I always see people complaining about really long combos, could someone please show me one? And as a side note if there is infact a combo that takes 45 min, why would you ever not concede in the first 2 min or so?
Storm. Always freaking storm. They need to create an absolutely massive storm count because the life totals in EDH are so high - a storm count of 20 just to take out one person. tendrils of agony is one hell of a win condition, but it takes foreeeeever to kill a table with just that.
While they're doing this, they're playing fast mana, drawing cards, and tutoring, so a good part of their turn is taken up in shuffling, counting how much mana is floating, and how many spells they've played. Alternatively you can run something wierd, like Niv Mizzet, the Firemind or Underworld dreams as your win con while cycling through draw 7's like Windfall, winds of change, and time spiral.
Just because it's used in a combo, doesn't mean it's ONLY used in a combo. Palinchron pays for itself, it's almost a free 4/5 flyer, with a bounce effect. It's awesome, and i'd play it in mono-blue. Same goes for power artifact- what if i just want to use it for my Tower of Calamities? It sounds like you just have a problem with combos in general- i don't know if that's actually you're opinion and you're just trying to play devil's advocate or not, but whatever. When the day comes that every deck is running Palinchron infinite combo or anti-Palinchron combo: I'll eat my hat. Whereas if i was able to run Kukosho, suddenly i'd see a lot more decks that have destroy black/flying creatures, or counter black spells.
I actually don't a have problem with combos at all except for storm, because of its increased difficulty to be on the same axis of interactivity than a traditional "assemble two-three pieces for a combo" deck -- but that's more of a pet peeve than a hatred for it.
Storm. Always freaking storm. They need to create an absolutely massive storm count because the life totals in EDH are so high - a storm count of 20 just to take out one person. tendrils of agony is one hell of a win condition, but it takes foreeeeever to kill a table with just that.
While they're doing this, they're playing fast mana, drawing cards, and tutoring, so a good part of their turn is taken up in shuffling, counting how much mana is floating, and how many spells they've played. Alternatively you can run something wierd, like Niv Mizzet, the Firemind or Underworld dreams as your win con while cycling through draw 7's like Windfall, winds of change, and time spiral.
Storm's problems can be solved by using Reiterate+Early Harvest/Turnabout to rack up the Storm count. Then again, Storm is insanely hard to pull off in multiplayer. Whoever does so consistently deserves props (except Niv Mizzit or Azami or similar generals).
Case and point: Don't play Storm if you can't go infinite. A lot.
I play an infinite Warp World deck that does take like 30 minutes occasionally to go off. It's obvious I've won early but people just think they can get a permanent to stick so they watch me WW for like 50 ten times.
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No offense, but if you can't see his ability's application in a 100 card deck, i don't know what to tell you.
Well... that's not very helpful. I'm sure people can see his application in many decks that run green, but insta-win is a little more specific.
The only 'insta-win' combo I can think of that's even reasonable to consider is a 5-color combo fetching Body Double copying the hulk and a free sac outlet like Viscera Seer. Then you sac the Body Double to trigger again fetching Reveillark and a cmc 1 pinger like Mogg Fanatic.
It's worth noting that Reveillark is particularly known for going infinite, but I like the 'lark so I won't dive into that.
I'm sure you could combo with him more reliably with some other cards on the battlefield... for instance you could cut down to bant colors if you have Altar of Dementia in play and your opponent isn't running any eldrazi titans...
You can easily fish out the combo, and many of the pieces are generic and good in the first place. It's not like you need to fill your deck with janky hulk combo only cards. Hulk becomes a fill in the blanks card for any number of creature based win combos; if you find one or two potential pieces, it gets easier and easier to win off just one trigger. Lark goes infinite, it just requires 4 other cards - 2 for reanimation and a sac outlet. Hulk dying is those other cards. It's similar to stuff like fastbond + crucible of worlds - there are a huge number of ways to win as long as you've got a mana free method of saccing lands, not simply something stupid and easy that a newb could do like strip mine. You can deck all of your opponents with a cephalid coliseum or shock them to death with a barbarian ring. If you want to gain life, you can add nomad stadium, kabira crossroads, or zuran orb. Note that the only card that's really unusual and not very playable in that particular combo is the zuran orb. Fastbond and Hulk are the sort of card that greases the engine of a deck, making all your other cards so much better, not unlike Necro.
I agree with the poster a while back about Kokusho, the Evening Star being banned, its not that strong. Like, its very strong, and would be a black autoinclude, but its not broken.
I kinda wish that all the stupid spells that kill every single permanent on the field to be banned, like Jokelhaups and Decree of Annihilation. Stupid cards are so annoying and ruin the game.
I kinda wish that all the stupid spells that kill every single permanent on the field to be banned, like Jokelhaups and Decree of Annihilation. Stupid cards are so annoying and ruin the game.
That takes out half of red's good Hand and Creature removal. Being reduced to All is Dust, Disk, and Oblivion Stone isn't exactly nice for what's considered the weakest color in Magic.
Hulk becomes a fill in the blanks card for any number of creature based win combos; if you find one or two potential pieces, it gets easier and easier to win off just one trigger.
This line in particular convinces me, and is an entirely acceptable reason for Hulk's banning.
Now then... next battle...
