MTG Salvation

Quote from JWK »

Probably the worst thing about Purphoros, in my opinion, is that he sometimes approaches Problematic Casual Omnipresence in many less competitive metagames. That was definitely close to the case for a year or so after Theros was released; pretty much every deck which included red and which ran a moderate to high amount of creatures also ran Purpy, and why not, since he can produce respectable amounts of damage to everyone else at the table just from you doing what you're probably doing anyhow (playing creatures, creating tokens)? He really is so good in an awful lot of red decks (or decks including red) that I have consciously chosen to not run him in several decks where he could be good (Zada, for example) in order to keep play interesting and not rely too much on the obvious staples. As we get further from Theros and his price has crept up a bit, he is less likely to show up in the decks of newer players, but it's almost predictable how as newer Commander players learn more about the card pool and invest more in the game, suddenly Purphoros starts to show up in their decks the way vultures show up around three-day-old roadkill. But just as predictably, as they mature in their deckbuilding, they tend to either recognize Purphoros isn't a particularly optimal card except in certain decks (tokens) or when built around (all the supporting cards the one fellow mentioned several posts back), you see him less and less. The problem almost takes care of itself with time and without having to load up on answers.

Note also that you pretty much never see Purphoros in competitive playgroups, because it is so much easier to kill people with two card tutored combos and fast mana than it is to chip away with Purphoros.

I think that's a good way to state it.

I also agree that in higher competitive groups you stop having people dying to damage / creature strategies and you move more to LD, stasis, and combo. This said though, its a question of how to gear the banned list and what the focus is. If our goal is to take into consideration the high end of comparative then a lot of the current banned list is irrelevant as is this discussion. That said though I think they aim more for the casual to medium levels of play based on what I have heard in the past as well as what is on their list currently.

Quote from Dunharrow »

Unfortunately, yes, 90% of the answers to Purphoros are white (and most of the others are green or cost a lot of mana).

But you can still beat Purphoros without having a specific answer to him:
Blue can counter spells, and can bounce enchantments.
Black can gain life, or exile Purphoros if devotion ever hits 5. There is also discard and Sadistic Sacrament effects.
Green has a few answers to indestructible enchantments, and can gain life.

It seems to me that Red is the only colour lacking answers (Chaos Warp et al are the only options).


Do you exclusively play mono red? If yes, then I imagine Purphoros is not the biggest problem you have to deal with. If no, then you can have solutions to Purphoros.

This is not like a combo that can't be interacted with. Purphoros attacks your life total 2 damage at a time. I understand how a non-white deck might be hard-pressed to remove Purph from play, but I would hope that your non-white deck can adopt some strategies that would stop Purphoros from being so powerful.

And even if you aren't playing white, there are other players at the table.

Its funny how counterspells answer everything. With that logic nothing should be banned.

Also, how many of those green cards you listed would you call "good" cards? Are any of those cards among cards you naturally include in your green decks you build? Return to Dust is far and above better than all of those green cards listed not to mention most of the white / X spells that were mentioned. I am not saying that green can't access into exile hate for gods, I am saying that they have to specifically pick for that utility rather than those cards being good includes for decks naturally. I get that the top 50 list hasn't been updated recently but I looked at it for kicks and I saw Song of the Dryads from the "answers gods" list and I saw like 8 destroy options with no exile options. Green's destroy effects for artifact / enchantments are good but their exile / tuck / transform effects all have the problem that they are significantly less efficient.

For black, lifegain is a stall measure but its also not something they are particularly great at. Black does have a few good lifegain options but generally other than if you are playing sac aristocrats the number of playable black lifegain options are fairly low. Gary is great for mono black, kokusho is.... ok if you are sac / rez based. Then its Blood Artist (if arristocrats) and from there it falls off quite quickly. I would say black has like.... maybe 5 good lifegain options I can even think of.

Quote from Buffsam89 »

I don’t get how Purph is worse offender in the 99. You don’t have access to it all of the time. There are so many other token interactions that lead to degenerate strategies that his is merely a blip on the radar.

