I tend to put in at least 3, some of which are in my colors - swords, path, putrefy/mortify, oblation, slaughter pact.
Can't say about the other guys, my bet is that it's somewhere in the same range, but if they're not playing white - they could be slacking on those.
This explains why your group has to ban Primordials. You're only running 3-4 spot removals and you think the other guys are the ones who are "slacking."
Yeah )) each group has it's own issues )) Isn't 3-4 enough if you have access to white with all the mass removal?
Obviously not. Instant speed removal is quite important, as you can nullify blinking by just destroying it while the effect is on the stack. You can prevent so many problems with a well-timed Murder or Disenchant, and there's some type for every color.
This explains why your group has to ban Primordials. You're only running 3-4 spot removals and you think the other guys are the ones who are "slacking."
This is a very flawed argument that could be made to prop up virtually any overpowered effect.
"Why aren't you just running more X to stop it?"
Maybe I am and it is just a matter of:
A) These being 100 card singleton decks, aka pretty random.
B) There being plenty of targets for those answers between 3 opponents.
The Primordials can be annoyingly good even in games where there is plenty of removal around. There are so many avenues of recursion/blink/clone/etc..., and the people trying to abuse them are likely to try and protect their baby. Do they need to be banned given the current banning standards for EDH? I don't think so. But do they make game play less fun overall? I do think so.
I personally love the primordials. When I'm playing EDH with my playgroup they always make a game interesting.
They work SO well with Animar, Soul of Elements. At least once a game my friend will cheat one into play with animar, and commence the beatdown. They are annoying to fight, but still fun. If they don't make me groan when they hit play, then they don't seem ban-worthy to me.
The worst play I've been hit with was a molten primordial being discarded with a faithless looting. My opponent drew into a Artisan of Kozilek with it, then used Animar to cheat in the Artisan for about 4 mana. For his ETB ability he targeted his Molten Primordial and basically got 4 creatures for the price of one by stealing one of my creatures, and my other opponent's.
That play would have been devastating if i hadn't drawn into a sunblast angel after he attacked me.
Obviously not. Instant speed removal is quite important, as you can nullify blinking by just destroying it while the effect is on the stack. You can prevent so many problems with a well-timed Murder or Disenchant, and there's some type for every color.
This is true...but what do you think you are likely to see more of in a game: Murders or problems?
This is true...but what do you think you are likely to see more of in a game: Murders or problems?
Well I kind of hope to see problems. This is a game. The whole enterprise is a problem to be solved, the more challenging the better. I mean, who says "Hey, I just beat the easiest video game ever, I hardly had to do a thing, I rule!"
As far as murders, I haven't seen one of those in a game of EDH yet. Some vague drunken threats perhaps...
This is a very flawed argument that could be made to prop up virtually any overpowered effect.
"Why aren't you just running more X to stop it?"
Maybe I am and it is just a matter of:
A) These being 100 card singleton decks, aka pretty random.
B) There being plenty of targets for those answers between 3 opponents.
The Primordials can be annoyingly good even in games where there is plenty of removal around. There are so many avenues of recursion/blink/clone/etc..., and the people trying to abuse them are likely to try and protect their baby. Do they need to be banned given the current banning standards for EDH? I don't think so. But do they make game play less fun overall? I do think so.
While I rather enjoy the Primordials, I agree with your overall point. Saying "run moar answers" is fine and all, but there comes a point in every match that answers dry up, people tap out, and cards win games. Losing to cards doesn't necessarily mean that you don't run enough answers. The people smuggly posting "Oh, you lose to these cards? You must not run enough answers" are being somewhat disingenuous.
I have been playing Commander online for some amount of games after the release of Primordials and I cant recall a situation where people have been frustrated about them. I would have won a game if my Primordial resolved once, but my opponent had counterspell. They are just good edh creatures.
Basically in so many games it is a struggle for a few hrs to handle the earlier Primodials, someone lands a Primodial at the right time. Wins the game. Wonder why we bother to play.
If the store owner says that I can't trade in the premises, I'll just go outside. If he says that I can't trade within 10m of his premises, I'll go to 11 meters. If he says that he doesn't want to see me trading, I will put a basket over his head and continue trading.
Yes, he's a local legend. He's only known to take his clothes off before he goes into the Ladies' Lockerroom. Nobody knows what he does in there because he's invisible, but it's almost certainly tons of masturbating.
Basically in so many games it is a struggle for a few hrs to handle the earlier Primodials, someone lands a Primodial at the right time. Wins the game. Wonder why we bother to play.
