I have no issue with Crucible and I wouldn't call it a staple. There has been maybe one deck I've designed where it was appropriate. It is an engine occasionally used to blow up lands, which many things can do. Not banworthy.
Sway should stay banned. It invalidates the game up to that point. Worldfire is a worse offender, but that isn't where the bar is set. Worldfire is far over the bar and so is Sway.
How do you strip mine all of someone's lands? Is there a way to do that I'm not aware of? the only way I can think of is Fastbond, and that's banned for good reason.
How do you strip mine all of someone's lands? Is there a way to do that I'm not aware of? the only way I can think of is Fastbond, and that's banned for good reason.
Sway should stay banned. It invalidates the game up to that point. Worldfire is a worse offender, but that isn't where the bar is set. Worldfire is far over the bar and so is Sway.
I agree that Sway and Worldfire should be banned... assuming people would play them in the first place. I think someone choosing to play Worldfire just to reset the board is offensive, but I don't think many people care to do so anyway, and the people that do would be hated out of playgroups quickly if they did so on multiple occassions. The social contract can easily keep Worldfire in check. And if it's one of those "representative cards to show what strategies are frowned upon" situations, I think Upheaval does a fine job at being banned. I have trouble seeing the ban on worldfire as anything other than a big middle finger to jhoira. But what if someone like me just wants to do silly stack shenanigans with Eye of the Storm and Guttersnipe?
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
That is my issue with anything that is banned at 8 or more mana barring easily recurred cards, the cards are bad and the number of people who will play around with them is probably a small % that will get bored of them very quickly and then remove them from deck.
The cards almost ban themselves by how lacking they are when you actually put them in decks.
That's kinda the point of the banlist though. It's supposed to save you the trouble of discovering that a card is deceptively toxic and unfun the hard way...
How do you strip mine all of someone's lands? Is there a way to do that I'm not aware of? the only way I can think of is Fastbond, and that's banned for good reason.
I'm well aware of what crucible does, but when they say 'combo' that implies something more than just getting rid of a single land per turn. Fastbond at least enables you to do it enough to get rid of every land you want gone, but I can't think of anything else that does that, unless you've got a board of like Crucible, Azusa, Exploration, Oracle of Mul Daya, and storm cauldron, and even then you only get 6 lands killed per turn (Which is ridiculous, but easy enough to disrupt).
I was just wondering if there's a way to actually just do it as many times as you want that's actually legal.
That's kinda the point of the banlist though. It's supposed to save you the trouble of discovering that a card is deceptively toxic and unfun the hard way...
I fundamentally disagree with that.
Banlist IMO is for things that are to powerful to exist in a multiplayer format.
That's kinda the point of the banlist though. It's supposed to save you the trouble of discovering that a card is deceptively toxic and unfun the hard way...
I fundamentally disagree with that.
Banlist IMO is for things that are to powerful to exist in a multiplayer format.
You're fundamentally wrong, then. Go read the mtgcommander site blurb about the banlist.
Crucible is not a staple at all, not all decks run a suite of fetch lands to warrant inclusion of crucible. Not ban-worthy imo.
Prophet of Kruphix used to be in all of my UGx decks, after casting it a few times I am totally disgusted with what it can do and what it brings to the table. Never had such a card invite so many groans around the table across all playgroups in the 3 LGS I frequented. Having a prophet in play is effectively having a time walk every turn, getting rid of it is a daunting task too...
Classic example:
Opponent: I swords to plowshares targeting prophet
Prophet player: Ok, I flash in clone, clone ETBs as prophet.
Players playing Bribery or Grinning Totem end up asking "Which one of you plays prophet? oh you UGx player, ok I target you, gimme your prophet". All creature tutors end up searching for prophet and some players even have to apologise "Hey guys I'm about to play something sick" before even casting it. Yet many of them still play it as it is one of the staple good stuff cards for UGx decks.
Sometimes I hope prophet will be banned one day, at least it will help in diversifying the decks rather than having most UG decks focusing on draw, go, end of turn flash in strategies.
