@OneRing: Yeah, I know it's not hard to understand, but you ALWAYS have someone who remembers it wrong, which leads to the annoying factor. I remember back in the day when people SWORE up and down the rulebook that banding allowed you to pull together a 'blockerball' with only one creature with banding, allowing you to kill the beast while one sprite soaked up all the damage.
Thank God for the internet and easy access...
Uh...........
I'm pretty sure that's true, isn't it?
Quote from rule 702.21j »
During the combat damage step, if an attacking creature is being blocked by a creature with banding, or by both a [quality] creature with “bands with other [quality]” and another [quality] creature, the defending player (rather than the active player) chooses how the attacking creature’s damage is assigned. That player can divide that creature’s combat damage as he or she chooses among any number of creatures blocking it. This is an exception to the procedure described in rule 510.1c.
"blocked by A creature with banding" - only one creature needs to have banding to make it a band block.
"defending player chooses how attacking creature's damage is assigned" - can choose to assign it all to one creature.
So....yeah?
And back in the day, that wasn't the way it was recalled("Each creature banded has to have banding!"), or not entirely correctly("I can take my 15 goblins and band them with my Benalish Hero, and it's perfectly legal!"). As I said, thank God for internet and easy access to it.
banding works differently in defence compared to offence:
702.21c As a player declares attackers, he or she may declare that one or more attacking creatures with banding and up to one attacking creature without banding (even if it has “bands with other”) are all in a “band.” He or she may also declare that one or more attacking [quality] creatures with “bands with other [quality]” and any number of other attacking [quality] creatures are all in a band. A player may declare as many attacking bands as he or she wants, but each creature may be a member of only one of them. (Defending players can’t declare bands but may use banding in a different way; see rule 702.21j.)
702.21j During the combat damage step, if an attacking creature is being blocked by a creature with banding, or by both a [quality] creature with “bands with other [quality]” and another [quality] creature, the defending player (rather than the active player) chooses how the attacking creature’s damage is assigned. That player can divide that creature’s combat damage as he or she chooses among any number of creatures blocking it. This is an exception to the procedure described in rule 510.1c.
702.21k During the combat damage step, if a blocking creature is blocking a creature with banding, or both a [quality] creature with “bands with other [quality]” and another [quality] creature, the active player (rather than the defending player) chooses how the blocking creature’s damage is assigned. That player can divide that creature’s combat damage as he or she chooses among any number of creatures it’s blocking. This is an exception to the procedure described in rule 510.1d.
important notes:
- creatures attack as a band, and each band can have maximum one guy without banding.
- creatures don't block as a band, but as long as there is one or more creatures blocking a guy, the defending banding ability works.
So here. banding in defence allows the defending player to assign damage. only one of the mass of creatures blocking the one big blocker needs banding for ths effect to take place. there, said and done.
So you see, banding is the most annoying keyword in magic.
Actually, there are some keyword abilities that are sort of misunderstood. cycling, storm, and other abilities that makes a card feel like they work like instants and sorceries. you can't counter the cycling effect of decree of annihilation, and you can nuke all lands as an instant ability, because the cycling effect is an ability, not a spell. that being said, it can be stifled. kinda makes some people think I'm cheating; it sort of is by virtue of it being awesome, but not really because it's actually how the rules work.
Hexproof is more difficult to interact with than indestructible. It's easier to answer Ulamog (Indestructible AND Annihilator) than Uril.
Yes, it gets hit by sweepers that leave indestructible creatures alive. When you look at the top sweepers in the format though, half use some form of exile or tuck. Indestructible dodges command, verdict, wrath, and damnation, but is hit by Hallowed Burial, Merciless Eviction, and Final Judgement, as well as the various -X/-X sweepers and Black Suns Zenith. Indestructible is also hit by the best spot removal spells in the format, like anguished unmaking, path, swords, and o-ring effects. There's a reason that Purphoros decks try to avoid hitting devotion, because an indestructible creature is pretty vulnerable.
