Even thought I think PE is a horrible card, in its defense it isn't centralizing like Prophet was. I've yet to hear about players running Bribery, Copy Artifact, or other ways to use someone else's PE.
That might be harder to judge because Copy Artifact is typically a really good card to be running in most Commander games but who can say what for when the game begins.
Copy effects in general are just high value, since they have a specific cost but can copy things much more expensive. Copy Artifact and Copy Enchantment seem criminally underplayed around here.
Copy effects in general are just high value, since they have a specific cost but can copy things much more expensive. Copy Artifact and Copy Enchantment seem criminally underplayed around here.
Copy effects also run on the premise that you and other players are playing high valued cards that have sort of broadly useful effects. Generally speaking better decks do run more mana stones which does make copy artifact better but I definitely noticed the difference in how many clones I saw in the meta back when the legend rule would kill commanders not to mention back when primeval titan was a thing.
The more genericly powerful cards you play and see in your meta the better clones are. The more specialized (like tribal, spellslinger, or other niche things) the worse they tend to get.
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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.
I have used copy effects (Phyrexian Metamorph, Clever Impersonator) on others' Paradox Engines, and I have seen others do so at well. It is rare that I run blue and don't include a couple of broadly-useful copy/clone effects. I don't run those cards just for Paradox Engine, and I don't think very many others do either - as Sheldon notes, they tend to just be good value cards in most EDH games, though as ISB notes, that also depends on what people are playing - but depending on one's deck and current boardstate, PE can often be a tempting target.
I honestly don't know why Clever Impersonator isn't among the most-played blue staples. I don't think I've every played in a game in which I had that card in hand and didn't have several tempting options to choose from. Gods, planeswalkers, strong artifacts, off-color, powerful enchantment effects... that card can do so much.
Copy Artifact is pretty pointless to think about re: PE, because by the time they have resolved PE and started doing stuff and it's come around to you to do something sorcery speed it's way too late, if it even gets around to you
POK was a bit more copied because it required moving to the opponents' turns to do anything.
But I have seen PE last a few turn cycles before but can't recall it being cloned in a game I was in, and I think that's mostly a timing thing. I was watching a game once where someone metamorph'ed someone's PE and then combo'd off, that was pretty hilarious, but never had it happen to me
I imagine it happens more in more casual metas with Metamorph and Impersonator. The narrower copies started seeing less play after Impersonator in my exp.
I've never cloned a Paradox Engine, or seen one be cloned because it needs more setup to be a useful card than PoK's "I play lands and creatures".
I play a lot on MTGO where Copy Artifact is around the $1 mark and rather common too. PE is also not that commonly played outide of decks that combo with it Online.
Next time you think a card is played "everywhere", consider wether you play with more than 10 different people a month. EDHREC search sees it in 12.K decklists, mostly Breya, Azami, Ydris, Sisay. Cyclonic Rift is in 74K and Lightning Greaves 91K, those are actual "everywhere" numbers.
PE differs significantly from Prophet. First and foremost, Prophet doesn't need to be built around to take over games, while PE does. PE is better at creating combo wins than Prophet, but without aiming for that it isn't capable of generating as much value as Prophet in a generic deck. This precludes it from being an auto include, as decks not built to maximize it don't really want it, while Prophet was good almost everywhere. It also makes if far less centralizing: since Prophet was good in every deck, every deck that could had a reason to run it, and every deck had an incentive to include cards to steal it, reanimate it, etc, with the knowledge that it would be good to have on their side of the field and likely to show up in a game (while PE may often just sit there doing nothing when you bribery for it, and its not all that likely that someone has it in their deck).
So its two uses end up being in decks built to use it to generate value, and decks built to use it for combo wins. The former can be annoying, and the latter differs little from combo wins generally, except that it is weaker as it is less assured of going off. I think that's why it isn't ran as much, as if your goal is to combo out then there are more reliable options that require fewer dedicated deck slots that PE and are much easier to execute.
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Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
I've never cloned a Paradox Engine, or seen one be cloned because it needs more setup to be a useful card than PoK's "I play lands and creatures".
I play a lot on MTGO where Copy Artifact is around the $1 mark and rather common too. PE is also not that commonly played outide of decks that combo with it Online.
Next time you think a card is played "everywhere", consider wether you play with more than 10 different people a month. EDHREC search sees it in 12.K decklists, mostly Breya, Azami, Ydris, Sisay. Cyclonic Rift is in 74K and Lightning Greaves 91K, those are actual "everywhere" numbers.
That's a really good point. Sometimes a card being problematic in a small group can skew your mindset. Also, thanks for mentioning the EDHREC data.