I would not assume to be able to make a perfect banlist to balance a format that contains the wealth of material and weird interaction as Commander, it would have to be surgical hitting the highest priority things, and it would not take that many cards I think.
I was just wondering if there's a way to actually just do it as many times as you want that's actually legal.
Nope, the closest I can get to abusing strip mine in an infinite loop has nothing to do with crucible of worlds at all. There just isn't enough "you may play an additional land" effects to make it worthwhile since the rules of "playing extra land" changed a couple of years ago.
That's kinda the point of the banlist though. It's supposed to save you the trouble of discovering that a card is deceptively toxic and unfun the hard way...
I fundamentally disagree with that.
Banlist IMO is for things that are to powerful to exist in a multiplayer format.
You're fundamentally wrong, then. Go read the mtgcommander site blurb about the banlist.
QFT. I suppose you can believe anything you want (watermelon seeds cure cancer! Hell Comes to Frogtown was a good movie! Smoking makes me look cool!"), but that doesn't change the fact that the point of the banned list is pretty much what Tremor88 said.
Unbanning Protean Hulk opens up a whole bunch of really lame insta-win combos, it's completely fair to keep that banned.
You are aware the ban list is not built around stopping combo?
The only things I think that should be unbanned are Library of Alexandria and Sway of the Stars. Library doesn't just win you the game, and we're already playing games with Timetwister and Mana Crypt so barrier to entry isn't an excuse either.
Its both power and barrier to entry. If you don't think LoA would JUMP in price you are wrong.
Sway of the Stars HAS to be built around otherwise it doesn't just win the game and is not nearly on the same level of simplicity as Worldfire
Again, its not about winning you the game, its about resetting the whole thing and setting the life totals low.
I would not assume to be able to make a perfect banlist to balance a format that contains the wealth of material and weird interaction as Commander, it would have to be surgical hitting the highest priority things, and it would not take that many cards I think.
People who say 'I would do it different' and then choose to pretend its trivial and THEN not do one just grind my gears. If its so easy give it a run and let hundreds of people pick away at it like you do.
If people are sick of reading about stuff just stop taking part. You have 100% control over what you read. Simic Ascendancy isn't going to get banned just because you didn't tell someone to shut up on the internet.
I like the feedback in this thread. You guys are right about Crucible, I'm probably just overthinking it. Things that you can "accidentally" do just irritate me more than pieces of a puzzle that are actually set up. You can destroy all of someone's lands (Gradually or quickly with Azusa), fetch forever or some other weird ability a land has, but it's no worse than Armageddon or Ravages of War though so I'm really complaining about nothing.
Sway of the Stars is definitely a little too easy for people who want "dumb" or "chaos" games to happen so I can see where that's coming from. The people who actually want to accomplish the same effect will go through the lengths of playing multiple cards to achieve the effect.
Library of Alexandria doesn't need to be banned however. There are lands that can do worse specifically in commander and nowhere else.
Bans are fine in general as they are for now. Nothing is really breaking the format, Prophet of Kruphix is nuts but it's only played in U/G so I always see it occasionally. Consecrated Sphinx and Iona, Shield of Emeria are completely lame but if you are playing a multiplayer game people should be able to make correct judgments about what the threat is.
Library of Alexandria doesn't need to be banned however. There are lands that can do worse specifically in commander and nowhere else.
My only problem with it is the price tag. I'm still in need of a Gaea's Cradle, The Abyss and a Moat. But LoA is on a whole different level, while remaining banned. Unbanned it would be even worse. Is it okay to officially allow proxies?
If you're looking purely at what the card does and how it interacts within a game, Library of Alexandria most likely does not need to be banned. However, the card is so iconic, ubiquitous, rare, and expensive that it is basically just the barrier to entry keeping it banned.
Library of Alexandria doesn't need to be banned however. There are lands that can do worse specifically in commander and nowhere else.
My only problem with it is the price tag. I'm still in need of a Gaea's Cradle, The Abyss and a Moat. But LoA is on a whole different level, while remaining banned. Unbanned it would be even worse. Is it okay to officially allow proxies?
