Magus of the Tabernacle can be a decent lockdown if you don't intend on keeping a horde of tokens, but generating them to need. Spelltithe Enforcer slows down your opponents. Storm Cauldron works well against land-based ramp decks if you focus on mana rocks.
This means favoring instant speed removal even more than usual, to prevent the first untap. It forces a shift towards split second, to bypass countermagic. City of Solitude and Arcane Laboratory style cards are run just to reign in the amazing temp advantage that the single card provides. Thing like this create a huge influence in all of your deckbuilding.
I have yet to see City of Solitude or Arcane Laboratory run specifically to deal with Prophet. People playing split second to get around counters has been around for ages, and instant speed removal has been accepted as better than sorcery speed removal for a long time; neither of these are some new phenomena caused by Prophet's existence.
Am I correct in thinking that this is anecdotal? If so there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. However, it sounds like a case of a metagame beginning to shift towards slightly more competitive deckbuilding, and even if Prophet has been somewhat of a catalyst for that to happen within your playgroup it doesn't mean that the card is warping the whole format around itself. It's not like Griselbrand, for example, who was in every deck that could run him and literally won the game the turn he came into play. Prophet's much slower than Griselbrand and has far more opportunity to be a mediocre play than a game-winning one than he does.
I tend to be a very competitive builder, I often have to tone down my decks to match the group. Even so, PoK just multiplies the threat of the player that sticks it. There is really a lot of difference between the singleton vintage meta and everything else. I came from the former and have adapted to the latter. So from the point of view that is mildly competitive EDH (i.e. something other than combo/control and stax is viable) PoK is a game-centralizing card. Speed is not the issue in a format where many players prefer the grindy games.
I play legacy, I understand the power of Necropotence and the derivative effects (I'm no the poster that compared PoK to Griselbrand ). PoK functions on a different level than cards like GB.
It is quite clear that his meaning is that having to tailor all of your decks to deal with a single card is not fun. This card has an amazingly huge impact on the format, so you almost always have to pack specific countermeasures against it.
Running removal is now tailoring a deck to deal with a single card? You must be joking.
I'm sorry you always need to run answers. Playing magic properly sure does suck.
<Yep, just keep being obnoxious. That's cool, you're cool.>
The issue is not running answers, the issue is the centralizing aspect of PoK. I love Primeval Titan because I am a huge fan of all the cool things lands can do. However, I understand that the card had a negative effect on the format. Try taking your "dies to removal" blinders off and seeing how PoK does the same thing. Just because a card is not ETB abusable, does not mean is does not have a huge impact. Tempo and mana advantage are concepts that are important to the game. PoK is a card that simply multiplies both by the number of players.
Profane Command is super fun. My favorite of the lot, it's great CA. It's not the best, but it allows all sorts of cool synergies with E witness and sacrificing shenanigans.
Then the Zegana players untaps on the next players turn and does it again. I'm telling you, it will get through, and once it does it steamrolls a whole table. The problem with Prophet is that it's blue. If it were any other combination it would not be as good. But putting it in the color with counterspell backup, a relatively fair amount of blinking, and the ramp of green made it into what it is. At this point decks are either running Prophet, running anti-prophet (which is not fun edh), or straight up assuming the loss when the game starts.
Don;t get me wrong, if I still had a deck with U and G I would play it. I'm just saying don't take other colors out at the knees and leave this monstrosity to wreck games.
So if "anti-prophet" isn't fun, does that make Prophet of Kruphix a fun card?
You can't seriously be misunderstanding his meaning this much, right? I thought your were above straw-man arguments. It is quite clear that his meaning is that having to tailor all of your decks to deal with a single card is not fun. This card has an amazingly huge impact on the format, so you almost always have to pack specific countermeasures against it.
At this point decks are either running Prophet, running anti-prophet (which is not fun edh), or straight up assuming the loss when the game starts.
