I wouldn't compare Emrakul to Uril at all. Uril can be countered, Uril's hexproof can be overcome by the rather common Arcane Lighthouse making it less difficult to deal with than protection from colored spells, does not grant you an extra turn upon resolution, does not have annihilator 6, and needs to be dressed up with additional cards to be anywhere near a threat. Is Uril annoying? Yes. Is he a fun murderer that goes to ridiculous lengths to make people unable to even fight back against it? No.
You bright up more mana efficient cards but unlike Emrakul they can't oppress by themselves nor do they protect themselves. They need their combo pieces and to generally be built around more than Emrakul does, giving you a more fair window to disrupt. Emrakul is the combo.
There's one other factor that I believe allows infamous cards like Prossh and Arcum Dagsson to go on unbanned unlike Emrakul: They're not inherently unfun. There's options to use them for "fun" rather than "nefarious" purposes. I use Prossh. I don't run Food chain and Blood Artist and other combo nonsense. He helms dragon tribal and the kobolds are used as sac fodder to draw cards, to protect me as I build my board, or to fuel Descent of the Dragons. Even Narset players can overcome the temptation to spam extra turns and MLD to do like, a fun super friends deck or something. There's nothing fun about Emrakul. How can anything in its mess of abilities amount to anything fun? It can't even be appreciated as a "Wow big guy" because you can't unsee the terrible rules text. Heck, even other blatantly unfun cards that are more viable like Hokori, Dust Drinker can be countered and answered by common removal. You have much more of a chance to fight back against them allowing for something at least more interesting.
One thing in Emrakul's defense is that she ends the game. The game has to come to an end, ideally before the players are sick of playing it. Emrakul overcomes deadlocked boardstates where the combat math needed to break through is beyond both players, no questions asked. EDH needs titanic game-ending monstrosities like this, because nobody likes to sit around and watch the remaining two players flail about ineffectually for an hour.
Emrakul is bad on turn 3 but good on turn 30.
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Even the Eldrazi that are legal don't end the game by breaking up board stalls as often as they just end the game for one person. Usually the one with the smallest board state for value.
The problem with Emrakul is that it tends to become the go-to target for everything (overly centralizing), the game revolves around removing it or loosing if it hits the battlefield (overly centralizing), and even if it is removed, it has effectively eliminated one opponent.
It is way to easy to 'cheat' Emrakul into play, and way to easy to cast it. The card is a problem.
It was competitive, and cast, in Standard
It is competitive, and was cast (prior to a central piece of that deck being banned) in Modern
It is competitive, and I have personally seen it cast in Legacy
It was highly problematic and frequently cast in Commander prior to it being banned, and I see no reason that has changed. The card is, at best, badly designed.
I wouldn't compare Emrakul to Uril at all. Uril can be countered, Uril's hexproof can be overcome by the rather common Arcane Lighthouse making it less difficult to deal with than protection from colored spells, does not grant you an extra turn upon resolution, does not have annihilator 6, and needs to be dressed up with additional cards to be anywhere near a threat. Is Uril annoying? Yes. Is he a fun murderer that goes to ridiculous lengths to make people unable to even fight back against it? No.
Uril can be countered, but it also comes out 10 mana earlier. And that's only an answer in one colour to Uril, and that colour also has Time Stop available then.
Also, Emrakul's protection from coloured spells can be overcome by any destruction ability, or any colorless exile, like in the rather common Duplicant.
You bright up more mana efficient cards but unlike Emrakul they can't oppress by themselves nor do they protect themselves. They need their combo pieces and to generally be built around more than Emrakul does, giving you a more fair window to disrupt. Emrakul is the combo.
Door to nothingness is also a one card combo that deletes people from the game for a very comparable mana cost. Emrakul's disruption window is only smaller if it's ramped into, and that ramp can be disrupted and removed (mass artifact removal, mass creature removal, mass land removal).
Narset needs no other cards on the board to be abusable. It becomes especially abusable if there is a single haste enabler on the board, which is very easy for her colours to come by. She is also more consistent since she makes a good commander, and so doesn't need to be drawn/tutored into. You have almost no time to disrupt Narset if there's haste. I've had many games where I've lost as soon as Narset has swung after being hasted out. All of this happens 9 mana before Emrakul.
There's one other factor that I believe allows infamous cards like Prossh and Arcum Dagsson to go on unbanned unlike Emrakul: They're not inherently unfun. There's options to use them for "fun" rather than "nefarious" purposes. I use Prossh. I don't run Food chain and Blood Artist and other combo nonsense. He helms dragon tribal and the kobolds are used as sac fodder to draw cards, to protect me as I build my board, or to fuel Descent of the Dragons. Even Narset players can overcome the temptation to spam extra turns and MLD to do like, a fun super friends deck or something. There's nothing fun about Emrakul. How can anything in its mess of abilities amount to anything fun? It can't even be appreciated as a "Wow big guy" because you can't unsee the terrible rules text. Heck, even other blatantly unfun cards that are more viable like Hokori, Dust Drinker can be countered and answered by common removal. You have much more of a chance to fight back against them allowing for something at least more interesting.
