What are some cards or generals that you really don't like playing against? What are your problem with these cards?
Note: This isn't a thread for discussing what cards you want to be banned. Instead, discuss cards you believe are not fun to play against regardless of power level
A friend I regularly play against abhors playing against Bribery. Her mentality is that it's allows you to play the best creature an opponent has for only 3UU. It violates the singleton spirit of the format because it is a tutor, but it tutors for outrageously powerful creatures very early game (i.e. Void Winnower, Blightsteel Colossus, Avacyn, Angel of Hope, Ashen Rider).
I strongly dislike Craterhoof Behemoth. It's grossly overplayed and flat out steals games. If a player has lot tokens or elves, but still has a relatively underwhelming board state, that player can play Craterhoof Behemoth and practically win. Unless the opponent is playing blue, they can't really interact with it. You can't just Path To Exile it. The only answers nonblue are cards like Rout that require a ton of mana to keep open or Fog effects that are generally very weak. Craterhoof Behemoth is also played in a color that can easily tutor creatures so it seems to appear every game.
Deadeye Navigator is so frustrating to play against. If it isn't answered immediately, it might as well have hexproof. Why is it a 5/5 by the way? It already allows you to abuse any enter the battlefield ability. I can't tell you how many times I've played against Deadeye Navigator and had opponents blink and abuse enter the battlefield abilities and take 5 minute turns.
Geist of Saint Traft in the command zone. Fortunately there are cards like Arcane Lighthouse now. But playing against a hexproof general that also has access to blue is incredibly difficult to interact with, especially if you aren't playing blue.
Oracle of Mul Daya is just too good. My problem with it is that it costs 3G, rather than something like 1GGG. It's an incredibly green effect and I see five colored decks just play it on turn 3 or 4, and suddenly ramp and fix way too easily.
For me,it's less cards I hate, and more... Ideals.
Boring combo is boring combo... I had a regular opponent who would play Riku/Palinchron combo. If u got rid of Palinchron, he would durdle the rest of the game. He had VERY bad 2nd/3rd/etc game plan. Largely Bribery or infinite turns and beating you in the face with a 2/2 Commander.
I like Craterhoof well enough, it still requires a board to be strong. I also like Deadeye, but I see how he's honestly too powerful for a "casual" format.
selvala, explorer returned - a deck built around her boils down to parleying for 20+ excruciating minutes, seeing if the selvala player got enough mana to hurricane the table, if not then the next player wins since they just drew half their deck.
grave pact/grave betrayal -
These effects literally break the game in a deck built dor it, and devolves the game into draw enchantment removal or lose, in an extremely unfun way
Other than that, dont hate much. I hate MLD if the user had no clear way to win and just went LOL BLEW UP UR LANDZ BRO (i think its a totally valid strategy in a jhoira deck, etc).
What are some cards or generals that you really don't like playing against? What are your problem with these cards?
Deadeye Navigator is so frustrating to play against. If it isn't answered immediately, it might as well have hexproof. Why is it a 5/5 by the way? It already allows you to abuse any enter the battlefield ability. I can't tell you how many times I've played against Deadeye Navigator and had opponents blink and abuse enter the battlefield abilities and take 5 minute turns.
ANY instant speed removal can get rid of DEN in response to the Soulbond trigger.
When it comes back into play, that soulbond trigger goes on the stack - and until it resolves they can't blink either of those creatures out.
EDIT: OT, my biggest dislikes are cards that slow down everyone's game - unnecessary MLD, etc...
What are some cards or generals that you really don't like playing against? What are your problem with these cards?
Deadeye Navigator is so frustrating to play against. If it isn't answered immediately, it might as well have hexproof. Why is it a 5/5 by the way? It already allows you to abuse any enter the battlefield ability. I can't tell you how many times I've played against Deadeye Navigator and had opponents blink and abuse enter the battlefield abilities and take 5 minute turns.
You realize that ANY instant speed removal can get rid of DEN in response to the Soulbond trigger, right ?
When it comes back into play, that soulbond trigger goes on the stack - and until it resolves they can't blink either of those creatures out.
