To be honest I rarely do lose a game when I'm running one of my good decks, but when I do lose it's to multiple cards and table politics, not one single bomb.
Your modesty is shining through. Mr. Finkel LSV Long, as that is who you must be, you're either lying or your playgroup is filled with people who have little, to no, desire to win.
as far as your post above, get real. if the field is completely clear, then you're telling me mr. emrakul cast him from...15 lands?
In a format with bouncelands, temples to false gods, lakes of dead, and crazy coffers, it really isn't that difficult to imagine.
even if that somehow happened, you'd ostensibly have a similarly huge number of lands and could afford to sacrifice them, then retaliate on your next turn. it's been established that the only time emrakul is truly devastating is early in the game, in which case it's pretty impossible for emmy to get hardcast after a complete sweeper. If giving you a perfectly reasonably sized list of otherwise-good permanents that easily dispatch emrakul at relatively early stages of the game isn't enough to please you, then i don't know what you want.
Except you're blatantly ignoring the obvious, the emrakul play just had a time walk...his lands are all untapped. He has the same amount of cards that he had before he cast emrakul. The answers you gave me, intrepid hero and mangara, are threats themselves, as your opponents don't want their big guys to die. You also forgot to mention that both take a turn to come online, where emrakul really doesn't, as he gives you an extra turn.
be honest, how many answers to emrakul do you have in the deck you use the most?
I just went through my deck and I have 6, with wing shards being the only non-permanent. If your deck needs to devote5-8 slots of removal for this guy, he is warping. My previous point on bribery wasn't that it annoyed me that he was coming out turn 3 due to bribery, but that everyone running blue includes bribery because everyone else includes emrakul. So far I have seen you give 3 answers to him, all requiring the running of white. Two of them need a turn to come online. Arcum takes a turn to come online, has no protection, and does nothing when put to the yard.
@rhythmguy: Stun sniper? Gwafa?? Evacuation?! If I play emrakul and you evacuate...what stops me from playing it again? I still get the time walk. Hell you just gave me another one.
Many people either run it, or run hate against it. It's ability to be run in every deck isn't a balance, not in a format where your card pool is supposed to be limited by your generals colors.
@Darc's response to ambas: So wait....your saying that since certain colors aren't as popular, or as strong, as other colors in EDH they should just accept the factthat any deck can run a guy that they can't deal with? You also seem to be thinging that everyone is thinking "emrakul is right around the corner" at all times. Could it be, perhaps possible, that players might have spent their removal on other threats, so when emrakul popped up, the time walk not giving people enough time to wrath, there is nothing to deal with him? Or should all players save their removal, for fear of the emmy? If so, then that is the essence of format warping, where you need to build your deck to contain answers, and play your game to hold answers, to deal with a single card in a 99-card singleton format.
I checked and as in your statement before there's about 5-10 answers (more in savra if i have a good position out) in each of my decks. Does that mean if i didn't have them in hand i'm bad? Or unlucky? I try to think of magic more of a skill based game but you can't get around the luck of some situations.
Emrakul is a "answer in hand or lose" card. It's idiotic, silly, and trying to defend it is too. Like what i said before- if you can consistently deal with emrakul, then you should have no problem winning every single game against your opponents- regardless of their deck. They seem to never run answers to your answers, counterspells, and i guess just run lands and emrakul. Saying it's 'not a big deal' just translates to ignorance to me.
Please do- i'd love to see 50 instant speed removals for emrakul.
not having them in hand doesn't mean you're bad, but assuming you're playing at a multiplayer table and everyone has a reasonable number of answers in their decks, SOMEONE is bound to have one.
emrakul isn't an "answer in hand or lose" card, except for the person he's beating down immediately. that's the biggest balancing factor here. emrakul is a bad time for one person, but for everyone else he's not a problem at all until he turns on them, by which point they should be ready. At worst he'll probably take one person out of the game. uril is at least as durable, and he can kill faster than emrakul, and he's a general. I've seen quite a few games where he comes out, and he usually does some damage to one person's board position and then eat removal or gets controlled or whatever.
and only a few people in my playgroup run emrakul, for the obvious reason that it just isn't very good in most decks. most people run pretty standard EDH decks full of big, bomby aggressive spells. A few decks run counters, and most run some decent removal although it tends to be more mass removal and less targeted.
I will give you a 50 card list of viable EDH cards that deal with emrakul the turn he comes out if you'll never complain about emrakul again. deal?
Your modesty is shining through. Mr. Finkel LSV Long, as that is who you must be, you're either lying or your playgroup is filled with people who have little, to no, desire to win.
In a format with bouncelands, temples to false gods, lakes of dead, and crazy coffers, it really isn't that difficult to imagine.
Except you're blatantly ignoring the obvious, the emrakul play just had a time walk...his lands are all untapped. He has the same amount of cards that he had before he cast emrakul. The answers you gave me, intrepid hero and mangara, are threats themselves, as your opponents don't want their big guys to die. You also forgot to mention that both take a turn to come online, where emrakul really doesn't, as he gives you an extra turn.
I just went through my deck and I have 6, with wing shards being the only non-permanent. If your deck needs to devote5-8 slots of removal for this guy, he is warping. My previous point on bribery wasn't that it annoyed me that he was coming out turn 3 due to bribery, but that everyone running blue includes bribery because everyone else includes emrakul. So far I have seen you give 3 answers to him, all requiring the running of white. Two of them need a turn to come online. Arcum takes a turn to come online, has no protection, and does nothing when put to the yard.
@rhythmguy: Stun sniper? Gwafa?? Evacuation?! If I play emrakul and you evacuate...what stops me from playing it again? I still get the time walk. Hell you just gave me another one.
Many people either run it, or run hate against it. It's ability to be run in every deck isn't a balance, not in a format where your card pool is supposed to be limited by your generals colors.
@Darc's response to ambas: So wait....your saying that since certain colors aren't as popular, or as strong, as other colors in EDH they should just accept the factthat any deck can run a guy that they can't deal with? You also seem to be thinging that everyone is thinking "emrakul is right around the corner" at all times. Could it be, perhaps possible, that players might have spent their removal on other threats, so when emrakul popped up, the time walk not giving people enough time to wrath, there is nothing to deal with him? Or should all players save their removal, for fear of the emmy? If so, then that is the essence of format warping, where you need to build your deck to contain answers, and play your game to hold answers, to deal with a single card in a 99-card singleton format.
I'm not saying I'm a great magic player, but I do play a good political game. emrakul sucks balls politically, which is why I don't consider him a good enough card to use in my EDH decks.
even if they had coffers out, which is probably the highest-producing land (who runs lake of the dead? seriously.), they'd need 9 swamps + coffers, so that's 10 lands. adding in ancient tomb or temple of the false god, they'd only need... still 10 lands. 10 lands is a LOT of lands. if it's that late in the game, you really ought to have plenty of answers.
mangara and intrepid hero are both sort of threatening but as long as you aren't aggressive with them, they usually don't draw hate. at least mangara doesn't, I haven't gotten to playtest intrepid hero much, he's sort of a newcomer to my decks. mangara is kick ass though. whining about the extra turn for them to come online seems silly since they both cost 3 whereas emmy costs 15...i'm pretty sure they can lose summoning sickness before emmy comes out.
and sure, he gets a free time walk, but on the other hand if you wrathed his emrakul you only spent 4 mana while he spent 15. emrakul's going to do more damage because he costs a ludicrous amount of mana. The other thing I'm curious about is, how big of games are you people playing? because in a big game, he really shouldn't be a problem...someone's bound to have removal. and even if they don't, the odds are only 1/n-1 that you'll be attacked.