I don’t mean this to come off as rude, but this thread sounds very much so like “well, there really isn’t much to complain about ATM, but let’s try anyways”. Especially after the comment about how you feel he’s more degenerate in the 99. Like in my reply above, have you played with/against the other Gods that head linear strategies or lead to them?

There is banworthy, and then there is groan worthy. Purph definitely falls into the latter, but I find it incredibly hard to fit him into the former.

Most other degenerate token things can be blocked, fogged, propagandaed or board controlled. The point I am making is that there is almost no room for interaction against him other than having the right removal to exile him or gaining a bunch of life.

I can respond to almost every other token enabler by casting Starstorm. The big thing about purphy is how non interactive he is combined with how robust he is. Its true that he isn't usually a super fast effect but he is very non interactive.

Quote from Ebline »

This is giving me a headache, so I'm not going to get into much detail here. Simply put, that any of you are seriously talking about a ban for Purph speaks to me of the format being in almost TOO good of a place, such that the perpetual rules tinkerers have run out of widely compelling targets to pick at. If we're sincerely discussing banning a card this low in impact on the overall shape and attitude of the format, EDH is in a pretty good place and can probably just chill for now.

Its not like any of us are on the RC. I am bringing this discussion up knowing that I am going to be in the minority vote here.

Overall, yea I think the banned list is in a fairly good place. If I were to be allowed to make adjustments to the banned list I would say that my thoughts on Purph would be like the 8th - 10th thing that I would maybe consider so I think its far from pressing or something that the format needs to be in a good place.

Lots of people have been making comments though on how easy it is to remove gods though and listing all of these white effects. There are a few colorless 7+ mana effects as well as some green ones that tend to be more fringe and specific that you run to interact with gods though where as the white effects tend to actually be relatively good effects that you would consider running without specifically teching vs gods. I think its valid to realize how narrow removal for gods really is when the answer is "play white".

I also think that a lot of the comments so far have been from the perspective of Purph as the commander where I think he actually probably accomplishes more in the 99. GR and GRW for instance are going to be the more common places where I am going to point as where he really gets big value but there are other broken commanders like say Prossh, Skyraider of Kher that can put him to devastating use as well. I play him in my Edgar Markov list and I can tell you that if I ever stick him for more than a single turn everyone has probably already died. I can't tell you how many times I have played Purph in that deck and done 10 damage in the same turn from him. Commanders like Hazezon Tamar and Marath, Will of the Wild put him to great use as well given their access to green tutors and ability to make tokens. I even used to have Márton Stromgald and Squee, the Immortal decks that would put him to great use.

The truth is, he is hard to interact with. Torpor Orb and being in white tend to be the two things that we keep coming back to. Yes if you play him as the commander you might be playing archenemy commander and lifegain will screw with you but what about in the 99 in good decks that function well with or without him and can make a staggering amount of tokens as that is what the decks are designed to do. Mono red is probably actually the weakest thing you can do with this guy.

So, this is probably really controversial mostly in part because we are talking about a red card than for any other reason given that red is often given the stick of weakest color for commander. I happened to have nominated this guy to be on the Dream EDH Bannedlist thread for this year and seeing several other people vote for and start discussing it I figured I would spin up a thread for him.

So, if you ask me the biggest reasons to perhaps consider banning him are:

1. He has incredible output, probably among the top damage output option cards red has.
2. Its incredibly hard to interact with the damage he deals. It tends to come down to Torpor Orb effects to stop it or gaining life.
3. Most of the time he is an indestructible enchantment. He is a brick freaking house when it comes to how robust he is.
4. His potential in the 99 and in the command zone seem to be somewhat similar. Given that he is technically a creature it makes him particularly annoying in GR decks due to creature tutors. Even black and white have ways to tutor for him though as well so in the 99 he is real trouble in a lot of decks.
5. The less competitive a meta is, the better he becomes. He gives a constant source of strong damage output and the slower games tend to take to resolve the more he tends to accomplish.

Being that he is a mythic god creature he has a lot of casual appeal. Really most any deck up until you start doing MLD and infinite combos tends to play very well towards how he wants to play the game. So here it is, what are your thoughts on if this guy should be banned?