We can say that the "perceveid barrier" could be a problem only and exclusively from a theoretical viewpoint...from a practical, real life viewpoint wouldn't be perceived as a problem at all. Is almost a non-existent problem.
This is where you keep running into the same issue : Your opinion is fact from your perspective. But if you have read these boards for years, there are story after story about how 'not needing power' was a seminal discovery in EDH.
Just because PT and SP didnt ruin your meta, does not mean it didnt ruin boatloads of them.
You want 'hard data', but provide nothing past your own experience. Then expect your opinion to hold as much weight as someone from the RC.
There are tons of great archives about why stuff is banned, and counter points to all your points. Do some searching and reading.
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.
Actually I provided 12 links of a Serra Ascendant complain. Which Papa_Funk reply it was meaningless because they were not enough data. But in fact, I bringed data, while he didn't bringed literally nothing except "look at the Internet, you'll see people complain.". The same Internet which gives me billions on threads complaining of Sol Ring by the way.
There are examples in this forum of people "complaining" about every single card on the ban list. A vocal minority being vocal is not the quantitative evidence that you're treating it as.
So, I will ask, it's a card complained by the players worth or not worth of banning? Because if "lot of people whine all the time" a ban criteria, then Sol Ring should be banned. It always bring huge controversy in threads and it's used and abused in every single EDH list that abuse of fast mana for degenerate unfun games. If the "Lof of people whine all the time" is is not a ban criteria, we should ignore as well in that case all the people complaining Prime Time and Primordial because those cards, in a vacuum, can be played in a perfectly fair way...like a Sol Ring I guess.
I've never seen an Acquire grab a Sol Ring and (when legal) you almost never saw a Bribery grab anything other than a Primeval Titan or Sylvan Primordial. Those two cards were more centralizing and format warping than anything I have seen since and it is not close. This is apples/oranges. You had to build decks with these cards in mind whether you were playing them or planning on playing against them.
And, please, don't tell me, that "warp the game" is a problem. It's more problem a Teferi that abuses of Stasis to lock everyone's games and still the card is legal. I think it's pretty much absurd that cards that serve no purpose to freeze the game and bring to frustrating board states are legal, while cards that promote interactive games or at least don't prevent people to play their games, should get the banhammer.
And don't tell me either the argument that "if somebody is playing Stasis (or any similar card) is because it want purposelly to ruin the game"; because it's an argument that makes zero sense. Of course it's a card that brings willfully only to unfun board states, if ignoring purposelly unfun cards was enough, there would be no need to ban cards like Limited Resources, Worldfire, Sway of the Stars, Upheavel, Erayo, Braids and similar.
You are now just complaining about cards you don't like. That Stasis doesn't conform to your pre-conceived notion of 'fun' doesn't make it ban-worthy.
There are years of archives of why Protean Hulk, Metalworker, Staff of Domination, Kokusho or Worldgorger Dragon were banned and guess what? Today they are all unbanned despite all the reasons they were banned in the first place. Your point is meaningless. Cards in this format are not banned forever. And are also (but not only of course) threads like this that can help the RC to possibly re-evaluating the previous judgment of the cards.
Two things:
1. A card previously banned being unbanned now after years of discussion and examination is not evidence that all currently banned cards will be unbanned.
2. You complain about papafunk's stance on this, yet this paragraph is evidence that the RC listens and is open to re-evaluating cards.
I think there are good arguments to be made for and against Sol Ring being in the format, but far too much of thread is hyperbole and yelling at clouds.
Are the Dack Faydens and Metamorphs stealing/cloning Sol Rings over Gilded Lotuses and Thran Dynamos while both choices are available?
This is the important point, since Bribery for Primeval Titan was compared to Acquire for Sol Ring.
Bribery/Acquire give the caster access to your entire library. They're going to go for the best card of the appropriate type as it exists on the battlefield, regardless of its mana cost, because Bribery and Acquire don't care about mana cost. Yes, Sol Ring is a great card, producing 2 mana for 1. But once they're on the battlefield, Gilded Lotus is a lot better. Someone searching your library with Acquire is unlikely to steal your Sol Ring when they could be stealing your Gilded Lotus.
Similarly, if my opponents have both Sol Ring and Gilded Lotus on the field, I'm not going to steal or copy the Sol Ring with Dack/Metamorph. I'm going to steal or copy the Gilded Lotus. Because when I get to ignore the mana cost, Gilded Lotus is better than Sol Ring in every way.
Sure, If I play Dack Fayden and the best artifact in play is Sol Ring, I'll take the Sol Ring. But by the time I play Dack Fayden, it's entirely possible that a better artifact permanent will be in play for me to target instead.
Bribery, on the other hand, frequently targeted green players on the assumption that Primetime was in their deck, and IME the only times Bribery didn't pull up a Primetime was when (a) it wasn't actually there (which usually meant it was in the green player's hand), (b) there was something even nastier to steal, like Ulamog, or (c) the Bribery player was attempting to find some specific effect, such as searching up Acidic Slime or Terastodon to get rid of something.
Because I'm easing back into EDH banlist discussion can I get a quick summary where people are generally at on Painter's servant?
Also I feel like the Prime time argument has always boiled down to does the game warp into stealing, cloning, reanimating Prime time or not. Correct me if Im wrong on that. In that case I can see why people want Sol ring banned on that premise.
Now, everyone raise your hand if Stasis is one of the first cards you reach for when you build a blue deck, or if you regularly see games ruined by it. I'll wait.
Now, everyone raise your hand if Stasis is one of the first cards you reach for when you build a blue deck, or if you regularly see games ruined by it. I'll wait.
Since 2010 I have seen the card played once.... and that player played his own card incorrectly in such a way I should have won the game (he untapped and saced it rather than sacing after untap and then cast a Sun Titan when he had no mana to pay for it if he had played the card correctly).
That one time was probably back 2011 - 2012ish.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Lot of people would raise their hand to see Sol Ring leaving this format forever. Are you in the faction of the people "whatever card is complained most, gets the banhammer" or "what does the card in a vacuum, not considering how is actually played and therefore, ignore all the complainings"?
If you bothered to read any of my numerous posts and replies to you recently, or if you've seen my trend here and the official forums which we both have frequented for many years, you'll see that I approach the ban list with logic and data based on the available data, and using the publicly stated criteria and opinions of the RC. Unless of course we are talking about unbanning Library, in which case I'm stubbornly for it.
I noticed you didn't raise.your hand. Is this because you realize that it is useless to try and talking about how a card is bad for the format when it sees less than 1% of play?
HAHAHAHAHA, I got you to post here!
Since 2010 I have seen the card played once.... and that player played his own card incorrectly in such a way I should have won the game (he untapped and saced it rather than sacing after untap and then cast a Sun Titan when he had no mana to pay for it if he had played the card correctly).