6 answers seems pretty low to me. consider kicking up the number. i'm not suggesting putting in emrakul-specific hate, but there are loooots of great permanents that kill his ass, and 100% of them are cheaper than he is.
and I'm mostly ignoring red and green because i don't like to play them. they probably have color-specific answers, but I don't know what they are.
Comparing him to Uril, and saying few people in your group run him, and saying you're a great political player - just tells me that you have little experience with him. Or that your opponents play nothing but lands, and let you have controlling weenies.
And 10 lands does not mean 10 turns. And even if it was, don't you think they'd kill your creatures? Don't you think they'd counter a manipulator? Don't you think they'd wrath the turn before casting? It just boggles my mind how in these scenarios - YOU have all the answers and your opponents have NO answers.
and sure, he gets a free time walk, but on the other hand if you wrathed his emrakul you only spent 4 mana while he spent 15.
.. really? You lucked out with a wrath in hand, whereas he casted it, then had another turn to do whatever, hit you for 15 damage and made you sac 6, THEN you got to wrath, and then he goes again. If you can recover from that, good on you, but most of the times you're nearly out of the game, left to cast maybe 1 spell a turn. You've also got to hope he doesn't tutor it, or cast any other spell that locks you out of the game.
mangara and intrepid hero are both sort of threatening but as long as you aren't aggressive with them, they usually don't draw hate. at least mangara doesn't, I haven't gotten to playtest intrepid hero much, he's sort of a newcomer to my decks. mangara is kick ass though. whining about the extra turn for them to come online seems silly since they both cost 3 whereas emmy costs 15...i'm pretty sure they can lose summoning sickness before emmy comes out.
Any player who plays bombs will get rid of those cards. Some people aren't convinced when you say "i won't exile your creatures if you attack him!" Why would i even bother casting a Titan when those cards are out?
It's not that there aren't enough answers to Emrakul, it's that there aren't enough answers that are EDH viable.
Even practical EDH cards like Cryptic Command or Rout can only keep him tapped down / destroyed for so long.
Late game emrakul is powerful but there should be answers for him in a multiplayer environment and I doubt there is anyone that would argue that if he comes down late game that he ends games.
Early games there are limited options to deal with emrakul but there are limited and vulnerable options for getting him into play. Artifact ramp decks need to get several counterable and instant speed killable artifacts into play. Green ramp decks are almost certain to rely on creatures that are vulnerable to kill spells and counters. Jhoira decks can, with a god hand, get emrakul out on turn 3 but relies on getting 1 instant, 2 lands, 2 artifacts, and 2 creatures with toughness 2 to stick on the board. Lot's of room to disrupt emrakul.
I generally find a proactive approach to be the best way to deal with emrakul.
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From MaRo
Every rarity gets good cards. That means that some mythic rares will be tournament quality as will some commons, some uncommons and some rares. My promise wasn't that mythic rares wouldn't get good cards but that we wouldn't limit the good cards to only being mythic rare.
Bear this in mind the next time a powerful mythic rare is spoiled
Thanks to chaostheory90 for finding this quiz for me
Given that you have the time and resources to hardcast Emrakul, of course it's a "must-answer-or-lose" card. I don't have a problem with that. But there is so much legwork that must be done to get to that point -- surviving, ramping mana, praying for no mass LD, hoping no one Jester's Caps your deck, looking innocent enough to cast him and win a game out of nowhere -- that it balances out.
Let's not forget that discard spells can hit both Emrakul andBribery, and that Emrakul shuffling himself back into a 100-card deck does not mean he automatically tutors himself back to your hand. Playing a mono-black deck against a 5-color deck the other day, I cast Distress and saw Bribery, aka my Emrakul in disguise. Instead, I took a counterspell, then Persecuted the guy naming blue. Problem solved, and the game was over WAY before either of us got to 15 mana.
Look at it this way: I would argue that letting someone cast a good Mind's Desire (requiring no more legwork than playing Emrakul successfully, IMO) is probably more powerful and game-ending than Emmy himself. There are fewer answers to Mind's Desire than Emrakul, no? It isn't uncommon to win with Mind's Desire on the fifth or sixth turn, but no one here is complaining about that.
Or this: Empty board except for lots of lands, empty hands, Player A topdecks and casts Genesis Wave for 15. Or Mind Spring. Or Yawgmoth's Will, period. Is that not as likely to end the game here as Emmy? Point is moot -- card is a bomb, card wins games, and card is a good late game topdeck, same as countless other cards.
Lastly, I think people are forgetting that Emrakul annihilating you once in the late game is not the end of the world. You lose some random stuff and maybe 3 or 4 lands, but you are still very much in the game. Unless you are playing 1v1, the Time Walk off of Emmy does not completely obsolete sorcery-speed removal spells. Are you behind? Sure, but Curse of the Cabal would've been even worse. (not going for a card-to-card comparison here; just an example)
(Also, for the record, Avarice Totem is not a bad card in EDH, nor is it narrow. I'd argue that it is a versatile, powerful effect available to several colors that desperately need it.)
...just like any other threat in the game, hell a lowly grizzly bear will wreck a table if no one can answer him, but obviously he doesnt because he is answered. Emrakul may be answered by less answers than a bear but there are still plenty of answers to him.
Emrakul costs 15 mana to hardcast, at 15 mana you can win the game with lots of infinite combos, and yes i did say WIN. Emmy you sink 15 mana in and hope for the best.
Now if he is cheated in then there is no extra turn to worry about, and the number of answers to him increases dramatically (not that there was a lack to begin with).
In either situation emmy is far from banworthy.
When i think of all the amazing things, the totally powerful things i can to in the format, emmy is somewhere on the list, but he is nowhere even close to the top. To say she is not powerful is wrong, to say she is op is also wrong.
Perhaps after all infinite combos, arcum, clique, erayo, any soft or hard lock, all mass ld, yawgs win, necropotence, sol ring, mana crypt, top and many other things are banned, then i would consider banning emmy.
Given that you have the time and resources to hardcast Emrakul, of course it's a "must-answer-or-lose" card. I don't have a problem with that. But there is so much legwork that must be done to get to that point -- surviving, ramping mana, praying for no mass LD, hoping no one Jester's Caps your deck, looking innocent enough to cast him and win a game out of nowhere -- that it balances out.
Let's not forget that discard spells can hit both Emrakul andBribery, and that Emrakul shuffling himself back into a 100-card deck does not mean he automatically tutors himself back to your hand. Playing a mono-black deck against a 5-color deck the other day, I cast Distress and saw Bribery, aka my Emrakul in disguise. Instead, I took a counterspell, then Persecuted the guy naming blue. Problem solved, and the game was over WAY before either of us got to 15 mana.
Look at it this way: I would argue that letting someone cast a good Mind's Desire (requiring no more legwork than playing Emrakul successfully, IMO) is probably more powerful and game-ending than Emmy himself. There are fewer answers to Mind's Desire than Emrakul, no? It isn't uncommon to win with Mind's Desire on the fifth or sixth turn, but no one here is complaining about that.
Or this: Empty board except for lots of lands, empty hands, Player A topdecks and casts Genesis Wave for 15. Or Mind Spring. Or Yawgmoth's Will, period. Is that not as likely to end the game here as Emmy? Point is moot -- card is a bomb, card wins games, and card is a good late game topdeck, same as countless other cards.
Lastly, I think people are forgetting that Emrakul annihilating you once in the late game is not the end of the world. You lose some random stuff and maybe 3 or 4 lands, but you are still very much in the game. Unless you are playing 1v1, the Time Walk off of Emmy does not completely obsolete sorcery-speed removal spells. Are you behind? Sure, but Curse of the Cabal would've been even worse. (not going for a card-to-card comparison here; just an example)
(Also, for the record, Avarice Totem is not a bad card in EDH, nor is it narrow. I'd argue that it is a versatile, powerful effect available to several colors that desperately need it.)