Bans are fine in general as they are for now. Nothing is really breaking the format, Prophet of Kruphix is nuts but it's only played in U/G so I always see it occasionally. Consecrated Sphinx and Iona, Shield of Emeria are completely lame but if you are playing a multiplayer game people should be able to make correct judgments about what the threat is.
For the record, Prophet of Kruphix is played in the most played colour combination of EDH, and stands out as the multicolour card with the highest total useage. A few months back there was a thread showing the useage statistics, which showed that PoK was I believe the 17th coloured card in total, with no other multi-colour cards being in the top 50. Given that PoK can only be played in 10% of dual-colour combinations and 30% of tri-colour combos, that's a crazy statistic.
As for LoA: Keep in mind that cards DO jump from Commander useage; see Doubling Season. LoA is already a crazy expensive card, unbanning it would make it shoot through the roof.
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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.
If there is a card that's gonna be banned it's most likely gonna be PoK. I'm not saying it isn't, I'm just saying it's played in a specific color combination so it should be seen less, but U/G are powerhouse colors so I'm not surprised. I don't personally have an issue with it, but I know since its release it has been complained about in EDH. That and Deadeye Navigator.
Deadeye Navigator and Consecrated Sphinx have both been complained about since they were released, but with time you see less discussion of both. People grumble about them, but I don't think their presence in the format has caused anyone to quit playing EDH in disgust or dismay.
I assume the same will end up being true of Prophet of Kruphix. Mind you, even though I run it - it's too good to not run in decks that can run it - I wouldn't mind it going away. As has happened with other cards that get banned, I use ban announcements as an opportunity to slot new cards into existing decks, and U/G is a color combination that doesn't lack for potentially strong, interesting and/or fun cards to run. I'm still not convinced it's really, truly banworthy, though, any more than Sphinx or DEN.
Really, I think the banned list is in a pretty good place. I personally think unbanning Metalworker was a mistake, because generals like Daretti don't need to be even more insanely good than would be the case without having access to Metalworker, but it's not ubiquitous or anything like that, and that unbanning was at most a small glitch. With the upcoming (and long overdue) demise of the Partial Paris mulligan, the only significant disagreement I have with the RC is that I still think changing the tuck rules was a terrible mistake, and I don't see changing my mind about that, as hundreds of play hours since then have just cemented my opinion that things were better off with tuck. Having some generals spend more time at the bottom of someone's deck than on the battlefield just plain makes for better games.
Hypothetical question for the RC (if they see this): Wizards prints the following in each precon
~ 1
1, sacrifice ~: Search your library for your commander and place it in the Command Zone, then shuffle your library. Draw a card.
Does a widly available colorless card which isn't a dead draw make you reevaluate tuck? Does the continued complaints make you second guess yourself?
Why would you want this? This would just make another "have-to-include" card for every deck, (Much like Sol Ring), and the effect is extremely boring... Also, you would have hold this in your hand until your commander got tucked to use it because no one is going to tuck your commander until this thing is gone...
If people have issues with Commander's being "more available", theno why not think about changing how commander tax works instead of trying to force the tuck thing. Just because it "worked" in the past doesn't mean it was correct. Also, I don't understand how tuck was ever a good solution as it was only available in a few colors, making it poor for the format since not many other colors besides white or blue had options for this. Not to mention the fact that commander's who weren't black or green may never see their commander again.
IMO, this change was for the better, and if there is an issue with commander's being too available, we should start thinking outside the "tuck-box" and look toward the official commander tax type rulings to change, instead.
Sway should stay banned. It invalidates the game up to that point. Worldfire is a worse offender, but that isn't where the bar is set. Worldfire is far over the bar and so is Sway.
