MTG Salvation

The Forum is down, and the Engine is Dead.

I think it's no surprise to anyone that Paradox Engine got the ban. Iona makes a lot of sense as well.

I'm excited to finally see more Painter's Servant shenanigans.

Kind of happy Iona got the ban. She locked some opponents out of the game completely.

Sigh. Good cards get banned for being good.

Sigh. Good cards get banned for being good.

So Paradox engine from $41 to what, $10? I'd say less but I would imagine if people bought in at $40 they'd rather keep it than sell for just a few bucks. Either way, funny how as usual the price of a card started to drop and then it gets the ol ban. Read people speculating it was getting a ban due to this a few days ago.

Quote from Creedmoor »

Kind of happy Iona got the ban. She locked some opponents out of the game completely.

Iona is such a cheese card in EDH that:

every one of my monocolored EDH decks ran at least 4 devoid/colorless spot removal cards
(that's 8 EDH decks *4 = 32 cards)

every one of my black or red-dominant multicolor decks also ran the same suite of spot removal
(that's at least another 6 decks *4 = 24 cards)

So I bought 56 copies of duplicates of the same 4 colorless removal cards just for that *****.

So what that means is that I had to pay the cost of those 50+ cards as an overhead cost on all those decks, just so I can play EDH.

Banning Iona in itself means a depression in value is coming for all that colorless spot removal, if any significant number of other folks gameplanned specifically for Iona like I was doing.. That's a format warping card if I'd say so. Glad she's gone

well thats that i knew one day the paradox would get banned

painter's servant is unbanned dear lord why..

cards like Grindstone are still legal in commander

Good choices.

Infinite combo and storm is too easy with Engine, and mono-color deck has enough disadvantage to not needing another oppressor. Painter's Servant though... I wonder if that's a good idea.

Paradox Engine and Iona both make sense. I'm surprised by Painter Servant being unbanned though.

Oh by the way as for paradox engine surprised it didn’t happen sooner

Was Urza, Lord High Artificer the final nail in the coffin for paradox engine perhaps? I mean this is one way to reduce his broken ness

(But really He’s still broken even without the paradox engine.)

I don't know. I feel like Iona isn't that annoying. There are tools to handle her and she isn't that game winning compared to other cards with that mana cost that can right out win the game expropriate. Mono colored decks are a minority and the ban of Iona will change nothing. But she was call out for a ban for years now, so I guess they want to take the step for the community. Paradox Engine ban is fine. And Painter Servant unban seems like a mistake.

Thank god.

Quote from lukey52 »

So Paradox engine from $41 to what, $10? I'd say less but I would imagine if people bought in at $40 they'd rather keep it than sell for just a few bucks. Either way, funny how as usual the price of a card started to drop and then it gets the ol ban. Read people speculating it was getting a ban due to this a few days ago.

It is about 2 years of people calling it would be banned, lots of youtube videos too. It was just a easy combo machine.

Good for me: I can get a foil Paradox Engine in the near future without paying an arm and a leg.

Bad for me: There went the value of my extra Engine...

Worse for me: Kaladesh Inventions Painter's Servant just jumped from ca. €40 to €130 on Cardmarket...

Finally! Thank you thank you! I’ve wanted both these cards gone. At least Urza can be built in a more fun yet still competitive manner.

I wonder how many painters servants the big stores had ready to sell. Seems like such a bad idea to unban it unless someone wanted to make a truck load of quick cash.

I’m also pleased with Iona being banned for the reasons mentioned above. It truly is format warping, and being deprived of certain strategies and answers is downside enough in a singleton format to go monochrome. The format doesn’t need Iona to exacerbate that, and lock players out completely to sit and fester for an entire game simply for playing a chosen color. Too harsh. Her banishment will finally allow decks to open up space for genuine strategies and fun interactions that don’t involve fearing one card and stifling deck building for the sake of just being able to actually play.

My worst commander experience was watching a Defense of the Heart bring out an Iona I couldn’t counter and select blue. I’m sorry, but “stifle or lose” is too oppressive. Granted I could have countered defense of the heart itself, but that’s a harsh price to pay for allowing the Timmy creature deck some leeway to play its own combos, only to get handed the least gentlemanly play of all.

Quote from kirasu »

I wonder how many painters servants the big stores had ready to sell. Seems like such a bad idea to unban it unless someone wanted to make a truck load of quick cash.

You know, magic market is all full of shade people and people making the banlists want a buck or two sometimes (keep an eye on SFM cause the stocks are comming down and if a card have 400% inflation over a unban that is a lot of potential extra money for some people).

The new bans make sense, even if I'm a little annoyed that my Breya deck just lost an infinite.

Banning engine is very odd. dramatic reversal + isochron scepter are commonly considered strictly better since it doesn't flood the deck with excessive mana rocks. Most dedicated engine decks fail once it's answered, and many fair decks can run it. I have a very old rakka mar deck that is as optimized as it can be, and taking engine from it drops it from a 6 to a 5.

Unbanning painter is bad. The potential early combo threat means more people will run eldrazi titans, which I thought these people didn't like? Painter combos with so much to break the game, far worse than iona. douse, ugin, the spirit dragon, llawan, cephalid empress, and so many game resets like omen of fire.

My main playgroup is probably going to stop using the official banlist.

i don't think servant should've been on the list to begin with.

i also don't agree with the iona ban. sure, she sucks if you're in monocolor, but you need to be prepared for her, that promotes creative deck building, creative deck building is good, answers are good. sure, unbanning servant and then sticking iona is a blowout... but if you're able to do that consistently good for you i guess? its not as easy as people would think.

anyway, engine's ban should've happened about a year ago. card is ******* dumb. just. ******* dumb. it has created more OOPS I WIN scenarios than any other card i've experienced in the past 10 years. people who say they run it fairly oops into a win almost every time too. its degenerate as **** all.

Quote from Xcric »

i don't think servant should've been on the list to begin with.

i also don't agree with the iona ban. sure, she sucks if you're in monocolor, but you need to be prepared for her, that promotes creative deck building, creative deck building is good, answers are good. sure, unbanning servant and then sticking iona is a blowout... but if you're able to do that consistently good for you i guess? its not as easy as people would think.

anyway, engine's ban should've happened about a year ago. card is ******* dumb. just. ******* dumb. it has created more OOPS I WIN scenarios than any other card i've experienced in the past 10 years. people who say they run it fairly oops into a win almost every time too. its degenerate as **** all.

I don't think needing to put answers in your deck for one creature in a 100 card singleton format to not get locked out of the game is healthy.

Quote from Tiro of Meletis »

Finally! Thank you thank you! I’ve wanted both these cards gone. At least Urza can be built in a more fun yet still competitive manner.

I'm probably missing something, but doesn't this just result in Urza lists relying even harder on stax pieces he can make one-sided, like Winter Orb, Static Orb, or sometimes Trinisphere. That doesn't seem very fun to play against.