And the more places I go the more I see people house-ruling their bans because the "official" banlist truly is a joke. There is so much inconsistent ban logic. Why is Gifts Ungiven banned yet Intuition is not?
Uh..... Because Gifts Ungiven gives you any two cards out of your deck, where as Intuition only gives you one? Gifts gives you two combo pieces or two recursion spells for those combo pieces; either way it's a Tooth and Nail for half the mana cost. Intuition, even if you grab three of those same four pieces, still only gives you one.
Because "Bounce any creature for 2 mana" is just not the same as "Destroy three lands, fetch three lands, every time you bounce this creature for 2 mana".
Also, they were not banned for being "Too Oppressive". They were banned because they were game warping; people would literally hold onto Clone and it's ilk so they could copy Prime Time and SyPri.
Sol Ring costs 1, taps for 2. Not unheard of for you to go Land -> Sol Ring -> Signet.
Rofel Copter costs 2, taps for number of FORESTS. Kodama's Reach? Get a forest for one, Rofel taps for one more.
T1: Forest, Elvish Mystic T2: Forest, Rofel, T3: Forest, Skyshroud Claim. Rofellos is already tapping for 5, and that's a perfectly respectable and quite easy to achieve opening hand.
If we are talking solely on mana production, Rofellos puts Sol Ring to shame, and anyone who actually played with him would agree with that.
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Oath of the Gatewatch; the set that caused the competitive community to freak out over Basic Lands.
The thing is that the original unban argument was "Gaea's Cradle is on the same level as Tolarian Academy", which sparked the discussion. This was proven false. Hence my specific comment.
Cradle is much easier to keep in check, requires more investment (Due to the way Mana Rocks vs Mana Dorks work) and the permanents it works with have a LOT more wipes in the format than Artifacts do. That, and due to the colors given, the Academy goes excessively easily infinite or into silly stuff like T2 Omniscience.
Now I'm not discounting any opinions, I'm merely stating a fact about the power level of the two cards. I think the Academy is bizarrely easily broken (Just thinking about putting it in my Niv makes me uneasy as to how easy things will go), but I understand some would want to play with it. I just don't think it'll lead to actual fun.
Nothing was "proven" false. People are just repeating the fact that in a singleton format Tolarian Academy is broken with god hands. You know what's more broken with god hands? Hermit Druid. Is Hermit Druid banned? No.
The simple fact is that WotC should take over the official banlist. Period.
They could make fair and IMPARTIAL decisions on what should actually be allowable. Having random people who probably play decks in the format often run it is ridiculous. And the more places I go the more I see people house-ruling their bans because the "official" banlist truly is a joke. There is so much inconsistent ban logic. Why is Gifts Ungiven banned yet Intuition is not? Why are Sylvan Primordial/Primeval Titan banned while the logic behind them being banned is they are too oppressive with Deadeye Navigator which is not? Why do they say the mana Rofellos, Llanowar Emisarry makes is too good yet they allow Sol Ring? For that matter, why is Panoptic Mirror banned at all? Because it goes inifnite with time walk effects? There are literally hundreds of infinite combos possible in EDH but this one requires 5 + a minimum of 5 more mana and dies to Shatter and a multitude of other things.
Congratulations, you just showed that you have no idea how the banlist works.
Cards are usually banned for the more casual playgroups. The kind of cards that get broken even if you don't have an intention to break them. This is a real intention with the Academy. It just too easily pumps out massive amounts of mana in a color that should not have those amounts of mana available to them due to the insane things blue can pull off. Hermit Druid, on the other hand, can be slotted in a lot of normal decks and preform normally, the only real way to break him is by being Griefer McGrieferson and build an entire deck around it. Timmy McNewbieson will not slot a Druid into their deck and instantly break the game with it.