Now, I'd much rather be able to deal with a creature using my instant speed spot removal than by using a sweeper. Sweepers are more expensive, hit my own stuff, and are sorcery speed. I have to decide to use them before knowing who is going to get hit, and even when doing so is disadvantageous. With an indestructible dude, I can wait until I actually need to deal with it before hitting it with swords. Why would I kill Avacyn when I can let her swing at my enemie, she's only getting sadly unmade when she comes at me (or when her controller casts a sweeper thinking it will be one sided).
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The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
When you look at the top sweepers in the format though, half use some form of exile or tuck. Indestructible dodges command, verdict, wrath, and damnation, but is hit by Hallowed Burial, Merciless Eviction, and Final Judgement, as well as the various -X/-X sweepers and Black Suns Zenith.
I feel like you must be working off an old list. Why would anyone play final judgment over descend upon the sinful? Plus no mention of ugin, the spirit dragon? And is hallowed burial (or terminus for that matter) really a top wipe at this point? If you're going off EDHrec, I suspect it's using a lot of older lists from pre-tuck-changes when those cards were a lot more exciting. Also BSZ is pretty crap except in hapatra. And who still uses o-ring outside of enchantress decks?
At least in my experience, a lot of more wipes won't kill indestructibles than do - that said, it's still a lot easier to deal with indestructible than hexproof imo. indestructible you can tap down, bounce, pacify, etc, besides more permanent solutions like exile and tuck.
I feel like most decks have AT LEAST a couple of answers for hexproof, even if it is just a sweeper or two as a panic button. There's a reason most lists run them. Indestructible, well, yeah it can be tough. It does require more specific answers. But there are quite a few more ways to deal with indestructible these days than there have been in days passed.
To be honest, with regards to indestructible, yes there are some must answer threats - Blightsteel Colossus or Ulamog, Avacyn, Angel of Hope and so forth. They're barnstorming threats that need to be answered by someone. The gods....well, maybe. Darksteel Plate and other ways of making your creatures persistent, sure. But not everything with indestructible is something that poses an immediate threat as soon as it hits the table. The vast majority of permanents with indestructible (at least by percentage of cards that have the keyword or grant it, if not by percentage of cards with the keyword that see play) are in most cases inconvenient to face down, and not something that poses a game-ending threat immediately - they can usually wait for someone to find an answer.
When you look at the top sweepers in the format though, half use some form of exile or tuck. Indestructible dodges command, verdict, wrath, and damnation, but is hit by Hallowed Burial, Merciless Eviction, and Final Judgement, as well as the various -X/-X sweepers and Black Suns Zenith.
I feel like you must be working off an old list. Why would anyone play final judgment over descend upon the sinful? Plus no mention of ugin, the spirit dragon? And is hallowed burial (or terminus for that matter) really a top wipe at this point? If you're going off EDHrec, I suspect it's using a lot of older lists from pre-tuck-changes when those cards were a lot more exciting. Also BSZ is pretty crap except in hapatra. And who still uses o-ring outside of enchantress decks?
At least in my experience, a lot of more wipes won't kill indestructibles than do - that said, it's still a lot easier to deal with indestructible than hexproof imo. indestructible you can tap down, bounce, pacify, etc, besides more permanent solutions like exile and tuck.
I wasn't actually using a list, and completely forgot about Descend.
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The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
I wasn't actually using a list, and completely forgot about Descend.
Ah ok.
Yeah looking at the top white spells list, most of the destroy ones are well above the non-destroy ones (terminus being the top non-destroy one). But yeah, hexproof is still way more annoying.
You can pacify hexproof, but it requires Sun Titan, Zur the Enchanter (in which case you could be winning right now), Replenish, that sort of thing. Basically it requires something which can potentially win the game for you.
It's the lack of interaction that is the biggest problem. And really, even hexproof isn't that annoying unless
the permanent needs to be dealt with the turn it enters the battlefield because reasons (e.g., an infinite combo, it has unblockable or some such)
the permanent's controller also can give it indestructible
the permanent is a creature with a really annoying evasion ability (e.g., Invisible Stalker)
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!