Kokusho, the Evening Star. Really? I don't even consider it a black "auto-include," and I would love to see a deck built around it as a general. That sounds fun! I mean, it has to hit the grave 8 times. If the game becomes centralized about "who can reanimate it more" it has to hit more than that! I think a Kokoshu tug-of-war actually sounds like a blast. I think the way it centralizes the game borders on chaos more than degeneracy. That's only if there's even enough unchecked recursion going around to create a scenario of a centralized game around the graveyards.
The way I see Kokusho is this: you know how there are all these arguments going on about how Emrakul is busted and should be banned, or mediocre, easy to deal with and not worth putting in your deck, and how more decks are running Bribery, Duplicant, Brittle Effigy and so forth to deal with it? Kokusho is like that, except for the easy-to-deal-with bit. Sure, it's black, but it's so easy to abuse, even for opponents. When people say it overcentralises the game, they don't mean that everyone will be desperately digging for an answer. They mean that everyone willing be trying to abuse it themselves. The black player willing be trying to Entomb it and start going off with Chainer, the blue player will be finding his Bribery and Clones, the white player will slap down Adarkar Valkyrie, the red player will finally get some use out of Confusion in the Ranks, and the green player will scoop in disgust. Or start running Mimic Vat and High Market. Heck, I'm pretty sure they'd all be doing that. And why not? The thing is, as long as any player has a Kokusho somewhere in their deck, one of the best possible strategies for anyone in the game becomes abusing it. That is warping.
Kokusho seems pretty underpowered. I don't think it does anything that is actually powerful. I mean, gaining like 30 life is ok, but still not terribly impressive. Each opponent losing 5 is pretty mediocre. Decks that are competitive all do something actually powerful instead of draining a ton of life. Compared to infinite combos and time stretch and such, Kokusho seems lackluster at best.
In 1v1 he is basically a joke, and quite a bit worse than BSA (which sucks).
Compare him to ANY titan. The only one that may be worse is the black one. Maybe. I agree with RedPanda that it actually sounds fun to play Kokusho wars. And honestly, I will allow anyone who wants to play any number of cards that drain 5 from each opp at the starting cost of 4BB and 1B+ after. Not very exciting.
@Viperesque: Why would a green player scoop in response?
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Kokusho seems pretty underpowered. I don't think it does anything that is actually powerful. I mean, gaining like 30 life is ok, but still not terribly impressive. Each opponent losing 5 is pretty mediocre. Decks that are competitive all do something actually powerful instead of draining a ton of life. Compared to infinite combos and time stretch and such, Kokusho seems lackluster at best.
In 1v1 he is basically a joke, and quite a bit worse than BSA (which sucks).
Compare him to ANY titan. The only one that may be worse is the black one. Maybe. I agree with RedPanda that it actually sounds fun to play Kokusho wars. And honestly, I will allow anyone who wants to play any number of cards that drain 5 from each opp at the starting cost of 4BB and 1B+ after. Not very exciting.
@Viperesque: Why would a green player scoop in response?
If kukosho was a sorcery that drained everyone for 5, it wouldn't be banned. A one time drain for 5 is good, but not gamebreaking.
But the fact that it's a creature means it can be abused so hard the card will rip. Like viperesque said, if he's in one deck, suddenly the game becomes about him. Have him out and you clone him? With 4 people playing you just dealt 30 damage and gained 30 life. Oh no!1! He's in the graveyard! Too bad blackdoesn'thaveasinglecardthatgetsstufffromgraveyards.
And green would scoop, because he has almost no answers or ways to deal with kukosho. Plummeting him would just make the opponent happy you did his dirty work. And when you're trying to aggro, fighting a lifegaining opponent is an uphill battle.
@RedPanda sorry, but consider every titan, ever beater for 6 or less in the game. A deck with 40+ creatures with 6 or less could all come out- from one card. If they have haste, it's pretty much game over, and that isn't even going to infinite combo route.
Hulk doesn't get you any number of creatures, it gets you creatures whose CMC, in total, adds up to 6. It's not an instant army, just add death. Doing it yourself makes the hulk a thinking mans card that's also easy enough to use to be newb friendly.
For Koko, it was banned along with Recurring Nightmare, so cycling it into and out of the graveyard is difficult and expensive. The best way to deal with the damn thing is to kill it then RFG their bin. If it's a general, nuking the mana doubling effects and reanimating permnanets that are so near and dear to the heart of mono black is enough to keep him down, at which point I don't see him as too much more than a black version of Hidetsugu, which will probably deal way more damage in the average game. It's not going to be massive 30 point life swings unless you have 6 opponents, indicating you're playing either a 6v6 or 7 way FFA, FFA is a terrible format with more than 4 people, and teams get unwieldy at 3.
You can easily fish out the combo, and many of the pieces are generic and good in the first place. It's not like you need to fill your deck with janky hulk combo only cards. Hulk becomes a fill in the blanks card for any number of creature based win combos; if you find one or two potential pieces, it gets easier and easier to win off just one trigger. Lark goes infinite, it just requires 4 other cards - 2 for reanimation and a sac outlet. Hulk dying is those other cards. It's similar to stuff like fastbond + crucible of worlds - there are a huge number of ways to win as long as you've got a mana free method of saccing lands, not simply something stupid and easy that a newb could do like strip mine. You can deck all of your opponents with a cephalid coliseum or shock them to death with a barbarian ring. If you want to gain life, you can add nomad stadium, kabira crossroads, or zuran orb. Note that the only card that's really unusual and not very playable in that particular combo is the zuran orb. Fastbond and Hulk are the sort of card that greases the engine of a deck, making all your other cards so much better, not unlike Necro.