I've seen games where this was true, I've also seen games where they land, do their thing, and life goes on. If all you do is focus on the times when they caused a catastrophic effect, you won't notice the times they provided a minimal effect. More often than not in my games, they ETB and die. Maybe they get reanimated once or cloned once, but when one player pulls ahead, they get targeted heavily. I've rarely seen the games that were centered around them.
While I don't have a ton of experience going against a primordial I feel like I know what the problem is. It's not just about having enough spot removal. If the green machine hits on turn 4 or before then it's harder to come back in the game then if he hits on turn 10. Removal will definitely help stop it, but it won't undo the damage done. I feel like the main issue is not playing enough before turn 4. If you are green you should be ramping or playing weenies. If you are black you should be tutoring or playing bitter blossom. I don't mean that you have to play certain cards, but that you should be trying to essentially do one of 2 things. You should actively be trying to win by either combo-ing or playing dudes and attacking with them or milling people. Or you should be trying to stop other people from winning by playing counterspells, removal, or general stall strategies until you can win. If a sylvan primordial hits on turn 4 and no one else has really done anything significant then there's a good chance their decks cmc is too high. Having a turn 1-3 play doesn't have to make your deck competitive. By playing more stuff earlier it makes the Primoridal player nuke your value cards instead of your lands. If they nuke your land instead then you should still have a Bitter Blossom, a keyrune, a talisman, an extra land from ramping, a general, or something.
If you want to improve your deck to be able to handle Sylvan Primordial better, there are people on these forums that will help you. There are ways around it. It's not Emrakul. It can be stopped. Now if you are in a playgroup that doesn't play anything before turn 4 and is generally pretty casual, then go ahead and ban this card in your group. I just ask that you don't come on here saying it's overpowered and banned. A lot of people have fun with this card while still being able to handle it, including me. I don't think it's fair to us to have this card banned, just because a few games someone got it out turn 2 against you and made you mad.
I'm so goddamn bored of ETB abuse decks. I love running Humility & Torpor Orb and a variety of tutors to throw a wrench in the ETB circus that can ensue in a lot of games. If I never see another Deadeye Navigator soulbonded to... anything, I'll be a happy man. I just wish there were more cards like that.
The primordials are a particularly stupid, lazy design. They crash into a multiplayer game with all the subtlety of a wild bull elephant. They exacerbate this already tiresome trend of games revolving around exploiting ETB effects. They are entirely devoid of personality, quirks, flavor or anything interesting whatsoever. The balance between them is laughably poor.
Instead of playing interesting niche cards that interact specifically with your deck, why not play boring, generic cards that don't need to interact with anything? Instead of working for your two-for-ones, why not play cards that vomit out heaps of two, three and four-for-ones all by themselves? I could stuff Sylvan Primordial into every single one of my decks with green, and be better off for it. I'm not going to... because I can't think of anything more uninteresting and tedious.
I think overall I find them lackluster in that they don't do exactly what I want, and the byproducts are usually just unfortunate. I don't want to target each player with Sylvan, because i don't want to hit the guy who's already down. I'd much rather run Terastodon or Woodfall Primus here. I don't really want to exile the spells so I usually just skip Diluvian Primordial in favor of that hybrid instant or Chancellor of the Spires. The red one doesn't usually get me what I really want, which is usually a permanent, and the black one is never as fun as Puppeteer Clique. I actually quite like the white one. It feels fair.
That being said, I haven't been playing as much EDH in the past few months since GTC came out, so maybe I haven't been exposed enough, but I don't dread seeing them yet. They're good, but I think I run the degenerate ones in maybe one or two out of my rotations of decks, because they're just really reckless.
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Reckless is probably a right word to use here. Wizards have been lazy and reckless to come out with this type of cards to excite players. They must have design this Primodials thinking the players will love it because of its far reaching power levels.
If the store owner says that I can't trade in the premises, I'll just go outside. If he says that I can't trade within 10m of his premises, I'll go to 11 meters. If he says that he doesn't want to see me trading, I will put a basket over his head and continue trading.
Yes, he's a local legend. He's only known to take his clothes off before he goes into the Ladies' Lockerroom. Nobody knows what he does in there because he's invisible, but it's almost certainly tons of masturbating.
I find that primordials are simple and pwoerfull and are great for newwer players to use in there decks. That is all I see them as. But in the end there are always people who will abuse them to unspeakable means and turn the game into a one-sided beatdown. Magic has many good and fun cards to play with, but there is always a way to abuse those cards and make them hated by people as well. It isnt the cards themselves, its how people decide to use them. Lets take the green primordial for instance. It can be used to get rid of 1-3 permanents you or someone else is having trouble dealing with, and gives you some mana ramp and a blocker/beater thats very vunrable to removal. On th eother hand it could be used with deadeye navigator to continuesly bounc ein and out and kill everything on the board thats not lands, while puting you so far ahead in mana than everyeone else that you are basicaly securing the win. Same card, used two different ways, one being mostly harmless, while another leaving a bad taste in someones mouth about that card. It's all about how you use the cards.