...What about cascade? Most of the builds that have it invariably hit something good more than half the time, and even the blue players dread seeing it(at least, as far as I've seen). It's just all levels of not fun...:\
@OneRing: Yeah, I know it's not hard to understand, but you ALWAYS have someone who remembers it wrong, which leads to the annoying factor. I remember back in the day when people SWORE up and down the rulebook that banding allowed you to pull together a 'blockerball' with only one creature with banding, allowing you to kill the beast while one sprite soaked up all the damage.
Thank God for the internet and easy access...
Cascade gets a pass because in this format its only annoying on two cards, one that cascades twice instead of just once for stupid value, and which is a commander with 7 power and haste, meaning that it kills quick on its own and if you kill it you just give the owner another 2 cascade triggers, and one that gives every spell cascade, and the problem with that one isn't so much a cascade problem as it is a storm problem. Nobody is concerned about Bloodbraid or even the cascade sphinx. Most of the spells are pretty marginal in the format. Shardless Agent is good as a low curve value guy that sometimes finds rocks, but he's nowhere near oppressive, just good, and he's probably the best cascade card after Wanderer and Ydris. Nexus can be fun in a 5 color deck, but its a 5 color 5 mana enchantment that does nothing on its own and doesn't just win the game, doesn't generate any value until at least your opponents turn, at which point its first trigger merely replaces itself, and is capped at giving you 1 card per turn, hardly a problem card. Do any other cascade cards even see play in casual? Maybe the minotaur and the sphinx, maybe the Wurm and bloodbraid, but none are annoying.
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The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
My problem with protection is how it's costed. Lavinia of the Tenth is a good flicker/ETB commander in good flicker/ETB colors. They threw pro-red on her the same way you would throw vigilance on an angel; screwing over monored players was basically just an afterthought. I think it's the most annoying since it either arbitrarily screws you over or doesn't; you can't even damage or block that creature. It's clearly not the most powerful.
At least Narset costs 6 mana. Animar is an engine that lets you spit out creatures; that's what he does, that's why you play him. Again some developer decided to just toss on some protection and bam! Now it is inordinately difficult for a white or black deck to kill Animar as opposed to other colors.
And yes, of course there are ways around it; there are ways around everything in Magic. I don't usually point out how you can still use Mindslaver and a donated eldrazi processor to get back your facedown exiled instant from Pyxis of Pandemonium just like I don't need to point out that people with dry eyes can still just blink more often. It's not some unstoppable force, it's just annoying.
Actually, white and black have wraths, so it's more difficult, but not impossible.
Lavinia's kind of interesting. I will say that there are only four creatures with protection from color in DGM, one with protection from each color. (Blood Baron of Vizkopa is speshul and gets both white and black. The others were Lavinia and Woodlot Crawler for "allied pairs hate their common enemy", and Skylasher for "as many ways to hose blue as we can put on one card".) Blood Baron's ability is bad in Commander, and for all intents and purposes, the other two are French vanilla (just consider "can't be countered" French vanilla). But Lavinia has an actual useful ability, and she just happens to have protection from one of the two colors with the fewest ways to deal with protection.
Red has a few things. First, red has three ways of countering her, and Jaya Ballard, Task Mage even gets maindecked.
You also have options like Anarchy and Boil, though that's very meta-dependent. But perhaps something like Jokulhaups might be more effective. Though I'm not sure how much MaRo is willing to have more cards of that nature these days. The other option is Leyline of Punishment and now your Earthquake still hits her.
Obviously the real problem is if your opponent has some sort of slow blink effect. But then again, he can't do that forever.
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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!
You're saying this in the context of complaining about protection. But Narset doesn't have protection...?
Yeah, she has hexproof and costs more mana because of it; WotC values hexproof more highly than protection, even though protection is almost as strong against the color(s) it applies against (colorless works, but you also can't block).
I would hate her a lot more if she was CMC 4 and had pro red and pro black instead of hexproof.
wotc doesn't value hexproof higher than protection. They have only made a few select cards w/ protection from anything since Khans block and that's Emrakul 2.0 and 2 commander cards where it's part of the flavour.
Yeah I probably should have used past tense. They used to value it less than hexproof.