Intuition doesn't fetch 2 revival pieces + 2 combo pieces. Prime Time and Sylvan Primordial were not banned because of Deadeye - Deadeye was merely one of many factors. Even without DEN those two would still be banned. Rofellos is banned because 10 mana on turn 4 (Rofellos into any ramp spell) is a bit more stupid than 6 mana (Sol ring into any ramp spell), though Sol Ring really should get the boot. Panoptic Mirror is the kind of card Timmy McNewbieson would try out in their deck and accidentally find out the infinite with it, and then go infinite. And a LOT of infinites get stopped by random cards - doesn't mean they should be unbanned.
WOTC should run the banlist? Wait, we're talking the same guys who are running the Modern list? You know, that list that for a long time had Wild Nacatl banned and is even more polarizing than the EDH list? Yeah nope.
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras. Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power. Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza. Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall. Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana. Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die. Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
The only card that I can think of that really needs to be banned, is Mana Crypt. This card literally belongs in every 'competitive' deck, was almost certainly a mistake in design, carries a hefty price tag, and is very difficult to find. The first point is the main issue, and it seems that other cards on the banned list follow similar reasoning (Sundering Titan, Panoptic Mirror, and one could argue Library of Alexandria).
Of course, this would open the floodgates, and people would beg for Sol Ring to be banned. Which I am ok with, but not trying to push for.
Honestly, I think they just need to reprint it in a sort of Commander Masters as a Mythic Rare; increase the number of Mana Crypts out there, Joe Schmoe can open one, and yeah....
They need to start reprinting some of the older cards that aren't used anywhere else and give newer players access to them.
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Oath of the Gatewatch; the set that caused the competitive community to freak out over Basic Lands.
I have been including bothSol Ring and Mana Crypt in every Commander deck I have made for several years. From experience, I can tell you that unless you are playing a specific subset of Tier 1 combo decks (aka high end competitive play) such as Arcum Dagsson or Ad Nauseam, you are better off playing Sol Ring if you can only choose one of them. The potential damage from Mana Crypt is usually far more detrimental than the {1} casting cost of Sol Ring.
More than that, you badly misunderstand why Sundering Titan and Panoptic Mirror are banned. It has absolutely nothing to do with 'belonging in every competitive deck'. 'Competitive' decks actually have very little to do with determining what cards are banned in this format.
Finally, the monetary value of Mana Crypt has no relevance on whether it is worthy of being banned or not. The value of a card, in conjunction with the perception it creates and ubiquity of use, is a *contributing* factor (albeit a minor one - simply enough to push a card over the edge if it was close for other reasons) of a small subset of cards. Of every card banned in part due to its value, they are all considerably more valuable than Mana Crypt, despite not being legal in any format other than Vintage. Another significant factor is that every single one of them is also on the Reserved List, while Mana Crypt is not.
Should Mana Crypt and Sol Ring be banned for power reasons? Possibly - this is something that I have been unable to definitively decide on. The Rules Committee however clearly thinks not, and they are inconsistent enough that games ruined by them can generally be considered a fluke (not only do you need them Turn 1 or 2, you also need something to be accelerated into on those turns that has a considerable negative impact on a multiplayer game).
Honestly, I think they just need to reprint it in a sort of Commander Masters as a Mythic Rare; increase the number of Mana Crypts out there, Joe Schmoe can open one, and yeah....
They need to start reprinting some of the older cards that aren't used anywhere else and give newer players access to them.
As a current owner of both Mana Crypt and Grim Tutor, these should absolutely be reprinted. I don't actually care if it is a promotional release or a Standard-legal set, as long as it A) has the new Mana Crypt art, B) is black bordered, and C) is available NOT FOIL.
The same applies to many of the good Three Kingdom cards, like Capture of Jingzhou, Imperial Recruiter, and Ravages of War.
The entire reasoning for everyone arguing for Tolarian Academy's banning is the access to 5 mana on turn 2-3. Yet You say Rofellos is too powerful to have 6 mana on turn 3. That is literally asinine.
How many games is Sol Ring in your opening hand?
How many games is your commander in your command zone?
That's the difference between Rofellos and Sol Ring, as far as banning fast mana is concerned.