Minds desire is a terrible explanation, because sure, it might hit a bomb, it might hit a land. Youre casting a 1 in 99 spell to get a 1 in 98 card.
As far as every other card you named theres a fun thing called "Counter Target Spell," not to mention every card you named is sub par in every way. Even Genesis wave making 12 12/12's is worse than emrakul in my book. 1 15/15 that knocks out 6 permanents just for going sideways, time walking, and being nigh unremovable makes it way better.
If Emrakul could be countered or targetted with spot removal, we wouldnt be having this conversation, hence why Kozilek is not on the chopping board.
Minds desire is a terrible explanation, because sure, it might hit a bomb, it might hit a land. Youre casting a 1 in 99 spell to get a 1 in 98 card.
As far as every other card you named theres a fun thing called "Counter Target Spell," not to mention every card you named is sub par in every way. Even Genesis wave making 12 12/12's is worse than emrakul in my book. 1 15/15 that knocks out 6 permanents just for going sideways, time walking, and being nigh unremovable makes it way better.
If Emrakul could be countered or targetted with spot removal, we wouldnt be having this conversation, hence why Kozilek is not on the chopping board.
My vote is for a ban.
Oh lawd. Mind's Desire for 1, you say? Alright, sure. You did RTFC and see the word Storm on it, right? And Genesis Wave for 12 is hella stronger than Emrakul; it's usually going to nab ~9-10 permanents, and probably put more than 15 power on the field, or enough come into play effects to set up a win in the current or next turn, demanding a wrath since single target removal (generally effective against emrakul) is kinda bad against the whole 'multiple dudes' strategy.
The reason Emrakul is good is because plenty of decks only run a few utility permanents and lands as their board presence, so Em goes straight for the jugular by killing off their lands and sources of card draw. If you run an aggro deck, you can walk right over an Emrakul deck unless it's one of those absurd mono green ramp style decks, which require really wonky answers. The larger problem as it appears to me is people aren't dealing with absurd ramp. You would've lost to any number of cards once your opponent got to 15, they just need a decent outlet for that mana.
Personally, I look at Emrakul and say 'Eh'. He's nice if I get 15 mana, cast it and get an extra turn- other than that, I'm probably going to ditch him to reshuffle my yard back. Sure, I may get it stolen by a Bribery- I'll just go grab my Meekstone or AEther spellbomb. Or if I can't, I'll just lose the game and go onto the next.
I think this just boils down to more of a 'how do you define casual' debate. It's like sex- some people find more fun in beating others into a bloody pulp (via a giant flying octopus). Some don't, and like more diverse/random/inventive ways of having a good time.
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Ask yourselves, all of you, what power would hell have if those imprisoned here could not dream of heaven?
EDH:
Grand Arbiter Augustin IV Zo-Zu the Punisher Phelddagrif
Rhys the Redeemed
Ashling the Pilgrim
Ruhan of the Fomori
Rafiq of the Many
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief
Lazav, Dimir Mastermind
Aurelia, the Warleader
Animar, Soul of Elements
Borborygmos Enraged
Riku of Two Reflections
This is what is really starting to annoy me about EDH: obnoxious cry baby doesn't want to have to devote 10 slots in his deck to assessing a threat you've chosen to include in your deck.
So both parties are left with two options:
He gets over it and either includes the answers or loses; OR
You cut it, play the way HE wants you to.
God, I remember when hating on a card meant putting in lots of answers to the card. EDH turned it into being a complete crybaby.
This is what is really starting to annoy me about EDH: obnoxious cry baby doesn't want to have to devote 10 slots in his deck to assessing a threat you've chosen to include in your deck.
So both parties are left with two options:
He gets over it and either includes the answers or loses; OR
You cut it, play the way HE wants you to.
God, I remember when hating on a card meant putting in lots of answers to the card. EDH turned it into being a complete crybaby.
Wow excellent point.. i've changed my mind completely.
While we're at it lets unban the whole banlist- everyone was just being crybabys about those cards. I'd play with banned cards, and anyone trying to tell me to cut them can just run answers or lose. I can play how i want!
From our group, Big E (and the other two big eldrazi) just make things stale. It's not that they're not good - or answerable, but it's that after a few games where the eldrazi are the few win conditions in everyone's deck, it just ceases to be interesting. And I think that - at the core - is what people play EDH for - variety.
I am in the ban him category. Just tonight we had a game end on turn 8 after he swung twice, he was hasted with greaves when he hit the board.
We scooped shuffled up. Started over, the player that had him took him out. The game last 1hour 20mins and was probably one of the best back and forth fun games I have ever had. A few other eldrazi came out and where handled during the course of the game. A charged up Chandra killed one player and Traximundar swung out the other.
I can't tell you how much better the game was without just him, Personally I hate all annihilator cards, they basically can ruin one persons whole game if they come out early and get even one swing off. But Emmy is the worst cause it is so hard to deal with.
It is game warping when you have to run cards just for him. No other creature really holds that kinda power. I do run bribery just for him, and if I get it early I just swing that player out of the game so Emmy goes away and the rest of us can have a fun game.
Don't get me wrong, EDH decks are all about bomby effects, and Emrakul is the biggest creature in the game. From my experience, Emrakul is too bomby even for EDH. When he hits the table, or any of the Big Three really, the rest of the table drops whatever they're doing to deal with him. Sure, he costs 15, but there are only two kinds of decks that really abuse Emmy: ones that ramp into him, and ones that cheat him out. I've had to play against both.
The problem isn't any one of Emrakul's abilities: it's all of them in conjunction. Emrakul honestly could be a 0/15 and would be just as devastating. It's the combination of being immune to spot kill, evasive, time walk, and annihilator 6 that makes him degenerate. Kozilek is easily removed, having no protection whatsoever. Ulamog's a litle more difficult to get rid of, but any RFG removal will work on him.
RAMP: Monogreen/Sisay/Eldrazi generals
Emrakul usually comes out around turn 6 or 7, and the timewalk turn doesn't even give the table a turn to react. At this point in the game, one attack from him, unless the opponent is playing a token deck, sets that player back so far they may as well be out of the game. Any smart player will go after the deck that is most capable of removing him. Basically to prevent this from happening, multiple players have to have answers to him.
CHEATS: Mayael/Timmy/Jhoira
It's better in some ways that Emmy doesn't give the timewalk turn except in the case of Jhoira, but worse in that most of the common ways to cheat him in are at instant speed (Quicksilver Amulet being one of the best ones.) EOT Emrakul just ends the game for at least one person, possibly more. In this deck, Eldrazi are just big fat beaters with annihilator. From my experience, annihilator 4 is a disaster, but not the end of the world. Recovering from annihilator 4 isn't terribly hard. That's why Kozilek and Ulamog are a lot less dangerous. Those two extra permanents gone just means so much more, and that one turn of reaction time makes a world of difference.
I don't think Emrakul on his own is broken--after all, a crazy mana cost should equate with a crazy powerful card. It's Emrakul coming down on an early turn that makes things degenerate. I've played both with and against Emrakul since his release, and I've come to the conclusion that he makes the game unfun. It boils down to this:
1) Player A drops Emmy, either at EOT or for 15. In the timewalk turn, he annihilates Player B, the greatest threat to Emrakul's survival.
2) Rest of table converses on whether they can answer Emrakul. If they can, Emrakul gets answered. Within a couple of turns, he'll get tutored up again. If the table cannot, everyone picks up their cards and starts another game.