Thanks, I couldn't see the insta-win that hulk facilitates. I knew it was good, but in my experience the only time it was OMG SO AMAZING was when you had Hulk-Flash in Legacy, but that combo didn't appear to rollover to MP very well (sliver-package version was the only finish I knew of).
I disagree that Fastbond.combo is overpowered or excessively broken. Cephalid Coliseum and Barbarian Ring are kind of meh on their own, as is Zuran orb (IMO). But thanks for pointing out an additional combo that I was unaware of.
Regarding Waiting in Weeds and Extending the Boxing Analogy - I feel as though some of the bans (to further extend the analogy) are more to the effect of "left hook is banned" as opposed to "biting is banned". That's more of a personal opinion though. I also, a little brusquely I admit, stated why I do NOT believe that a handful of the cards that are banned are of the "if you don't have an answer at this moment you lose" variety. I still think the format is maturing to the point where you need to give up 10-20% of your slots to answers as the threats, cohesion, strategy and synergy look to be on the upswing. This is an opinion, but I don't think it's unfounded.
Regarding Stardust - If cost is a valid reason to ban cards why is Juzam Djinn legal? Why is Workshop legal? Why are cards from P3K legal? Seems inconsistent to me.
Regarding Tedv (my favorite response) -
1.) "They know Magic better than you" - Are you positive? Seems a tad irrelevant to the discussion regardless. Sure they're judges, but you don't know who I am or what my background is. I could be MaRo trolling this forum for all you know.
2.) Yes, Servant is actually a bigger deal than Recall in this format. Recall is legal, it's an auto-include in decks that can include it. But it doesn't win games, it's efficient card advantage. Painter's Servant is a combo piece in 2 essentially game-ending combos (Iona + Servant and Servant + Grindstone). I'm willing to wager you'd hear "then he cast painter's servant, and we all knew the game was over" more often than "he cast his ancestral recall, and we knew the game was over".
3.) (paraphrased) I guess citing drawing frequency is a bit of a weak argument, although that wasn't necessarily burning in my mind when I wrote my post. If it comes out naturally in reading that wasn't my main point. The frequency argument was intended to be read as "how often will this card win the game when it is cast"? Once that is established, I pose the questions why did it win, how did it win and when did it win? Did it win because it's a broken mess of a card that punched through an entire table's worth of attempts to stop it or did it win because it was well-timed and it was the first crack in the dam, so to speak? Did it win by enabling a repetitive combo that you've seen 5 times today and is growing into a pet-peeve or did it turn the tables and let the low hanging fruit stabilize and fight back, adding drama and excitement to the game? Did it win on turn 2 or turn 17, I'd argue if a game has done 17 orbits, ANY win condition is welcome at that point.
4.) Existence of answers DOES matter, because a table of well-built decks should, in theory, have the offending player outgunned X:1. That means the offender needs to have enough resources to go off and protect himself and probably have a contingency plan when he goes off the first few times as he will probably have to dodge up to X sets of discard, artifact destruction, counterspells, enchantment destruction, graveyard destruction, etc. Then to compound his problems, in subsequent games, he'll have X players rallying together to take him out. There's VERY few decks, if any, that can withstand an entire table worth of hate. Perhaps some of the unbans I'm proposing would facilitate that kind of insurmountable deck-construction, I'd like to see it happening rather than take someone else's word for it. There's so many good and flexible answer cards in MTG, you don't have to run 10 different disenchant variations to be competitive.
I've always advocated examining the self before you start nerfing/banning. Is his deck that amazing or is your deck that poorly designed? I know it's hard to cut fun stuff for business stuff but the format will most likely demand that at some point. The fact that we're all here, posting decklists, getting tips, evaluating cards, hunting for tech should be indicative that people who love this casual format want to be competitive and win.
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It's not simply cards like cephalid coliseum that make fastbond bonkers - fastbond gets better as a deck gets technically more sophisticated. That's why it's so ☺☺☺☺ing broken. From the simple turn 1 bond = sol ring on steroids, it's an enabler for an immense amount of combos.
Ring is a meh card yes, as is ZOrb (tree cake) on their own, but cephalid coliseum has plenty of tournament pedigree.
Also, Ogrefoot - existence of answers doesn't matter if a card is busted enough. Necropotence, for instance, is a broken card - how do you answer it? It dominated standard and extended formats when it was legal and has seen play for over a decade. You either pre-emptively Pithing Needle it, Meddling Mage it, or counter it. The moment it hits the table in constructed, the game is issentially over. You, the opponent, have lost, unless you can burn out your opponent or already posess overwhelming advantage. Destroying it doesn't change the fact that your opponent is going to activate it at least 15 times before passing priority. They will then proceed to sculpt their god hand and destroy you on the next turn with an arbitrary win con. Same with Hulk - there are answers, but it leaves a window of opportunity that is a bunch of triggers on the stack long. It's not that the answers don't exist, it's that the threat presented by Necro/Academy (shared a format with wasteland)/Hulk was simply so high that if it was unanswered before your opponent began to gain advantage from it, the game was over. And they were capable of doing this incredibly quickly, fueled by dark ritual, artifactmana, and cards thatwizards justshould haveknown betterthan toprint.