This is true, but if the blue player untaps, the advantage their get from the blink effects in tandemn with having access to counterspells makes it very difficult to interact with.
I'd propably say too oppressiv group slug. Yes, we get it, you keep our hands and boards empty until you win, but how about having some deck techs that allow others to at least have the CHANCE to participate in the game.
Since our meta isn't too counter heavy it might be a homemade problem, but on the other hand everyone of us knows that we think alike about this, so they hopefully wouldn't turn up with full blown Leovold, Emissary of Trest wheels and hand control, or Mindslicer in their Meren of Clan Nel Toth | Karador, Ghost Chieftain | Marchesa, the Black Rose deck.
Different case, but generally the same problem of minimal interaction; commanders with hexproof. Most of them are okay to deal with (eg Uril, the Miststalker), but Geist of Saint Traft and especially Narset, Enlightened Master really annoy the ***** out of me normally.
Bribery and Rift are clear bans. How have they slept on the Bribery? There's no good argument in favor of it being legal. Blue just bends things by that much? While you can play Sol Ring? Acquire, I also would think, just, come on. That's too much to take at the deck construction level. Mystical Tutor is allowed, and so is Muddle the Mixture. Those things are too good. There'll always be power gaming things that cut off space if you allow them. The Bribery especially. Play honestly and line those things up at the opponent mana-in-play and board position readiness level with the stupidly good Treachery.
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"Warning: Um, warning. This is going to be a game state violation. And a taking extra turns and drawing extra cards violation, pretty much, a whole bunch of violations. Look at me, I'm the DCI."
Cyclonic Rift. It's such a lazy card and very difficult to interact with if you're not playing blue.
I don't think there are any cards that I hate to play against, but I have to agree here. Cyclonic Rift is sort of this lazy, ubiquitous, blue card that I seldom enjoy seeing cast.
There's really very few ways to interact with the card. Barring a few exceptions like Pyroblast, only one in five colors can typically counter it. Everyone else is stuck with picking up all of their cards. There aren't exactly any cards in Magic that prevent players from returning cards back to their hand either, and there aren't many ways to play around a possible Rift. What are you going to do, not cast your spells into a possible Rift? That's ridiculous. If those cards would end up back in your hand anyway players might as well cast into a possible Rift and hope it doesn't happen.
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WUBRGMr. Bones' Wild RideGRBUW Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
There aren't exactly any cards in Magic that prevent players from returning cards back to their hand either, and there aren't many ways to play around a possible Rift.
Karmic Justice. There's just no way to come out ahead when you're staring that card down.
False, you're technically not destroying it when you force-discard, counter, edict, exile, or animate as a creature with toughness 0 or less. Or, you know, Asceticism.
For me, it's more things that take too much time. Repeated tutoring (e.g., rebels, Sliver Overlord, Captain Sisay, Journeyer's Kite). Obviously I don't have an issue on MTGO, but in paper, it's a huge problem.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
In a similar vein as taking too much time, Time Stretch. I don't mind combos that just end the game immediately, and it's usually easy enough to scoop to MLD, but the card that players tend to force a "play it out" with the most is "Time Stretch." It's as game-ending as anything else, but it's the card that takes the most time to win with. Among the players I know, anyway.
Carpet of Flowers. Mainly because it is a piece of hate that every other member of my playgroup plays and it is meant to hate on my deck specifically. Unfortunately, I play Zur with a High Tide manabase so I'm pretty much stuck. A much too efficient piece of hate that gives permanent, ever growing advantage that costs one green mana and gives benefit the turn it is played.
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"Those who are skilled in combat do not become angered,
those who are skilled at winning do not become afraid.
Thus the wise win before the fight, while the ignorant fight to win."
I'm not a fan of "Removal on the stack or the table loses" situations. Leovold, Emissary of Trest in play and opponent casts windfall? You have that one moment to lightning bolt him or the Leovold player will run away with the game. Insurrection and Craterhoof Behemoth create similar situations. Most forms of instant-win combo also fall under this category.
