with that, but that's not ban criteria.

Honestly, nothing should be banned, nothing should be changed and all the new rules that soften this format should be reverted.
This is EDH. You got 1 of each cards available from every single set ever printed. If you lose, you didn't have an answer and were unprepared, it is your fault. If a card seems unfair, remember you are playing EDH and there are more than 1 answers out there you can always include in your deck. Is your opponent playing unfair card drawing cards? You an disrupt it. An unfair land? Destroy it! An unfair artifact/enchantment? Disenchant or Naturalize it.

I wholeheartedly disagree with the tuck rule. Already the commander can be re-placed when dead or exiled, now people can't even follow card instructions.

Heck when I first started EDH and make a Kaalia deck from scratch, 1/3 was Dragons/Demons/Angels, 1/3 was disruption/answers and 1/3 was lands and I did very well!
People complain about combos that can be disrupted, I-win-cards that have ridiculous requirements, "unfair" cards that anyone can play or counter. But the way I see it, if everyone plays Timmy decks, people get bored and they try intricate answers. The proper way to handle it is to find answers to answers and have a shifting meta. Instead people make rules or banlists to buffer things but instead dumbs down the game or makes it less interesting.

Quote from Zulzanet »

You got 1 of each cards available from every single set ever printed.

umm relentless rats say hi

Fast mana has always been a problem in every mtg format and should be banned. Sol ring and mana crypt are the obvious problems (stuff like Mishra's workshop should be banned too, but since it's about $1k now normal people can't afford one, let alone play with one, so nobody sees the problems it can cause). The problem is that we've beaten this horse to death and nobody will change their opinions about it despite all the facts that are brought up. There's no point in talking about it anymore.

The other problem is that the RC is inconsistent with what they actually ban. Hermit druid isn't banned because it can be built in a "fair" way, but cards like Panoptic Mirror and Painter's Servant are banned despite the fact that they can also be built in ways that are "fair". The "spirit of the format" is just a vague and arbitrary term and it makes me feel that anything I say about it will be brushed aside.

From a low power stand point I one shot someone turn 5 with the prosh precon the first time I played it without changing a single card.

No conclusion just recalling what happened. It's been awhile I can't remember exactly just the turn I killed on. I think I played that master breeder guy maybe. I do remember thinking damn this is a pretty insane general guess this is junds new go to guy.

Ascending soapbox: we as a community of players need to stop putting our hands up and screaming banned! Overpowered! EDH is an incredibly diverse format and every meta is different. With the number of accessible cards there is an answer to nearly everything and shops tend to be "self policing" the players who sit down with their competitive deck at a table that's very casual. Game 2 becomes archenemy and that players gets a bad rep.

On the other end of the spectrum others of us enjoy playing 100 card vintage highlander and the powerful plays that card pool allows at our league with a cash buy in. I enjoyed playing vs competitive decks and learning about new lines of play when I didn't have as competive a deck...I played a lot more politically!

Prossh....he is a 6 mana 3 color commander....with no protection....that's very all in. Wait till kobolds are sac'd to it and use one of the 900 removal spells printed over the last 20 years. Part of being a better player is learning timing and how much more powerful an instant is vs a sorcery.

Mana artifacts...most of them have a downside...in our meta we got rid of partial Paris mulligans. We do the next 7 off the top and then 6 if you don't like and so on. That fixed a ton of issues with people sculpting their hands. Which is the real issue.

As to 6 mana creatures being too strong...shouldn't they be for 6 mana? It's odd that primeval Titan is such an issue while no one talks about con Sphinx or deadeye...just urban creatures. We want more people playing creatures anyway. Especially bombs like Titans they add fun and flavor.

The only cards I could consider banning is ad nauseam and doomsday. Because they don't do healthy things. And doomsday is the real culprit. Ad nasuem can be fair sometimes...maybe...I do know that whn I take a 20 minute ad nas storm turn the table hates me and my next game isn't as fun...

Additionaly as WOTC continues to print overpowered creatures we need to look at freeing some spells from the banlist such as balance. That was my pet card in extended and I miss it.. Shameless plug.

Quote from IMProgenitus »

Fast mana has always been a problem in every mtg format and should be banned. Sol ring and mana crypt are the obvious problems (stuff like Mishra's workshop should be banned too, but since it's about $1k now normal people can't afford one, let alone play with one, so nobody sees the problems it can cause). The problem is that we've beaten this horse to death and nobody will change their opinions about it despite all the facts that are brought up. There's no point in talking about it anymore.

