Well for one thing, those all target or are otherwise limiting in nature, cost more mana, and/or are one shot effects, meaning it requires more hoops to jump through in order to sustain. I think the biggest thing going for trying to free RN is the more plentiful ways to keep it from being effective, such as quality counterspells, more graveyard hate, and creature removal.
Some EDH-worthy discard wouldn't hurt either.
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Oh, but that isn't true for Crypt/Ring? Players don't Sculpting Steel or Phyrexian Metamorph either of those, ever, right? Dack Fayden doesn't instantly grab one of those, ever. Thada players don't grab those immediately. Or, as you ignored above, the abundance of tutors that only see play to grab them?
The RC has turn-10 as their sweet spot. Yet cards that cost less than 10, and can be pushed out as early as turn 4 (looking at you T&N) end games well before that threshold, and they see no problem with that?
There's very frequently a better target for all of those cards come midgame. You're not going to spend Sculpting Steel to copy a Sol Ring when Gilded Lotus is sitting right there.
A tutor frequently grabs Sol Ring in the early game when you're stumbling on mana. But when you've got a solid mana base, you're going to spend that tutor on something that actually advances your gameplan.
Meanwhile, cards like Primetime were always the right choice.
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That reminds me... there are a lot of similarities between protean hulk and boonweaver giant with pattern of rebirth in your deck. They are both 7 mana creatures with "if you control a free sac outlet you win the game"
Boonweaver is strong, for sure, but there's a couple of factors here:
1) It's a much weaker "fair" card. Protean Hulk is still really strong when you're not comboing it, tutoring up Titans and stuff repeatedly. It's easily the best clone/reanimate target while it's around, much like Primetime was. Boonweaver, best "fair" case, is a 7 mana decent Eldrazi, which is strong but nowhere near centralizing.
2) It requires a free repeatable sac outlet to work, since you only get to tutor one creature per iteration. You have to already have Blasting Station or Martyr's Cause or something on the board when you drop it or you're stuck. Meanwhile, Hulk can be Flashed into play, Footsteps of the Goryo'd, Sneak Attacked, or simply played and sac'd to a High Market or Phyrexian Tower, (or even just played and then killed with a removal spell or wrath,) grabbing a Viscera Seer or Carrion Feeder on the first iteration of the loop. This makes Hulk much closer to being a 1-card-combo card, while Boonweaver is always a 2-card combo.
3) Boonweaver is White, and thus any Boonweaver/Pattern combo must be GWx. Hulk can manage combos is just about every Gxx color combination, including GWx with a sac outlet, and GBx without one. Being able to stick the combo into a BUG deck is a lot stronger than sticking it into a Bant deck.
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I think the biggest issue people have with Craterhoof is that, as a green creature with a large mana cost, it's incredibly easy to tutor it and/or cheat on its mana cost, whereas this is not the case with the other expensive spells you mentioned, which are all non-creature.
Like sure, Craterhoof costs eight mana, but sometimes it costs Four Mana. Or sometimes it costs One. Sometimes it costs Nine, but it comes in with a huge army to trigger for double digit pumps. And countering, even exile-countering, it when it costs these amounts doesn't actually remove the threat of it hitting the board permanently, since you're just countering an enabler and not the actual card.
That said, I don't think the card is broken, it's just easy to see why someone might think it is. This is the same reason why Protean Hulk is on the banlist while the very-similar (and arguably more problematic in a casual setting) Tooth and Nail is not.
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They decided long ago that it wasn't worthwhile to errata cards just so they're playable in EDH. It really goes down the rabbit hole of absurdity.
(For the record, Karakas was originally legal with the caveat that it couldn't target Commanders)
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It should be mentioned, stifling a fetch land on turn 1 is a very different thing with 4 players than with 2, regardless of how competitive you are playing. If you blow a Stifle on turn 1 to blank a fetchland, you've got yourself to blame when a third player wins and either the land or the Stifle could have stopped them. Every time there's a thread on common mistakes or bad plays, the number one offender is bad threat assessment or poor use of removal. Stifling a fetchland is not a competitive play in a 4 person pod, it's just antagonistic.
I tend to agree unless that person like, drops a Mana Crypt before cracking the fetch.