Now, everyone raise your hand if Stasis is one of the first cards you reach for when you build a blue deck, or if you regularly see games ruined by it. I'll wait.
My most recent experience was actually a few months ago. It was a Teferi, Temporal Archmage deck. He was able to get it online pretty early. The table scooped, we shuffled up for another game, pounded his face hard and he dismantled the deck after he encountered 2 other groups with similar reactions. It just wasn’t fun for anybody, even the owner.
Those aren’t the type of people and scenarios to be basing arguments off of. Those people aren’t the ones the banlist cares about because of the social nature of the format. We control cards like that, there is no need for the banlist to do so.
As for how many times it’s popped up? 3-4 times in my entire EDH career. This also includes the thousands of MTGO games I’ve played where try-hards are able to shield themselves behind a computer screen.
Since 2010 I have seen the card played once.... and that player played his own card incorrectly in such a way I should have won the game (he untapped and saced it rather than sacing after untap and then cast a Sun Titan when he had no mana to pay for it if he had played the card correctly).
Incompetent players doesn't make cards less broken or dangerous per se. I am not sure what you want to prove with this story. Your anecdote is hardly an evidence for any rational basis for a serious discussion.
Oh, so your opinions and experiences are the only ones that matter? Maybe change your attitude and you might get somewhere.
Because I'm easing back into EDH banlist discussion can I get a quick summary where people are generally at on Painter's servant?
The card was originally banned for it's interactions with Grindstone and Iona, Shield of Emeria. These combos either mill a single player at a time or they lock your opponents out of casting spells.
The RC, most notably papafunk because he always chimes in on PS discussion, tend to say that Painter's Servant doesn't add much to the format when considering it for unbanning. I do agree with them in this regard, very few people are going to do anything clever with PS, like turning on Green Sun's Zenith to fetch a Shriekmaw. I imagine that when PS is unbanned, if you see a PS in play at all it's probably part of a combo.
I believe Painter's Servant will eventually come off the banned list. I think the RC will just have to add one or two more cards because WotC prints something outrageous and they will want to keep the list short so PS will get unbanned to keep the banlist as short as possible. I think that is what happened with the Hulk unban.
The Acquire discussion is silly. Cards like Sol Ring or Mana Vault won’t be chosen because you don’t have to pay the mana for what you pick. Even though those cards are very powerful for their mana cost, they’re not more powerful than cards that cost five times as much mana. A more accurate interaction would be what players grab with Thada Adel, Acquisitor and Praetor's Grasp. Even then, those cards are being played later in the game when players have access to more mana.
Because I'm easing back into EDH banlist discussion can I get a quick summary where people are generally at on Painter's servant?
Also I feel like the Prime time argument has always boiled down to does the game warp into stealing, cloning, reanimating Prime time or not. Correct me if Im wrong on that. In that case I can see why people want Sol ring banned on that premise.
Painter's Servant interacts very poorly with a lot of cards in the format. If it was unbanned I think it will cause a lot of grief before finding the right groups to settle in to.
Now, everyone raise your hand if Stasis is one of the first cards you reach for when you build a blue deck, or if you regularly see games ruined by it. I'll wait.
I don’t like stax and the people I regularly play with dislike it even more. In fact, whenever I ask casuals what cards they hate the most in commander they almost always answer with stax cards. Stasis and similar cards are basically house ruled at the LGS, since no one will play with you if you run them.
It seems like this discussion is getting a bit toxic, so I'm keeping a low profile on it for now. I assume that's why we've not seen any further discussion from papa-funk. I feel for the RC, they must cop a lot of sh*t, and it sucks they cop it here too.
I think a lot of the complaints coming through at the moment are anecdotal, and it's got WAY off track into ad hominem territory, which serves no one in coming to a reasonable agreement.
A lot of what's being discussed here is really best discussed at a meta level. I can see how Stasis would be uncomfortable, but it's far from banworthy. If you don't like playing against a stasis deck, come to an agreement. Besides, picking this card specifically is a slippery slope. There are a LOT of close iterations of Stasis, so where do you draw the line?
Back to the matter at hand, I understand the argument for Sol Ring. I think if it didn't have the price tag to match, Mana Crypt would be more of a culprit, but such is life. Either way, to some degree there is a bit of a slippery slope here too. Do you ban all early turn fast mana? If so, how much of green do you want to see leave the format? Do you ban Dark Ritual? I just think there's far too much splitting of hairs and far too many variables needed in order to pick the criteria upon which we ban Sol Ring. Your opinion may vary, but if it does, say so civilly and with a rational argument to back it up.
Back to the matter at hand, I understand the argument for Sol Ring. I think if it didn't have the price tag to match, Mana Crypt would be more of a culprit, but such is life. Either way, to some degree there is a bit of a slippery slope here too. Do you ban all early turn fast mana? If so, how much of green do you want to see leave the format? Do you ban Dark Ritual? I just think there's far too much splitting of hairs and far too many variables needed in order to pick the criteria upon which we ban Sol Ring. Your opinion may vary, but if it does, say so civilly and with a rational argument to back it up.
If we fell down a slope and banned all artifacts that cost four or less mana, do you think people would be asking for all five mana artifacts to be banned? Of course not. The reason that people think fast mana is too strong is because the answers to them aren't strong enough. If someone played their Gilded Lotus and tapped it for mana, I could destroy it with Nature's Claim and still be up a mana on them. That doesn't happen with Sol Ring or Mana Crypt though, my opponent immediately gets more mana from the card than they put in. There is no slippery slope here. The overpowered cards are just being brought in line with the cards that answer them.
A lot of people have suggested the criteria to be tapping for more mana than it costs without causing some form of card disadvantage. It's not really perfect, but I think it gets the point across.
Back to the matter at hand, I understand the argument for Sol Ring. I think if it didn't have the price tag to match, Mana Crypt would be more of a culprit, but such is life. Either way, to some degree there is a bit of a slippery slope here too. Do you ban all early turn fast mana? If so, how much of green do you want to see leave the format? Do you ban Dark Ritual? I just think there's far too much splitting of hairs and far too many variables needed in order to pick the criteria upon which we ban Sol Ring. Your opinion may vary, but if it does, say so civilly and with a rational argument to back it up.
If we fell down a slope and banned all artifacts that cost four or less mana, do you think people would be asking for all five mana artifacts to be banned? Of course not. The reason that people think fast mana is too strong is because the answers to them aren't strong enough. If someone played their Gilded Lotus and tapped it for mana, I could destroy it with Nature's Claim and still be up a mana on them. That doesn't happen with Sol Ring or Mana Crypt though, my opponent immediately gets more mana from the card than they put in. There is no slippery slope here. The overpowered cards are just being brought in line with the cards that answer them.