The buildaround criteria for paradox engine involves 1) tapping commanders or tutor commanders, 2) artifacts and 3)mana dorks.
Aka two of the most powerful ramp strategies and a very powerful commander type (arcum, sissy, momir, etc.)
Prophet primarily rewarded etb strategies which overlap with paradox engine some and (trying to write a forum post with a 3 year old yelling in your ear is hard, i forgot what I was even getting at here)
Re: prevalence
Prevalence argument is fairly weak imho. The cards compared are staple cards. Compare to engine cards and you can see a more accurate reflection of frequency.
Cyclonic rift is the best sweeper in the format, many more deck types want this card category.
Consider instead engine cards:
Paradox engine sees nearly as much as necropotence (15k) and doubling season (15k) and more than twice as much as staff of domination (5k) and rings of brighthearth (10k).
It sees nearly as much play as such pillars of the format as deadeye and consecrated sphinx.
That is a truly absurd volume of play for a 2 year old card that has "niche" functionality.
It sees more play than serum visions and fyndhorn elves.
Re: playgroups -- I recently moved across the country to a very different demographic. I saw the same rough frequency of PE decks in Phoenix as in Erie.
Serum Visions is a bad card and Fyndhorn Elves is redundant card that hasn't been meaningfully reprinted in decades(Llanowar Elves and Elvish Mystic are both at 23K), Staff has also been pretty much replaced by easier combos these past 4 or so years.
The thing that both those cards need more than anything is a steady stream of things to cast.
(Which is generally why I don't think either deserve a ban, Prophet being easier to copy kinda pushes that over the edge but still never had a problem with it)
Prophet also changes when you play your deck, Engine only really allows you to play as much as possible in a go.
Obviously people build the decks with it with that in mind but those things still feel very easy to disrupt and always have.
Paradox Engine is far closer to Doubling Season in price than it is to any of those cards except Top, so using the price metric is kind of iffy in my opinion. We're talking 3 and 4 dollar cards mostly.
Sidisi I don't think is really comparable; remember she's a CEDH general, so numbers are never gonna add up.
Of your list I think the most comparable cards are probably:
1) Top
2) Panharmonicon
3) Ashnod's Altar
Top - Of those, I think Top can fairly be rejected. Top was played far more than prophet of kruphix and is a universal source of filtering that technically speaking should be in nearly 100% of EDH decks
Panharmonicon - I'll buy this, Panharmonicon is probably something I see about as much as PE. But PE is a significantly stronger card and I see them both a lot. Not sure what to make of this, except that these are two popular engine cards.
Ashnod's Altar - probably the most common combo card in EDH, very strong even for relatively fair purposes such as Aristocrats decks, combos with nearly everything and has been around since the dawn of time. The fact that PE is played 1/3rd as much as Ashnod's Altar is something I think should be alarming if true (though obviously EDHREC has some issues).
Bottom line I think you had a good idea to bring in Edhrec data, it's certainly instructive, but I don't think it proves what you think it does. Being in 12000+ decks on Edhrec puts you in some pretty august company - that's a similar prevalence to many very powerful cards that have been discussed for banning.
We're talking this card that's been out for ~2 years and that admittedly has some deckbuilding constraints and is played nearly as much as cards like Basalt Monolith.
I think Phyexian Altar would be played a lot more if there were more copies of it around. It having gotten pricey and not received a reprint until very recently probably keeps more people from playing it.
That said, I still think it would be better for the format to ban Paradox Engine.
That sounds like a "cult of the new" fallacy. New media is commonly more popular because populations keep growing not necessarily because of qualitative aspects of the new media. Atraxa is the most popular Commander with more decks than the 5th and 6th places combined, that doesn't necessarily mean it's categorically better or that everyone plays her. It just means it's a bright new toy and interesting enough to remain entertaining for more people unlike the C17 and C18 commanders. Something new and good being popular is not strange, it's expected.
Engine is the brand new toy for combo players. I bet if Thousand-Year Storm was a 5cmc artifact it'd be creeping on it's turf. It's not among the 100 most played cards and I doubt it'll get there unless we get a lot more mana rocks that tap for 2+ AND more cards like Endless Atlas. So I'm gonna reiterate, the problem with PE isn't the card itself or people playing the card as a combo/value engine. The problem is people shoving it where it doesn't belong and floundering the game for everyone esle, maliciously or through incompetence.
I don't think prevalence has much to do with power level at all; it's a delicate balance of being a popular effect at the right price point with the right level of spikishness, and way more than that of course.
But I think the fact that it--
* Has a high prevalence (comparable to many very popular commonly seen cards, across many card types)
* Has a very high power level (infinite combos with many powerful strategies that are popular, e.g. mana dorks and etb critters, mana rocks and tap effects, etc.)