When EDH was started, the rules committee banned a lot of very obvious problem cards that can also discourage opponents - 8 of the p9, while leaving twister (which was fine, it's much weaker than yawgmoth's will on average unless you need to shuffle up your bin). Their basic idea was something like Vintage - a format where people are allowed to play casually with all their whacky stuff, and are allowed to play their old, powerful cards that are useless unless you've got a Vintage deck. As time passed and people refined their decks better, a clear metagame began to emerge, and the cards that require more technical sophistication than some players have to abuse started coming to the fore. fastbond is like adding a turbocharger to an already well oiled machine. As you draw more cards, use life from the loam, crucible of worlds, sunder, upheaval, gush, thwart, oath of druids + Yawgmoth's will (dangerous, but fun if you can pull it off), the potential of the card just skyrockets. That is why Fastbond is banned, it's why Gifts is banned, and it's why Hulk is banned. As decks get more sophisticated and people become more technically proficient, the power of cards that reward this technical proficiency becomes apparent.
I like your post Jimbo. Well said. I played EDH back when Fastbond, Protean Hulk, Gifts Ungiven and Recurring Nightmare were legal. They were ridiculous. Honestly, if you can understand why Hulk is broken, you don't want to face the others. In practice, Hulk is actually the tamest of those four (well, maybe Gifts... tough choice).
Regarding Stardust - If cost is a valid reason to ban cards why is Juzam Djinn legal? Why is Workshop legal? Why are cards from P3K legal? Seems inconsistent to me.
It's not inconsistent because you're still looking at it in the wrong way. P3K cards aren't famous for being powerful; newbies won't think they need them, and most of the time they're right. Workshop is ridiculously expensive, but the vast majority of decks don't want to play it. Juzam Djinn is just bad; not even a newbie will think he needs a copy of this to start playing EDH. It's about the health of the format!
You know what else is healthy for the format? Players wanting to improve their decks over time. I would argue that having expensive cards that are specialized will actually improve the play experience of most players. If I've got my artifact deck that really wants a Workshop, it gives me something to long for and chase after. If I happen to have a Workshop already, I'm happy too because I get to use an awesome card that doesn't have a home otherwise. Library of Alexandria gets discluded because it's far from specialized enough to be unbanned. I think it was said over on the official EDH forums: expensive cards get banned when cost intersects with ubiquity.
But the fact that it's a creature means it can be abused so hard the card will rip. Like viperesque said, if he's in one deck, suddenly the game becomes about him. Have him out and you clone him? With 4 people playing you just dealt 30 damage and gained 30 life. Oh no!1! He's in the graveyard! Too bad blackdoesn'thaveasinglecardthatgetsstufffromgraveyards.
I would be more than fine if my opponent packed their deck with 10+ ways to reanimate Kokusho. If a deck is going to be diluted to the point where they have to draw a tutor/entomb effect then I am fine with them going to that trouble. Kokusho doesn't get around general damage. I don't care about thirty life because any deck I made that didn't deal general damage could deal way more than thirty damage in one turn if it didn't just win the game.
And green would scoop, because he has almost no answers or ways to deal with kukosho. Plummeting him would just make the opponent happy you did his dirty work. And when you're trying to aggro, fighting a lifegaining opponent is an uphill battle.
Every moderately good green deck I have seen is able to do a TON of damage in one turn. I have yet to see a green deck that would literally scoop to a 5/5 flying dragon. In 1v1 it's a measly 10 point life swing, and in multiplayer there are a ton of opponents that can also deal with Kokusho. Why would you Plummet a 5/5 that doesn't have a relevant in play ability? Sure it's an uphill battle, but between Overrun effects and just plain huge creatures, it can't be that difficult to beat Kokusho.
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...in multiplayer there are a ton of opponents that can also deal with Kokusho... it can't be that difficult to beat Kokusho.
I think you're missing the point. I'm not necessarily saying Kokusho needs to stay banned, but he is banned for different reasons than anything else on the list. In multiplayer there are a ton of opponents that can deal with Kokusho, but they don't want to. I've been in games where player A casts StP on player B's Kokusho, then player C counters it just because they wanted to Clone him the following turn (it's a good thing Rite of Replication wasn't around back then). He generally does come back an obscene number of times during which he's passed back and forth with Control Magics, Beacon of Unrests and even protected by opponents who want a piece for themselves.
That said, we've got a lot more playable graveyard hate these days, most notably Relic of Progenitus. I personally feel it's probably safe to take him off, but I just wanted to make it clear that he's not on the banned list because he's too powerful.
And green would scoop, because he has almost no answers or ways to deal with kukosho. Plummeting him would just make the opponent happy you did his dirty work. And when you're trying to aggro, fighting a lifegaining opponent is an uphill battle.
Err.... While I agree that Exsanguinate is not as good as Kokusho, the Evening Star, I don't see how would a green deck scoop against Kokusho My playgroup actually allows Kokusho, the Evening Star and my Omnath, Locus of Mana has never scooped against it. Whether it is tutoring for Arashi, Duplicant, Cloudthresher, etc. followed by graveyard-hate, Kokusho doesn't actually bother me over much. Note that there were lots of time where Kokusho was relegated to guard duty while Omnath and its minions stormed in for lots of damage.