A lot of people have suggested the criteria to be tapping for more mana than it costs without causing some form of card disadvantage. It's not really perfect, but I think it gets the point across.
That seems reasonable. Although it does include things like Lotus Petal and Lotus Bloom. Neither of which deserve a ban imo. One could argue that both Mana Crypt and Mana Vault do come with a built in down side, so that really just leaves us Sol Ring. Maybe Food Chain if you want to stretch to enchantments. I could see that being reasonable criteria.
Like I say, I don't play Sol Ring enough to clamor for it to stay or go. I just enjoy these debates as a decent thought exercise, both in terms of argumentation and the mechanics of the game I love. I can see how it would be strong. I think the argument you've put forward here is probably the strongest thus far, and I wouldn't be sad to see it go if it did. I wouldn't be crushed if it stayed either.
Back to the matter at hand, I understand the argument for Sol Ring. I think if it didn't have the price tag to match, Mana Crypt would be more of a culprit, but such is life. Either way, to some degree there is a bit of a slippery slope here too. Do you ban all early turn fast mana? If so, how much of green do you want to see leave the format? Do you ban Dark Ritual? I just think there's far too much splitting of hairs and far too many variables needed in order to pick the criteria upon which we ban Sol Ring. Your opinion may vary, but if it does, say so civilly and with a rational argument to back it up.
I think Sol Ring and Mana Crypt are pretty easily distinguishable. Fast Mana shouldn't be resilient, it should leave the door open for blowouts. Dark Ritual makes as much mana turn 1 as those two cards, but if the thing you cast from a ritual gets answered immediately, you're blown out. Mana dorks extend into board wipes. All the legal moxen open themselves up to getting 2-for-1'd in some sense, either losing the card you discarded or losing the criteria to turn them on. And anything too slow to play threats faster than the answers are available isn't really fast mana. Playing fast mana is generally a high risk/high reward prospect. Playing Sol Ring is a no risk/high reward prospect. Mana Crypt has some risk, but it and Sol Ring pretty uniquely say "we get down threats faster than you have answers and then you sort of need answers for both us and the threats."
Exploration, Burgeoning, and Manabond might count as fast and resilient, but you're sort of down the card to play them and require a land heavy draw to go crazy. I've never really seen Burgeoning or Manabond overperform, but I don't have extensive experience with or against them.
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Back to the matter at hand, I understand the argument for Sol Ring. I think if it didn't have the price tag to match, Mana Crypt would be more of a culprit, but such is life. Either way, to some degree there is a bit of a slippery slope here too. Do you ban all early turn fast mana? If so, how much of green do you want to see leave the format? Do you ban Dark Ritual? I just think there's far too much splitting of hairs and far too many variables needed in order to pick the criteria upon which we ban Sol Ring. Your opinion may vary, but if it does, say so civilly and with a rational argument to back it up.
If we fell down a slope and banned all artifacts that cost four or less mana, do you think people would be asking for all five mana artifacts to be banned? Of course not. The reason that people think fast mana is too strong is because the answers to them aren't strong enough. If someone played their Gilded Lotus and tapped it for mana, I could destroy it with Nature's Claim and still be up a mana on them. That doesn't happen with Sol Ring or Mana Crypt though, my opponent immediately gets more mana from the card than they put in. There is no slippery slope here. The overpowered cards are just being brought in line with the cards that answer them.
A lot of people have suggested the criteria to be tapping for more mana than it costs without causing some form of card disadvantage. It's not really perfect, but I think it gets the point across.
Counterpoint- Does Sol Ring really fall into “Must Answer” territory? My opinion, no, not at all. Sol Ring is only as good as the cards you cast with it. It certainly does not provide insurmountable advantage alone, it’s usually tied to the “Christmas-y” scenarios of Sol Ring, Rock, Bomb. I don’t have enough extremities to count on to tell you how many times I’ve been baited into keeping a Sol Ring hand, just to not benefit at all from it. Whether it’s from lack of colored mana to not enough card advantage, I’ve had plenty of instances where Sol Ring does nothing but add 2 with no other benefit. On the flip side, yes, I’ve had games where I was able to explode into 5-Mana turn 2. But guess what, I didn’t win all of those games, and when somebody else had similar starts, I didn’t lose them all, either. There’s also been games where it’s been answered, and that player still won, and others where they couldn’t recover and lost.
I get this feeling a lot of player who want Sol Ring banned don’t let their games play out long enough(this happens A TON online). Sol Ring alone doesn’t win the game. I mean, it boils down to luck. Should we also ban Gemstone Cavern because it provides similar advantage under specific circumstances? It’s also a permanent that’s much harder to interact with while on the battlefield, and there is nothing you can do as an opponent to stop the effect.
Back to the matter at hand, I understand the argument for Sol Ring. I think if it didn't have the price tag to match, Mana Crypt would be more of a culprit, but such is life. Either way, to some degree there is a bit of a slippery slope here too. Do you ban all early turn fast mana? If so, how much of green do you want to see leave the format? Do you ban Dark Ritual? I just think there's far too much splitting of hairs and far too many variables needed in order to pick the criteria upon which we ban Sol Ring. Your opinion may vary, but if it does, say so civilly and with a rational argument to back it up.
I think Sol Ring and Mana Crypt are pretty easily distinguishable. Fast Mana shouldn't be resilient, it should leave the door open for blowouts. Dark Ritual makes as much mana turn 1 as those two cards, but if the thing you cast from a ritual gets answered immediately, you're blown out. Mana dorks extend into board wipes. All the legal moxen open themselves up to getting 2-for-1'd in some sense, either losing the card you discarded or losing the criteria to turn them on. And anything too slow to play threats faster than the answers are available isn't really fast mana. Playing fast mana is generally a high risk/high reward prospect. Playing Sol Ring is a no risk/high reward prospect. Mana Crypt has some risk, but it and Sol Ring pretty uniquely say "we get down threats faster than you have answers and then you sort of need answers for both us and the threats."
Exploration, Burgeoning, and Manabond might count as fast and resilient, but you're sort of down the card to play them and require a land heavy draw to go crazy. I've never really seen Burgeoning or Manabond overperform, but I don't have extensive experience with or against them.
Don’t pretend like any of what you said doesn’t apply to Sol Ring, either. This is the “Moving the Goalposts” argument I made earlier. I mean, artifact boardwipes are not only more prevalent(in my meta), but also cheaper, and rarely ever dead draws. As far as 2-for-1’ing, I’d be willing to bet my entire collection that a player who has their Sol Ring blown up in the first turn or 2 is far worse off than any of the examples you listed. The logic is simple, you expect to untap with 3 mana on turn 2, and you’re likely to keep a higher curved hand expecting to reach that threshold quicker. You can’t have everything in your opening hand, I mean, if that’s the case then I can answer all of your threats. God, see how stupid this argument really is?