There are a literal ton of combos that require no more than 5 mana on the board. Go check out the infinite combo database. Some of them require only 3.
Go back and read my question again. How many of those infinite turn combos require 5 (or less) mana and only two cards? I honestly don't know.
The simple fact is that WotC should take over the official banlist. Period.
You understand that Scott Larabee, a Wizards of the Coast employee, is on the Rules Committee right? And that he is Wizards' go-to source internally when they have questions or concerns about the format? And while Aaron Forsythe and others within WOTC are big fans of the format they aren't as involved with it as the current Rules Committee members are on a day-to-day basis. So how would they have a better understanding of the format and be able to make more informed decisions than the Rules Committee?
So you're now arguing that Sol Ring is ok since it's 1 out of 99 cards in your deck? So then you would agree that Tolarian Academy is ok too since it's also 1 out of 99 cards in your deck? Because that's the argument I was originally making. Everyone seems to think it's ok to have Sol Ring but then argues Academy is too powerful.
That's probably because there is a difference between 2 mana and 12.
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Oath of the Gatewatch; the set that caused the competitive community to freak out over Basic Lands.
Tolarian Academy producing 6+ colored mana by Turn 3 is actually a pretty average hand for decks designed to use it. When this happens, the game tends to end that turn.
A single land tapping for upwords of 12 mana is busted regardless of what stage of the game it is. Academy benefits from artifacts, particularly mana rocks, being much cheaper overall than creatures, enchantments or swamps. Additionally while Sol Ring is strong in your opening hand it's effect on the game when casting it on turn 10 or so is far, far less than an Academy for 12 blue.
Blue already has "arguably" the weakest creatures, little to no ramp, almost no legitimate direct removal for creatures, artifacts, planeswalkers, OR enchantments. So yes, I would like a bone thrown to us.
So the only argument anyone can come up with against Tolarian Academy is that it's busted with god opening hands? And they wonder why the banlist is a joke.
After the first statement, how can you be able to tell us what is a joke? i think that the only joke here is your perception of the format. blue has the weakest creatures? Palinchron, Deadeye Navigator, Consecrated Sphinx are probably in the Top 10 of the best creatures in the format. Not considering Sharuum, Azami, Arcum, Jhoira and Zur as generals.
Blues has not removal for creatures? pongify, rapid hybridization, curse of the swine are all powerful removal, and you also have counters and bounce. You don't even know what the color you are trying to defend is really able to do.
So blue need ramp? I won't waste words telling you how much blue can ramp with artifacts, other people already did it and you simple ignored them. Blue is one of the best color of the format, we don't need to buff it just because it isn't the best one hands down like in other formats. The reason why Academy is worse than Cradle is simple: a Sol Ring is far worse than a LLanowar Elf. People have already told you, and if you want to ignore them it's ok, but don't go around blabbing that the RC and their decisions are ridicolous because the only ridicolous thing here is your fanboysm for blue
I'm stunned anyone could think this. I'm wondering if you've ever come across these cards. Cradle is good. Academy is good, but faster. Fast mana is what leads to broken game states. If you don't think academy is faster or if you think they are about the same you have no idea how fast academy is. If you have it, go on cockatrice and make 2 decks designed to abuse their respective cards and see whether academy or cradle is more broken. I use cradle in one of my decks. I can burst mana very quickly, but rarely from super early in the game. Elves have summoning sickness so you can't get many out on turn 1 without a god hand. Artifact ramp helps play artifact ramp and there are many artifact pieces that make more mana than they cost and they can be tapped right away. Sure, you might think there are answers to both cards like ld, boardwipes, and artifact wipes, but tolarian academy decks can be built to consistently produce more than enough to win faster than you can react to them without drastically altering your deck. I know the banlist isn't perfect, but academy reallllly should be on it.
Given the way Cranial_Extraction seems to like to cherrypick his arguments (And completely ignores those that destroy any case for the Academy coming off of the list), I think we can safely say that there's no further use in discussing this.