I'm curious as to what you mean by anti-prophet. As far as I'm concerned 'anti-prophet' is removal spells, which all decks should be running anyway. And yes, those removal spells may get countered, but that's what discard, counters of your own and recursion are for. Every color access to at least one of those effects, except arguably W, but then W has some of the best removal cards in the game and does still have access to artifact-based removal and recursion options too.
This means favoring instant speed removal even more than usual, to prevent the first untap. It forces a shift towards split second, to bypass countermagic. City of Solitude and Arcane Laboratory style cards are run just to reign in the amazing temp advantage that the single card provides. Thing like this create a huge influence in all of your deckbuilding.
I have a small issue with my deckbuilding with regards to one of my friends, and I was hoping for some suggestions. The short of it is that he's a very Timmy player, he like playing big dudes and turning them sideways. I, however, tend to be a control, combo/control, or stax player. As such, my decks (even my tame ones) just tend to be the antithesis to his. I like my decks to have lots of moving parts, synergies, and interconnections between the cards and various "packages." I've often left him locked out of the game without even trying. I've had him concede when I've barely even touched his health just because of combos like Attrition/Reassembling Skeleton/Grave Pact or Lethal Vapors locks with planeswalkers.
I'd like to put together some form of deck that has unique and interesting interactions with its cards that doesn't end up being to oppressive. I'm looking for some non-control synergy that is more interesting than tribal. I have attempted a few decks like this such as Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord big creatures or Thraximundar zombies. I've just never really got into them since they ended up being a bit simply and still somewhat oppressive with black's control.
Now that I've gotten the crap you don't really care about out of the way, on to the deckbuilding advice:
Who can I use as a general that makes for interesting play without being oppressive?
I don't understand. Almost every time I see someone ask him a color pie question on his blog, he is quick to point out that flavor is a bad justification because you can make a flavor justification for anything.
Exactly, Maro says that the color pie is about mechanical restrictions. It's not, because one day competitions sat down with design and told them how just stopping the print of Ancestral Recall wasn't enough to make non-Blue colors playable. But then, Maro goes on and on as if these mechanical restrictions are possible, good for the game, what have you. What he's saying just doesn't match reality, is the worst part.
If what you are talking about is Vigilance, Trample, Regenerate, etc, maybe these restrictions are possible. But if you're talking about card draw, creature removal, mana accel, to name a few, that issue was raised and resolved 20 years ago when competitions noticed every deck had the same colors.
The colors don't need access to every mechanic to be balanced. Three out of four decks in the Proven section in Standard don't play Blue. Evidently, non-Blue colors are playable, because they stopped printing stuff like Ancestral Recall and started printing Jace's Ingenuity, which is a balanced card-draw spell. Many people play non-Blue EDH decks. Not having access to specific mechanics doesn't make colors unplayable. Giving one color access to cards that cost 1/5 of what they should makes the other colors unplayable.
The color pie makes the game more interesting. If you want to play Red, you have to accept that you're not going to get much card draw. Burn decks are really strong in Modern right now. Some use Treasure Cruise, some don't, and the ones without it are doing just as well.
Modern is a very different beast in this regard. It is, in fact, the point where the backlash against traditional blue first started; note that Counterspell last saw print in 7th edition (not counting supplements).
Honestly, within supplemental products, I feel like the mechanical restrictions of the color pie do not actually matter significantly. There are 3 main formats that benefit from supplements: Legacy, Vintage, and EDH. All 3 of those already have access to off-pie cards from older editions, so printing a card like this really just helps to round out those inconsistencies. I just wish they'd help white and red out with some good CA options (although I don't care that much since I'm BUG-4-life).
Here's another point of view, is it unreasonable to see a shift in Pacifism effects to green? I mean, looting has become a red thing recently, card draw was pretty much absent from green between Legends and Planar Chaos, etc. Because that's basically what this is, a Pacifism + Creeping Mold/Oblivion Ring hybrid.
I know this is off subject but why is Yawgmoth's Will banned and Necropotence not? Necro is better in a lot of situations.
I don't know about you, but I can think of maybe one deck I have that I would run Necropotence in. Yawgmoth's Will is not, to my knowledge, banned. Yawgmoth's Bargain is banned, and that I would run in pretty much every black deck I own.