* messes with the action economy by allowing one player to take a large share of actions (this is one of the big problems POK had)
* creates long many onerous non-deterministic wins that waste time
Means it should be banned. I feel confident in saying it's likely PE has seen more play than PoK did, even with some correction for color combo.
It's a combination of factors, not just one thing of course. Nobody really argues cards should be banned in EDH on power level.
-------------------------
So I'm gonna reiterate, the problem with PE isn't the card itself or people playing the card as a combo/value engine. The problem is people shoving it where it doesn't belong and floundering the game for everyone esle, maliciously or through incompetence.
Eh. People did the same thing with PoK and that is a problem. but more the problem is that the card encourages that kind of play because it's correct to do so. A lot of times it's right to just take your shot and try to get there.
I don't blame people, I blame very bad card design honestly. Wizards designs these cards that break the action economy that are fine in normal matches (for a variety of reasons) but really awful experiences in multiplayer.
I don't blame people, I blame very bad card design honestly. Wizards designs these cards that break the action economy that are fine in normal matches (for a variety of reasons) but really awful experiences in multiplayer.
I've seen Seedborn Muse also break the action economy rather badly, but honestly I don't think that's the actual reason PE would be banned for if it does get the hammer, the same way PoK wasn't actually banned for it either. PoK was so powerful it enabled action economy breaking single-handily, whereas PE and Seedborn require either an instant-speed enabler and/or plenty of instant-based plays to get breaking.
What the RC needs is evidence that Engine is getting the majority of the format tuning their decks to take said advantage (by more instants and/or instant enablers), hence making PE fall into the category of "centralizing". Primeval Titan had an easy time being centralizing because almost everyone runs lands regardless and Prophet took longer because despite how annoying it was, creatures are statically still less played than lands and the data needed time to collate. PE and Seedborn alone rely pretty much on instants and/or instant enablers, which is another tier below (or several, actually).
Like many other powerful enablers, PE will be a card I won't really miss if it's gone, but based on past instances, I don't think the RC has quite the sufficient amount of data to work on as of yet, especially since removing recency bias tend to spike in difficulty the less colors a card has. I don't feel the spike generally in decks that rely on instant-speed action disruption based on around snatching an Engine the same way Titan disrupted the land balance and PoK and creature balance in decks. Perhaps some metas did, but the RC has to collect data on a much larger scale before making a decision.
Again, the action economy is just one of the issues. It's very rare that a single issue is enough to cause something to be banned. Typically when you go through the banning criteria for a card it's going to fall in multiple categories.
With PoK it was never anywhere near as centralizing within the meta as Primeval Titan - but it was just as centralizing within a game - in that every game became about PoK once it hit the table.
PE is different than Seedborn from an action economy standpoint in that PE does not require instants or activated abilities to be good and create action economy issues - it does it within your turn as well as other players' turns. Play a bunch of mana rocks/dorks and then cast all your cards; have enough draw/recursion abilities and you can take a large number of virtual turns.
The Flash Creatures was what wound up making PoK too strong; In my opinion, working during your turn is what makes PE too strong, because it functionally bypasses the requirement of having a flash enabler (e.g. Seedborn Muse really needs an Orrery to be obnoxious most of the time--or a very narrowly tuned deck with a high instant or activated ability volume).
The prevelance argument is pretty necessary because there are well defined ban criteria that must be met to be considered for banning. One is problematic casual omnipresence. Merely being played a lot is not omnipresence. The numbers show that it has not reached that level, and that is backed up by many peoples experiences (quantitative and qualitative data). I'd argue that it doesn't fit the problematic criteria either, as it demonstrably does not have a centralizing impact on the format nor is it something people feel like they need to include to compete. Artifact hate is common enough that you usually won't even have to adjust your deck if it shows up in your meta. It's not even centralizing in games. Either it shows up and it's owner wins, in which case it acts as a combo piece, or they don't win, either because it gets removed or they misplayed it (or are using it for general value). If they don't immediately win or it doesn't immediately get removed, you don't see a scramble to steal it, and you don't see a scramble to Rez it when it dies.
The only point I see it hit is creating problematic game states, in this case people fumbling with it and dominating play time without bringing it to a swift conclusion. This is hard to accidentally stumble into (if your deck isn't built for it, you'll run out of things to cast), and can be remedied with good play (knowing what you are doing lessens the chance you find yourself desperately durdling).
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The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
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Copy effects also run on the premise that you and other players are playing high valued cards that have sort of broadly useful effects. Generally speaking better decks do run more mana stones which does make copy artifact better but I definitely noticed the difference in how many clones I saw in the meta back when the legend rule would kill commanders not to mention back when primeval titan was a thing.