Have you ever lost to a game winning mishra's workshop? The only tier 1 deck that plays it is sharuumn and its hit and miss with only being 50% artifacts. I play it in my Kozilek deck and it can be a boss if I draw it early 6% chance but that's definitely a more semi casual deck that gets owned by any artifact wipe or elves.

Part of the fun of Magic is the big plays off of a sol ring or mana vault. Think of how much fun it was to slam that dragon on turn 3! Vs 3 other players who can do a myriad of things to kill it...

We want less cards banned not more. It's fun to watch someone wiff on their chaos orb toss or to play an awesome card like eureka or drop of honey....some people enjoy building the ultimate indestructible pillow fort...think how epic balance would be for that guy to play as he gets his enchantment fort up and going over a series of like 10 turns...think how braids could put a stop to that...


Sometimes watching someone else do an epic play is as much fun as having your own. Sometimes it's about seeing how competitive you can make your squee deck!

Banning more cards isn't the answer...growing as a player and deck builder along with being considerate of your meta is.

Quote from donfuan »

Quote from Serberus_08 »

I stand corrected to some degree, but it's interactions are still a little more impactful IMO than Prophit's. It's pretty Naive to think that a blue deck has no answer for a kill spell, but my point about Prohpet still stands. It's just as vulnerable to an "instant speed kill spell", it becomes a bigger threat when you untap the five lands you used to cast it on your opponent's untap step. For the record I support both and fully understand the strength that both brings to the table, but i agree it does become the focus at the table if left unchecked (same with Deadeye).

Playing a DEN, prophet, or rings of brighthearth is an indication of shenanigans to follow and paints a big red target on that player...be ready to take on the table...

I'm with you. But just imagine: you cast DEN for 4UU, let's pretend you don't have a 0-counter on hand but a simple Counterspell. Then you need another 1U to get it going. That's 10 mana, if your playgroup can't handle it at this stage you either a) successfully ramped like a maniac, b) denied the opponents the necessary resources to answer or c) they all tapped out and you cast it for 8. In each case, you deserve the benefit. cheers!

Quote from rahvin80 »

Quote from IMProgenitus »

Fast mana has always been a problem in every mtg format and should be banned. Sol ring and mana crypt are the obvious problems (stuff like Mishra's workshop should be banned too, but since it's about $1k now normal people can't afford one, let alone play with one, so nobody sees the problems it can cause). The problem is that we've beaten this horse to death and nobody will change their opinions about it despite all the facts that are brought up. There's no point in talking about it anymore.

Have you ever lost to a game winning mishra's workshop? The only tier 1 deck that plays it is sharuumn and its hit and miss with only being 50% artifacts. I play it in my Kozilek deck and it can be a boss if I draw it early 6% chance but that's definitely a more semi casual deck that gets owned by any artifact wipe or elves.

Part of the fun of Magic is the big plays off of a sol ring or mana vault. Think of how much fun it was to slam that dragon on turn 3! Vs 3 other players who can do a myriad of things to kill it...

We want less cards banned not more. It's fun to watch someone wiff on their chaos orb toss or to play an awesome card like eureka or drop of honey....some people enjoy building the ultimate indestructible pillow fort...think how epic balance would be for that guy to play as he gets his enchantment fort up and going over a series of like 10 turns...think how braids could put a stop to that...


Sometimes watching someone else do an epic play is as much fun as having your own. Sometimes it's about seeing how competitive you can make your squee deck!

Banning more cards isn't the answer...growing as a player and deck builder along with being considerate of your meta is.

Your entire post is just one giant wall of rhetoric. "It's fun doing this! It's fun doing that!" Maybe for you, but not for me. Maybe you have fun when someone drops a huge threat on turn 3 and turns the game into archenemy. I'm personally tired of that bull*****.

In fact, why did the RC ban Primeval Titan? They said that Titan overcentralized the game. It was a race to play/clone/steal/exile the titan. So why don't sol ring/mana crypt fall in the same category? When they're played early, the game basically becomes archenemy. Why does that not count as overcentralizing the game? All I'm looking for is consistency.

Quote from rahvin80 »

Ascending soapbox: we as a community of players need to stop putting our hands up and screaming banned! Overpowered! EDH is an incredibly diverse format and every meta is different. With the number of accessible cards there is an answer to nearly everything and shops tend to be "self policing" the players who sit down with their competitive deck at a table that's very casual. Game 2 becomes archenemy and that players gets a bad rep.

On the other end of the spectrum others of us enjoy playing 100 card vintage highlander and the powerful plays that card pool allows at our league with a cash buy in. I enjoyed playing vs competitive decks and learning about new lines of play when I didn't have as competive a deck...I played a lot more politically!