EDH:
G[cEDH] Selvala, Heart of the StormG
URW[cEDH] Narset, the Last AirmericanURW
GWUSt. Jenara, the ArchangelGWU
UBGrimgrin, Chaos MarineUB
GOmnath, Mana BaronG
URWNarset, Justice League AmericaURW
GWUBAtraxa, Countess of CountersGWUB
GWUEstrid, Enbantress PrimeGWU
crucible of worlds
I agree that Sway and Worldfire should be banned... assuming people would play them in the first place. I think someone choosing to play Worldfire just to reset the board is offensive, but I don't think many people care to do so anyway, and the people that do would be hated out of playgroups quickly if they did so on multiple occassions. The social contract can easily keep Worldfire in check. And if it's one of those "representative cards to show what strategies are frowned upon" situations, I think Upheaval does a fine job at being banned. I have trouble seeing the ban on worldfire as anything other than a big middle finger to jhoira. But what if someone like me just wants to do silly stack shenanigans with Eye of the Storm and Guttersnipe?
The cards almost ban themselves by how lacking they are when you actually put them in decks.
I'm well aware of what crucible does, but when they say 'combo' that implies something more than just getting rid of a single land per turn. Fastbond at least enables you to do it enough to get rid of every land you want gone, but I can't think of anything else that does that, unless you've got a board of like Crucible, Azusa, Exploration, Oracle of Mul Daya, and storm cauldron, and even then you only get 6 lands killed per turn (Which is ridiculous, but easy enough to disrupt).
I was just wondering if there's a way to actually just do it as many times as you want that's actually legal.
I fundamentally disagree with that.
Banlist IMO is for things that are to powerful to exist in a multiplayer format.
You're fundamentally wrong, then. Go read the mtgcommander site blurb about the banlist.
If you're gonna ban everything that's too powerful for multiplayer, you're gonna have a banlist 300+ cards long. Good luck with that.
Prophet of Kruphix used to be in all of my UGx decks, after casting it a few times I am totally disgusted with what it can do and what it brings to the table. Never had such a card invite so many groans around the table across all playgroups in the 3 LGS I frequented. Having a prophet in play is effectively having a time walk every turn, getting rid of it is a daunting task too...
Classic example:
Opponent: I swords to plowshares targeting prophet
Prophet player: Ok, I flash in clone, clone ETBs as prophet.
Players playing Bribery or Grinning Totem end up asking "Which one of you plays prophet? oh you UGx player, ok I target you, gimme your prophet". All creature tutors end up searching for prophet and some players even have to apologise "Hey guys I'm about to play something sick" before even casting it. Yet many of them still play it as it is one of the staple good stuff cards for UGx decks.
Sometimes I hope prophet will be banned one day, at least it will help in diversifying the decks rather than having most UG decks focusing on draw, go, end of turn flash in strategies.
WUBRG Reaper King - Elf Tribal WUBRG | Tribal Fun
WRG Gishath, Sun's Avatar - Dinosaur Tribal WRG | Rawr!!!
WUG Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - Enchantress Tactics WUG | Enchantments Focused
GBG The Gitrog Monster - Land Shenanigans GBG | Lands/Mill Focused
WBW Kambal, Consul of Life Allocation Matters WBW | Life Gain/Loss focused
UBR Kess, Dissident Mage of the Lotus UBR | Spellslinger
BGB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons - Counters & Tokens BGB | -1/-1 counters focused
Nope, the closest I can get to abusing strip mine in an infinite loop has nothing to do with crucible of worlds at all. There just isn't enough "you may play an additional land" effects to make it worthwhile since the rules of "playing extra land" changed a couple of years ago.
Infinite strip mine loop: Sun Titan, Dance of Many, Parallel Lives, Faith Healer, Strip Mine. Suitable for Bant Enchantress build.
WUBRG Reaper King - Elf Tribal WUBRG | Tribal Fun
WRG Gishath, Sun's Avatar - Dinosaur Tribal WRG | Rawr!!!
WUG Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - Enchantress Tactics WUG | Enchantments Focused
GBG The Gitrog Monster - Land Shenanigans GBG | Lands/Mill Focused
WBW Kambal, Consul of Life Allocation Matters WBW | Life Gain/Loss focused
UBR Kess, Dissident Mage of the Lotus UBR | Spellslinger
BGB Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons - Counters & Tokens BGB | -1/-1 counters focused
QFT. I suppose you can believe anything you want (watermelon seeds cure cancer! Hell Comes to Frogtown was a good movie! Smoking makes me look cool!"), but that doesn't change the fact that the point of the banned list is pretty much what Tremor88 said.