Notwithstanding point 1., it should probably not be banned even in multiplayer games. Its "natural" powers are not substantially enhanced or subverted by the rules and nature of the format -- unlike say, Biorhythm, Coalition Victory, et. al.
That said, we've got a lot more playable graveyard hate these days, most notably Relic of Progenitus. I personally feel it's probably safe to take him off, but I just wanted to make it clear that he's not on the banned list because he's too powerful.
This is why I want to see Kokusho get another chance. When the RC banned Kokusho, pretty much nobody played graveyard hate since the format was still in its beginning stages, so there was only a fraction of the number of players that played EDH back then as they do today, and metagaming for playgroups really wasn't thought of as much.
Over two years later, we now have Relic, Bojuka Bog, and the just-recent Nihil Spellbomb to go along with all the other graveyard hate that gets played now.
If Rofellos could get another chance (at least until it was banned again), then Kokusho sure as hell should be able to see the light of day again. With many more people playing graveyard hate and Recurring Nightmare out of the picture (remember both Recurring Nightmare and Kokusho were banned simultaneously), Kokusho shouldn't be a real problem.
Err.... While I agree that Exsanguinate is not as good as Kokusho, the Evening Star, I don't see how would a green deck scoop against Kokusho My playgroup actually allows Kokusho, the Evening Star and my Omnath, Locus of Mana has never scooped against it. Whether it is tutoring for Arashi, Duplicant, Cloudthresher, etc. followed by graveyard-hate, Kokusho doesn't actually bother me over much. Note that there were lots of time where Kokusho was relegated to guard duty while Omnath and its minions stormed in for lots of damage.
Notwithstanding point 1., it should probably not be banned even in multiplayer games. Its "natural" powers are not substantially enhanced or subverted by the rules and nature of the format -- unlike say, Biorhythm, Coalition Victory, et. al.
My point about Exsanguinate is that it directly debunked the reason for Kokusho, the Evening Star being banned. It was argued that the life swing was to great for a Multiplayer Game. The other argument about it being to good with Recurring Nightmare isn't a valid argument because you end up with the same situation as Painter's Servant. They unbanned Grindstone to further this point. You ban the enabler...not the card that it enables.
Personally I think the banned list should like this:
If Rofellos could get another chance (at least until it was banned again), then Kokusho sure as hell should be able to see the light of day again.
This is what id like to see, take a few cards off for a few months and see how it goes. If koko or maybe some others like staff prove to still be busted than ban them again.
Storm. Always freaking storm. They need to create an absolutely massive storm count because the life totals in EDH are so high - a storm count of 20 just to take out one person. tendrils of agony is one hell of a win condition, but it takes foreeeeever to kill a table with just that.
While they're doing this, they're playing fast mana, drawing cards, and tutoring, so a good part of their turn is taken up in shuffling, counting how much mana is floating, and how many spells they've played. Alternatively you can run something wierd, like Niv Mizzet, the Firemind or Underworld dreams as your win con while cycling through draw 7's like Windfall, winds of change, and time spiral.
I actually don't a have problem with combos at all except for storm, because of its increased difficulty to be on the same axis of interactivity than a traditional "assemble two-three pieces for a combo" deck -- but that's more of a pet peeve than a hatred for it.
Storm's problems can be solved by using Reiterate+Early Harvest/Turnabout to rack up the Storm count. Then again, Storm is insanely hard to pull off in multiplayer. Whoever does so consistently deserves props (except Niv Mizzit or Azami or similar generals).
Case and point: Don't play Storm if you can't go infinite. A lot.
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Well... that's not very helpful. I'm sure people can see his application in many decks that run green, but insta-win is a little more specific.
The only 'insta-win' combo I can think of that's even reasonable to consider is a 5-color combo fetching Body Double copying the hulk and a free sac outlet like Viscera Seer. Then you sac the Body Double to trigger again fetching Reveillark and a cmc 1 pinger like Mogg Fanatic.
It's worth noting that Reveillark is particularly known for going infinite, but I like the 'lark so I won't dive into that.
I'm sure you could combo with him more reliably with some other cards on the battlefield... for instance you could cut down to bant colors if you have Altar of Dementia in play and your opponent isn't running any eldrazi titans...
These combos are made particularly nasty by Flash, making it possible to go off before the game even begins through the miracle of Gemstone Caverns and Elvish Spirit Guide/Simian Spirit Guide.
If anyone can be more helpful with other insta-win hulk combos, much obliged.
Glissa, the Traitor, Ulasht, the Hate Seed, The Mimeoplasm
body snatcher + carrion feeder + kiki jiki, mirror breaker + karmic guide + pestermite is one.
Hulk dies, get snatcher + feeder, sac snatcher reanimating hulk, sac hulk, get karmic guide, get hulk, sac hulk, get pestermite.