In summary: There is no reason for the rules committee to ban Emrakul. However, Emrakul is notoriously unfun. If banning Emrakul allows the groiup as a whole to have more fun during games, then the banning should take place. Taking a hit from Ulamog or Kozilek can generally be recovered from; taking a hit from Emrakul generally cannot. If it were up to me, I would absolutely ban Emrakul. From the RC's standpoint, they don't really have a reason to ban him.
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A mere ten days after the Mending, a young knight of Valeron and a young ranger of Eos made a discovery that would change Alara forever.
Can someone who has brought up the point that emmy is boring or unfun to loose to please explain to me how she can be any worse than dying to an infinite combo, token swarm, other big dudes, or really any other way for that matter. A win is a win and a lose is a lose, how is loosing to one strategy somehow worse than another. I simply cant understand the concept.
The only rationalisation I can come up with, is that people dislike unfun things such as being annihilated. They'd rather lose everything with everyone else rather than lose 6 permanents randomly.
An easy test of this would be asking people if they prefer getting annihilated in 1v1 or in multiplayer.
Can someone who has brought up the point that emmy is boring or unfun to loose to please explain to me how she can be any worse than dying to an infinite combo, token swarm, other big dudes, or really any other way for that matter. A win is a win and a lose is a lose, how is loosing to one strategy somehow worse than another. I simply cant understand the concept.
First. "A win is a win and a loss* is a loss*, how is losing* to one strategy somehow worse than another?*
Secondly, your question and admitted confusion is what makes you a Spike, I'd wager. And Spikes have in EDH, just like every format, a very special view on the game. To MANY players, losing to an aggro alpha strike is a million times more acceptable than losing to that one Palinchron 4 points at a time, eventually, or whatever super combo a player manages to assemble.
I equate this mindset to the psychological preference of MANY players that their creature resolves and gets Doom Bladeed rather than it getting Counterspelled, even if it doesn't have any sort of EtB ability.
Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with Control and Combo. If every game was a pure Aggro swingfest, it wouldn't be very fun, either. It's just that, if I'm going to invest upwards of an hour of game time to a game, I don't want to see it stolen from me with some degenerate combo that would take so long to win the game, that several shortcuts and explanations take place. That, to me and MANY others, is an hour wasted. I'd rather play for three hours and be knocked out first, seeing those final points be beaten away by a rogue Akroma, than sit and develop my board and have it all undone in what can only be considered a "figurative" win.
I've digressed severely from the topic of Emrakul, I now realize. But all the points hold true. Emrakul is a card you play because you want to win. Emrakul is good at winning. MANY players value originality/variety/flavor to fuel their fun rather than the bombiest creature this side of town.
As you can see, I'm in the camp against Emrakul, if only for the reason that it's just that stale go-to bomb that anyone can run. One of my favorite parts of EDH is the color restriction. Hell, 5-color generals, when used only to give access to all cards (looking at you Cromat), piss me off almost as much.
Does it deserve to be banned?
For fairness, no. For showing up too much, thus making the format considerably less exciting via decreased variability? Yes.
It's widely known that [EDH] is very broken. Building a superdeck is quite easy. So what defines you as a player is [...] how you show restraint and creativity while still remaining a competitive player and a good sport.
the only problem with urza is that he is an oldwalker, so its abilities would be like:
+3: remove up to ten target permanents from the play
-2: win the game
-8: kick your opponents in the face, then win the game
starting loyalty: 100
Comparing him to Uril, and saying few people in your group run him, and saying you're a great political player - just tells me that you have little experience with him. Or that your opponents play nothing but lands, and let you have controlling weenies.
And 10 lands does not mean 10 turns. And even if it was, don't you think they'd kill your creatures? Don't you think they'd counter a manipulator? Don't you think they'd wrath the turn before casting? It just boggles my mind how in these scenarios - YOU have all the answers and your opponents have NO answers.
Any player who plays bombs will get rid of those cards. Some people aren't convinced when you say "i won't exile your creatures if you attack him!" Why would i even bother casting a Titan when those cards are out?
Erg, this is starting to get really boring. I take it you're not accepting my offer, then?
I'm not really super interested in continuing a pointless back and forth about emrakul, but i would like to point out that i heavily disagree with you about cards like mangara and hero.
people pack plenty of answers in EDH. some of them sit in your hand, some of them sit on the field. When someone is about to cast a big ol' bomb like terrastodon, it would be fairly impossible to eliminate all the removal on the field as well as in players hands in order to dominate the table with him. If everyone wants a card stopped, most of the time it WILL be stopped. Trying to threaten the entire table with a single card is generally ludicrous. So when that player ramps up for a terrastodon, if he knows some people have answers, if he's smart, he just won't target those people. he'll target someone else's permanents, and he'll attack someone else. If he avoids the people with removal his terrastodon can go on living, and it can do some serious damage to the poor souls without removal while it's alive.
So yes, you can absolutely use cards like mangara in a politically savvy way to ensure that they stay on the field. The player trying to drop emrakul could exhaust his hand and waste valuable time trying to get rid of every piece of removal on the field - only to have it die to a wing shards or an odds/ends or an oring or an ostone or a *** or a doj or WHATEVER on the next turn - or he could tell the person using mangara that he won't attack her so long as she doesn't mess with emmy. Everyone who doesn't have relevant removal takes the pain and both emmy-player and mangara-player profit.
I do this sort of thing all the time. control player agrees not to disrupt aggro player, aggro player agrees not to attack control player. eventually the aggro player runs into removal and the control player has lost nothing, while all his opponents are weaker. It takes surprisingly little to make this sort of thing happen.
so yes, I recommend running cheap game-wreckers like hero and mangara and then I recommend NOT USING THEM. once you start using them all willy-nilly (yes, i use old people language) people WILL start firebombing them off the face of the earth if they ever plan to play anything powerful. but as long as you use tact, you can ensure that not only do they stay on the field, but also that they ensure you're protected from whatever chaos might be going on in the field...and you never even have to use them.
with a decent compliment of nasty control creatures and enough protection for them to ensure they are difficult to remove, anyone trying to make an aggressive move will find it a better idea to coexist with you than to waste ammo and ensure your wrath by trying to take you out too. Actually this strategy has been effective enough in my playgroup that I'm getting kind of sick of it, and I'm going to ignore all of it and try to make a decent mono-red deck with kumano, master yamabushi. yesh.
I can only comment on Genesis Wave. While it is a great possibility that a genesis Wave for 12 (plus 3 green mana) can end games, you must consider the drawbacks in comparison to Emrakul.
- The wave can be countered.
- It is random. There is a possibility that it will turn out as a great land fetch spell. To prevent that, you must build your deck around it (pack as much permanents as you can). Emrakul doesn't need preparation.
- Unless you get lucky and put into play something like Fires of Yavimaya or a bunch of haste creatures, you will be sitting duck for a turn. Emrakul has super haste, the kind that gets you an additional card, untap step, upkeep, all in one card, no "luck" involved.
There are, of course, different answers to Genesis Wave than to Emrakul; that was not my point. I specified that players had an "empty board and empty hands," so the likelihood of GW being countered in that situation is close to nil. (Yes, it's a stretch, but my point was that I can craft a scenario in which GW is nigh unbeatable, much like other posters have already done for Emrakul.) Once an opposing Emrakul is cast, your chances of winning go down significantly, so the point is to NOT let them cast Emrakul -- and it's hardly DB to blow up lands 10-15.
- Yes, Wave can be countered.
- The game is random; drawing Emmy or an answer to Emmy is up to chance as well. And Emrakul DOES need preparation -- sure, you can legally throw him into any old deck willy-nilly, but that doesn't mean he is good there.