This type of argument comes up often. "If someone plays a problematic card/deck, the other players on the table will just gang up on him to make it not problematic." And I'll say that this is actually true, that players tend to self police their playgroups. However, if that's the argument, then there's no point in having a banlist at all. Someone's playing Braids? No problem, just have everyone focus that player down. Of course the problem arises when more than one player plays Braids or a different ridiculous card. Then the game just becomes a *****fest.

The banlist is there mostly FOR the competitive circles to make sure that their games aren't just giant cesspools of stupidity. It's fun to pilot powerful and intricate decks, it's another when it's just flat out broken. There's a reason why Vintage, the constructed format solely for playing ridiculous overpowered cards, has a restricted list. A casual player will not play Erayo because she's ridiculous and annoying (as you said, players self-police themselves), so if she were unbanned for any reason, casual players will stay away. But competitive circles will not stay away for that reason. Erayo needs to stay banned because of it.

Prossh....he is a 6 mana 3 color commander....with no protection....that's very all in. Wait till kobolds are sac'd to it and use one of the 900 removal spells printed over the last 20 years. Part of being a better player is learning timing and how much more powerful an instant is vs a sorcery.

Prossh cannot be shut down by a single removal spell, because Prossh can win with any kinds of cards and most of them require different answers.

For example, playing Xenagos God and Prossh, yes, that can get shut down by a swords to plowshares. But what if instead the Prossh player threw down Beastmaster Ascension? Swords does nothing here (unless of course the Prossh player has exactly 7 creatures that can attack, but that's obviously only a temporary solution and doesn't work if he has 8+ creatures). Of course nature's claim will work here, but nature's claim would do nothing if he played Xenagos God instead. Then there are cards that can deal with both, but they tend to cost more mana, like Beast Within, so it's more obviously telegraphed. And then what if his wincon was Craterhoof Behemoth? This requires different answers too.

Prossh may or may not be ban worthy. The deck doesn't win until at least 6 mana, and hypercompetitive decks can win before then (however this may be a sign that said hypercompetitive decks should get nerfed, as like you said, Doomsday is probably bannable, and Ad Nauseam is pretty close). But the argument is more complex than just telling players to play more removal spells. No answer is 100% foolproof, AND you may not even have the right card in your hand to answer said problem.

Mana artifacts...most of them have a downside...in our meta we got rid of partial Paris mulligans. We do the next 7 off the top and then 6 if you don't like and so on. That fixed a ton of issues with people sculpting their hands. Which is the real issue.

While this does greatly reduce the ability to sculpt hands, it also increases the chances of getting mana screwed or mana flooded. Casual decks are often not a problem at all unless they get turn 1 sol ring/mana crypt so outside of those specific cards, this mulligan rule will likely hurt casual circles more than help.

I still don't understand why an artifact that any deck can play that can easily be destroyed is up for bans. Sure, it can do stupid things, but this is Commander, the format where you are SUPPOSED to do stupid things.

This may just be my meta, but I don't sit there once I've lost, thinking, "Man, if he hadn't played Sol Ring, I woulda won!" I sit there and figure out what my opponent did, and how to counter it. I've seen plenty of people not even play Sol Ring and beat everyone with a Sol Ring. It has never struck me as a "Ban now!" card. Maybe I'm just missing something? Is it just because it ramps colorless mana?

Completely unrelated, there is only one card that I actually want to see added to the banned list (for now, anyways) and that's Iona, Shield of Emeria. She hoses decks, not because the deck uses a specific strategy (like Rest in Peace and Grafdigger's Cage to graveyard decks), but because they simply run a color. I can get behind a card that shuts down a STRATEGY, but not one that shuts down a whole COLOR. Then again, this argument has probably been made a million times, to feel free to ignore it.

Quote from Inchtall »

I still don't understand why an artifact that any deck can play that can easily be destroyed is up for bans. Sure, it can do stupid things, but this is Commander, the format where you are SUPPOSED to do stupid things.

This may just be my meta, but I don't sit there once I've lost, thinking, "Man, if he hadn't played Sol Ring, I woulda won!" I sit there and figure out what my opponent did, and how to counter it. I've seen plenty of people not even play Sol Ring and beat everyone with a Sol Ring. It has never struck me as a "Ban now!" card. Maybe I'm just missing something? Is it just because it ramps colorless mana?

Completely unrelated, there is only one card that I actually want to see added to the banned list (for now, anyways) and that's Iona, Shield of Emeria. She hoses decks, not because the deck uses a specific strategy (like Rest in Peace and Grafdigger's Cage to graveyard decks), but because they simply run a color. I can get behind a card that shuts down a STRATEGY, but not one that shuts down a whole COLOR. Then again, this argument has probably been made a million times, to feel free to ignore it.