That's *a* one shot kill. There are many, you can do this in R/G/B by going
Hulk + Body Snatcher + Carrion Feeder + Kiki Jiki + phyrexian delver + skirk prospector + Lightning crafter
Or you can just manage it over a few turns entirely in G/W by going
Hulk + Karmic Guide + sac outlet/Mirror Entity + saffi Eriksdotter + reveillark + Nasty ETB/goes to GY trigger creature
There's plenty of mixing and matching available and you can keep the combo trimmed to 3 colors instant table kill as long as you've got black and green - basically, you need a reanimation creater (karmic guide, body snatcher, phyrexian delver) for a triggers, a sac outlet (carrion feeder, viscera seer, and I think there's room for a 2CMC one in the combo), another reanimation effect (reveillark, body double, kiki-jiki, mirror breaker) + something to wipe the table with (mogg fanatic, pestermite, archon of justice, etc.)
You can easily fish out the combo, and many of the pieces are generic and good in the first place. It's not like you need to fill your deck with janky hulk combo only cards. Hulk becomes a fill in the blanks card for any number of creature based win combos; if you find one or two potential pieces, it gets easier and easier to win off just one trigger. Lark goes infinite, it just requires 4 other cards - 2 for reanimation and a sac outlet. Hulk dying is those other cards. It's similar to stuff like fastbond + crucible of worlds - there are a huge number of ways to win as long as you've got a mana free method of saccing lands, not simply something stupid and easy that a newb could do like strip mine. You can deck all of your opponents with a cephalid coliseum or shock them to death with a barbarian ring. If you want to gain life, you can add nomad stadium, kabira crossroads, or zuran orb. Note that the only card that's really unusual and not very playable in that particular combo is the zuran orb. Fastbond and Hulk are the sort of card that greases the engine of a deck, making all your other cards so much better, not unlike Necro.
I kinda wish that all the stupid spells that kill every single permanent on the field to be banned, like Jokelhaups and Decree of Annihilation. Stupid cards are so annoying and ruin the game.
- whhhhhaaat?
Standard Decks:
UBRGrixis ControlRBU
That takes out half of red's good Hand and Creature removal. Being reduced to All is Dust, Disk, and Oblivion Stone isn't exactly nice for what's considered the weakest color in Magic.
Driving Stick with Isochron Scepter.
Trinkets and Treasure: An Artificer's Toolbox.
Proc Drops: Playing with One Drops.
Deck Primer: Toshiro Umezawa
This line in particular convinces me, and is an entirely acceptable reason for Hulk's banning.
Now then... next battle...
Kokusho, the Evening Star. Really? I don't even consider it a black "auto-include," and I would love to see a deck built around it as a general. That sounds fun! I mean, it has to hit the grave 8 times. If the game becomes centralized about "who can reanimate it more" it has to hit more than that! I think a Kokoshu tug-of-war actually sounds like a blast. I think the way it centralizes the game borders on chaos more than degeneracy. That's only if there's even enough unchecked recursion going around to create a scenario of a centralized game around the graveyards.
Glissa, the Traitor, Ulasht, the Hate Seed, The Mimeoplasm
In 1v1 he is basically a joke, and quite a bit worse than BSA (which sucks).
Compare him to ANY titan. The only one that may be worse is the black one. Maybe. I agree with RedPanda that it actually sounds fun to play Kokusho wars. And honestly, I will allow anyone who wants to play any number of cards that drain 5 from each opp at the starting cost of 4BB and 1B+ after. Not very exciting.
@Viperesque: Why would a green player scoop in response?
1800+ in Limited
3-0ing after drafting 17 non-basics in Cube
If kukosho was a sorcery that drained everyone for 5, it wouldn't be banned. A one time drain for 5 is good, but not gamebreaking.
But the fact that it's a creature means it can be abused so hard the card will rip. Like viperesque said, if he's in one deck, suddenly the game becomes about him. Have him out and you clone him? With 4 people playing you just dealt 30 damage and gained 30 life. Oh no!1! He's in the graveyard! Too bad black doesn't have a single card that gets stuff from graveyards.
And green would scoop, because he has almost no answers or ways to deal with kukosho. Plummeting him would just make the opponent happy you did his dirty work. And when you're trying to aggro, fighting a lifegaining opponent is an uphill battle.
@RedPanda sorry, but consider every titan, ever beater for 6 or less in the game. A deck with 40+ creatures with 6 or less could all come out- from one card. If they have haste, it's pretty much game over, and that isn't even going to infinite combo route.
For Koko, it was banned along with Recurring Nightmare, so cycling it into and out of the graveyard is difficult and expensive. The best way to deal with the damn thing is to kill it then RFG their bin. If it's a general, nuking the mana doubling effects and reanimating permnanets that are so near and dear to the heart of mono black is enough to keep him down, at which point I don't see him as too much more than a black version of Hidetsugu, which will probably deal way more damage in the average game. It's not going to be massive 30 point life swings unless you have 6 opponents, indicating you're playing either a 6v6 or 7 way FFA, FFA is a terrible format with more than 4 people, and teams get unwieldy at 3.
Thanks, I couldn't see the insta-win that hulk facilitates. I knew it was good, but in my experience the only time it was OMG SO AMAZING was when you had Hulk-Flash in Legacy, but that combo didn't appear to rollover to MP very well (sliver-package version was the only finish I knew of).
I disagree that Fastbond.combo is overpowered or excessively broken. Cephalid Coliseum and Barbarian Ring are kind of meh on their own, as is Zuran orb (IMO). But thanks for pointing out an additional combo that I was unaware of.
