I've been in love with mono colors for a while, with the fairly harsh restrictions and lack of easy answers, but Savra, Queen of the Golgari has been an absolute blast to play recently. Less of a traditional Savra build, and more of a Shirei deck with a green addition. While it's probably still too soon to say if she's a perfect fit, it seems to be headed in the right direction.
Other than that, I'm a big fan of mono-R, but I haven't found the general who just clicked with me yet.
IMO, life gain isn't that good in edh. You already start with 40 life, and lots of the time people kill you with combos so life total doesn't matter. But if I were to use life gain, my favorite life gain in edh is the one that makes your life total become the number of cards in your deck.
The card you're thinking of is Invincible Hymn. Life gain can still play a part, especially if you're hurting yourself somehow.
On a side note, I'm really hoping Sangromancer is as solid as it looks.
I feel like Commander Greven il-Vec doesn't get enough love on the aggro side of things. Three swings for a kill, evasive, and far more badass than the other options. You can do a lot worse than mono-B for colors as well.
You can't copy a land that's coming in at the same time as Vesuva via Scapeshift. You'd have to pick a land that's already in play, not one that's coming into play at the same time.
Conspiracy is kind of a double edged sword if you can't make and keep your lands demons. Being able to sac off tokens instead of lands is pretty desirable. On that note, I would consider Tombstone Stairwell, Sengir Autocrat, and similar black token producers, even though they're not demons. Grave Pact also seems like it could be devastating in Rakdos. Cards that give your general double strike (Fireshrieker et al) should definitely be considered to minimize the damage to your own board as well.
I like Terra Eternal. There's always one player doing LD. I should probably have some enchantment removal too. Uhh... and what's that artifact removal card that you can replicate....
For the record I didn't say they should get banned. I said they would be ahead of Primeval Titan on my list things that I consider closer to ban worthy. That said I would not cry if they where banned, but I play with people that are not into combos so it is really not a problem for me.
Fast mana is a whole other issue. But like Tutors I doubt they will every be banned. Though there are arguments for it making for a better game.
That does make a lot more sense. I'm really not anticipating anything being banned in the immediate future, one way or another.
but mind over matter is quad blue and u discard a card 2 use it and it costs 5 its got so many things wrong with it i cant even count that high the idea bout it comboing with Temple Bell is cool but that sounds like some late game stuff and mill is just not exciting to me plus u would need to have more cards in library then they. now the mana thing thats neat only theres better ways same colors Filigree Sagestraining groundsGilded lotus or sages and doubling cube. i know what your thinking its a bad combo cause u dont discard cards.
mana crypt is good but i never liked the 3 damage
and sol ring is amazing
but u said " accelerate one player overly much, allowing things like comboing off on turn 3-4" ok i found things wrong bout this statement
any ramp that ramps 2 players or more is bad. combo turn 3-4...how many cards r in your edh cause i never see my sol ring until way after turn 6. as for the knowledge vault i cant even see a situation where that card would be useful i guess it draws cards if i read it rite but Krosan Grip would have a field day with that. + my favorite part "{0}: SACRIFICE Knowledge Vault. If you do, DISCARD YOUR HAND , then put all cards exiled with Knowledge Vault into their owner's hand." it costs 4 id rather play jaydem tome or Bottled Cloister
i guess what im saying is i dont c y any of these would be banned (some even used) or y any one would want them baned
I'm going to go out on a limb and say you've never played with or against Mind Over Matter? There are a number of ways to draw your entire deck with it, If you can't do that, you can likely sculpt your hand into whatever you need at any given time. As for milling people out with Temple Bell, there are a number of ways to shuffle your GY back into your library, and forced draws are much more powerful than milling. The mana cost isn't an issue in mono-U, which is where it frequently shows up, and there's enough fixing in the format that it's pretty easy to hit in decks with more colors. The others you listed off don't even come close in power level most of the time.
With the partial paris mulligan, it's certainly not difficult to get some kind of fast mana in your opening hand, and it can be played in any deck. Combined with constant access to your general, it makes it pretty easy to combo early if that's your goal.
There's an argument for every card on that list getting banned, though I don't agree that any of them should be banned. Sometimes you get blown out by the random powerful card, and the best way to deal with that if you don't have an answer is to start up a new game. If it's happening regularly and damaging the group dynamic, either talk to that person, hate them out, or stop playing with them. Banning a card should really only be the answer when there's no other option available.
If you want big green, I'd build Sasaya before Omnath. Omnath's been done to death, and Sasaya is a lot of fun. You can hit several hundred mana pretty easily, and the deck plays out completely differently than any other ramp deck.
Generally, things like Sol Ring & Mana Crypt
accelerate one player overly much, allowing things like comboing off on turn 3-4. They also go into virtually every deck as an autoinclude, which is why some people don't like them.