I'm not saying these situations are too strong, just that playing with that as the standard basically warps decks to favor cheap removal like lightning bolt and Nature's Claim, de-values sorcery-speed removal, and basically ends up forcing players to run a lot more removal just to ensure that they have a reasonable chance to stop people from winning the game from out of nowhere.
I enjoy seeing people play turn-four Kalonian Hydra and watch the table try to figure out a way to keep that from dominating the game, see players weigh the chances of the hydra hitting them while they decide whether to use their sorcery-speed removal, and the occasional copy/theft effect to turn the tables. That's more interesting to me than playing Hermit Druid, move to equip it with lightning greaves, then letting opponents' hands and untapped lands decide if I win or not.
This thread is actually sad. Most of the problems I hear are due to poor deck craftsmanship. Should there be a competitive/non competitive commander?
I actually created a nice commander deck just to play with people that can't build or play competitively. These games suck. The go on way to long. The major complaints tend revolve around these 3 major issues: forced sacrifice, land destruction, and cheap cost effective creatures. These are not the true dangers of a deck. It's draw and tutor effects that you should fear.
There is a greedy notion that if you play stuff that stops me from playing my bombs or bombing you stuff, it should be banned. Magic is designed to teach you how to think outside the box and answer issues. Just banning stuff cause you don't like it or can't use your own creative juices to solve it is just hypocracy and laziness. If some of you were Supreme Court justices; we would loose all our rights in favor of making your lives "easier" so you could do anything....until the tables turn and a new group complains against you.
Search your card collections and databases to find answers and play magic like you are a real wizards.
They aren't weak. At a 4 person table, Fog effects are amazing. Somebody goes off and swings for lethal and you fog it, there are suddenly 3 turns to answer the board state and an obvious archenemy that isn't you. People talk about politics like they're wheeling and dealing and tricking people into giving them victories, but that's all garbage. Fog is the single greatest act of diplomacy in multiplayer magic. And also it's just really really good to have in a world where people who think they have the win ensured pretty much always attack with everything. "I've got 30 10/10s, I'll attack each of you with 10 of them, are we good?" "One mana, Fog, pass to my turn, swing for lethal cause you have nothing left to block with." Play more fogs.
Broken mana rocks like sol ring and mana crypt, when played very early in the game, often ruin the game.
Past that, generally just boring and common combos. This includes food chain combo, doomsday combo, a lot of 2-card combos (or worse, 1-card combos) in general, etc.
This! I understand being bummed when a powerful card gets you once or twice but if it's happening so much you're sick of it then it's your fault for not adjusting your play style or cards in your deck. Fool me once.. How can you ever expect to get better if your challenges are banned for you.
They aren't weak. At a 4 person table, Fog effects are amazing. Somebody goes off and swings for lethal and you fog it, there are suddenly 3 turns to answer the board state and an obvious archenemy that isn't you. People talk about politics like they're wheeling and dealing and tricking people into giving them victories, but that's all garbage. Fog is the single greatest act of diplomacy in multiplayer magic. And also it's just really really good to have in a world where people who think they have the win ensured pretty much always attack with everything. "I've got 30 10/10s, I'll attack each of you with 10 of them, are we good?" "One mana, Fog, pass to my turn, swing for lethal cause you have nothing left to block with." Play more fogs.
This! I understand being bummed when a powerful card gets you once or twice but if it's happening so much you're sick of it then it's your fault for not adjusting your play style or cards in your deck. Fool me once.. How can you ever expect to get better if your challenges are banned for you.
Exactly, robots/affinity is hard to beat but it's easily defeated with good skill and a side board. It's not banned. We learn to play around it. I face a lot of eldrazi thus I run bribery to get their stupid huge bombs, ensuring bridge to stop giant attackers, and meddling mage to control their commanders. There is an answer for all issues.
If the gods of this format want to help things>>>>>>side board? Best of three kind of sounds like the need of a side board.
Note: This isn't a thread for discussing what cards you want to be banned. Instead, discuss cards you believe are not fun to play against regardless of power level
A friend I regularly play against abhors playing against Bribery. Her mentality is that it's allows you to play the best creature an opponent has for only 3UU. It violates the singleton spirit of the format because it is a tutor, but it tutors for outrageously powerful creatures very early game (i.e. Void Winnower, Blightsteel Colossus, Avacyn, Angel of Hope, Ashen Rider).