Regarding Waiting in Weeds and Extending the Boxing Analogy - I feel as though some of the bans (to further extend the analogy) are more to the effect of "left hook is banned" as opposed to "biting is banned". That's more of a personal opinion though. I also, a little brusquely I admit, stated why I do NOT believe that a handful of the cards that are banned are of the "if you don't have an answer at this moment you lose" variety. I still think the format is maturing to the point where you need to give up 10-20% of your slots to answers as the threats, cohesion, strategy and synergy look to be on the upswing. This is an opinion, but I don't think it's unfounded.
Regarding Stardust - If cost is a valid reason to ban cards why is Juzam Djinn legal? Why is Workshop legal? Why are cards from P3K legal? Seems inconsistent to me.
Regarding Tedv (my favorite response) -
1.) "They know Magic better than you" - Are you positive? Seems a tad irrelevant to the discussion regardless. Sure they're judges, but you don't know who I am or what my background is. I could be MaRo trolling this forum for all you know.
2.) Yes, Servant is actually a bigger deal than Recall in this format. Recall is legal, it's an auto-include in decks that can include it. But it doesn't win games, it's efficient card advantage. Painter's Servant is a combo piece in 2 essentially game-ending combos (Iona + Servant and Servant + Grindstone). I'm willing to wager you'd hear "then he cast painter's servant, and we all knew the game was over" more often than "he cast his ancestral recall, and we knew the game was over".
3.) (paraphrased) I guess citing drawing frequency is a bit of a weak argument, although that wasn't necessarily burning in my mind when I wrote my post. If it comes out naturally in reading that wasn't my main point. The frequency argument was intended to be read as "how often will this card win the game when it is cast"? Once that is established, I pose the questions why did it win, how did it win and when did it win? Did it win because it's a broken mess of a card that punched through an entire table's worth of attempts to stop it or did it win because it was well-timed and it was the first crack in the dam, so to speak? Did it win by enabling a repetitive combo that you've seen 5 times today and is growing into a pet-peeve or did it turn the tables and let the low hanging fruit stabilize and fight back, adding drama and excitement to the game? Did it win on turn 2 or turn 17, I'd argue if a game has done 17 orbits, ANY win condition is welcome at that point.
4.) Existence of answers DOES matter, because a table of well-built decks should, in theory, have the offending player outgunned X:1. That means the offender needs to have enough resources to go off and protect himself and probably have a contingency plan when he goes off the first few times as he will probably have to dodge up to X sets of discard, artifact destruction, counterspells, enchantment destruction, graveyard destruction, etc. Then to compound his problems, in subsequent games, he'll have X players rallying together to take him out. There's VERY few decks, if any, that can withstand an entire table worth of hate. Perhaps some of the unbans I'm proposing would facilitate that kind of insurmountable deck-construction, I'd like to see it happening rather than take someone else's word for it. There's so many good and flexible answer cards in MTG, you don't have to run 10 different disenchant variations to be competitive.
I've always advocated examining the self before you start nerfing/banning. Is his deck that amazing or is your deck that poorly designed? I know it's hard to cut fun stuff for business stuff but the format will most likely demand that at some point. The fact that we're all here, posting decklists, getting tips, evaluating cards, hunting for tech should be indicative that people who love this casual format want to be competitive and win.
Ring is a meh card yes, as is ZOrb (tree cake) on their own, but cephalid coliseum has plenty of tournament pedigree.
Also, Ogrefoot - existence of answers doesn't matter if a card is busted enough. Necropotence, for instance, is a broken card - how do you answer it? It dominated standard and extended formats when it was legal and has seen play for over a decade. You either pre-emptively Pithing Needle it, Meddling Mage it, or counter it. The moment it hits the table in constructed, the game is issentially over. You, the opponent, have lost, unless you can burn out your opponent or already posess overwhelming advantage. Destroying it doesn't change the fact that your opponent is going to activate it at least 15 times before passing priority. They will then proceed to sculpt their god hand and destroy you on the next turn with an arbitrary win con. Same with Hulk - there are answers, but it leaves a window of opportunity that is a bunch of triggers on the stack long. It's not that the answers don't exist, it's that the threat presented by Necro/Academy (shared a format with wasteland)/Hulk was simply so high that if it was unanswered before your opponent began to gain advantage from it, the game was over. And they were capable of doing this incredibly quickly, fueled by dark ritual, artifact mana, and cards that wizards just should have known better than to print.
When EDH was started, the rules committee banned a lot of very obvious problem cards that can also discourage opponents - 8 of the p9, while leaving twister (which was fine, it's much weaker than yawgmoth's will on average unless you need to shuffle up your bin). Their basic idea was something like Vintage - a format where people are allowed to play casually with all their whacky stuff, and are allowed to play their old, powerful cards that are useless unless you've got a Vintage deck. As time passed and people refined their decks better, a clear metagame began to emerge, and the cards that require more technical sophistication than some players have to abuse started coming to the fore. fastbond is like adding a turbocharger to an already well oiled machine. As you draw more cards, use life from the loam, crucible of worlds, sunder, upheaval, gush, thwart, oath of druids + Yawgmoth's will (dangerous, but fun if you can pull it off), the potential of the card just skyrockets. That is why Fastbond is banned, it's why Gifts is banned, and it's why Hulk is banned. As decks get more sophisticated and people become more technically proficient, the power of cards that reward this technical proficiency becomes apparent.