I've played against Narset superfriends. Having 5 planeswalkers casted for free on turn 4 isn't a fun super friends deck, it's nearly as strong as normal Narset.
I don't see why you bring up countering so much, that's only one colour's way of answering a card. And that colour has other ways of dealing with Emrakul (Ixidron, Cyclonic Rift). Emrakul may not be able to be removed by removal that's common in your meta, but in my meta boardclears are fairly common, and those deal with Emrakul easily (unless you're using a red damage-based boardclear).
Armageddon can only be stopped by either playing blue, someone at the table playing Terra Eternal, having tons of mana rocks, or by you slowly recovering with Crucible of Worlds.
And so if it's one card that stops everyone else from playing the game unless they follow fairly strict conditions, why isn't it banned alongside Emrakul?
The difference between Emrakul, Kozilek, and Ulamog is 2 permanents per attack. It's hard for me to see how that crosses the line into making it difficult to recover from.
And while I agree that Kozilek is easier to deal with, Ulamog can't be destroyed by creatures, deathtouch, or anything that says destroy. You can only remove it with bounce/tuck/exile/flip. We may be in drastically different metas, but I generally see boardclears more often than I see targeted exile. Ulamog avoids the former, while Kozilek avoids the latter.
The problem with Emrakul is that it tends to become the go-to target for everything (overly centralizing), the game revolves around removing it or loosing if it hits the battlefield (overly centralizing), and even if it is removed, it has effectively eliminated one opponent.
Just because a card becomes the go-to target doesn't mean it's over centralizing and therefore should be banned. I have a near-death experience deck, and when that hits it is the go to target to get removed, since if it's still there on my upkeep I'll drop my health to 1 and win. I don't think anyone's calling for it to get banned.
It is way to easy to 'cheat' Emrakul into play, and way to easy to cast it. The card is a problem.
It was competitive, and cast, in Standard
It is competitive, and was cast (prior to a central piece of that deck being banned) in Modern
It is competitive, and I have personally seen it cast in Legacy
It was highly problematic and frequently cast in Commander prior to it being banned, and I see no reason that has changed. The card is, at best, badly designed.
It is as easy to cheat Emrakul into play as it is any other creature. It's actually harder due to its last ability which means it can't be reanimated.
Also, it's way too easy to cast? It costs 15 mana, and if you're going to be ramping up to that quickly you're likely not going to be playing colorless, so you'd need to use another commander, which means you'd need to tutor her out. If you want to tutor out an "I win" card, you can do much better than Emrakul. I don't see why it's worse for the format than any competitive deck. If people in your play group don't play turn 3 wins out of respect for your social environment, then house ban Emrakul as well.
Also, just because it was competitive and/or banned in other formats does not mean it should be banned in commander. There are strategies which are stronger than casting Emrakul in legacy which have EDH counterparts (doomsday) which are legal.
Uril can be countered, but it also comes out 10 mana earlier. And that's only an answer in one colour to Uril, and that colour also has Time Stop available then.
Also, Emrakul's protection from coloured spells can be overcome by any destruction ability, or any colorless exile, like in the rather common Duplicant.
The main issue I've been bringing up with Emrakul is that the combination of abilities it has are difficult to deal with responsively and once it swings into action it becomes dramatically harder to fight back against it. The answers you mainly bring up are not responsive, they're either cards that need to be on the table first and then activated (Which can be played around easily because unlike responsive answers they're right there out in the open) or are not at instant speed. Duplicant can't be cast before Emrakul is declared an attacker. Almost all boardwipes can't be cast before Emrakul is declared an attacker. This is especially important against Emrakul because it gives its caster an additional turn.
Door to nothingness is also a one card combo that deletes people from the game for a very comparable mana cost. Emrakul's disruption window is only smaller if it's ramped into, and that ramp can be disrupted and removed (mass artifact removal, mass creature removal, mass land removal).
Door to Nothingness requires 2 of each color which is technically harder to establish, harder to include in decks due to 5 color identity, can be countered, is not protected from colored spells, doesn't grant its caster an extra turn to untap and use it with, and comes into play tapped. It's a lot easier to stop. Not even comparable. Also I'm not sure I like the sound of "Increase mass land removal just to make sure Emrakul never resolves". Like, if a card makes a group's players have to limit each other's resources and what they can generally even do far more tightly because they need to to avoid the existence of an oppressive monster under the pretense of being a cool splashy timmy creature then I'd say it's already done it's job of being an oppressive issue without even being on the battlefield.