I strongly dislike Craterhoof Behemoth. It's grossly overplayed and flat out steals games. If a player has lot tokens or elves, but still has a relatively underwhelming board state, that player can play Craterhoof Behemoth and practically win. Unless the opponent is playing blue, they can't really interact with it. You can't just Path To Exile it. The only answers nonblue are cards like Rout that require a ton of mana to keep open or Fog effects that are generally very weak. Craterhoof Behemoth is also played in a color that can easily tutor creatures so it seems to appear every game.
Deadeye Navigator is so frustrating to play against. If it isn't answered immediately, it might as well have hexproof. Why is it a 5/5 by the way? It already allows you to abuse any enter the battlefield ability. I can't tell you how many times I've played against Deadeye Navigator and had opponents blink and abuse enter the battlefield abilities and take 5 minute turns.
Geist of Saint Traft in the command zone. Fortunately there are cards like Arcane Lighthouse now. But playing against a hexproof general that also has access to blue is incredibly difficult to interact with, especially if you aren't playing blue.
Oracle of Mul Daya is just too good. My problem with it is that it costs 3G, rather than something like 1GGG. It's an incredibly green effect and I see five colored decks just play it on turn 3 or 4, and suddenly ramp and fix way too easily.
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
Boring combo is boring combo... I had a regular opponent who would play Riku/Palinchron combo. If u got rid of Palinchron, he would durdle the rest of the game. He had VERY bad 2nd/3rd/etc game plan. Largely Bribery or infinite turns and beating you in the face with a 2/2 Commander.
I like Craterhoof well enough, it still requires a board to be strong. I also like Deadeye, but I see how he's honestly too powerful for a "casual" format.
grave pact/grave betrayal -
These effects literally break the game in a deck built dor it, and devolves the game into draw enchantment removal or lose, in an extremely unfun way
Other than that, dont hate much. I hate MLD if the user had no clear way to win and just went LOL BLEW UP UR LANDZ BRO (i think its a totally valid strategy in a jhoira deck, etc).
UWRjeskai nahiri UWR
UBRgrixis titi UBR
UBRgrixis delverUBR
UR ur kikimite UR
EDH
RUG Riku of Two Reflections RUG
UBR Marchesa, the Black Rose UBR
UBRGYidris, Maelstrom Wielder UBRG
UBRJeleva, Nephalia's ScourgeUBR
ANY instant speed removal can get rid of DEN in response to the Soulbond trigger.
When it comes back into play, that soulbond trigger goes on the stack - and until it resolves they can't blink either of those creatures out.
EDIT: OT, my biggest dislikes are cards that slow down everyone's game - unnecessary MLD, etc...
This is true, but if the blue player untaps, the advantage their get from the blink effects in tandemn with having access to counterspells makes it very difficult to interact with.
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
Since our meta isn't too counter heavy it might be a homemade problem, but on the other hand everyone of us knows that we think alike about this, so they hopefully wouldn't turn up with full blown Leovold, Emissary of Trest wheels and hand control, or Mindslicer in their Meren of Clan Nel Toth | Karador, Ghost Chieftain | Marchesa, the Black Rose deck.
Different case, but generally the same problem of minimal interaction; commanders with hexproof. Most of them are okay to deal with (eg Uril, the Miststalker), but Geist of Saint Traft and especially Narset, Enlightened Master really annoy the ***** out of me normally.
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
I don't think there are any cards that I hate to play against, but I have to agree here. Cyclonic Rift is sort of this lazy, ubiquitous, blue card that I seldom enjoy seeing cast.
There's really very few ways to interact with the card. Barring a few exceptions like Pyroblast, only one in five colors can typically counter it. Everyone else is stuck with picking up all of their cards. There aren't exactly any cards in Magic that prevent players from returning cards back to their hand either, and there aren't many ways to play around a possible Rift. What are you going to do, not cast your spells into a possible Rift? That's ridiculous. If those cards would end up back in your hand anyway players might as well cast into a possible Rift and hope it doesn't happen.