It's not inconsistent because you're still looking at it in the wrong way. P3K cards aren't famous for being powerful; newbies won't think they need them, and most of the time they're right. Workshop is ridiculously expensive, but the vast majority of decks don't want to play it. Juzam Djinn is just bad; not even a newbie will think he needs a copy of this to start playing EDH. It's about the health of the format!
You know what else is healthy for the format? Players wanting to improve their decks over time. I would argue that having expensive cards that are specialized will actually improve the play experience of most players. If I've got my artifact deck that really wants a Workshop, it gives me something to long for and chase after. If I happen to have a Workshop already, I'm happy too because I get to use an awesome card that doesn't have a home otherwise. Library of Alexandria gets discluded because it's far from specialized enough to be unbanned. I think it was said over on the official EDH forums: expensive cards get banned when cost intersects with ubiquity.
I would be more than fine if my opponent packed their deck with 10+ ways to reanimate Kokusho. If a deck is going to be diluted to the point where they have to draw a tutor/entomb effect then I am fine with them going to that trouble. Kokusho doesn't get around general damage. I don't care about thirty life because any deck I made that didn't deal general damage could deal way more than thirty damage in one turn if it didn't just win the game.
Every moderately good green deck I have seen is able to do a TON of damage in one turn. I have yet to see a green deck that would literally scoop to a 5/5 flying dragon. In 1v1 it's a measly 10 point life swing, and in multiplayer there are a ton of opponents that can also deal with Kokusho. Why would you Plummet a 5/5 that doesn't have a relevant in play ability? Sure it's an uphill battle, but between Overrun effects and just plain huge creatures, it can't be that difficult to beat Kokusho.
1800+ in Limited
3-0ing after drafting 17 non-basics in Cube
I think you're missing the point. I'm not necessarily saying Kokusho needs to stay banned, but he is banned for different reasons than anything else on the list. In multiplayer there are a ton of opponents that can deal with Kokusho, but they don't want to. I've been in games where player A casts StP on player B's Kokusho, then player C counters it just because they wanted to Clone him the following turn (it's a good thing Rite of Replication wasn't around back then). He generally does come back an obscene number of times during which he's passed back and forth with Control Magics, Beacon of Unrests and even protected by opponents who want a piece for themselves.
That said, we've got a lot more playable graveyard hate these days, most notably Relic of Progenitus. I personally feel it's probably safe to take him off, but I just wanted to make it clear that he's not on the banned list because he's too powerful.
Err.... While I agree that Exsanguinate is not as good as Kokusho, the Evening Star, I don't see how would a green deck scoop against Kokusho My playgroup actually allows Kokusho, the Evening Star and my Omnath, Locus of Mana has never scooped against it. Whether it is tutoring for Arashi, Duplicant, Cloudthresher, etc. followed by graveyard-hate, Kokusho doesn't actually bother me over much. Note that there were lots of time where Kokusho was relegated to guard duty while Omnath and its minions stormed in for lots of damage.
Basically, my point is: -
This is why I want to see Kokusho get another chance. When the RC banned Kokusho, pretty much nobody played graveyard hate since the format was still in its beginning stages, so there was only a fraction of the number of players that played EDH back then as they do today, and metagaming for playgroups really wasn't thought of as much.
Over two years later, we now have Relic, Bojuka Bog, and the just-recent Nihil Spellbomb to go along with all the other graveyard hate that gets played now.
If Rofellos could get another chance (at least until it was banned again), then Kokusho sure as hell should be able to see the light of day again. With many more people playing graveyard hate and Recurring Nightmare out of the picture (remember both Recurring Nightmare and Kokusho were banned simultaneously), Kokusho shouldn't be a real problem.
I started playing a little over 18 months ago, and he was banned back then.
Driving Stick with Isochron Scepter.
Trinkets and Treasure: An Artificer's Toolbox.
Proc Drops: Playing with One Drops.
Deck Primer: Toshiro Umezawa
Since February 28, 2008.
Personally I think the banned list should like this:
Allowed: All Vintage Legal Cards except the following.
To Powerful:
Ancestral Recall
Balance - Ironically...it is unbalanced.
Biorhythm
Black Lotus
Channel
Coalition Victory
Gifts Ungiven - Keeping an eye on Intuition
Karakas
Library of Alexandria
Limited Resources - In Multiplayer Only
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire
Shahrazad - I don't think anyone will oppose this
Time Twister
Time Vault
Time Walk
Upheaval
Yawgmoth's Bargain
Enablers:
Metal Worker - Enabler
Painter's Servant - Enabler
Panoptic Mirror - Enabler
Protean Hulk - Enabler
Recurring Nightmare - Enabler
Staff of Domination - Enabler
Sway of the Stars - Enabler
Tolarian Academy - Enabler
Worldgorger Dragon - Enabler
Banned Generals
Braids, Cabal Minion
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
Kokusho, the Evening Star
Memnarch - And other obvious generals
The goal of EDH should be to allow as many cards as possible to be played. Unless something absolutely warps a format...there shouldn't be a ban.
[EDH] Ob Nixilis the Fallen
This is what id like to see, take a few cards off for a few months and see how it goes. If koko or maybe some others like staff prove to still be busted than ban them again.
Sharuum the Hegemon
Mayael the Anima
Wort, Boggart Auntie
Sliver Overlord
Drana Kalastria Bloodchief
99 mountain Ashling