If you ask me, Deadeye Navigator is probably the one that needs to be considered to ban, since it can and will be used to abuse many different ETB effects. They banned Primeval Titan because it put you too far ahead, I kinda think Deadeye navigator also puts you way to far ahead, because once it's bound to something, many removal spells become pointless if the one playing the navigator has mana up.
If the store owner says that I can't trade in the premises, I'll just go outside. If he says that I can't trade within 10m of his premises, I'll go to 11 meters. If he says that he doesn't want to see me trading, I will put a basket over his head and continue trading.
Yes, he's a local legend. He's only known to take his clothes off before he goes into the Ladies' Lockerroom. Nobody knows what he does in there because he's invisible, but it's almost certainly tons of masturbating.
Early Sylvan is the only one that really causes problems. Thankfully, most of the people I play with don't cheat things out that early and have the tact to do what I do: See Sylvan Primordial as an incredibly versatile utility card. You just hold it until each opponent has something problematic, and you just take care of it all in one shot. There have been very few times where I've cast it just to destroy lands, and even then, it would be because I'm short on mana or there's one incredibly annoying, problematic thing on the board that really needs to go.
We enjoy longer games where everyone's decks get to do what their meant to do until someone edges out a victory. Ramping in to tempo bombs like Sylvan early just doesn't work with that.
Pfft if a green mage wants to blow up a few of my lands from my Karn deck I'll return the favour by making sure he doesn't have lands for the rest of the game with mycosynth lattice.
There is much more malicious LD out there which is why my baby sundering titan got banned because he was the legit nuts
tl;dr Huntmaster will see play in sideboard, rarely mainboard, and if you disagree, sig this and feel free to rub it in my face when the time comes. 'Cause I want him to be maindeckable.
It's funny that perceptions can differ that much. Sylvan Primordial is just ramp + everybody else loses a land, at worst. Diluvian Primordial / Sepulchral Primordial tend to lead to situations that are hard to control if you don't play graveyard removal. I've seen people go infinite or nearly infinite with these primordials more than once. Players running a truckload of clones are part of the problem.
However, this is a problem that can be dealt with.
"Just" LD and ramp? You are aware those are some of the strongest effects in the game right? Also, how is anyone going infinite with the blue primordial?
"Just" LD and ramp? You are aware those are some of the strongest effects in the game right? Also, how is anyone going infinite with the blue primordial?
If the store owner says that I can't trade in the premises, I'll just go outside. If he says that I can't trade within 10m of his premises, I'll go to 11 meters. If he says that he doesn't want to see me trading, I will put a basket over his head and continue trading.
Yes, he's a local legend. He's only known to take his clothes off before he goes into the Ladies' Lockerroom. Nobody knows what he does in there because he's invisible, but it's almost certainly tons of masturbating.
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This explains why your group has to ban Primordials. You're only running 3-4 spot removals and you think the other guys are the ones who are "slacking."
Pristaxcontrombmodruu!
Obviously not. Instant speed removal is quite important, as you can nullify blinking by just destroying it while the effect is on the stack. You can prevent so many problems with a well-timed Murder or Disenchant, and there's some type for every color.
Beating Face with Bane
Beatrice, the Golden Witch
This is a very flawed argument that could be made to prop up virtually any overpowered effect.
"Why aren't you just running more X to stop it?"
Maybe I am and it is just a matter of:
A) These being 100 card singleton decks, aka pretty random.
B) There being plenty of targets for those answers between 3 opponents.
The Primordials can be annoyingly good even in games where there is plenty of removal around. There are so many avenues of recursion/blink/clone/etc..., and the people trying to abuse them are likely to try and protect their baby. Do they need to be banned given the current banning standards for EDH? I don't think so. But do they make game play less fun overall? I do think so.
They work SO well with Animar, Soul of Elements. At least once a game my friend will cheat one into play with animar, and commence the beatdown. They are annoying to fight, but still fun. If they don't make me groan when they hit play, then they don't seem ban-worthy to me.
The worst play I've been hit with was a molten primordial being discarded with a faithless looting. My opponent drew into a Artisan of Kozilek with it, then used Animar to cheat in the Artisan for about 4 mana. For his ETB ability he targeted his Molten Primordial and basically got 4 creatures for the price of one by stealing one of my creatures, and my other opponent's.
That play would have been devastating if i hadn't drawn into a sunblast angel after he attacked me.
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This is true...but what do you think you are likely to see more of in a game: Murders or problems?