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras. Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power. Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza. Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall. Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana. Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die. Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Now, with that said: Tolarian Academy is still an insanely strong card. I would argue that in the "can you abuse this if your deck is trying to" category, however, that both Academy and Cradle are too powerful. If the judgement for a card's place on the banned list is "can this be broken if that is someone's goal", then there's a LOT more cards that belong on the list. However, if the idea of the format is to allow social interactions to modify the way cards are played (and discourage people from "breaking" things) and that the banned list should serve to only remove cards that are innately destructive to the format, I do not believe Academy qualifies in the same way that something like Biorhythm, Sway of the Stars and Worldfire do.
I can't say I think Blue is weak, nor do I think it's a huge deal, but this is one of the situations in which I cannot understand the RC's decision making process. Drawing the line of "too powerful" somewhere between Academy and Cradle seems particularly arbitrary and inexplicable.
Personally I don't really care if Academy or Cradle is banned or unbanned but it feels a bit odd to draw the line between them, I think.
Admittedly, and this comment goes somewhat against my view, Academy provides a more substantial boost to Blue than Cradle does for Green, due to Green already havingmanywaystoboostmanaproduction, without actually even touching direct land ramp. This means that Green is already strong at producing large chunks of mana and that is an intentional component to the color's strength. Compare this to Blue which has very few means of increasing mana production outside of artifacts (which all colors have access to) and temporary effects, meaning that a large mana production source like Tolarian Academy, even if it tapped for an equal amount of mana as Gaea's Cradle, would still provide a larger increase in power; the same way giving $100,000 to a homeless person would provide a larger change than giving $100,000 to Bill Gates.
Personally I don't really care if Academy or Cradle is banned or unbanned but it feels a bit odd to draw the line between them, I think.
Normally, comparing a card's impact in other formats is not useful for judging if it should be banned in Commander. Given the very strong parallels between Academy & Cradle though, this is actually a viable comparison.
Tolarian Academy was banned in Standard for enabling consistent Turn 1 & Turn 2 wins. Gaea's Cradle was not banned in Standard.
Tolarian Academy is banned in Legacy for enabling consistent and resilient Turn 1 wins.
Gaea's Cradle is not banned.
Tolarian Academy is restricted in Vintage for enabling consistent and resilient Turn 1 wins.
Gaea's Cradle is not restricted.
Put simply, Academy is far stronger, far faster, and far more resilient than Cradle, for any format. While I (and the Rules Committee, among others) do not think Cradle is banworthy in Commander, banning it is a frequent request
So you're now arguing that Sol Ring is ok since it's 1 out of 99 cards in your deck? So then you would agree that Tolarian Academy is ok too since it's also 1 out of 99 cards in your deck? Because that's the argument I was originally making. Everyone seems to think it's ok to have Sol Ring but then argues Academy is too powerful.
As much as you might think it, "A because B" does not imply "C because B".
Also, as I recall, your original argument was that Academy and Cradle as nearly identical in mana production, which is patently untrue. It's one thing to want and argue for the unbanning of Academy, but using Cradle as your reason for doing so is a bad one.
Blue already has "arguably" the weakest creatures, little to no ramp, almost no legitimate direct removal for creatures, artifacts, planeswalkers, OR enchantments. So yes, I would like a bone thrown to us.
So the only argument anyone can come up with against Tolarian Academy is that it's busted with god opening hands? And they wonder why the banlist is a joke.
The reason why Academy is worse than Cradle is simple: a Sol Ring is far worse than a LLanowar Elf. People have already told you, and if you want to ignore them it's ok, but don't go around blabbing that the RC and their decisions are ridicolous because the only ridicolous thing here is your fanboysm for blue
I'm stunned anyone could think this. I'm wondering if you've ever come across these cards.
I actually read that as "Worse for the opponent" considering the context of the rest of the post.
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Oath of the Gatewatch; the set that caused the competitive community to freak out over Basic Lands.