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
Mistmeadow Witch would work too, but needs insane amounts of mana.
Noncreature permanents and no access to UW? Well, chucks.
False, you're technically not destroying it when you force-discard, counter, edict, exile, or animate as a creature with toughness 0 or less. Or, you know, Asceticism.
For me, it's more things that take too much time. Repeated tutoring (e.g., rebels, Sliver Overlord, Captain Sisay, Journeyer's Kite). Obviously I don't have an issue on MTGO, but in paper, it's a huge problem.
On phasing:
Draft my Peasant Cube.
those who are skilled at winning do not become afraid.
Thus the wise win before the fight, while the ignorant fight to win."
I'm not saying these situations are too strong, just that playing with that as the standard basically warps decks to favor cheap removal like lightning bolt and Nature's Claim, de-values sorcery-speed removal, and basically ends up forcing players to run a lot more removal just to ensure that they have a reasonable chance to stop people from winning the game from out of nowhere.
I enjoy seeing people play turn-four Kalonian Hydra and watch the table try to figure out a way to keep that from dominating the game, see players weigh the chances of the hydra hitting them while they decide whether to use their sorcery-speed removal, and the occasional copy/theft effect to turn the tables. That's more interesting to me than playing Hermit Druid, move to equip it with lightning greaves, then letting opponents' hands and untapped lands decide if I win or not.
I actually created a nice commander deck just to play with people that can't build or play competitively. These games suck. The go on way to long. The major complaints tend revolve around these 3 major issues: forced sacrifice, land destruction, and cheap cost effective creatures. These are not the true dangers of a deck. It's draw and tutor effects that you should fear.
There is a greedy notion that if you play stuff that stops me from playing my bombs or bombing you stuff, it should be banned. Magic is designed to teach you how to think outside the box and answer issues. Just banning stuff cause you don't like it or can't use your own creative juices to solve it is just hypocracy and laziness. If some of you were Supreme Court justices; we would loose all our rights in favor of making your lives "easier" so you could do anything....until the tables turn and a new group complains against you.
Search your card collections and databases to find answers and play magic like you are a real wizards.
Multiplayer Decks- Memnarch - Animar, Soul of Elements - Zur, the Enchanter - Atraxa, Praetors' Voice - Food Chain Tazri - Teysa Karlov
Modern BUMill and Bant Spirits.
Thank you Xenphire for the signature!
They aren't weak. At a 4 person table, Fog effects are amazing. Somebody goes off and swings for lethal and you fog it, there are suddenly 3 turns to answer the board state and an obvious archenemy that isn't you. People talk about politics like they're wheeling and dealing and tricking people into giving them victories, but that's all garbage. Fog is the single greatest act of diplomacy in multiplayer magic. And also it's just really really good to have in a world where people who think they have the win ensured pretty much always attack with everything. "I've got 30 10/10s, I'll attack each of you with 10 of them, are we good?" "One mana, Fog, pass to my turn, swing for lethal cause you have nothing left to block with." Play more fogs.
Also, I second Aura Shards, and nominate Scrambleverse for the worst card ever to play against.
Past that, generally just boring and common combos. This includes food chain combo, doomsday combo, a lot of 2-card combos (or worse, 1-card combos) in general, etc.
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
Scrambleverse has to be number 1. I've scooped against it just to get out of randomly distributing everything. Such a pain.
Exactly, robots/affinity is hard to beat but it's easily defeated with good skill and a side board. It's not banned. We learn to play around it. I face a lot of eldrazi thus I run bribery to get their stupid huge bombs, ensuring bridge to stop giant attackers, and meddling mage to control their commanders. There is an answer for all issues.
If the gods of this format want to help things>>>>>>side board? Best of three kind of sounds like the need of a side board.
Multiplayer Decks- Memnarch - Animar, Soul of Elements - Zur, the Enchanter - Atraxa, Praetors' Voice - Food Chain Tazri - Teysa Karlov
Modern BUMill and Bant Spirits.
Thank you Xenphire for the signature!