Since 2010 I have seen the card played once.... and that player played his own card incorrectly in such a way I should have won the game (he untapped and saced it rather than sacing after untap and then cast a Sun Titan when he had no mana to pay for it if he had played the card correctly).
Incompetent players doesn't make cards less broken or dangerous per se. I am not sure what you want to prove with this story. Your anecdote is hardly an evidence for any rational basis for a serious discussion.
He's saying that the only time he's seen Stasis played in the past 8 years, the player cheated (whether it was accidental or not is unclear) and won because of it. That's all.
But Limited Resources is banned despite the fact that the legal Stasis is thousands more oppressive and and upsetting.
Limited Resources runs afoul of the "Interacts Poorly With the Structure of Commander" criteria. Specifically, the fact that it's intended to be multiplayer FFA, and LR's static ability cares about the total number of lands in play.
For a contrived example, let's say we're at a 4-player table. Player 1 plays a land and passes. Player 2 plays a land and passes. Player 3 plays a Forest, Exploration, and a second land. Player 4 plays Plains, Limited Resources, Lotus Petal, Manabond, and then dumps 4 lands with Manabond's end step trigger, becoming hellbent.
Each player has had 1 turn, and there are now 9 lands in play. Player 1 plays a second land on turn 2, and now nobody can play any lands for as long as LR is in play. P1 and P3 each have 2 lands, P4 has 5 lands, and P2 has 1 land. Limited Resources didn't even destroy anyone's land in this scenario.
It is much more difficult for LR to produce a hilariously lopsided field in a 1v1 game, especially early. Stasis, in contrast, does the same thing no matter how many players there are.
Incompetent players doesn't make cards less broken or dangerous per se. I am not sure what you want to prove with this story. Your anecdote is hardly an evidence for any rational basis for a serious discussion.
You keep bringing up Stasis like it's some sort of bogeyman that is ruining games. Dude says he's seen it once in seven years. His single data point directly contradicts your single data point.
Where's the data? I hope you won't suggesting me to "check the internet threads", since this is as useful and meaningful as answering "search on google" for any kind of question and problem.
You can use Bing if you prefer that search engine.
Seriously, you're being obtuse at this point. I know you pay enough attention to the format to know that there are no traditional data collection means like tournament results and decklists, and that the RC has stated on numerous occasions that they "collect data" by talking with people every time they go to events, playing a bunch, and regularly visiting various forums (mainly here, the official forums, and Reddit, I believe). They are also all very closely aligned with Wizards, and guest on podcasts, as well as other things I'm sure I didn't mention. The worst of them is/was a L3 judge, so they are all quite adept at taking in lots of information and processing it logically and rationally. Quite simply put, when they act they have good cause.
Let's see. Do you have any data of Limited Resources warping the EDH games more than Stasis before it was banned? Are you so sure cards were banned simply because everybody were playing them? And where is all this data I wonder, once again?
No because we both know that specific type of data isn't something that can be conjured up. But one thing I am sure of is that I took the time to understand why cards get banned, and it's more than "everybody was playing them". Limited Resources interacts poorly of the format due to it being multiplayer (each player ends up with two or three lands if it's played evenly rather than 5), and it creates undesirable game states. The latter is more heavily weighted for why it was banned.
Counterpoint- Does Sol Ring really fall into “Must Answer” territory?
Yes. As someone else said, countering a T1 Sol Ring or destroying it immediately usually results in a tempo loss similar to Strip Mining an early land drop because it messes up the math involved with keeping a hand. It's usually the wrong answer to let a player keep Sol Ring when you can blow it up in the first couple of turns.
Yes. As someone else said, countering a T1 Sol Ring or destroying it immediately usually results in a tempo loss similar to Strip Mining an early land drop because it messes up the math involved with keeping a hand. It's usually the wrong answer to let a player keep Sol Ring when you can blow it up in the first couple of turns.
I disagree. What if a Sigent is dropped by that Sol Ring, you’d still hit the Ring? I wouldn’t. I’d take my chances on them not having additional colored sources.(Granted, this is Dependent on the decks color identity) Also, the table could/should realisticly be able to answer the follow up play. I think there are too many variables involved to safely assume that just because that player started with it makes it the first target for removal.
Not sure if I missed somebody else, but I’m the one who just said that in the same post you pulled that from. This circles back to my above point, there absolutely a downside to starting with a turn 1 Sol Ring. It may not be as drastic as some of the other examples, but I find myself more inclined to keep the ring and play the percentages on drawing additional support, rather than saying “Eh, this hand is too risky”. If I don’t draw support, which absolutely does happen BtW, then what is Sol Ring? I mean, if you miss a land drop after turn 1 or 2, you’ve effectively nullified the advantage of starting with Sol Ring. That’s my gripe.
Don’t pretend like any of what you said doesn’t apply to Sol Ring, either. This is the “Moving the Goalposts” argument I made earlier. I mean, artifact boardwipes are not only more prevalent(in my meta), but also cheaper, and rarely ever dead draws. As far as 2-for-1’ing, I’d be willing to bet my entire collection that a player who has their Sol Ring blown up in the first turn or 2 is far worse off than any of the examples you listed. The logic is simple, you expect to untap with 3 mana on turn 2, and you’re likely to keep a higher curved hand expecting to reach that threshold quicker. You can’t have everything in your opening hand, I mean, if that’s the case then I can answer all of your threats. God, see how stupid this argument really is?
a) Artifact boardwipes aren't cheaper than creature boardwipes, I'm not sure how they're more plentiful since there are only like 10 that aren't also creature wipes, and most of them would be frequent dead draws if you happen to also be playing artifacts.
b) The disadvantage of playing mana dorks to ramp into threats is that by the design of the game, threats typically involves having creatures. If I ramp elves into Rampaging Baloths, a board wipe sets me back my ramp and payoff. If I play Sol Ring into mana rock into Rampaging Baloths and you play Shatterstorm, I still have things you need to answer.
c) Your counterargument is basically "but if I destroy a Sol Ring and the player kept a really risky hand, it's bad for them too." That doesn't remotely acknowledge what I'm saying. If I keep 1 land, sol ring, and you swan song the sol ring, I agree I'm in a really bad position. If I were to keep swamp, dark ritual, necropotence, and you Swan song the necropotence, I'm in a strictly worse position because I'm still on 1 land and down an extra card. You can't compare cards by handicapping only 1 of them, that's like saying my minivan can go as fast as a ferrari because you slashed the ferrari's tires.