It's silly in my view to ban Sol Ring and Mana Crypt. Here's why.
They don't break the format. While a T1 Ring or Crypt is powerful, it doesn't guarantee you the win the way a lot of other cards do. Furthermore, for them to be that good they really have to be opening hand or turns 1-3. Keep in mind that while it is 0-1 mana, it's ultimately the same effect as Skyshroud Claim, a playable-but-not-powerful card.
They don't skew any potential archetype. Cards like Sylvan Primordial or Protean Hulk make Green reanimator / ramp incredibly powerful, but our rocks go in any deck, making them, in my view, more fair to the format's health. (Granted, they are slightly more powerful in Artifact-based decks.) This is often used as a counterargument to them, something about "the ubiquity of the format." The same arguments can be applied to Command Tower and Sensei's Divining Top, which, while slightly less universal, are rarely discussed in relation to the banlist.
One argument commonly seen is that Mana Crypt is too expensive or rare. As long as we're banning expensive and rare cards, let's do away with the original duals, Imperial Seal, Lion's Eye Diamond... the list goes on and on. Ultimately EDH is an expensive format if you want to be performing at 100%. I personally own a Mana Crypt, and I'm an unemployed high school student - and before you ask, no, my mommy and daddy didn't buy it for me, I worked my butt off trading for two years into it (as well as the rest of my competitive deck).
In terms of realism, I can see Crypt being banned. I wouldn't agree with the decision but it wouldn't be the worst decision the RC has made (Biorhythm???). Sol Ring will never be banned, as it's the face of the format and has been included in every Pre-Constructed commander deck so far. For the RC to ban it would be a direct insult to Wizards of the Coast and would be a slaughter of the historical context and recognizability of EDH.
In terms of realism, I can see Crypt being banned. I wouldn't agree with the decision but it wouldn't be the worst decision the RC has made (Biorhythm???). Sol Ring will never be banned, as it's the face of the format and has been included in every Pre-Constructed commander deck so far. For the RC to ban it would be a direct insult to Wizards of the Coast and would be a slaughter of the historical context and recognizability of EDH.
Hold on, you consider the Biorhythm ban a bad idea? An 8-mana-sorcery that basically says "I win" at the moment of casting if you do things right? One that entirely nullifies the entire game played before it? I'd love to hear your reasoning behind that one.
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras. Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power. Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza. Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall. Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana. Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die. Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Hold on, you consider the Biorhythm ban a bad idea? An 8-mana-sorcery that basically says "I win" at the moment of casting if you do things right? One that entirely nullifies the entire game played before it? I'd love to hear your reasoning behind that one.
It requires setup - some sort of boardwipe and casting a creature (or the luck of you just having a creature and your opponents not). It's eight mana. It's much, much worse than Tooth and Nail (which I consider bannable). Ultimately it's a meh card.
I'm fine with Academy coming off the list. Every time I see a complaint about blue... it usually involves time magic, palinchron, omniscience, or consecrated sphinx. These cards can already hit play earlier than expected and shortly end the game.... and that's without academy. So I don't see a problem with adding another enabler for consistency sake. I mean if cradle is ok in a Marath, ghave, or busted elf deck, academy is fine in an artifact deck. The most i've seen academy generate on it's own was 5 mana before the table nuked his board. Cradle on the other hand.... always generates obscene mana used to make more creature tokens to the point where players are like "add a ton of mana... no use counting it, I can't spend it all and there's no mana burn." The only difference between the two is that cradle isn't blue and doesn't have a reputation where as academy does. Heck, when i started playing magic, I heard about how OP academy was, but never saw an academy for 5 years. I just think it's funny, in most games i've seen cradle, people are ok with the person tapping it for 25 mana, but flip out at academy adding 6 mana.... Both are good, I just think people are giving academy way too much credit and auto assume cutthroat plays. Gifts has the same perception.
Also, there are like what... 4 variations of Llanowar Elves... so yes Llanowar Elves are better than sol ring :D. 6 if you count llanowar mentor and freyalise!