Well I kind of hope to see problems. This is a game. The whole enterprise is a problem to be solved, the more challenging the better. I mean, who says "Hey, I just beat the easiest video game ever, I hardly had to do a thing, I rule!"
As far as murders, I haven't seen one of those in a game of EDH yet. Some vague drunken threats perhaps...
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While I rather enjoy the Primordials, I agree with your overall point. Saying "run moar answers" is fine and all, but there comes a point in every match that answers dry up, people tap out, and cards win games. Losing to cards doesn't necessarily mean that you don't run enough answers. The people smuggly posting "Oh, you lose to these cards? You must not run enough answers" are being somewhat disingenuous.
Basically in so many games it is a struggle for a few hrs to handle the earlier Primodials, someone lands a Primodial at the right time. Wins the game. Wonder why we bother to play.
I've seen games where this was true, I've also seen games where they land, do their thing, and life goes on. If all you do is focus on the times when they caused a catastrophic effect, you won't notice the times they provided a minimal effect. More often than not in my games, they ETB and die. Maybe they get reanimated once or cloned once, but when one player pulls ahead, they get targeted heavily. I've rarely seen the games that were centered around them.
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If you want to improve your deck to be able to handle Sylvan Primordial better, there are people on these forums that will help you. There are ways around it. It's not Emrakul. It can be stopped. Now if you are in a playgroup that doesn't play anything before turn 4 and is generally pretty casual, then go ahead and ban this card in your group. I just ask that you don't come on here saying it's overpowered and banned. A lot of people have fun with this card while still being able to handle it, including me. I don't think it's fair to us to have this card banned, just because a few games someone got it out turn 2 against you and made you mad.
My Saffi deck
The primordials are a particularly stupid, lazy design. They crash into a multiplayer game with all the subtlety of a wild bull elephant. They exacerbate this already tiresome trend of games revolving around exploiting ETB effects. They are entirely devoid of personality, quirks, flavor or anything interesting whatsoever. The balance between them is laughably poor.
Instead of playing interesting niche cards that interact specifically with your deck, why not play boring, generic cards that don't need to interact with anything? Instead of working for your two-for-ones, why not play cards that vomit out heaps of two, three and four-for-ones all by themselves? I could stuff Sylvan Primordial into every single one of my decks with green, and be better off for it. I'm not going to... because I can't think of anything more uninteresting and tedious.
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RGB Prossh
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That being said, I haven't been playing as much EDH in the past few months since GTC came out, so maybe I haven't been exposed enough, but I don't dread seeing them yet. They're good, but I think I run the degenerate ones in maybe one or two out of my rotations of decks, because they're just really reckless.
If you ask me, Deadeye Navigator is probably the one that needs to be considered to ban, since it can and will be used to abuse many different ETB effects. They banned Primeval Titan because it put you too far ahead, I kinda think Deadeye navigator also puts you way to far ahead, because once it's bound to something, many removal spells become pointless if the one playing the navigator has mana up.
Thats my take on all of this primordial buisness.
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Why create cards at all then?
Early Sylvan is the only one that really causes problems. Thankfully, most of the people I play with don't cheat things out that early and have the tact to do what I do: See Sylvan Primordial as an incredibly versatile utility card. You just hold it until each opponent has something problematic, and you just take care of it all in one shot. There have been very few times where I've cast it just to destroy lands, and even then, it would be because I'm short on mana or there's one incredibly annoying, problematic thing on the board that really needs to go.
We enjoy longer games where everyone's decks get to do what their meant to do until someone edges out a victory. Ramping in to tempo bombs like Sylvan early just doesn't work with that.
Bt that's just us.
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There is much more malicious LD out there which is why my baby sundering titan got banned because he was the legit nuts
Karn, Silver Golem EDH Deck Link to my deck.
"Just" LD and ramp? You are aware those are some of the strongest effects in the game right? Also, how is anyone going infinite with the blue primordial?
MAybe they have a Diluvian Primordial, a Chancellor of the Spires, and a Pyromancer Ascension with 2 or more quest counters on it on the battlefield along with a Momentary Blink, a Cloudshift, a Pull from Eternity, and any instant or sorcery that does anything productive in some opponents graveyard.
Pretty sure they deserve to win if they assemble some absurd scenario. Or maybe the primordial isn't the problem and someone else winning is.
Or maybe they enchanted it with Quicksilver Dagger and resolved a Mind Over Matter!
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Don't be silly, that requires red mana.
Edit: Actually so does pyromancer ascension, but since they're playing a blue deck they probably just stole it in the first place.
Ha. R needs a burn heal. Whodathunkit?
Pristaxcontrombmodruu!