Narset needs no other cards on the board to be abusable. It becomes especially abusable if there is a single haste enabler on the board
She doesn't have haste by herself and it's not hard to make sure she doesn't get haste. Then she will have to wait until she recovers from summoning sickness ensuring ample time for the other players to boardwipe or answer her in any other way. She also needs to be built around more tightly than Emrakul to be abused as well. Not saying I think she was a well designed card (She's really annoying too) but she doesn't deserve the ban as much because she requires more commitment and gives more chance to be fought back against.
I don't see why you bring up countering so much, that's only one colour's way of answering a card. And that colour has other ways of dealing with Emrakul (Ixidron, Cyclonic Rift). Emrakul may not be able to be removed by removal that's common in your meta, but in my meta boardclears are fairly common, and those deal with Emrakul easily (unless you're using a red damage-based boardclear).
I bring up countering because that's a responsive answer. Emrakul can't be countered and is protected from color spells for a one-two punch to the throat of anyone trying to deal with it. With Emrakul your answers need to be responsive especially if it wasn't cheated into play because Emrakul's controller gets an extra turn. Also, Cyclonic Rift is like, the opposite of what you'd answer Emrakul with. "Well okay I guess I'll have another extra turn then thanks!". Instant speed removal is largely colored and target based. Believe me my meta uses plenty of wrath effects but if Emrakul comes a' calling off Sneak Attack or was simply cast then someone's game is gonna get wrecked before wraths could be cast.
Armageddon can only be stopped by either playing blue, someone at the table playing Terra Eternal, having tons of mana rocks, or by you slowly recovering with Crucible of Worlds. And so if it's one card that stops everyone else from playing the game unless they follow fairly strict conditions, why isn't it banned alongside Emrakul?
Armageddon is a symmetrical effect by itself, fulfills a role in metas, is easier to do anything about, and can backfire as easily as it can steal a game (There's been more occasion than one where by not over-extending myself I used ramp to recover faster than everyone else and take the game).
The difference between Emrakul, Kozilek, and Ulamog is 2 permanents per attack. It's hard for me to see how that crosses the line into making it difficult to recover from.
2 is a bigger difference when you consider that's probably how many more turns the target was knocked behind. 6 is a lot of permanents to lose unless you're like, having a thanksgiving extravaganza with tokens and somehow still didn't kill everyone.
And while I agree that Kozilek is easier to deal with, Ulamog can't be destroyed by creatures, deathtouch, or anything that says destroy. You can only remove it with bounce/tuck/exile/flip. We may be in drastically different metas, but I generally see boardclears more often than I see targeted exile. Ulamog avoids the former, while Kozilek avoids the latter.
Ulamog is a lot easier to respond to than Emrakul especially with the ever-increasing amount of target exile like Silence the Believers and Reality Shift as well as the more different kinds of answers like Chaos Warp and Tragic Slip. Oh and it can be countered even though that cast ability's definitely gonna go for something you control now. Better 1 than 6 at least.
Also, it's way too easy to cast? It costs 15 mana, and if you're going to be ramping up to that quickly you're likely not going to be playing colorless, so you'd need to use another commander, which means you'd need to tutor her out. If you want to tutor out an "I win" card, you can do much better than Emrakul. I don't see why it's worse for the format than any competitive deck.
15 mana is really not that hard to pull off in your average "we just want to play big cool cards you'd see played in no other format" group.
Uril can be countered, but it also comes out 10 mana earlier. And that's only an answer in one colour to Uril, and that colour also has Time Stop available then.
Also, Emrakul's protection from coloured spells can be overcome by any destruction ability, or any colorless exile, like in the rather common Duplicant.
The main issue I've been bringing up with Emrakul is that the combination of abilities it has are difficult to deal with responsively and once it swings into action it becomes dramatically harder to fight back against it. The answers you mainly bring up are not responsive, they're either cards that need to be on the table first and then activated (Which can be played around easily because unlike responsive answers they're right there out in the open) or are not at instant speed. Duplicant can't be cast before Emrakul is declared an attacker. Almost all boardwipes can't be cast before Emrakul is declared an attacker. This is especially important against Emrakul because it gives its caster an additional turn.
You're right about Emrakul having a combination of abilities that makes it hard to deal with, but I think that if your group is too casual to run answers to it and/or win or have a really threatening board before it comes out, then you should just house ban Emrakul if it starts becoming a problem. But it's more likely that I'm just a crazy person that thinks the banlist should only consist of cards that can't be dealt with unless you're playing certain colours.
It's not really a matter of how casual a group is to answer Emrakul because actual answers to Emrakul are very scarce. If anything, the best responsive answers are pretty casual themselves like Scour From Existence. Like, that card is so casual I don't even run it (Can we have more routs for that high cost of a responsive answer please.)