I agree. We should all only play g/x decks because they are the most objectively fun and anyone who disagrees does not know the truth about EDH. Everyone should just play their decks because interaction beyond high fiving about how many land are in play is unfun and equivalent to casting Stasis while kicking puppies. I for one will never play with anyone who casts tutors, removal spells, blue cards, things I arbitrarily decide I don't like but will probably cast myself later.
Uh..... Because Gifts Ungiven gives you any two cards out of your deck, where as Intuition only gives you one? Gifts gives you two combo pieces or two recursion spells for those combo pieces; either way it's a Tooth and Nail for half the mana cost. Intuition, even if you grab three of those same four pieces, still only gives you one.
Because "Bounce any creature for 2 mana" is just not the same as "Destroy three lands, fetch three lands, every time you bounce this creature for 2 mana".
Also, they were not banned for being "Too Oppressive". They were banned because they were game warping; people would literally hold onto Clone and it's ilk so they could copy Prime Time and SyPri.
Did..... Did you really..... Did you really, SERIOUSLY just compare Rofellos, Llanowar Emisarry and Sol Ring?
Sol Ring costs 1, taps for 2. Not unheard of for you to go Land -> Sol Ring -> Signet.
Rofel Copter costs 2, taps for number of FORESTS. Kodama's Reach? Get a forest for one, Rofel taps for one more.
T1: Forest, Elvish Mystic T2: Forest, Rofel, T3: Forest, Skyshroud Claim. Rofellos is already tapping for 5, and that's a perfectly respectable and quite easy to achieve opening hand.
If we are talking solely on mana production, Rofellos puts Sol Ring to shame, and anyone who actually played with him would agree with that.
Congratulations, you just showed that you have no idea how the banlist works.
Cards are usually banned for the more casual playgroups. The kind of cards that get broken even if you don't have an intention to break them. This is a real intention with the Academy. It just too easily pumps out massive amounts of mana in a color that should not have those amounts of mana available to them due to the insane things blue can pull off. Hermit Druid, on the other hand, can be slotted in a lot of normal decks and preform normally, the only real way to break him is by being Griefer McGrieferson and build an entire deck around it. Timmy McNewbieson will not slot a Druid into their deck and instantly break the game with it.
Intuition doesn't fetch 2 revival pieces + 2 combo pieces. Prime Time and Sylvan Primordial were not banned because of Deadeye - Deadeye was merely one of many factors. Even without DEN those two would still be banned. Rofellos is banned because 10 mana on turn 4 (Rofellos into any ramp spell) is a bit more stupid than 6 mana (Sol ring into any ramp spell), though Sol Ring really should get the boot. Panoptic Mirror is the kind of card Timmy McNewbieson would try out in their deck and accidentally find out the infinite with it, and then go infinite. And a LOT of infinites get stopped by random cards - doesn't mean they should be unbanned.
WOTC should run the banlist? Wait, we're talking the same guys who are running the Modern list? You know, that list that for a long time had Wild Nacatl banned and is even more polarizing than the EDH list? Yeah nope.
Of course, this would open the floodgates, and people would beg for Sol Ring to be banned. Which I am ok with, but not trying to push for.
They need to start reprinting some of the older cards that aren't used anywhere else and give newer players access to them.
More than that, you badly misunderstand why Sundering Titan and Panoptic Mirror are banned. It has absolutely nothing to do with 'belonging in every competitive deck'. 'Competitive' decks actually have very little to do with determining what cards are banned in this format.
Finally, the monetary value of Mana Crypt has no relevance on whether it is worthy of being banned or not. The value of a card, in conjunction with the perception it creates and ubiquity of use, is a *contributing* factor (albeit a minor one - simply enough to push a card over the edge if it was close for other reasons) of a small subset of cards. Of every card banned in part due to its value, they are all considerably more valuable than Mana Crypt, despite not being legal in any format other than Vintage. Another significant factor is that every single one of them is also on the Reserved List, while Mana Crypt is not.