- Emrakul doesn't instantly win the game, either. You hit one guy and knock out some lands, and then the rest of the table (that guy included) has a chance to play Wrath of God. The Emmy player comes out ahead, but he doesn't just win.
Quote from Sharuumatoid »
First. "A win is a win and a loss* is a loss*, how is losing* to one strategy somehow worse than another?*
Secondly, your question and admitted confusion is what makes you a Spike, I'd wager.
This presumption is clearly false; I am one of the least competitive Magic players out there, and I don't care how I lose (and trust me, I lose a lot). Sure, I try to build competitive decks for the online EDH tournaments, but I'd rather kick back and enjoy casual multiplayer any day of the week. It's just silly to get up in arms about it when it changes nothing in the end, right?
Quote from Tspice »
Minds desire is a terrible explanation, because sure, it might hit a bomb, it might hit a land. Youre casting a 1 in 99 spell to get a 1 in 98 card.
As far as every other card you named theres a fun thing called "Counter Target Spell," not to mention every card you named is sub par in every way. Even Genesis wave making 12 12/12's is worse than emrakul in my book. 1 15/15 that knocks out 6 permanents just for going sideways, time walking, and being nigh unremovable makes it way better.
You're right; Mind's Desire for 1 is terrible. You should never play it in a deck that can't build Storm count reliably, just like you should never play Emmy in a deck that can't ramp to 15 or cheat him into play reliably. However, I would wager that a Mind's Desire for 8 or 9 (an "average" storm count) ends the game at least as often as just hardcasting Emrakul. Don't believe me? Let's theorycraft some more! I can do this all day.
I really think the extra turn is what puts him over the top. Stuff like Felidar Sovereign can be equally stupid in EDH, but the big thing is you have a turn to react to it.
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A mere ten days after the Mending, a young knight of Valeron and a young ranger of Eos made a discovery that would change Alara forever.
So, here's something that I think should be considered regarding the topic of Emrakul vs other game-winning bombs.
Many game winners are artifact/enchantment/sorceries. These require particular engine pieces, a lot of which are difficult to tutor up. Mindslaver lock for example. You need an artifact (easy to do in blue) and a land. How do you tutor up the land? Mind's Desire/Genesis Wave: You've got to have ways to recur them/cast them again. Preferably in one turn in the case of mind's desire.
Emrakul is a creature. A lot of the most broken enablers and consistent mechanisms of abuse revolve around creatures. Many people who are playing it run multiple sac outlets and ways to tutor Emrakul up, so even if you have removal the first time, they're going to untap and do it again. The color where this is most problematic is, honestly, green. They can easily ramp up, tutor up Eye of Ugin and a land-based sac outlet, and just proceed to cast emrakul as often as possible for the rest of the game.
Let's be honest, it's not that difficult for a green deck to hit 15+ mana, they're all BUILT to do it as quickly as possible. It's not hard for them to find land-based engine pieces. Even if you have instant speed disruption to break up the combo, they time walk you and have a turn to set up their engine again. It's not hard for them to recur their engine pieces; this is green after all. A lot of the green decks in my metagame have devolved into "who can take infinite turns with Emrakul first?"
1. "Emrakul isn't even that good unless you ramp or cheap him into play".
Ok. But what about when he's cheated into play in the early-middle stages of the game? Losing 6 permanents is essentially game over; plus you can pick the player you want to eliminate (leave the green/red players alive since they have almost no answers at all).
2. "The time walk is good, no one denies that. But if he's cheated into play, then everyone has a turn (1 turn) to Wrath".
Your playgroup must be very boring. If everyone constantly has a board sweeper in hand, then creatures are worthless. On a related note, why not unban Rofellos as a general? He almost always sits there for a turn, giving people plenty of time to kill him. Sure he comes down sooner, but he's also way easier to kill.
3. "There's no difference between losing to a combo and losing to Emrakul".
Not true. You can disrupt a combo. Many combos are hard to assemble (requiring 3+ cards in a singleton format). Combos require more than one card. Combos have the potential (I know not all of them are) to be more interactive than simply turning a creature sideways. I can go on if people would like more reasons.
4. "There are TONS of answers to Emrakul, even if he's hardcasted".
True. There are tons of playable answers. Many of them will be used or destroyed by that point. When have you ever seen Nevinyrral's Disk or Oblivion Stone sit around for 5 turns? Many instant speed answers are very limited and specific (Wing Shards and Diabolic Edict will often miss). This is all assuming that you're playing the right color(s) to deal with Emrakul.
I'd also like to point out that of all the removal for Emrakul, only a couple (mostly unplayable) actually get rid of him for good. Congrats! You happened to have that Wrath...he'll be back in a couple of turns...at most.
As another side note, the fact that so many people are against Emrakul...the fact that this is a roughly 50/50 debate means that there's something up with this card. I'm not saying that it should be banned because 50% of EDH players don't like it. But the fact that 50% of EDH players don't like it means there's probably something wrong with it.
Your modesty is shining through. Mr. Finkel LSV Long, as that is who you must be, you're either lying or your playgroup is filled with people who have little, to no, desire to win.
In a format with bouncelands, temples to false gods, lakes of dead, and crazy coffers, it really isn't that difficult to imagine.
Except you're blatantly ignoring the obvious, the emrakul play just had a time walk...his lands are all untapped. He has the same amount of cards that he had before he cast emrakul. The answers you gave me, intrepid hero and mangara, are threats themselves, as your opponents don't want their big guys to die. You also forgot to mention that both take a turn to come online, where emrakul really doesn't, as he gives you an extra turn.
I just went through my deck and I have 6, with wing shards being the only non-permanent. If your deck needs to devote5-8 slots of removal for this guy, he is warping. My previous point on bribery wasn't that it annoyed me that he was coming out turn 3 due to bribery, but that everyone running blue includes bribery because everyone else includes emrakul. So far I have seen you give 3 answers to him, all requiring the running of white. Two of them need a turn to come online. Arcum takes a turn to come online, has no protection, and does nothing when put to the yard.
@rhythmguy: Stun sniper? Gwafa?? Evacuation?! If I play emrakul and you evacuate...what stops me from playing it again? I still get the time walk. Hell you just gave me another one.
Many people either run it, or run hate against it. It's ability to be run in every deck isn't a balance, not in a format where your card pool is supposed to be limited by your generals colors.
@Darc's response to ambas: So wait....your saying that since certain colors aren't as popular, or as strong, as other colors in EDH they should just accept the factthat any deck can run a guy that they can't deal with? You also seem to be thinging that everyone is thinking "emrakul is right around the corner" at all times. Could it be, perhaps possible, that players might have spent their removal on other threats, so when emrakul popped up, the time walk not giving people enough time to wrath, there is nothing to deal with him? Or should all players save their removal, for fear of the emmy? If so, then that is the essence of format warping, where you need to build your deck to contain answers, and play your game to hold answers, to deal with a single card in a 99-card singleton format.
My H/W list
not having them in hand doesn't mean you're bad, but assuming you're playing at a multiplayer table and everyone has a reasonable number of answers in their decks, SOMEONE is bound to have one.
emrakul isn't an "answer in hand or lose" card, except for the person he's beating down immediately. that's the biggest balancing factor here. emrakul is a bad time for one person, but for everyone else he's not a problem at all until he turns on them, by which point they should be ready. At worst he'll probably take one person out of the game. uril is at least as durable, and he can kill faster than emrakul, and he's a general. I've seen quite a few games where he comes out, and he usually does some damage to one person's board position and then eat removal or gets controlled or whatever.
and only a few people in my playgroup run emrakul, for the obvious reason that it just isn't very good in most decks. most people run pretty standard EDH decks full of big, bomby aggressive spells. A few decks run counters, and most run some decent removal although it tends to be more mass removal and less targeted.