Cascade gets a pass because in this format its only annoying on two cards, one that cascades twice instead of just once for stupid value, and which is a commander with 7 power and haste, meaning that it kills quick on its own and if you kill it you just give the owner another 2 cascade triggers, and one that gives every spell cascade, and the problem with that one isn't so much a cascade problem as it is a storm problem. Nobody is concerned about Bloodbraid or even the cascade sphinx. Most of the spells are pretty marginal in the format. Shardless Agent is good as a low curve value guy that sometimes finds rocks, but he's nowhere near oppressive, just good, and he's probably the best cascade card after Wanderer and Ydris. Nexus can be fun in a 5 color deck, but its a 5 color 5 mana enchantment that does nothing on its own and doesn't just win the game, doesn't generate any value until at least your opponents turn, at which point its first trigger merely replaces itself, and is capped at giving you 1 card per turn, hardly a problem card. Do any other cascade cards even see play in casual? Maybe the minotaur and the sphinx, maybe the Wurm and bloodbraid, but none are annoying.
I can vouch for that, I once tried the Minotaur in Animar of all things (in theory it should be better there than anywhere else since it bounces) and it still turned out to be underwhelming (well to be fair Animar by nature turns a lot of capable cards underwhelming). In fact I found cascade overall to be so underwhelming there that even my foil Wanderer didn't even make the cut in the deck eventually.
Cascade is actually a really build-around ability because of the variance and nature of the format, not as much as an "engine" like it does in 60-card formats (same reasoning as to why the lower-CMC cascade cards are even more underwhelming than the higher-costed one over here), which is why pretty much only the two Commander-eligible cards are the good ones (and really good/obnoxious when tuned correctly) but at this point it becomes more of a problem with the individual Commanders than the mechanic already.
In the end I still wanted to use my foil Wanderer somewhere so I tossed it into my more-casual Horde of Notions (along with the foil Nexus I opened in packs a long, long time ago and also didn't want to waste) and called it a day. They still aren't optimal, but I can dream of cascading into Avenger of Zendikar followed by Boundless Realms one day...
Honestly, as someone who loves playing with creatures, Humility is the most annoying effect. Luckily it is essentially the only card with this effect. I know its not a keyword, but man does it suck to play against.
Granted, I love playing some of these cards, as they hose strategies that I don't like to play (Word of Law). I just understand how annoying they are to play against.
Honestly, as someone who loves playing with creatures, Humility is the most annoying effect. Luckily it is essentially the only card with this effect. I know its not a keyword, but man does it suck to play against.
And back in the day, that wasn't the way it was recalled("Each creature banded has to have banding!"), or not entirely correctly("I can take my 15 goblins and band them with my Benalish Hero, and it's perfectly legal!"). As I said, thank God for internet and easy access to it.
EDH decks: 1. RGWMayael's Big BeatsRETIRED!
2. BUWMerieke Ri Berit and the 40 Thieves
3. URNiv's Wheeling and Dealing!
4. BURThe Walking Dead
5. GWSisay's Legends of Tomorrow
6. RWBRise of Markov
7. GElvez and stuffz(W)
8. RCrush your enemies(W)
9. BSign right here...(W)
702.21c As a player declares attackers, he or she may declare that one or more attacking creatures with banding and up to one attacking creature without banding (even if it has “bands with other”) are all in a “band.” He or she may also declare that one or more attacking [quality] creatures with “bands with other [quality]” and any number of other attacking [quality] creatures are all in a band. A player may declare as many attacking bands as he or she wants, but each creature may be a member of only one of them. (Defending players can’t declare bands but may use banding in a different way; see rule 702.21j.)
702.21j During the combat damage step, if an attacking creature is being blocked by a creature with banding, or by both a [quality] creature with “bands with other [quality]” and another [quality] creature, the defending player (rather than the active player) chooses how the attacking creature’s damage is assigned. That player can divide that creature’s combat damage as he or she chooses among any number of creatures blocking it. This is an exception to the procedure described in rule 510.1c.