Sway of the Stars is definitely a little too easy for people who want "dumb" or "chaos" games to happen so I can see where that's coming from. The people who actually want to accomplish the same effect will go through the lengths of playing multiple cards to achieve the effect.
Library of Alexandria doesn't need to be banned however. There are lands that can do worse specifically in commander and nowhere else.
Bans are fine in general as they are for now. Nothing is really breaking the format, Prophet of Kruphix is nuts but it's only played in U/G so I always see it occasionally. Consecrated Sphinx and Iona, Shield of Emeria are completely lame but if you are playing a multiplayer game people should be able to make correct judgments about what the threat is.
An enigma as vexing as life itself.
My only problem with it is the price tag. I'm still in need of a Gaea's Cradle, The Abyss and a Moat. But LoA is on a whole different level, while remaining banned. Unbanned it would be even worse. Is it okay to officially allow proxies?
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
I'm in the same boat. Chains of Mephistopheles, Gaea's Cradle, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, Timetwister, and Candelabra of Tawnos among other things like a Mana Crypt for all my decks. Sheesh that is way too much money on singular magic cards.
An enigma as vexing as life itself.
For the record, Prophet of Kruphix is played in the most played colour combination of EDH, and stands out as the multicolour card with the highest total useage. A few months back there was a thread showing the useage statistics, which showed that PoK was I believe the 17th coloured card in total, with no other multi-colour cards being in the top 50. Given that PoK can only be played in 10% of dual-colour combinations and 30% of tri-colour combos, that's a crazy statistic.
As for LoA: Keep in mind that cards DO jump from Commander useage; see Doubling Season. LoA is already a crazy expensive card, unbanning it would make it shoot through the roof.
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.
An enigma as vexing as life itself.
I assume the same will end up being true of Prophet of Kruphix. Mind you, even though I run it - it's too good to not run in decks that can run it - I wouldn't mind it going away. As has happened with other cards that get banned, I use ban announcements as an opportunity to slot new cards into existing decks, and U/G is a color combination that doesn't lack for potentially strong, interesting and/or fun cards to run. I'm still not convinced it's really, truly banworthy, though, any more than Sphinx or DEN.
Really, I think the banned list is in a pretty good place. I personally think unbanning Metalworker was a mistake, because generals like Daretti don't need to be even more insanely good than would be the case without having access to Metalworker, but it's not ubiquitous or anything like that, and that unbanning was at most a small glitch. With the upcoming (and long overdue) demise of the Partial Paris mulligan, the only significant disagreement I have with the RC is that I still think changing the tuck rules was a terrible mistake, and I don't see changing my mind about that, as hundreds of play hours since then have just cemented my opinion that things were better off with tuck. Having some generals spend more time at the bottom of someone's deck than on the battlefield just plain makes for better games.
~ 1
1, sacrifice ~: Search your library for your commander and place it in the Command Zone, then shuffle your library. Draw a card.
Does a widly available colorless card which isn't a dead draw make you reevaluate tuck? Does the continued complaints make you second guess yourself?
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
Why would you want this? This would just make another "have-to-include" card for every deck, (Much like Sol Ring), and the effect is extremely boring... Also, you would have hold this in your hand until your commander got tucked to use it because no one is going to tuck your commander until this thing is gone...
If people have issues with Commander's being "more available", theno why not think about changing how commander tax works instead of trying to force the tuck thing. Just because it "worked" in the past doesn't mean it was correct. Also, I don't understand how tuck was ever a good solution as it was only available in a few colors, making it poor for the format since not many other colors besides white or blue had options for this. Not to mention the fact that commander's who weren't black or green may never see their commander again.
IMO, this change was for the better, and if there is an issue with commander's being too available, we should start thinking outside the "tuck-box" and look toward the official commander tax type rulings to change, instead.