Mind over Matter is a pretty nasty combo piece, doing everything from killing everyone at the table with Temple Bell, or creating obsene amounts of mana with Gilded lotus (which then usually lead to a very large X draw spell).
As for knowledge vault, I have no idea. I have never, ever seen this card played (not a single time). Reading it, It doesn't seem like it would come even close to being broken. Maybe he meant mana vault?
As seems to happen often with these polls, I can't vote because there's no option that suits my view. I'll definitely hate her off the table where possible, but that doesn't make her overpowered. I just tend not to enjoy being locked down by Gaddock/Hokori/etc.
Pretty much this. If I have the opportunity to kill her and no one else is going to, she's going to die. She's too powerful an effect to let run unchecked. I'm not going to preemptively pour all my fire into her or hate the deck off the table though.
There was a very well-written article over on SCG about "losing like a winner" that really spoke to me.
A lot of people have this distorted view of "fun" that translates to "as long as I'm not losing, I'm having fun" but I find that kind of mindset very unhealthy. I mean, unless you've never lost at any game in your entire life, I would see why losing all of a sudden would just cause your head to explode.
Losing should be a learning process. You lose because the choices you made (particularly in EDH where there are, literally, thousands of paths of play you could take in a single game) led you there. You didn't lose because someone cheated or they somehow altered the outcome a little. You lost because of the errors you made, in both deck building and playing.
Many, many people in Magic hold on to the illusion that losing is just bad luck and that you can't learn from it. That's a losing attitude, you'll never grow as a player like that. Lose with a winning attitude and you'll go far.
While I agree with the attitude, saying that you're losing because of your errors is not entirely true. This is still a card game where luck does affect the outcome, especially in a singleton format. There are times where you're going to lose because your randomly shuffled stack of cards didn't give you the answer to the threat coming out of their randomly shuffled stack of cards, and there was nothing you can do about it. There's still no reason to get all bent out of shape when you lose, though. That's just childish.
Other than that, I'm a big fan of mono-R, but I haven't found the general who just clicked with me yet.
The card you're thinking of is Invincible Hymn. Life gain can still play a part, especially if you're hurting yourself somehow.
On a side note, I'm really hoping Sangromancer is as solid as it looks.
Right. I always gloss that fact over in my head.
Conspiracy is kind of a double edged sword if you can't make and keep your lands demons. Being able to sac off tokens instead of lands is pretty desirable. On that note, I would consider Tombstone Stairwell, Sengir Autocrat, and similar black token producers, even though they're not demons. Grave Pact also seems like it could be devastating in Rakdos. Cards that give your general double strike (Fireshrieker et al) should definitely be considered to minimize the damage to your own board as well.
Make Temple Vesuva for additional fun and profit.
You're thinking Shattering Spree. Shattering Pulse is a good one as well.
What separates this from a control deck with some group card draw?
That does make a lot more sense. I'm really not anticipating anything being banned in the immediate future, one way or another.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say you've never played with or against Mind Over Matter? There are a number of ways to draw your entire deck with it, If you can't do that, you can likely sculpt your hand into whatever you need at any given time. As for milling people out with Temple Bell, there are a number of ways to shuffle your GY back into your library, and forced draws are much more powerful than milling. The mana cost isn't an issue in mono-U, which is where it frequently shows up, and there's enough fixing in the format that it's pretty easy to hit in decks with more colors. The others you listed off don't even come close in power level most of the time.
With the partial paris mulligan, it's certainly not difficult to get some kind of fast mana in your opening hand, and it can be played in any deck. Combined with constant access to your general, it makes it pretty easy to combo early if that's your goal.
As I mentioned a few posts back, I'm sure Knowledge Vault was meant to be Knowledge Pool, due to it's combo with Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and limited use outside of that.
There's an argument for every card on that list getting banned, though I don't agree that any of them should be banned. Sometimes you get blown out by the random powerful card, and the best way to deal with that if you don't have an answer is to start up a new game. If it's happening regularly and damaging the group dynamic, either talk to that person, hate them out, or stop playing with them. Banning a card should really only be the answer when there's no other option available.
He meant Knowledge Pool, which gets used for the mentioned Teferi lock.
Primeval is powerful, but not banworthy. I'm just going to leave it at that.
Pretty much this. If I have the opportunity to kill her and no one else is going to, she's going to die. She's too powerful an effect to let run unchecked. I'm not going to preemptively pour all my fire into her or hate the deck off the table though.
While I agree with the attitude, saying that you're losing because of your errors is not entirely true. This is still a card game where luck does affect the outcome, especially in a singleton format. There are times where you're going to lose because your randomly shuffled stack of cards didn't give you the answer to the threat coming out of their randomly shuffled stack of cards, and there was nothing you can do about it. There's still no reason to get all bent out of shape when you lose, though. That's just childish.