702.21k During the combat damage step, if a blocking creature is blocking a creature with banding, or both a [quality] creature with “bands with other [quality]” and another [quality] creature, the active player (rather than the defending player) chooses how the blocking creature’s damage is assigned. That player can divide that creature’s combat damage as he or she chooses among any number of creatures it’s blocking. This is an exception to the procedure described in rule 510.1d.
important notes:
- creatures attack as a band, and each band can have maximum one guy without banding.
- creatures don't block as a band, but as long as there is one or more creatures blocking a guy, the defending banding ability works.
So here. banding in defence allows the defending player to assign damage. only one of the mass of creatures blocking the one big blocker needs banding for ths effect to take place. there, said and done.
So you see, banding is the most annoying keyword in magic.
Actually, there are some keyword abilities that are sort of misunderstood. cycling, storm, and other abilities that makes a card feel like they work like instants and sorceries. you can't counter the cycling effect of decree of annihilation, and you can nuke all lands as an instant ability, because the cycling effect is an ability, not a spell. that being said, it can be stifled. kinda makes some people think I'm cheating; it sort of is by virtue of it being awesome, but not really because it's actually how the rules work.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
Yes, it gets hit by sweepers that leave indestructible creatures alive. When you look at the top sweepers in the format though, half use some form of exile or tuck. Indestructible dodges command, verdict, wrath, and damnation, but is hit by Hallowed Burial, Merciless Eviction, and Final Judgement, as well as the various -X/-X sweepers and Black Suns Zenith. Indestructible is also hit by the best spot removal spells in the format, like anguished unmaking, path, swords, and o-ring effects. There's a reason that Purphoros decks try to avoid hitting devotion, because an indestructible creature is pretty vulnerable.
Now, I'd much rather be able to deal with a creature using my instant speed spot removal than by using a sweeper. Sweepers are more expensive, hit my own stuff, and are sorcery speed. I have to decide to use them before knowing who is going to get hit, and even when doing so is disadvantageous. With an indestructible dude, I can wait until I actually need to deal with it before hitting it with swords. Why would I kill Avacyn when I can let her swing at my enemie, she's only getting sadly unmade when she comes at me (or when her controller casts a sweeper thinking it will be one sided).
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
At least in my experience, a lot of more wipes won't kill indestructibles than do - that said, it's still a lot easier to deal with indestructible than hexproof imo. indestructible you can tap down, bounce, pacify, etc, besides more permanent solutions like exile and tuck.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
To be honest, with regards to indestructible, yes there are some must answer threats - Blightsteel Colossus or Ulamog, Avacyn, Angel of Hope and so forth. They're barnstorming threats that need to be answered by someone. The gods....well, maybe. Darksteel Plate and other ways of making your creatures persistent, sure. But not everything with indestructible is something that poses an immediate threat as soon as it hits the table. The vast majority of permanents with indestructible (at least by percentage of cards that have the keyword or grant it, if not by percentage of cards with the keyword that see play) are in most cases inconvenient to face down, and not something that poses a game-ending threat immediately - they can usually wait for someone to find an answer.
I wasn't actually using a list, and completely forgot about Descend.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Yeah looking at the top white spells list, most of the destroy ones are well above the non-destroy ones (terminus being the top non-destroy one). But yeah, hexproof is still way more annoying.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
It's the lack of interaction that is the biggest problem. And really, even hexproof isn't that annoying unless
Even just plain indestructible can be dealt with through unorthodox means. I've had Purphoros, God of the Forge and Doubling Season out and cast Artifact Mutation on Blightsteel Colossus before; and, just to I said "thanks man, couldn't have done it without you" You can't do that (with Death Mutation or Aether Mutation, presumably) against a creature with hexproof.