Should Mana Crypt and Sol Ring be banned for power reasons? Possibly - this is something that I have been unable to definitively decide on. The Rules Committee however clearly thinks not, and they are inconsistent enough that games ruined by them can generally be considered a fluke (not only do you need them Turn 1 or 2, you also need something to be accelerated into on those turns that has a considerable negative impact on a multiplayer game).
Edit:
As a current owner of both Mana Crypt and Grim Tutor, these should absolutely be reprinted. I don't actually care if it is a promotional release or a Standard-legal set, as long as it A) has the new Mana Crypt art, B) is black bordered, and C) is available NOT FOIL.
The same applies to many of the good Three Kingdom cards, like Capture of Jingzhou, Imperial Recruiter, and Ravages of War.
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Atraxa, Praetors' Voice
How many games is your commander in your command zone?
That's the difference between Rofellos and Sol Ring, as far as banning fast mana is concerned.
Go back and read my question again. How many of those infinite turn combos require 5 (or less) mana and only two cards? I honestly don't know.
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StaffThat's probably because there is a difference between 2 mana and 12.
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StaffI'm just here to say that blue is the strongest color in the format when you're looking at competitive.
That's all.
[Primer] Kozilek, Butcher with Juice.
I'm stunned anyone could think this. I'm wondering if you've ever come across these cards. Cradle is good. Academy is good, but faster. Fast mana is what leads to broken game states. If you don't think academy is faster or if you think they are about the same you have no idea how fast academy is. If you have it, go on cockatrice and make 2 decks designed to abuse their respective cards and see whether academy or cradle is more broken. I use cradle in one of my decks. I can burst mana very quickly, but rarely from super early in the game. Elves have summoning sickness so you can't get many out on turn 1 without a god hand. Artifact ramp helps play artifact ramp and there are many artifact pieces that make more mana than they cost and they can be tapped right away. Sure, you might think there are answers to both cards like ld, boardwipes, and artifact wipes, but tolarian academy decks can be built to consistently produce more than enough to win faster than you can react to them without drastically altering your deck. I know the banlist isn't perfect, but academy reallllly should be on it.
My Saffi deck
Nitpicking, but:
Let me know if I'm missing any, but 4 seems short of many, and two of them don't untap normally, making them little better (and possibly worse) than:
- Dark Ritual
- Cabal Ritual
- Desperate Ritual
- Pyretic Ritual
- Manamorphose
- Mana Geyser
ETC...Now, with that said: Tolarian Academy is still an insanely strong card. I would argue that in the "can you abuse this if your deck is trying to" category, however, that both Academy and Cradle are too powerful. If the judgement for a card's place on the banned list is "can this be broken if that is someone's goal", then there's a LOT more cards that belong on the list. However, if the idea of the format is to allow social interactions to modify the way cards are played (and discourage people from "breaking" things) and that the banned list should serve to only remove cards that are innately destructive to the format, I do not believe Academy qualifies in the same way that something like Biorhythm, Sway of the Stars and Worldfire do.
I can't say I think Blue is weak, nor do I think it's a huge deal, but this is one of the situations in which I cannot understand the RC's decision making process. Drawing the line of "too powerful" somewhere between Academy and Cradle seems particularly arbitrary and inexplicable.
Personally I don't really care if Academy or Cradle is banned or unbanned but it feels a bit odd to draw the line between them, I think.
Admittedly, and this comment goes somewhat against my view, Academy provides a more substantial boost to Blue than Cradle does for Green, due to Green already having many ways to boost mana production, without actually even touching direct land ramp. This means that Green is already strong at producing large chunks of mana and that is an intentional component to the color's strength. Compare this to Blue which has very few means of increasing mana production outside of artifacts (which all colors have access to) and temporary effects, meaning that a large mana production source like Tolarian Academy, even if it tapped for an equal amount of mana as Gaea's Cradle, would still provide a larger increase in power; the same way giving $100,000 to a homeless person would provide a larger change than giving $100,000 to Bill Gates.