I will give you a 50 card list of viable EDH cards that deal with emrakul the turn he comes out if you'll never complain about emrakul again. deal?
I'm not saying I'm a great magic player, but I do play a good political game. emrakul sucks balls politically, which is why I don't consider him a good enough card to use in my EDH decks.
even if they had coffers out, which is probably the highest-producing land (who runs lake of the dead? seriously.), they'd need 9 swamps + coffers, so that's 10 lands. adding in ancient tomb or temple of the false god, they'd only need... still 10 lands. 10 lands is a LOT of lands. if it's that late in the game, you really ought to have plenty of answers.
mangara and intrepid hero are both sort of threatening but as long as you aren't aggressive with them, they usually don't draw hate. at least mangara doesn't, I haven't gotten to playtest intrepid hero much, he's sort of a newcomer to my decks. mangara is kick ass though. whining about the extra turn for them to come online seems silly since they both cost 3 whereas emmy costs 15...i'm pretty sure they can lose summoning sickness before emmy comes out.
and sure, he gets a free time walk, but on the other hand if you wrathed his emrakul you only spent 4 mana while he spent 15. emrakul's going to do more damage because he costs a ludicrous amount of mana. The other thing I'm curious about is, how big of games are you people playing? because in a big game, he really shouldn't be a problem...someone's bound to have removal. and even if they don't, the odds are only 1/n-1 that you'll be attacked.
6 answers seems pretty low to me. consider kicking up the number. i'm not suggesting putting in emrakul-specific hate, but there are loooots of great permanents that kill his ass, and 100% of them are cheaper than he is.
and I'm mostly ignoring red and green because i don't like to play them. they probably have color-specific answers, but I don't know what they are.
WUB Merieke Ri Berit BUW
GWU Phelddagrif 1 2 3 4 UWG
BR Kaervek the Merciless RB
B Chainer, Dementia Master B
WUB Sen Triplets BUW
BG Sisters of Stone Death GB
WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon GRBUW
GWU Angus Mackenzie UWG
R Kumano, Master Yamabushi R
WB Teysa BW
U Higure U
B Geth B
WUBRG Child of Alara 1 2GRBUW
R Zirilan R
U Arcum U
UR Nin RU
BRG Sek'Kuar GRB
U Teferi U
G Melira G
GU Edric UG
BG Glissa GB
Casual
GUB Knacksaw Clique BUG
RWU Sunforger UWR
And 10 lands does not mean 10 turns. And even if it was, don't you think they'd kill your creatures? Don't you think they'd counter a manipulator? Don't you think they'd wrath the turn before casting? It just boggles my mind how in these scenarios - YOU have all the answers and your opponents have NO answers.
.. really? You lucked out with a wrath in hand, whereas he casted it, then had another turn to do whatever, hit you for 15 damage and made you sac 6, THEN you got to wrath, and then he goes again. If you can recover from that, good on you, but most of the times you're nearly out of the game, left to cast maybe 1 spell a turn. You've also got to hope he doesn't tutor it, or cast any other spell that locks you out of the game.
Any player who plays bombs will get rid of those cards. Some people aren't convinced when you say "i won't exile your creatures if you attack him!" Why would i even bother casting a Titan when those cards are out?
Late game emrakul is powerful but there should be answers for him in a multiplayer environment and I doubt there is anyone that would argue that if he comes down late game that he ends games.
Early games there are limited options to deal with emrakul but there are limited and vulnerable options for getting him into play. Artifact ramp decks need to get several counterable and instant speed killable artifacts into play. Green ramp decks are almost certain to rely on creatures that are vulnerable to kill spells and counters. Jhoira decks can, with a god hand, get emrakul out on turn 3 but relies on getting 1 instant, 2 lands, 2 artifacts, and 2 creatures with toughness 2 to stick on the board. Lot's of room to disrupt emrakul.
I generally find a proactive approach to be the best way to deal with emrakul.
Bear this in mind the next time a powerful mythic rare is spoiled
Thanks to chaostheory90 for finding this quiz for me
hardcasting him can potentially take one player out of the running for a sorcery speed answer but the other players still have that option.
Let's not forget that discard spells can hit both Emrakul and Bribery, and that Emrakul shuffling himself back into a 100-card deck does not mean he automatically tutors himself back to your hand. Playing a mono-black deck against a 5-color deck the other day, I cast Distress and saw Bribery, aka my Emrakul in disguise. Instead, I took a counterspell, then Persecuted the guy naming blue. Problem solved, and the game was over WAY before either of us got to 15 mana.
Look at it this way: I would argue that letting someone cast a good Mind's Desire (requiring no more legwork than playing Emrakul successfully, IMO) is probably more powerful and game-ending than Emmy himself. There are fewer answers to Mind's Desire than Emrakul, no? It isn't uncommon to win with Mind's Desire on the fifth or sixth turn, but no one here is complaining about that.
Or this: Empty board except for lots of lands, empty hands, Player A topdecks and casts Genesis Wave for 15. Or Mind Spring. Or Yawgmoth's Will, period. Is that not as likely to end the game here as Emmy? Point is moot -- card is a bomb, card wins games, and card is a good late game topdeck, same as countless other cards.
Lastly, I think people are forgetting that Emrakul annihilating you once in the late game is not the end of the world. You lose some random stuff and maybe 3 or 4 lands, but you are still very much in the game. Unless you are playing 1v1, the Time Walk off of Emmy does not completely obsolete sorcery-speed removal spells. Are you behind? Sure, but Curse of the Cabal would've been even worse. (not going for a card-to-card comparison here; just an example)
(Also, for the record, Avarice Totem is not a bad card in EDH, nor is it narrow. I'd argue that it is a versatile, powerful effect available to several colors that desperately need it.)
Draft my Mono-Blue Cube!
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Emrakul costs 15 mana to hardcast, at 15 mana you can win the game with lots of infinite combos, and yes i did say WIN. Emmy you sink 15 mana in and hope for the best.
Now if he is cheated in then there is no extra turn to worry about, and the number of answers to him increases dramatically (not that there was a lack to begin with).
In either situation emmy is far from banworthy.
When i think of all the amazing things, the totally powerful things i can to in the format, emmy is somewhere on the list, but he is nowhere even close to the top. To say she is not powerful is wrong, to say she is op is also wrong.
Perhaps after all infinite combos, arcum, clique, erayo, any soft or hard lock, all mass ld, yawgs win, necropotence, sol ring, mana crypt, top and many other things are banned, then i would consider banning emmy.
Sharuum the Hegemon
Mayael the Anima
Wort, Boggart Auntie
Sliver Overlord
Drana Kalastria Bloodchief
99 mountain Ashling
Minds desire is a terrible explanation, because sure, it might hit a bomb, it might hit a land. Youre casting a 1 in 99 spell to get a 1 in 98 card.
As far as every other card you named theres a fun thing called "Counter Target Spell," not to mention every card you named is sub par in every way. Even Genesis wave making 12 12/12's is worse than emrakul in my book. 1 15/15 that knocks out 6 permanents just for going sideways, time walking, and being nigh unremovable makes it way better.
If Emrakul could be countered or targetted with spot removal, we wouldnt be having this conversation, hence why Kozilek is not on the chopping board.
My vote is for a ban.
10.) No taxing cards.
If i wanted to pay 1 more on my Fresh Volunteers, then id just have played Pearled Unicorn.