On phasing:
Cascade gets a pass because in this format its only annoying on two cards, one that cascades twice instead of just once for stupid value, and which is a commander with 7 power and haste, meaning that it kills quick on its own and if you kill it you just give the owner another 2 cascade triggers, and one that gives every spell cascade, and the problem with that one isn't so much a cascade problem as it is a storm problem. Nobody is concerned about Bloodbraid or even the cascade sphinx. Most of the spells are pretty marginal in the format. Shardless Agent is good as a low curve value guy that sometimes finds rocks, but he's nowhere near oppressive, just good, and he's probably the best cascade card after Wanderer and Ydris. Nexus can be fun in a 5 color deck, but its a 5 color 5 mana enchantment that does nothing on its own and doesn't just win the game, doesn't generate any value until at least your opponents turn, at which point its first trigger merely replaces itself, and is capped at giving you 1 card per turn, hardly a problem card. Do any other cascade cards even see play in casual? Maybe the minotaur and the sphinx, maybe the Wurm and bloodbraid, but none are annoying.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
At least Narset costs 6 mana. Animar is an engine that lets you spit out creatures; that's what he does, that's why you play him. Again some developer decided to just toss on some protection and bam! Now it is inordinately difficult for a white or black deck to kill Animar as opposed to other colors.
And yes, of course there are ways around it; there are ways around everything in Magic. I don't usually point out how you can still use Mindslaver and a donated eldrazi processor to get back your facedown exiled instant from Pyxis of Pandemonium just like I don't need to point out that people with dry eyes can still just blink more often. It's not some unstoppable force, it's just annoying.
- Rabid Wombat
Lavinia's kind of interesting. I will say that there are only four creatures with protection from color in DGM, one with protection from each color. (Blood Baron of Vizkopa is speshul and gets both white and black. The others were Lavinia and Woodlot Crawler for "allied pairs hate their common enemy", and Skylasher for "as many ways to hose blue as we can put on one card".) Blood Baron's ability is bad in Commander, and for all intents and purposes, the other two are French vanilla (just consider "can't be countered" French vanilla). But Lavinia has an actual useful ability, and she just happens to have protection from one of the two colors with the fewest ways to deal with protection.
Red has a few things. First, red has three ways of countering her, and Jaya Ballard, Task Mage even gets maindecked.
You also have options like Anarchy and Boil, though that's very meta-dependent. But perhaps something like Jokulhaups might be more effective. Though I'm not sure how much MaRo is willing to have more cards of that nature these days. The other option is Leyline of Punishment and now your Earthquake still hits her.
Obviously the real problem is if your opponent has some sort of slow blink effect. But then again, he can't do that forever.
On phasing:
- Rabid Wombat
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
I would hate her a lot more if she was CMC 4 and had pro red and pro black instead of hexproof.
- Rabid Wombat
- Rabid Wombat
I can vouch for that, I once tried the Minotaur in Animar of all things (in theory it should be better there than anywhere else since it bounces) and it still turned out to be underwhelming (well to be fair Animar by nature turns a lot of capable cards underwhelming). In fact I found cascade overall to be so underwhelming there that even my foil Wanderer didn't even make the cut in the deck eventually.
Cascade is actually a really build-around ability because of the variance and nature of the format, not as much as an "engine" like it does in 60-card formats (same reasoning as to why the lower-CMC cascade cards are even more underwhelming than the higher-costed one over here), which is why pretty much only the two Commander-eligible cards are the good ones (and really good/obnoxious when tuned correctly) but at this point it becomes more of a problem with the individual Commanders than the mechanic already.
In the end I still wanted to use my foil Wanderer somewhere so I tossed it into my more-casual Horde of Notions (along with the foil Nexus I opened in packs a long, long time ago and also didn't want to waste) and called it a day. They still aren't optimal, but I can dream of cascading into Avenger of Zendikar followed by Boundless Realms one day...
The irony here is that Chandra's Ignition works best when the creature you target has Hexproof.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
I'm guilty of playing many of these next cards. Most of them are in the same deck. Basically enchantments/artifacts that prevent whole archetypes from working. Rest in Peace, Null Rod, Word of Law, Stranglehold, Notion Thief, Cursed Totem, Torpor Orb, Suppression Field, Blood Moon, Aura Shards, Grave Pact and a few others. These types of cards basically scream "Remove me or you won't be able to play at all!"
Granted, I love playing some of these cards, as they hose strategies that I don't like to play (Word of Law). I just understand how annoying they are to play against.
Build your own Humility
You will need:
1x Godhead of Awe
1x Torpor Orb
1x Cursed Totem
Add ingredients to battlefield.