Oops, meant to say Bargain.
And why? Because it's triple black? Yes you don't get the cards instantly, but its mana cost is lower, not to mention you can T1 Dark Ritual to get it.
In a multiplayer, big, splashy format it is better to get the cards right away or EoT. Getting them right away equates to Enter the Infinite for 6. Using it EoT allows you to grab over 7 cards for your next turn, unlike necro.
Basically, in this format you will often find that mana cost is less of a drawback than restrictions on use.
The color pie is based on flavor, am I correct in stating this? Maro says, "You can justify any breach in the color pie through flavor."
What he's doing here is making a moral high ground argument. It's just not true. Green is primal, green is violent, green is nature. Nature itself is VERY violent. I can't even imagine a world where a green mage couldn't destroy a permanent through an effect of altering nature, like conjuring up a huge creature to destroy a structure, or causing the very earth to grow vines around something and Lignify it, or turn it into part of the forest.
Again, the whole pie has been spun around a million times to give every color (except poor red) access to a million abilities. The most egregious offender being White. This card is spot-on flavor-wise, and the effect of destroying things through nature should be (even if the current pie gurus say it isn't) in-pie.
Based off flavor, yes, but the color pie is more rigid. In theory. Of course, with 13K cards or so, there are bound to be mistakes.
Creatures are violent, sure. No one's arguing that creatures can't kill other creatures, and green is all about creatures. That's why green uses its creatures to kill creatures it needs killed. You know, with fight. Like I keep saying.
You think it doesn't make sense that a green mage can kill creatures? How about that black can't kill artifacts or enchantments? That makes zero sense to me. An artifact is just a piece of metal, man, you've got the power of a million demons, why can't you break that stupid brittle effigy? It's brittle for god's sake! A child could break that thing! What's wrong with you, black mage?
Well, that's just the pie. There's some flavor behind it, but basically it's arbitrary. Those limitations, while arbitrary, give the game a lot of structure, and provide a lot of checks and balances. They help provide the huge variety of strategies available and keep the game fresh for much longer than games without such a structure, and creating cards like song of the dryads wears away at that structure.
No to go too OT here, but I've always felt that enchantment destruction should be part of black's pie. I mean, corrupting an enchantment seems black enough. Green and white get artifacts and enchantments, red gets artifacts, blue gets to be blue and do blue stuff. For the sake of symmetry, black should be able to deal with enchantments.
Now, on to the original card: Pacify effects would not be out of the realm of reasonability in green, if WotC chose to add them. They do often play on the calming forces of nature (although less so, recently). Being an Oblivion Ring-type card means you can undo it. This card strikes me more like some form of hypnotic enchantment, convincing the creature to not fight, to remain at peace with nature. That seems perfectly reasonable.
Now, whether that is good for balance, I'm not sure. Green is already one of the "favorite" colors in EDH, or so it seems. It really does get a huge amount of versatility and power with little downside. However, the same can be said about blue and black because of some of the older cards to which they have access in this format. Red is getting some goodies in the form of pseudo-draw and Chaos Warp was a great addition (in fact, I'd like to see one more card like this, somewhere between CW and Warp World). What we really need is some love for white, since it is almost always a supporting color and can barely stand on its own in this format.
I think that seems pretty much a given. A blue Jeskai legendary with white/red, a black Sultai legendary with green/blue, a red Mardu legendary with white/black and a white Abzan legendary with green/black. Sign me up for the whole package.
I really hope so. Dominus of Fealty is my favorite card of all time. I would love to run him in mono-blue. So having a mono-blue legendary with jeskai colors would be great. As well as being able to play Augury Adept? Too cool. Wasn't Maro saying something about how hybrid mana should be played in mono color decks? I guess this could be his way of saying "here have this.... technically doesn't break the rules"
Well, you are still restricted because you couldn't run with this temur legend. However, it is kind of cool to have commanders where you can restrict them down to head a deck in only a subset of their colors but still be able to cast and use the commander. I believe the only one previously that was possible with was Reaper King.