The more genericly powerful cards you play and see in your meta the better clones are. The more specialized (like tribal, spellslinger, or other niche things) the worse they tend to get.
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I honestly don't know why Clever Impersonator isn't among the most-played blue staples. I don't think I've every played in a game in which I had that card in hand and didn't have several tempting options to choose from. Gods, planeswalkers, strong artifacts, off-color, powerful enchantment effects... that card can do so much.
POK was a bit more copied because it required moving to the opponents' turns to do anything.
But I have seen PE last a few turn cycles before but can't recall it being cloned in a game I was in, and I think that's mostly a timing thing. I was watching a game once where someone metamorph'ed someone's PE and then combo'd off, that was pretty hilarious, but never had it happen to me
I imagine it happens more in more casual metas with Metamorph and Impersonator. The narrower copies started seeing less play after Impersonator in my exp.
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Well one is on the Reserve List. So there's that.
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I think that is what Taleran meant by "one is not going to and keeps slowly climbing in price."
Dumb card to be on the reserve list, but I hate the whole concept of the reserve list with a passion anyhow.
Oh whoops I missed that part. Carry on, nothing to see here.
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I'll run generic stuff like Phyrexian Metamorph of Clever Impersonator more liberally, but regular Clone variants I agree with you on that.
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I play a lot on MTGO where Copy Artifact is around the $1 mark and rather common too. PE is also not that commonly played outide of decks that combo with it Online.
Next time you think a card is played "everywhere", consider wether you play with more than 10 different people a month. EDHREC search sees it in 12.K decklists, mostly Breya, Azami, Ydris, Sisay. Cyclonic Rift is in 74K and Lightning Greaves 91K, those are actual "everywhere" numbers.
So its two uses end up being in decks built to use it to generate value, and decks built to use it for combo wins. The former can be annoying, and the latter differs little from combo wins generally, except that it is weaker as it is less assured of going off. I think that's why it isn't ran as much, as if your goal is to combo out then there are more reliable options that require fewer dedicated deck slots that PE and are much easier to execute.
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That's a really good point. Sometimes a card being problematic in a small group can skew your mindset. Also, thanks for mentioning the EDHREC data.
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Aka two of the most powerful ramp strategies and a very powerful commander type (arcum, sissy, momir, etc.)
Prophet primarily rewarded etb strategies which overlap with paradox engine some and (trying to write a forum post with a 3 year old yelling in your ear is hard, i forgot what I was even getting at here)
Re: prevalence
Prevalence argument is fairly weak imho. The cards compared are staple cards. Compare to engine cards and you can see a more accurate reflection of frequency.
Cyclonic rift is the best sweeper in the format, many more deck types want this card category.
Consider instead engine cards:
Paradox engine sees nearly as much as necropotence (15k) and doubling season (15k) and more than twice as much as staff of domination (5k) and rings of brighthearth (10k).
It sees nearly as much play as such pillars of the format as deadeye and consecrated sphinx.
That is a truly absurd volume of play for a 2 year old card that has "niche" functionality.
It sees more play than serum visions and fyndhorn elves.
Re: playgroups -- I recently moved across the country to a very different demographic. I saw the same rough frequency of PE decks in Phoenix as in Erie.
The card is played a lot.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Let's compare to other easily splashable engines that aren't $40 like DS. Blood Artist 19K. Panharmonicon 15K. Ashnod's Altar 31K. Eternal Witness 55K. Skullclamp 56K. Sidisi, Undead Vizier 20K. Sensei's Divining Top 39K.
(Which is generally why I don't think either deserve a ban, Prophet being easier to copy kinda pushes that over the edge but still never had a problem with it)
Prophet also changes when you play your deck, Engine only really allows you to play as much as possible in a go.
Obviously people build the decks with it with that in mind but those things still feel very easy to disrupt and always have.
Sidisi I don't think is really comparable; remember she's a CEDH general, so numbers are never gonna add up.
Of your list I think the most comparable cards are probably:
1) Top
2) Panharmonicon
3) Ashnod's Altar
Top - Of those, I think Top can fairly be rejected. Top was played far more than prophet of kruphix and is a universal source of filtering that technically speaking should be in nearly 100% of EDH decks
Panharmonicon - I'll buy this, Panharmonicon is probably something I see about as much as PE. But PE is a significantly stronger card and I see them both a lot. Not sure what to make of this, except that these are two popular engine cards.