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Yes. As someone else said, countering a T1 Sol Ring or destroying it immediately usually results in a tempo loss similar to Strip Mining an early land drop because it messes up the math involved with keeping a hand. It's usually the wrong answer to let a player keep Sol Ring when you can blow it up in the first couple of turns.
I disagree. What if a Sigent is dropped by that Sol Ring, you’d still hit the Ring? I wouldn’t.
If you continue to add variables after the fact then it makes meaningful discussion more difficult. If someone goes Land > Sol Ring > Signet I'm going to Nature's Claim the Signet (although do I want them to untap with 4 lands or 3, assuming the land drop?)
I believe you have to admit that the sole and exclusive reason of why cards like Stasis don't get the banhammer is, because, apparently, not enough people are willing to ruin the game with it. But that doesn't mean that the card doesn't fit the criteria of "undesirable board states", everybody recognize that any use of this card goes pretty much against the spirit and social philosophy of this format.
And why casual use is superior and get the priority over the competitive use? Because, once again, this is a casual format, not a competitive one. That's why I don't think we should have the Prime Time and Primordial banned only to please the competitive crowd while doing a disservice on the casual one....and I am talking of real kitchen-table, casual players, the ones that IMHO are more in harmony with the spirits, philosophy and intents of this format, which knows how to make in practice the famous "social contract" and "gentlemen's agreement".
You've got it backwards. It's the casual players who can't help but abuse cards.
But you know what's the fact, that even if you leave only five lands to everybody, that's still lot of relevant mana, is not that players are unable to play spells anymore, like in the Stasis lock.
Read the card, bruh. 10 lands. Total. Among all players. You're not playing it as a board wipe, you're playing it to prevent people from playing lands.
Don’t pretend like any of what you said doesn’t apply to Sol Ring, either. This is the “Moving the Goalposts” argument I made earlier. I mean, artifact boardwipes are not only more prevalent(in my meta), but also cheaper, and rarely ever dead draws. As far as 2-for-1’ing, I’d be willing to bet my entire collection that a player who has their Sol Ring blown up in the first turn or 2 is far worse off than any of the examples you listed. The logic is simple, you expect to untap with 3 mana on turn 2, and you’re likely to keep a higher curved hand expecting to reach that threshold quicker. You can’t have everything in your opening hand, I mean, if that’s the case then I can answer all of your threats. God, see how stupid this argument really is?
a) Artifact boardwipes aren't cheaper than creature boardwipes, I'm not sure how they're more plentiful since there are only like 10 that aren't also creature wipes, and most of them would be frequent dead draws if you happen to also be playing artifacts.
We can go back and forth on this one all day. Maybe just agree to disagree. Strange, though, that you qualify your creature wipe argument by saying “be frequent dead draws if you are playing artifacts”, wouldn’t the same be true of creature wipes? Do I not play Armageddon because I have lands? See, silly.
b) The disadvantage of playing mana dorks to ramp into threats is that by the design of the game, threats typically involves having creatures. If I ramp elves into Rampaging Baloths, a board wipe sets me back my ramp and payoff. If I play Sol Ring into mana rock into Rampaging Baloths and you play Shatterstorm, I still have things you need to answer.
This is really silly now. And what if I take my dorks and ramp into anything but a creature? Then, you’d still have something to answer, right? As far as your example, well, I’d hate to be in that position. Considering Rampaging Baloths dies to a more common form of removal, right?
c) Your counterargument is basically "but if I destroy a Sol Ring and the player kept a really risky hand, it's bad for them too." That doesn't remotely acknowledge what I'm saying. If I keep 1 land, sol ring, and you swan song the sol ring, I agree I'm in a really bad position. If I were to keep swamp, dark ritual, necropotence, and you Swan song the necropotence, I'm in a strictly worse position because I'm still on 1 land and down an extra card. You can't compare cards by handicapping only 1 of them, that's like saying my minivan can go as fast as a ferrari because you slashed the ferrari's tires.
Except Rituals are short term, versus the long term nature of Sol Ring? So, you’d keep a hand with a higher curve because you could ritual into Necropotence? That’s my point with Sol Ring. This is honestly just mental gymnastics, and maybe I started it rolling that way, but I have zero interest in continuing a discussion like this. There reward isn’t worth the effort.
If you continue to add variables after the fact then it makes meaningful discussion more difficult. If someone goes Land > Sol Ring > Signet I'm going to Nature's Claim the Signet (although do I want them to untap with 4 lands or 3, assuming the land drop?)
Oh, like this current discussion as a whole?
Anyways, maybe “Must Answer” has a looser definition than I initially thought. For me, a card labeled as a must answer is something that either wins the game, or gives insurmountable advantage that leads to a win. Sol Ring does not accomplish this on its own.
So, in a vacuum, is Sol Ring a must answer card? No qualifiers like turn 1, has Signets in hand, etc. Just as the question is asked, is Sol Ring, under normal circumstances, without any other variables, a must answer card?
So, I will ask, it's a card complained by the players worth or not worth of banning? Because if "lot of people whine all the time" a ban criteria, then Sol Ring should be banned.
It's not. I don't know where you got the idea that it is.
It always bring huge controversy in threads and it's used and abused in every single EDH list that abuse of fast mana for degenerate unfun games. If the "Lof of people whine all the time" is is not a ban criteria, we should ignore as well in that case all the people complaining Prime Time and Primordial because those cards
It wasn't. Please actually read what I wrote.
You demanded data that a creature didn't rise up to replace Primeval Titan. I pointed out that if it were the case, we'd see a lot of complaining online consistently about a single creature, and we haven't. Apparently that equates to "cards are banned based on people complaining".
To be fair, if a lot of people start talking about a card, it gets on our radar. The internet is quite good at surfacing potential problems. That doesn't mean it gets banned, but it probably gets evaluated. Newsflash: we've talked about Sol Ring (and Serra Ascendant, for that matter) in the past.
I get this feeling a lot of player who want Sol Ring banned don’t let their games play out long enough.
This is actually a very relevant point, though perhaps not in the way you intended. The impact of an early Sol Ring is very different in games where you expect to go ~15 turns than it is in games you expect to go ~8 turns. We're mostly focused on the former.
Strange, though, that you qualify your creature wipe argument by saying “be frequent dead draws if you are playing artifacts”, wouldn’t the same be true of creature wipes? Do I not play Armageddon because I have lands? See, silly.
Neither strange nor silly, Wrath of God and Armageddon are often dead draws. You would not wrath when ahead on board, and you would Armageddon when behind. There are probably more situations than not for all of these effects that you'd rather not draw them.