A sol ring start is like taking two extra turns right off the bat. It's a threat that has absolutely no efficient answer. It's not like a thran dynamo that is very strong, but comes out late enough to expect answers. It's extremely powerful in the earliest turns, meaning it often explodes so fast you can't even hope to develop a gameplan to stop it, because you just won't have the mana resources. For example, I've faced against this:
T1 land, sol ring, signet
T2 land, zurgo helmsmasher, swing
T3 inquisitors flail, equip, swing, kill

I hadn't even seen my third land drop and my opponent had spent 3 mana on ramp and 9 mana on threats. And the cards played against me were "fair" cards too.

Sol ring is run by almost every single deck out there, it's only the extremely niche strategies that won't consider it. I think the game would be much better off without games occasionally being ruined by a player who starts the game with 2 more mana than everyone else.

B-b-b-but you should've had a swords to plowshares!

Quote from IMProgenitus »

B-b-b-but you should've had a swords to plowshares!

There is something to be said for spot removal. Everyone should deeply consider running it. If you're in a multi-colored deck, having a specific answer to a specific problem is a great way to ensure that it's not a problem. If your deck ceases to run effectively after tossing in 4 or 5 spot removal spells, then you need to drastically reconsider some card choices and you need to learn exactly what it is that makes your deck tick.


That being said, there is also something to be said for overly effective engines. An early Sol Ring turns the game less into a battle between players and more of a "my deck runs more efficiently than yours." The first one to gain the largest advantage from having two free mana wins. It's really difficult to come back from a turn 2 fact or fiction generated from a permanent resource. It compounds your advantage far too easily. I don't like Sol Ring as a card, but you've got to admire the sheer power that it has in nearly any deck.

I've wondered if something like this would make for better games?

You start the game with both your commander and Sol Ring in the command zone and may cast Sol Ring from it if it were in your hand. If it dies it just goes to your GY, you can't put it back in the command zone.

Quote from Zygous »

I've wondered if something like this would make for better games?

You start the game with both your commander and Sol Ring in the command zone and may cast Sol Ring from it if it were in your hand. If it dies it just goes to your GY, you can't put it back in the command zone.

There are a few decks that don't benefit from sol ring as much as others (e.g. Animar) and this would put them at a disadvantage.

Quote from Carthage »

Quote from Inchtall »

I still don't understand why an artifact that any deck can play that can easily be destroyed is up for bans. Sure, it can do stupid things, but this is Commander, the format where you are SUPPOSED to do stupid things.

This may just be my meta, but I don't sit there once I've lost, thinking, "Man, if he hadn't played Sol Ring, I woulda won!" I sit there and figure out what my opponent did, and how to counter it. I've seen plenty of people not even play Sol Ring and beat everyone with a Sol Ring. It has never struck me as a "Ban now!" card. Maybe I'm just missing something? Is it just because it ramps colorless mana?

Completely unrelated, there is only one card that I actually want to see added to the banned list (for now, anyways) and that's Iona, Shield of Emeria. She hoses decks, not because the deck uses a specific strategy (like Rest in Peace and Grafdigger's Cage to graveyard decks), but because they simply run a color. I can get behind a card that shuts down a STRATEGY, but not one that shuts down a whole COLOR. Then again, this argument has probably been made a million times, to feel free to ignore it.

A sol ring start is like taking two extra turns right off the bat. It's a threat that has absolutely no efficient answer. It's not like a thran dynamo that is very strong, but comes out late enough to expect answers. It's extremely powerful in the earliest turns, meaning it often explodes so fast you can't even hope to develop a gameplan to stop it, because you just won't have the mana resources. For example, I've faced against this:
T1 land, sol ring, signet
T2 land, zurgo helmsmasher, swing
T3 inquisitors flail, equip, swing, kill

I hadn't even seen my third land drop and my opponent had spent 3 mana on ramp and 9 mana on threats. And the cards played against me were "fair" cards too.

Sol ring is run by almost every single deck out there, it's only the extremely niche strategies that won't consider it. I think the game would be much better off without games occasionally being ruined by a player who starts the game with 2 more mana than everyone else.

Try this one:
Turn 1: Scalding Tarn, grab Volcanic Island, Sol Ring, Izzet Signet
Turn 2: Hallowed Fountain, Bribery, Take Blightsteel Colossus
Turn 3: Plains, Armageddon.

Fun game...

Admirable thing about Sol Ring? It would be admirable if people stop playing it.