Oona, Queen of the Fae works quite well as the head of a big mana, mono-B commander without actually nerfing yourself. I'm pretty sure that is the only one of the current hybrid legends that can really claim this.
I really like the idea of the mono-color commanders with a hybrid cost, but I just have to say it doesn't look aesthetically pleasing to me. I, personally, would have much rathered they modeled them after the X-blades from Alara Reborn (Naya Hushblade, Bant Sureblade, Jund Hackblade, Grixis Grimblade, and Esper Stormblade).
I'm thinking about making Sidisi, Brood Tyrant as a zombie tribal deck, but I haven't really done much with self-mill outside Hermit Druid in Jund reanimator. I assume things like Buried Alive and Entomb are always good choices, but does something like Corpse Connoisseur become useful when it comes with a 2/2?
I really hate cards like Wave of Vitriol. I like playing janky nonbasics and making full highlander decks. It's one of those cards with minimal opportunity cost and/or setup that can randomly screw players over. Couldn't we have just seen something closer to Fracturing Gust, Purify or just a green Jokulhaups/Devastation? I hope it is going to be like Bane of Progress and often skipped.
Containement Priest is a good addition to a format that WotC has been pushing in a bad direction. I just wish we'd see more hatebears in-color for my Jund deck.
Other than that, I'm mildly disappointed that we're not seeing Ertai or Volrath again.
This thread does tend to go around in circles because everyone has their own unique groups of friends and people they play with. For example if you were to ask the table of 5 people I play with most often the single card they would call for to be banned would be Rhystic Study as a perfect example of immeasurable advantage in a multiplayer format.
It is good to chat about it because it show how different groups play for example most of the creatures on the list would even cross anyone I play with for being banned simply due to how much removal and creature protection there is.
It is all about how people play, the banlist could be better but obviously everyone will think that.
There's really only one reason that Rhystic Study needs to be banned:
"Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1? Do you pay the extra 1?"
This could easily have been solved by making the extort cost match the color of the card: B, W, or . It's not like it's unprecedented, even within that set. Look at overload cards, Electrickery is mono-red with a mono-red overload instead of something like overload costing .
The only thing that I really don't agree with is color symbols that have nothing to do with you playing and using the card. I recall this coming up once or twice in my memory, but the only example that comes to mind now is Quenchable Fire having a RU CI, and that card isn't exactly playable.
Magus of the Tabernacle can be a decent lockdown if you don't intend on keeping a horde of tokens, but generating them to need. Spelltithe Enforcer slows down your opponents. Storm Cauldron works well against land-based ramp decks if you focus on mana rocks.
I tend to be a very competitive builder, I often have to tone down my decks to match the group. Even so, PoK just multiplies the threat of the player that sticks it. There is really a lot of difference between the singleton vintage meta and everything else. I came from the former and have adapted to the latter. So from the point of view that is mildly competitive EDH (i.e. something other than combo/control and stax is viable) PoK is a game-centralizing card. Speed is not the issue in a format where many players prefer the grindy games.
I play legacy, I understand the power of Necropotence and the derivative effects (I'm no the poster that compared PoK to Griselbrand
<Yep, just keep being obnoxious. That's cool, you're cool.>
The issue is not running answers, the issue is the centralizing aspect of PoK. I love Primeval Titan because I am a huge fan of all the cool things lands can do. However, I understand that the card had a negative effect on the format. Try taking your "dies to removal" blinders off and seeing how PoK does the same thing. Just because a card is not ETB abusable, does not mean is does not have a huge impact. Tempo and mana advantage are concepts that are important to the game. PoK is a card that simply multiplies both by the number of players.
You can't seriously be misunderstanding his meaning this much, right? I thought your were above straw-man arguments. It is quite clear that his meaning is that having to tailor all of your decks to deal with a single card is not fun. This card has an amazingly huge impact on the format, so you almost always have to pack specific countermeasures against it.