This is really silly now. And what if I take my dorks and ramp into anything but a creature? Then, you’d still have something to answer, right? As far as your example, well, I’d hate to be in that position. Considering Rampaging Baloths dies to a more common form of removal, right?
It does, but you'd have to play that answer. Thus, requires 2 answers.
Except Rituals are short term, versus the long term nature of Sol Ring? So, you’d keep a hand with a higher curve because you could ritual into Necropotence? That’s my point with Sol Ring. This is honestly just mental gymnastics, and maybe I started it rolling that way, but I have zero interest in continuing a discussion like this. The reward isn’t worth the effort.
You would mulligan away turn 1 Necropotence?
At any rate, if mental gymnastics aren't your game, I can respect that. Personally, arguing endlessly is something I enjoy, and I can understand if you don't feel the same. But what I can't allow is for you to try and end on a parting shot. You can't tack "that's silly" to the end of any point you make and not keep getting responses, and you really can't leave an argument by implying "I would clearly win this, but it's not worth my time." That's not exactly a gracious exit.
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Just because PT and SP didnt ruin your meta, does not mean it didnt ruin boatloads of them.
You want 'hard data', but provide nothing past your own experience. Then expect your opinion to hold as much weight as someone from the RC.
There are tons of great archives about why stuff is banned, and counter points to all your points. Do some searching and reading.
There are examples in this forum of people "complaining" about every single card on the ban list. A vocal minority being vocal is not the quantitative evidence that you're treating it as.
I've never seen an Acquire grab a Sol Ring and (when legal) you almost never saw a Bribery grab anything other than a Primeval Titan or Sylvan Primordial. Those two cards were more centralizing and format warping than anything I have seen since and it is not close. This is apples/oranges. You had to build decks with these cards in mind whether you were playing them or planning on playing against them.
Were the same true for Sol Ring, we'd see a whole lot more Mental Missteps and 1 CMC artifact removal other than Nature's Claim.
You are now just complaining about cards you don't like. That Stasis doesn't conform to your pre-conceived notion of 'fun' doesn't make it ban-worthy.
Two things:
1. A card previously banned being unbanned now after years of discussion and examination is not evidence that all currently banned cards will be unbanned.
2. You complain about papafunk's stance on this, yet this paragraph is evidence that the RC listens and is open to re-evaluating cards.
I think there are good arguments to be made for and against Sol Ring being in the format, but far too much of thread is hyperbole and yelling at clouds.
Bribery/Acquire give the caster access to your entire library. They're going to go for the best card of the appropriate type as it exists on the battlefield, regardless of its mana cost, because Bribery and Acquire don't care about mana cost. Yes, Sol Ring is a great card, producing 2 mana for 1. But once they're on the battlefield, Gilded Lotus is a lot better. Someone searching your library with Acquire is unlikely to steal your Sol Ring when they could be stealing your Gilded Lotus.
Similarly, if my opponents have both Sol Ring and Gilded Lotus on the field, I'm not going to steal or copy the Sol Ring with Dack/Metamorph. I'm going to steal or copy the Gilded Lotus. Because when I get to ignore the mana cost, Gilded Lotus is better than Sol Ring in every way.
Sure, If I play Dack Fayden and the best artifact in play is Sol Ring, I'll take the Sol Ring. But by the time I play Dack Fayden, it's entirely possible that a better artifact permanent will be in play for me to target instead.
Bribery, on the other hand, frequently targeted green players on the assumption that Primetime was in their deck, and IME the only times Bribery didn't pull up a Primetime was when (a) it wasn't actually there (which usually meant it was in the green player's hand), (b) there was something even nastier to steal, like Ulamog, or (c) the Bribery player was attempting to find some specific effect, such as searching up Acidic Slime or Terastodon to get rid of something.
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Also I feel like the Prime time argument has always boiled down to does the game warp into stealing, cloning, reanimating Prime time or not. Correct me if Im wrong on that. In that case I can see why people want Sol ring banned on that premise.
Now, everyone raise your hand if Stasis is one of the first cards you reach for when you build a blue deck, or if you regularly see games ruined by it. I'll wait.
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Since 2010 I have seen the card played once.... and that player played his own card incorrectly in such a way I should have won the game (he untapped and saced it rather than sacing after untap and then cast a Sun Titan when he had no mana to pay for it if he had played the card correctly).
That one time was probably back 2011 - 2012ish.
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If you bothered to read any of my numerous posts and replies to you recently, or if you've seen my trend here and the official forums which we both have frequented for many years, you'll see that I approach the ban list with logic and data based on the available data, and using the publicly stated criteria and opinions of the RC. Unless of course we are talking about unbanning Library, in which case I'm stubbornly for it.
I noticed you didn't raise.your hand. Is this because you realize that it is useless to try and talking about how a card is bad for the format when it sees less than 1% of play?
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My most recent experience was actually a few months ago. It was a Teferi, Temporal Archmage deck. He was able to get it online pretty early. The table scooped, we shuffled up for another game, pounded his face hard and he dismantled the deck after he encountered 2 other groups with similar reactions. It just wasn’t fun for anybody, even the owner.
Those aren’t the type of people and scenarios to be basing arguments off of. Those people aren’t the ones the banlist cares about because of the social nature of the format. We control cards like that, there is no need for the banlist to do so.
As for how many times it’s popped up? 3-4 times in my entire EDH career. This also includes the thousands of MTGO games I’ve played where try-hards are able to shield themselves behind a computer screen.
Ugh.
Oh, so your opinions and experiences are the only ones that matter? Maybe change your attitude and you might get somewhere.
The card was originally banned for it's interactions with Grindstone and Iona, Shield of Emeria. These combos either mill a single player at a time or they lock your opponents out of casting spells.
The RC, most notably papafunk because he always chimes in on PS discussion, tend to say that Painter's Servant doesn't add much to the format when considering it for unbanning. I do agree with them in this regard, very few people are going to do anything clever with PS, like turning on Green Sun's Zenith to fetch a Shriekmaw. I imagine that when PS is unbanned, if you see a PS in play at all it's probably part of a combo.
However, there is also the view that keeping PS banned doesn't really stop anything. There are other combinations of cards that do exactly the same combos that PS enables. If a player wants to mill out one player at a time there is Rest in Peace and Helm of Obedience and if they want to lock their opponts out of spells they can play Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and Knowledge Pool/Possibility Storm or Solemnity and Decree of Silence
I believe Painter's Servant will eventually come off the banned list. I think the RC will just have to add one or two more cards because WotC prints something outrageous and they will want to keep the list short so PS will get unbanned to keep the banlist as short as possible. I think that is what happened with the Hulk unban.