Ashnod's Altar - probably the most common combo card in EDH, very strong even for relatively fair purposes such as Aristocrats decks, combos with nearly everything and has been around since the dawn of time. The fact that PE is played 1/3rd as much as Ashnod's Altar is something I think should be alarming if true (though obviously EDHREC has some issues).
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Bottom line I think you had a good idea to bring in Edhrec data, it's certainly instructive, but I don't think it proves what you think it does. Being in 12000+ decks on Edhrec puts you in some pretty august company - that's a similar prevalence to many very powerful cards that have been discussed for banning.
We're talking this card that's been out for ~2 years and that admittedly has some deckbuilding constraints and is played nearly as much as cards like Basalt Monolith.
Almost twice as much as Phyrexian Altar.
Nearly as much as Craterhoof Behemoth.
Exactly the same as Tooth and Nail.
And of all these cards, only Panharmonicon has been around a similar time, an obviously important dimension when considering prevalence.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
That said, I still think it would be better for the format to ban Paradox Engine.
Engine is the brand new toy for combo players. I bet if Thousand-Year Storm was a 5cmc artifact it'd be creeping on it's turf. It's not among the 100 most played cards and I doubt it'll get there unless we get a lot more mana rocks that tap for 2+ AND more cards like Endless Atlas. So I'm gonna reiterate, the problem with PE isn't the card itself or people playing the card as a combo/value engine. The problem is people shoving it where it doesn't belong and floundering the game for everyone esle, maliciously or through incompetence.
But I think the fact that it--
* Has a high prevalence (comparable to many very popular commonly seen cards, across many card types)
* Has a very high power level (infinite combos with many powerful strategies that are popular, e.g. mana dorks and etb critters, mana rocks and tap effects, etc.)
* messes with the action economy by allowing one player to take a large share of actions (this is one of the big problems POK had)
* creates long many onerous non-deterministic wins that waste time
Means it should be banned. I feel confident in saying it's likely PE has seen more play than PoK did, even with some correction for color combo.
It's a combination of factors, not just one thing of course. Nobody really argues cards should be banned in EDH on power level.
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Eh. People did the same thing with PoK and that is a problem. but more the problem is that the card encourages that kind of play because it's correct to do so. A lot of times it's right to just take your shot and try to get there.
I don't blame people, I blame very bad card design honestly. Wizards designs these cards that break the action economy that are fine in normal matches (for a variety of reasons) but really awful experiences in multiplayer.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I've seen Seedborn Muse also break the action economy rather badly, but honestly I don't think that's the actual reason PE would be banned for if it does get the hammer, the same way PoK wasn't actually banned for it either. PoK was so powerful it enabled action economy breaking single-handily, whereas PE and Seedborn require either an instant-speed enabler and/or plenty of instant-based plays to get breaking.
What the RC needs is evidence that Engine is getting the majority of the format tuning their decks to take said advantage (by more instants and/or instant enablers), hence making PE fall into the category of "centralizing". Primeval Titan had an easy time being centralizing because almost everyone runs lands regardless and Prophet took longer because despite how annoying it was, creatures are statically still less played than lands and the data needed time to collate. PE and Seedborn alone rely pretty much on instants and/or instant enablers, which is another tier below (or several, actually).
Like many other powerful enablers, PE will be a card I won't really miss if it's gone, but based on past instances, I don't think the RC has quite the sufficient amount of data to work on as of yet, especially since removing recency bias tend to spike in difficulty the less colors a card has. I don't feel the spike generally in decks that rely on instant-speed action disruption based on around snatching an Engine the same way Titan disrupted the land balance and PoK and creature balance in decks. Perhaps some metas did, but the RC has to collect data on a much larger scale before making a decision.
With PoK it was never anywhere near as centralizing within the meta as Primeval Titan - but it was just as centralizing within a game - in that every game became about PoK once it hit the table.
PE is different than Seedborn from an action economy standpoint in that PE does not require instants or activated abilities to be good and create action economy issues - it does it within your turn as well as other players' turns. Play a bunch of mana rocks/dorks and then cast all your cards; have enough draw/recursion abilities and you can take a large number of virtual turns.
The Flash Creatures was what wound up making PoK too strong; In my opinion, working during your turn is what makes PE too strong, because it functionally bypasses the requirement of having a flash enabler (e.g. Seedborn Muse really needs an Orrery to be obnoxious most of the time--or a very narrowly tuned deck with a high instant or activated ability volume).
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
The only point I see it hit is creating problematic game states, in this case people fumbling with it and dominating play time without bringing it to a swift conclusion. This is hard to accidentally stumble into (if your deck isn't built for it, you'll run out of things to cast), and can be remedied with good play (knowing what you are doing lessens the chance you find yourself desperately durdling).
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!