This means favoring instant speed removal even more than usual, to prevent the first untap. It forces a shift towards split second, to bypass countermagic. City of Solitude and Arcane Laboratory style cards are run just to reign in the amazing temp advantage that the single card provides. Thing like this create a huge influence in all of your deckbuilding.
I'd like to put together some form of deck that has unique and interesting interactions with its cards that doesn't end up being to oppressive. I'm looking for some non-control synergy that is more interesting than tribal. I have attempted a few decks like this such as Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord big creatures or Thraximundar zombies. I've just never really got into them since they ended up being a bit simply and still somewhat oppressive with black's control.
Now that I've gotten the crap you don't really care about out of the way, on to the deckbuilding advice:
Who can I use as a general that makes for interesting play without being oppressive?
Modern is a very different beast in this regard. It is, in fact, the point where the backlash against traditional blue first started; note that Counterspell last saw print in 7th edition (not counting supplements).
Honestly, within supplemental products, I feel like the mechanical restrictions of the color pie do not actually matter significantly. There are 3 main formats that benefit from supplements: Legacy, Vintage, and EDH. All 3 of those already have access to off-pie cards from older editions, so printing a card like this really just helps to round out those inconsistencies. I just wish they'd help white and red out with some good CA options (although I don't care that much since I'm BUG-4-life).
In a multiplayer, big, splashy format it is better to get the cards right away or EoT. Getting them right away equates to Enter the Infinite for 6. Using it EoT allows you to grab over 7 cards for your next turn, unlike necro.
Basically, in this format you will often find that mana cost is less of a drawback than restrictions on use.
No to go too OT here, but I've always felt that enchantment destruction should be part of black's pie. I mean, corrupting an enchantment seems black enough. Green and white get artifacts and enchantments, red gets artifacts, blue gets to be blue and do blue stuff. For the sake of symmetry, black should be able to deal with enchantments.
Now, on to the original card: Pacify effects would not be out of the realm of reasonability in green, if WotC chose to add them. They do often play on the calming forces of nature (although less so, recently). Being an Oblivion Ring-type card means you can undo it. This card strikes me more like some form of hypnotic enchantment, convincing the creature to not fight, to remain at peace with nature. That seems perfectly reasonable.
Now, whether that is good for balance, I'm not sure. Green is already one of the "favorite" colors in EDH, or so it seems. It really does get a huge amount of versatility and power with little downside. However, the same can be said about blue and black because of some of the older cards to which they have access in this format. Red is getting some goodies in the form of pseudo-draw and Chaos Warp was a great addition (in fact, I'd like to see one more card like this, somewhere between CW and Warp World). What we really need is some love for white, since it is almost always a supporting color and can barely stand on its own in this format.
I've always been confused about that because there seems to be no way to force the Farrel's Mantle ability to be used.EDIT: Nevermind, errata on mantle makes it work.
Oona, Queen of the Fae works quite well as the head of a big mana, mono-B commander without actually nerfing yourself. I'm pretty sure that is the only one of the current hybrid legends that can really claim this.
I really like the idea of the mono-color commanders with a hybrid cost, but I just have to say it doesn't look aesthetically pleasing to me. I, personally, would have much rathered they modeled them after the X-blades from Alara Reborn (Naya Hushblade, Bant Sureblade, Jund Hackblade, Grixis Grimblade, and Esper Stormblade).
What self-mill is good for Sidisi?
Would it be worth it to include something like Runed Stalctite or Conspiracy/Xenograft to give Sidisi the benefit of the zombie lords?
Containement Priest is a good addition to a format that WotC has been pushing in a bad direction. I just wish we'd see more hatebears in-color for my Jund deck.
Other than that, I'm mildly disappointed that we're not seeing Ertai or Volrath again.
There's really only one reason that Rhystic Study needs to be banned:
The only thing that I really don't agree with is color symbols that have nothing to do with you playing and using the card. I recall this coming up once or twice in my memory, but the only example that comes to mind now is Quenchable Fire having a RU CI, and that card isn't exactly playable.