As for grabbing Primeval Titan with Bribery, it always depended on the board state. If I wanted mana and had a counterspell to defend the chosen card, I would pick Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger over Primeval Titan. If I wanted to draw cards, I would pick Consecrated Sphinx or Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur. If I wanted to pressure lethal, I would pick Blightsteel Colossus. If I wanted to protect my board, I would pick Avacyn, Angel of Hope.
Painter's Servant interacts very poorly with a lot of cards in the format. If it was unbanned I think it will cause a lot of grief before finding the right groups to settle in to.
I don’t like stax and the people I regularly play with dislike it even more. In fact, whenever I ask casuals what cards they hate the most in commander they almost always answer with stax cards. Stasis and similar cards are basically house ruled at the LGS, since no one will play with you if you run them.
I wanted so badly to throw the “We’re playing a different game than you are” quip your way, and I should have, because it’s true.
I think a lot of the complaints coming through at the moment are anecdotal, and it's got WAY off track into ad hominem territory, which serves no one in coming to a reasonable agreement.
A lot of what's being discussed here is really best discussed at a meta level. I can see how Stasis would be uncomfortable, but it's far from banworthy. If you don't like playing against a stasis deck, come to an agreement. Besides, picking this card specifically is a slippery slope. There are a LOT of close iterations of Stasis, so where do you draw the line?
Back to the matter at hand, I understand the argument for Sol Ring. I think if it didn't have the price tag to match, Mana Crypt would be more of a culprit, but such is life. Either way, to some degree there is a bit of a slippery slope here too. Do you ban all early turn fast mana? If so, how much of green do you want to see leave the format? Do you ban Dark Ritual? I just think there's far too much splitting of hairs and far too many variables needed in order to pick the criteria upon which we ban Sol Ring. Your opinion may vary, but if it does, say so civilly and with a rational argument to back it up.
If we fell down a slope and banned all artifacts that cost four or less mana, do you think people would be asking for all five mana artifacts to be banned? Of course not. The reason that people think fast mana is too strong is because the answers to them aren't strong enough. If someone played their Gilded Lotus and tapped it for mana, I could destroy it with Nature's Claim and still be up a mana on them. That doesn't happen with Sol Ring or Mana Crypt though, my opponent immediately gets more mana from the card than they put in. There is no slippery slope here. The overpowered cards are just being brought in line with the cards that answer them.
A lot of people have suggested the criteria to be tapping for more mana than it costs without causing some form of card disadvantage. It's not really perfect, but I think it gets the point across.
That seems reasonable. Although it does include things like Lotus Petal and Lotus Bloom. Neither of which deserve a ban imo. One could argue that both Mana Crypt and Mana Vault do come with a built in down side, so that really just leaves us Sol Ring. Maybe Food Chain if you want to stretch to enchantments. I could see that being reasonable criteria.
Like I say, I don't play Sol Ring enough to clamor for it to stay or go. I just enjoy these debates as a decent thought exercise, both in terms of argumentation and the mechanics of the game I love. I can see how it would be strong. I think the argument you've put forward here is probably the strongest thus far, and I wouldn't be sad to see it go if it did. I wouldn't be crushed if it stayed either.
I think Sol Ring and Mana Crypt are pretty easily distinguishable. Fast Mana shouldn't be resilient, it should leave the door open for blowouts. Dark Ritual makes as much mana turn 1 as those two cards, but if the thing you cast from a ritual gets answered immediately, you're blown out. Mana dorks extend into board wipes. All the legal moxen open themselves up to getting 2-for-1'd in some sense, either losing the card you discarded or losing the criteria to turn them on. And anything too slow to play threats faster than the answers are available isn't really fast mana. Playing fast mana is generally a high risk/high reward prospect. Playing Sol Ring is a no risk/high reward prospect. Mana Crypt has some risk, but it and Sol Ring pretty uniquely say "we get down threats faster than you have answers and then you sort of need answers for both us and the threats."
Exploration, Burgeoning, and Manabond might count as fast and resilient, but you're sort of down the card to play them and require a land heavy draw to go crazy. I've never really seen Burgeoning or Manabond overperform, but I don't have extensive experience with or against them.
Counterpoint- Does Sol Ring really fall into “Must Answer” territory? My opinion, no, not at all. Sol Ring is only as good as the cards you cast with it. It certainly does not provide insurmountable advantage alone, it’s usually tied to the “Christmas-y” scenarios of Sol Ring, Rock, Bomb. I don’t have enough extremities to count on to tell you how many times I’ve been baited into keeping a Sol Ring hand, just to not benefit at all from it. Whether it’s from lack of colored mana to not enough card advantage, I’ve had plenty of instances where Sol Ring does nothing but add 2 with no other benefit. On the flip side, yes, I’ve had games where I was able to explode into 5-Mana turn 2. But guess what, I didn’t win all of those games, and when somebody else had similar starts, I didn’t lose them all, either. There’s also been games where it’s been answered, and that player still won, and others where they couldn’t recover and lost.
I get this feeling a lot of player who want Sol Ring banned don’t let their games play out long enough(this happens A TON online). Sol Ring alone doesn’t win the game. I mean, it boils down to luck. Should we also ban Gemstone Cavern because it provides similar advantage under specific circumstances? It’s also a permanent that’s much harder to interact with while on the battlefield, and there is nothing you can do as an opponent to stop the effect.
Don’t pretend like any of what you said doesn’t apply to Sol Ring, either. This is the “Moving the Goalposts” argument I made earlier. I mean, artifact boardwipes are not only more prevalent(in my meta), but also cheaper, and rarely ever dead draws. As far as 2-for-1’ing, I’d be willing to bet my entire collection that a player who has their Sol Ring blown up in the first turn or 2 is far worse off than any of the examples you listed. The logic is simple, you expect to untap with 3 mana on turn 2, and you’re likely to keep a higher curved hand expecting to reach that threshold quicker. You can’t have everything in your opening hand, I mean, if that’s the case then I can answer all of your threats. God, see how stupid this argument really is?
Limited Resources runs afoul of the "Interacts Poorly With the Structure of Commander" criteria. Specifically, the fact that it's intended to be multiplayer FFA, and LR's static ability cares about the total number of lands in play.
For a contrived example, let's say we're at a 4-player table. Player 1 plays a land and passes. Player 2 plays a land and passes. Player 3 plays a Forest, Exploration, and a second land. Player 4 plays Plains, Limited Resources, Lotus Petal, Manabond, and then dumps 4 lands with Manabond's end step trigger, becoming hellbent.
Each player has had 1 turn, and there are now 9 lands in play. Player 1 plays a second land on turn 2, and now nobody can play any lands for as long as LR is in play. P1 and P3 each have 2 lands, P4 has 5 lands, and P2 has 1 land. Limited Resources didn't even destroy anyone's land in this scenario.