Oh lawd. Mind's Desire for 1, you say? Alright, sure. You did RTFC and see the word Storm on it, right? And Genesis Wave for 12 is hella stronger than Emrakul; it's usually going to nab ~9-10 permanents, and probably put more than 15 power on the field, or enough come into play effects to set up a win in the current or next turn, demanding a wrath since single target removal (generally effective against emrakul) is kinda bad against the whole 'multiple dudes' strategy.
The reason Emrakul is good is because plenty of decks only run a few utility permanents and lands as their board presence, so Em goes straight for the jugular by killing off their lands and sources of card draw. If you run an aggro deck, you can walk right over an Emrakul deck unless it's one of those absurd mono green ramp style decks, which require really wonky answers. The larger problem as it appears to me is people aren't dealing with absurd ramp. You would've lost to any number of cards once your opponent got to 15, they just need a decent outlet for that mana.
I think this just boils down to more of a 'how do you define casual' debate. It's like sex- some people find more fun in beating others into a bloody pulp (via a giant flying octopus). Some don't, and like more diverse/random/inventive ways of having a good time.
EDH:
Zo-Zu the Punisher
Phelddagrif
Rhys the Redeemed
Ashling the Pilgrim
Ruhan of the Fomori
Rafiq of the Many
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief
Lazav, Dimir Mastermind
Aurelia, the Warleader
Animar, Soul of Elements
Borborygmos Enraged
Riku of Two Reflections
So both parties are left with two options:
He gets over it and either includes the answers or loses; OR
You cut it, play the way HE wants you to.
God, I remember when hating on a card meant putting in lots of answers to the card. EDH turned it into being a complete crybaby.
Wow excellent point.. i've changed my mind completely.
While we're at it lets unban the whole banlist- everyone was just being crybabys about those cards. I'd play with banned cards, and anyone trying to tell me to cut them can just run answers or lose. I can play how i want!
We scooped shuffled up. Started over, the player that had him took him out. The game last 1hour 20mins and was probably one of the best back and forth fun games I have ever had. A few other eldrazi came out and where handled during the course of the game. A charged up Chandra killed one player and Traximundar swung out the other.
I can't tell you how much better the game was without just him, Personally I hate all annihilator cards, they basically can ruin one persons whole game if they come out early and get even one swing off. But Emmy is the worst cause it is so hard to deal with.
It is game warping when you have to run cards just for him. No other creature really holds that kinda power. I do run bribery just for him, and if I get it early I just swing that player out of the game so Emmy goes away and the rest of us can have a fun game.
Don't get me wrong, EDH decks are all about bomby effects, and Emrakul is the biggest creature in the game. From my experience, Emrakul is too bomby even for EDH. When he hits the table, or any of the Big Three really, the rest of the table drops whatever they're doing to deal with him. Sure, he costs 15, but there are only two kinds of decks that really abuse Emmy: ones that ramp into him, and ones that cheat him out. I've had to play against both.
The problem isn't any one of Emrakul's abilities: it's all of them in conjunction. Emrakul honestly could be a 0/15 and would be just as devastating. It's the combination of being immune to spot kill, evasive, time walk, and annihilator 6 that makes him degenerate. Kozilek is easily removed, having no protection whatsoever. Ulamog's a litle more difficult to get rid of, but any RFG removal will work on him.
RAMP: Monogreen/Sisay/Eldrazi generals
Emrakul usually comes out around turn 6 or 7, and the timewalk turn doesn't even give the table a turn to react. At this point in the game, one attack from him, unless the opponent is playing a token deck, sets that player back so far they may as well be out of the game. Any smart player will go after the deck that is most capable of removing him. Basically to prevent this from happening, multiple players have to have answers to him.
CHEATS: Mayael/Timmy/Jhoira
It's better in some ways that Emmy doesn't give the timewalk turn except in the case of Jhoira, but worse in that most of the common ways to cheat him in are at instant speed (Quicksilver Amulet being one of the best ones.) EOT Emrakul just ends the game for at least one person, possibly more. In this deck, Eldrazi are just big fat beaters with annihilator. From my experience, annihilator 4 is a disaster, but not the end of the world. Recovering from annihilator 4 isn't terribly hard. That's why Kozilek and Ulamog are a lot less dangerous. Those two extra permanents gone just means so much more, and that one turn of reaction time makes a world of difference.
I don't think Emrakul on his own is broken--after all, a crazy mana cost should equate with a crazy powerful card. It's Emrakul coming down on an early turn that makes things degenerate. I've played both with and against Emrakul since his release, and I've come to the conclusion that he makes the game unfun. It boils down to this:
1) Player A drops Emmy, either at EOT or for 15. In the timewalk turn, he annihilates Player B, the greatest threat to Emrakul's survival.
2) Rest of table converses on whether they can answer Emrakul. If they can, Emrakul gets answered. Within a couple of turns, he'll get tutored up again. If the table cannot, everyone picks up their cards and starts another game.
In summary: There is no reason for the rules committee to ban Emrakul. However, Emrakul is notoriously unfun. If banning Emrakul allows the groiup as a whole to have more fun during games, then the banning should take place. Taking a hit from Ulamog or Kozilek can generally be recovered from; taking a hit from Emrakul generally cannot. If it were up to me, I would absolutely ban Emrakul. From the RC's standpoint, they don't really have a reason to ban him.
Emille, Seven-Sting Dancer Shalin Nariya
Sharuum the Hegemon
Mayael the Anima
Wort, Boggart Auntie
Sliver Overlord
Drana Kalastria Bloodchief
99 mountain Ashling
An easy test of this would be asking people if they prefer getting annihilated in 1v1 or in multiplayer.
First. "A win is a win and a loss* is a loss*, how is losing* to one strategy somehow worse than another?*
Secondly, your question and admitted confusion is what makes you a Spike, I'd wager. And Spikes have in EDH, just like every format, a very special view on the game. To MANY players, losing to an aggro alpha strike is a million times more acceptable than losing to that one Palinchron 4 points at a time, eventually, or whatever super combo a player manages to assemble.
I equate this mindset to the psychological preference of MANY players that their creature resolves and gets Doom Bladeed rather than it getting Counterspelled, even if it doesn't have any sort of EtB ability.
Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with Control and Combo. If every game was a pure Aggro swingfest, it wouldn't be very fun, either. It's just that, if I'm going to invest upwards of an hour of game time to a game, I don't want to see it stolen from me with some degenerate combo that would take so long to win the game, that several shortcuts and explanations take place. That, to me and MANY others, is an hour wasted. I'd rather play for three hours and be knocked out first, seeing those final points be beaten away by a rogue Akroma, than sit and develop my board and have it all undone in what can only be considered a "figurative" win.
I've digressed severely from the topic of Emrakul, I now realize. But all the points hold true. Emrakul is a card you play because you want to win. Emrakul is good at winning. MANY players value originality/variety/flavor to fuel their fun rather than the bombiest creature this side of town.
As you can see, I'm in the camp against Emrakul, if only for the reason that it's just that stale go-to bomb that anyone can run. One of my favorite parts of EDH is the color restriction. Hell, 5-color generals, when used only to give access to all cards (looking at you Cromat), piss me off almost as much.
Does it deserve to be banned?
For fairness, no. For showing up too much, thus making the format considerably less exciting via decreased variability? Yes.
Erg, this is starting to get really boring. I take it you're not accepting my offer, then?
I'm not really super interested in continuing a pointless back and forth about emrakul, but i would like to point out that i heavily disagree with you about cards like mangara and hero.
people pack plenty of answers in EDH. some of them sit in your hand, some of them sit on the field. When someone is about to cast a big ol' bomb like terrastodon, it would be fairly impossible to eliminate all the removal on the field as well as in players hands in order to dominate the table with him. If everyone wants a card stopped, most of the time it WILL be stopped. Trying to threaten the entire table with a single card is generally ludicrous. So when that player ramps up for a terrastodon, if he knows some people have answers, if he's smart, he just won't target those people. he'll target someone else's permanents, and he'll attack someone else. If he avoids the people with removal his terrastodon can go on living, and it can do some serious damage to the poor souls without removal while it's alive.