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Still no compelling reason to move off that stance, although you'll note I said "probably." If there is a potential saving grace of PS, it's that it's a creature--but don't read too much into that.
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But hold up. I thought the reason why Protean Hulk was too good but Tooth and Nail is just fine was largely because Hulk was a creature, and thus easier to tutor, reanimate, flicker, bounce, clone, and otherwise abuse? Or does that only apply to fat creatures?
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With any sac outlet at all, it's impossible to interact with Hulk itself once the spell resolves, since just about every sac outlet is a cost. So in that regard, it DOES (generally) have an immediate "ETB"-style effect.
However, a single Hulk trigger does not generally spell doom for the board. It's difficult to even get Primetime levels of value out of it.
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In my eyes, unbanning Gifts would hurt exactly one demographic: people who don't like playing answers, but still want to play infinite combos. Resolved Gifts shouldn't mean end of the game (and neither should Tooth and Nail for that matter).
The sad part is that this demographic is in no way small.
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Every time I see Lattice hit the board, there's been immense risk of a total board wipe. Multiple times I have destroyed my own Mycosynth Lattice in response to something like a Fracturing Gust.
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Some EDH-worthy discard wouldn't hurt either.
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There's very frequently a better target for all of those cards come midgame. You're not going to spend Sculpting Steel to copy a Sol Ring when Gilded Lotus is sitting right there.
A tutor frequently grabs Sol Ring in the early game when you're stumbling on mana. But when you've got a solid mana base, you're going to spend that tutor on something that actually advances your gameplan.
Meanwhile, cards like Primetime were always the right choice.
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Boonweaver is strong, for sure, but there's a couple of factors here:
1) It's a much weaker "fair" card. Protean Hulk is still really strong when you're not comboing it, tutoring up Titans and stuff repeatedly. It's easily the best clone/reanimate target while it's around, much like Primetime was. Boonweaver, best "fair" case, is a 7 mana decent Eldrazi, which is strong but nowhere near centralizing.
2) It requires a free repeatable sac outlet to work, since you only get to tutor one creature per iteration. You have to already have Blasting Station or Martyr's Cause or something on the board when you drop it or you're stuck. Meanwhile, Hulk can be Flashed into play, Footsteps of the Goryo'd, Sneak Attacked, or simply played and sac'd to a High Market or Phyrexian Tower, (or even just played and then killed with a removal spell or wrath,) grabbing a Viscera Seer or Carrion Feeder on the first iteration of the loop. This makes Hulk much closer to being a 1-card-combo card, while Boonweaver is always a 2-card combo.
3) Boonweaver is White, and thus any Boonweaver/Pattern combo must be GWx. Hulk can manage combos is just about every Gxx color combination, including GWx with a sac outlet, and GBx without one. Being able to stick the combo into a BUG deck is a lot stronger than sticking it into a Bant deck.
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Like sure, Craterhoof costs eight mana, but sometimes it costs Four Mana. Or sometimes it costs One. Sometimes it costs Nine, but it comes in with a huge army to trigger for double digit pumps. And countering, even exile-countering, it when it costs these amounts doesn't actually remove the threat of it hitting the board permanently, since you're just countering an enabler and not the actual card.
That said, I don't think the card is broken, it's just easy to see why someone might think it is. This is the same reason why Protean Hulk is on the banlist while the very-similar (and arguably more problematic in a casual setting) Tooth and Nail is not.
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They decided long ago that it wasn't worthwhile to errata cards just so they're playable in EDH. It really goes down the rabbit hole of absurdity.
(For the record, Karakas was originally legal with the caveat that it couldn't target Commanders)
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I tend to agree unless that person like, drops a Mana Crypt before cracking the fetch.
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But hold up. I thought the reason why Protean Hulk was too good but Tooth and Nail is just fine was largely because Hulk was a creature, and thus easier to tutor, reanimate, flicker, bounce, clone, and otherwise abuse? Or does that only apply to fat creatures?
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However, a single Hulk trigger does not generally spell doom for the board. It's difficult to even get Primetime levels of value out of it.
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The sad part is that this demographic is in no way small.
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Moxes are significantly more expensive than Mana Crypt (5x or more), have the stigma of Vintage, and punish people for playing fewer colors.
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I agree there, but that doesn't stop people from thinking it does. I've been guilty of that myself before on a few occasions.
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