It is much more difficult for LR to produce a hilariously lopsided field in a 1v1 game, especially early. Stasis, in contrast, does the same thing no matter how many players there are.
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You keep bringing up Stasis like it's some sort of bogeyman that is ruining games. Dude says he's seen it once in seven years. His single data point directly contradicts your single data point.
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Seriously, you're being obtuse at this point. I know you pay enough attention to the format to know that there are no traditional data collection means like tournament results and decklists, and that the RC has stated on numerous occasions that they "collect data" by talking with people every time they go to events, playing a bunch, and regularly visiting various forums (mainly here, the official forums, and Reddit, I believe). They are also all very closely aligned with Wizards, and guest on podcasts, as well as other things I'm sure I didn't mention. The worst of them is/was a L3 judge, so they are all quite adept at taking in lots of information and processing it logically and rationally. Quite simply put, when they act they have good cause.
No because we both know that specific type of data isn't something that can be conjured up. But one thing I am sure of is that I took the time to understand why cards get banned, and it's more than "everybody was playing them". Limited Resources interacts poorly of the format due to it being multiplayer (each player ends up with two or three lands if it's played evenly rather than 5), and it creates undesirable game states. The latter is more heavily weighted for why it was banned.
Yes. As someone else said, countering a T1 Sol Ring or destroying it immediately usually results in a tempo loss similar to Strip Mining an early land drop because it messes up the math involved with keeping a hand. It's usually the wrong answer to let a player keep Sol Ring when you can blow it up in the first couple of turns.
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I disagree. What if a Sigent is dropped by that Sol Ring, you’d still hit the Ring? I wouldn’t. I’d take my chances on them not having additional colored sources.(Granted, this is Dependent on the decks color identity) Also, the table could/should realisticly be able to answer the follow up play. I think there are too many variables involved to safely assume that just because that player started with it makes it the first target for removal.
Not sure if I missed somebody else, but I’m the one who just said that in the same post you pulled that from. This circles back to my above point, there absolutely a downside to starting with a turn 1 Sol Ring. It may not be as drastic as some of the other examples, but I find myself more inclined to keep the ring and play the percentages on drawing additional support, rather than saying “Eh, this hand is too risky”. If I don’t draw support, which absolutely does happen BtW, then what is Sol Ring? I mean, if you miss a land drop after turn 1 or 2, you’ve effectively nullified the advantage of starting with Sol Ring. That’s my gripe.
a) Artifact boardwipes aren't cheaper than creature boardwipes, I'm not sure how they're more plentiful since there are only like 10 that aren't also creature wipes, and most of them would be frequent dead draws if you happen to also be playing artifacts.
b) The disadvantage of playing mana dorks to ramp into threats is that by the design of the game, threats typically involves having creatures. If I ramp elves into Rampaging Baloths, a board wipe sets me back my ramp and payoff. If I play Sol Ring into mana rock into Rampaging Baloths and you play Shatterstorm, I still have things you need to answer.
c) Your counterargument is basically "but if I destroy a Sol Ring and the player kept a really risky hand, it's bad for them too." That doesn't remotely acknowledge what I'm saying. If I keep 1 land, sol ring, and you swan song the sol ring, I agree I'm in a really bad position. If I were to keep swamp, dark ritual, necropotence, and you Swan song the necropotence, I'm in a strictly worse position because I'm still on 1 land and down an extra card. You can't compare cards by handicapping only 1 of them, that's like saying my minivan can go as fast as a ferrari because you slashed the ferrari's tires.
If you continue to add variables after the fact then it makes meaningful discussion more difficult. If someone goes Land > Sol Ring > Signet I'm going to Nature's Claim the Signet (although do I want them to untap with 4 lands or 3, assuming the land drop?)
Someone already did the legwork of making a ban list that hits at least one ban criteria or players find unfun.
You've got it backwards. It's the casual players who can't help but abuse cards.
Read the card, bruh. 10 lands. Total. Among all players. You're not playing it as a board wipe, you're playing it to prevent people from playing lands.
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We can go back and forth on this one all day. Maybe just agree to disagree. Strange, though, that you qualify your creature wipe argument by saying “be frequent dead draws if you are playing artifacts”, wouldn’t the same be true of creature wipes? Do I not play Armageddon because I have lands? See, silly.
This is really silly now. And what if I take my dorks and ramp into anything but a creature? Then, you’d still have something to answer, right? As far as your example, well, I’d hate to be in that position. Considering Rampaging Baloths dies to a more common form of removal, right?
Except Rituals are short term, versus the long term nature of Sol Ring? So, you’d keep a hand with a higher curve because you could ritual into Necropotence? That’s my point with Sol Ring. This is honestly just mental gymnastics, and maybe I started it rolling that way, but I have zero interest in continuing a discussion like this. There reward isn’t worth the effort.
Oh, like this current discussion as a whole?
Anyways, maybe “Must Answer” has a looser definition than I initially thought. For me, a card labeled as a must answer is something that either wins the game, or gives insurmountable advantage that leads to a win. Sol Ring does not accomplish this on its own.
So, in a vacuum, is Sol Ring a must answer card? No qualifiers like turn 1, has Signets in hand, etc. Just as the question is asked, is Sol Ring, under normal circumstances, without any other variables, a must answer card?
It's not. I don't know where you got the idea that it is.
It wasn't. Please actually read what I wrote.
You demanded data that a creature didn't rise up to replace Primeval Titan. I pointed out that if it were the case, we'd see a lot of complaining online consistently about a single creature, and we haven't. Apparently that equates to "cards are banned based on people complaining".
To be fair, if a lot of people start talking about a card, it gets on our radar. The internet is quite good at surfacing potential problems. That doesn't mean it gets banned, but it probably gets evaluated. Newsflash: we've talked about Sol Ring (and Serra Ascendant, for that matter) in the past.
This is actually a very relevant point, though perhaps not in the way you intended. The impact of an early Sol Ring is very different in games where you expect to go ~15 turns than it is in games you expect to go ~8 turns. We're mostly focused on the former.
Neither strange nor silly, Wrath of God and Armageddon are often dead draws. You would not wrath when ahead on board, and you would Armageddon when behind. There are probably more situations than not for all of these effects that you'd rather not draw them.
It does, but you'd have to play that answer. Thus, requires 2 answers.
You would mulligan away turn 1 Necropotence?
At any rate, if mental gymnastics aren't your game, I can respect that. Personally, arguing endlessly is something I enjoy, and I can understand if you don't feel the same. But what I can't allow is for you to try and end on a parting shot. You can't tack "that's silly" to the end of any point you make and not keep getting responses, and you really can't leave an argument by implying "I would clearly win this, but it's not worth my time." That's not exactly a gracious exit.