So yes, you can absolutely use cards like mangara in a politically savvy way to ensure that they stay on the field. The player trying to drop emrakul could exhaust his hand and waste valuable time trying to get rid of every piece of removal on the field - only to have it die to a wing shards or an odds/ends or an oring or an ostone or a *** or a doj or WHATEVER on the next turn - or he could tell the person using mangara that he won't attack her so long as she doesn't mess with emmy. Everyone who doesn't have relevant removal takes the pain and both emmy-player and mangara-player profit.
I do this sort of thing all the time. control player agrees not to disrupt aggro player, aggro player agrees not to attack control player. eventually the aggro player runs into removal and the control player has lost nothing, while all his opponents are weaker. It takes surprisingly little to make this sort of thing happen.
so yes, I recommend running cheap game-wreckers like hero and mangara and then I recommend NOT USING THEM. once you start using them all willy-nilly (yes, i use old people language) people WILL start firebombing them off the face of the earth if they ever plan to play anything powerful. but as long as you use tact, you can ensure that not only do they stay on the field, but also that they ensure you're protected from whatever chaos might be going on in the field...and you never even have to use them.
One final note - This works a lot better if you have good protection cards. they're also usually cheap stuff - things like devoted caretaker, mother of runes, sylvan safekeeper, eight-and-a-half-tails, kira, great glass-spinner, mistmeadow witch etc. and of course good old-fashioned counterspells work fine too.
with a decent compliment of nasty control creatures and enough protection for them to ensure they are difficult to remove, anyone trying to make an aggressive move will find it a better idea to coexist with you than to waste ammo and ensure your wrath by trying to take you out too. Actually this strategy has been effective enough in my playgroup that I'm getting kind of sick of it, and I'm going to ignore all of it and try to make a decent mono-red deck with kumano, master yamabushi. yesh.
WUB Merieke Ri Berit BUW
GWU Phelddagrif 1 2 3 4 UWG
BR Kaervek the Merciless RB
B Chainer, Dementia Master B
WUB Sen Triplets BUW
BG Sisters of Stone Death GB
WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon GRBUW
GWU Angus Mackenzie UWG
R Kumano, Master Yamabushi R
WB Teysa BW
U Higure U
B Geth B
WUBRG Child of Alara 1 2GRBUW
R Zirilan R
U Arcum U
UR Nin RU
BRG Sek'Kuar GRB
U Teferi U
G Melira G
GU Edric UG
BG Glissa GB
Casual
GUB Knacksaw Clique BUG
RWU Sunforger UWR
There are, of course, different answers to Genesis Wave than to Emrakul; that was not my point. I specified that players had an "empty board and empty hands," so the likelihood of GW being countered in that situation is close to nil. (Yes, it's a stretch, but my point was that I can craft a scenario in which GW is nigh unbeatable, much like other posters have already done for Emrakul.) Once an opposing Emrakul is cast, your chances of winning go down significantly, so the point is to NOT let them cast Emrakul -- and it's hardly DB to blow up lands 10-15.
- Yes, Wave can be countered.
- The game is random; drawing Emmy or an answer to Emmy is up to chance as well. And Emrakul DOES need preparation -- sure, you can legally throw him into any old deck willy-nilly, but that doesn't mean he is good there.
- Emrakul doesn't instantly win the game, either. You hit one guy and knock out some lands, and then the rest of the table (that guy included) has a chance to play Wrath of God. The Emmy player comes out ahead, but he doesn't just win.
This presumption is clearly false; I am one of the least competitive Magic players out there, and I don't care how I lose (and trust me, I lose a lot). Sure, I try to build competitive decks for the online EDH tournaments, but I'd rather kick back and enjoy casual multiplayer any day of the week. It's just silly to get up in arms about it when it changes nothing in the end, right?
You're right; Mind's Desire for 1 is terrible. You should never play it in a deck that can't build Storm count reliably, just like you should never play Emmy in a deck that can't ramp to 15 or cheat him into play reliably. However, I would wager that a Mind's Desire for 8 or 9 (an "average" storm count) ends the game at least as often as just hardcasting Emrakul. Don't believe me? Let's theorycraft some more! I can do this all day.
Draft my Mono-Blue Cube!
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Emille, Seven-Sting Dancer Shalin Nariya
Many game winners are artifact/enchantment/sorceries. These require particular engine pieces, a lot of which are difficult to tutor up. Mindslaver lock for example. You need an artifact (easy to do in blue) and a land. How do you tutor up the land? Mind's Desire/Genesis Wave: You've got to have ways to recur them/cast them again. Preferably in one turn in the case of mind's desire.
Emrakul is a creature. A lot of the most broken enablers and consistent mechanisms of abuse revolve around creatures. Many people who are playing it run multiple sac outlets and ways to tutor Emrakul up, so even if you have removal the first time, they're going to untap and do it again. The color where this is most problematic is, honestly, green. They can easily ramp up, tutor up Eye of Ugin and a land-based sac outlet, and just proceed to cast emrakul as often as possible for the rest of the game.
Let's be honest, it's not that difficult for a green deck to hit 15+ mana, they're all BUILT to do it as quickly as possible. It's not hard for them to find land-based engine pieces. Even if you have instant speed disruption to break up the combo, they time walk you and have a turn to set up their engine again. It's not hard for them to recur their engine pieces; this is green after all. A lot of the green decks in my metagame have devolved into "who can take infinite turns with Emrakul first?"
1. "Emrakul isn't even that good unless you ramp or cheap him into play".
Ok. But what about when he's cheated into play in the early-middle stages of the game? Losing 6 permanents is essentially game over; plus you can pick the player you want to eliminate (leave the green/red players alive since they have almost no answers at all).
2. "The time walk is good, no one denies that. But if he's cheated into play, then everyone has a turn (1 turn) to Wrath".
Your playgroup must be very boring. If everyone constantly has a board sweeper in hand, then creatures are worthless. On a related note, why not unban Rofellos as a general? He almost always sits there for a turn, giving people plenty of time to kill him. Sure he comes down sooner, but he's also way easier to kill.
3. "There's no difference between losing to a combo and losing to Emrakul".
Not true. You can disrupt a combo. Many combos are hard to assemble (requiring 3+ cards in a singleton format). Combos require more than one card. Combos have the potential (I know not all of them are) to be more interactive than simply turning a creature sideways. I can go on if people would like more reasons.
4. "There are TONS of answers to Emrakul, even if he's hardcasted".
True. There are tons of playable answers. Many of them will be used or destroyed by that point. When have you ever seen Nevinyrral's Disk or Oblivion Stone sit around for 5 turns? Many instant speed answers are very limited and specific (Wing Shards and Diabolic Edict will often miss). This is all assuming that you're playing the right color(s) to deal with Emrakul.
I'd also like to point out that of all the removal for Emrakul, only a couple (mostly unplayable) actually get rid of him for good. Congrats! You happened to have that Wrath...he'll be back in a couple of turns...at most.
As another side note, the fact that so many people are against Emrakul...the fact that this is a roughly 50/50 debate means that there's something up with this card. I'm not saying that it should be banned because 50% of EDH players don't like it. But the fact that 50% of EDH players don't like it means there's probably something wrong with it.
Are we talking about an early or late Emrakul? This makes no sense.
Nothing until Jace is gone!
EDH:
Numot, the Devastator