Normally, comparing a card's impact in other formats is not useful for judging if it should be banned in Commander. Given the very strong parallels between Academy & Cradle though, this is actually a viable comparison.
Tolarian Academy was banned in Standard for enabling consistent Turn 1 & Turn 2 wins.
Gaea's Cradle was not banned in Standard.
Tolarian Academy is banned in Legacy for enabling consistent and resilient Turn 1 wins.
Gaea's Cradle is not banned.
Tolarian Academy is restricted in Vintage for enabling consistent and resilient Turn 1 wins.
Gaea's Cradle is not restricted.
Put simply, Academy is far stronger, far faster, and far more resilient than Cradle, for any format. While I (and the Rules Committee, among others) do not think Cradle is banworthy in Commander, banning it is a frequent request
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Also, as I recall, your original argument was that Academy and Cradle as nearly identical in mana production, which is patently untrue. It's one thing to want and argue for the unbanning of Academy, but using Cradle as your reason for doing so is a bad one.
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I actually read that as "Worse for the opponent" considering the context of the rest of the post.
They don't break the format. While a T1 Ring or Crypt is powerful, it doesn't guarantee you the win the way a lot of other cards do. Furthermore, for them to be that good they really have to be opening hand or turns 1-3. Keep in mind that while it is 0-1 mana, it's ultimately the same effect as Skyshroud Claim, a playable-but-not-powerful card.
They don't skew any potential archetype. Cards like Sylvan Primordial or Protean Hulk make Green reanimator / ramp incredibly powerful, but our rocks go in any deck, making them, in my view, more fair to the format's health. (Granted, they are slightly more powerful in Artifact-based decks.) This is often used as a counterargument to them, something about "the ubiquity of the format." The same arguments can be applied to Command Tower and Sensei's Divining Top, which, while slightly less universal, are rarely discussed in relation to the banlist.
One argument commonly seen is that Mana Crypt is too expensive or rare. As long as we're banning expensive and rare cards, let's do away with the original duals, Imperial Seal, Lion's Eye Diamond... the list goes on and on. Ultimately EDH is an expensive format if you want to be performing at 100%. I personally own a Mana Crypt, and I'm an unemployed high school student - and before you ask, no, my mommy and daddy didn't buy it for me, I worked my butt off trading for two years into it (as well as the rest of my competitive deck).
In terms of realism, I can see Crypt being banned. I wouldn't agree with the decision but it wouldn't be the worst decision the RC has made (Biorhythm???). Sol Ring will never be banned, as it's the face of the format and has been included in every Pre-Constructed commander deck so far. For the RC to ban it would be a direct insult to Wizards of the Coast and would be a slaughter of the historical context and recognizability of EDH.
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Sidisi ANT!
Playing Commander to Win - A guide on Competitive, 4-player EDH
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Hold on, you consider the Biorhythm ban a bad idea? An 8-mana-sorcery that basically says "I win" at the moment of casting if you do things right? One that entirely nullifies the entire game played before it? I'd love to hear your reasoning behind that one.
It requires setup - some sort of boardwipe and casting a creature (or the luck of you just having a creature and your opponents not). It's eight mana. It's much, much worse than Tooth and Nail (which I consider bannable). Ultimately it's a meh card.
Jarad Graveyard Combo[Primer]!
Sidisi ANT!
Playing Commander to Win - A guide on Competitive, 4-player EDH
LandDestruction.com - An EDH blog
That comparison (with Sol Ring) made my day.
Ultimately, most banning discussion will boil down to mana.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
So..then the case has been made clear we must ban : Mana
All mana.
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Exodia the Forbidden One:
Also, there are like what... 4 variations of Llanowar Elves... so yes Llanowar Elves are better than sol ring :D. 6 if you count llanowar mentor and freyalise!
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Don't forget Oloro, Ageless Ascetic.
Academy is bonkers guys.
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