And I'm not so sure about the dealt with unless playing certain colors idea for the ban list. That'd mean panoptic mirror and the moxen should be ok and that kinda sounds wrong.
15 mana is absurd even in my super slow meta. You really need to go all in turbo ramp to hit it consistantly. Seriously, casting emrakul is going to require more dedication than Narset. I mean really, Narset auras.dec ended up winning a bunch of games in a row before being discontinued in my meta. It casts a bunch of free stuff, no matter what you put in the deck. In that case, it ended up being a big, unblockable doublestriking commander damaging wrecking ball in short order.
Now, emrakul can be cheated into play, but idk if it's any more devastating than Jin, Iona, Blightsteel, or another titan, all of which come with built in protection except Jin and Kozilek. In that case, Emrakul has a comparable amount of answers to indestructible. Removal that isn't targeted and colored and removal that isn't destroy are both relatively limited pools. The Bribery issue becomes a lot less prevalent the fewer Emrakuls there are, as well.
Indestructible does have a higher pool of answers than protection from colored spells because wizards has given us a buttload of non-destroy removal lately. Removal that isn't targeted that's at instant speed is still really scarce. Especially ones that are actually good and not "Well I better include Scour From Existence just in case someone's packing emrakul".
Don't even remind me of Bribery if Emrakul was legal. Turn 3-5 Emrakul yeah no and thank you.
Scour from Existance is an ok card. I mean it answers practically everything and can go in every deck. A lot of the exile stuff is kind of bad unless you specifically need exile, too.
Scour isn't the best answer, but it's the only Vindicate outside of gold cards, temporary O Rings, other 7 mana colorless cards, or Desert Twister, though. It isn't that 7 mana isn't high. It's that it has a ton of functionality where the cheapish exile comes riddled with drawbacks and only hits creatures.
I defended Scour in EDH when it was first previewed. I have since removed it from every deck I own. 7 mana for an instant that does nothing else and can be countered is entirely useless outside world class Battle Cruiser EDH.
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You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
World class battle cruiser EDH is fun, though. Still, Emrakul dying to 7 mana removal is efficient since it costs 15. I think it also answers every permanent card without shroud, hexproof, or progenitus. No, it isn't the most efficient way to answer things, but, it is a pretty ultimate silver bullet and people *****ing about inefficient answers while saying ramping to 15 is child's play is not an argument. Either 7 isn't that much or ramping to 15 isn't happening outside of extremely dedicated decks.
It's not really a matter of how casual a group is to answer Emrakul because actual answers to Emrakul are very scarce. If anything, the best responsive answers are pretty casual themselves like Scour From Existence. Like, that card is so casual I don't even run it (Can we have more routs for that high cost of a responsive answer please.)
And I'm not so sure about the dealt with unless playing certain colors idea for the ban list. That'd mean panoptic mirror and the moxen should be ok and that kinda sounds wrong.
Moxen I'd make an exception for due to their obscenely high price, making some decks better by virtue of the owner paying $10,000 more for it.
As far as I can tell, panoptic mirror is only banned because of a 15 mana infinite combo you can do with it + 2 extra turn cards, as otherwise there is at least a turn for everyone on the table to try and respond to it. But, as far as I'm aware, the RC isn't banning for infinite combos any more, and that combo is harder to pull off and easier to disrupt than Emrakul.
I fail to see how Emrakul can ever be centralizing. Other cards/combos/decks are more powerful, faster, and resilient, yet those fail to be centralizing. I think that Emrakul was only centralizing since people started playing her due to all the new hype. There are many other legal ways to destroy a game or meta, all of which are better than Emrakul. If it's centralizing in your meta then you've likely house-banned all the more degenerate decks, so just house-ban Emrakul as well.
This just is not the way it turned out in a lot of groups / stores. It was legal, it was centralizing per the groups that played then and the RC in the ban announcement. As Sheldon said at the time "This is one on which we listened heavily to what the community was saying, and nearly without exception, everyone hates Emrakul. It’s a card that makes the game devolve into a war over a single card whenever it hits the table." Sure other combos can be better, but few singular cards have that many good abilities stapled on. It is banned, so it is not centralizing in my meta now , but it sure was when it was legal. Nothing was house banned, as there are no house rules where I play. Again I ask what has changed since 2010 besides better colorless ramp and colorless tutoring?
If people are sick of reading about stuff just stop taking part. You have 100% control over what you read. Simic Ascendancy isn't going to get banned just because you didn't tell someone to shut up on the internet.
Scour isn't the best answer, but it's the only Vindicate outside of gold cards, temporary O Rings, other 7 mana colorless cards, or Desert Twister, though. It isn't that 7 mana isn't high. It's that it has a ton of functionality where the cheapish exile comes riddled with drawbacks and only hits creatures.
Personally I'm annoyed that people raise those flexible-in-use but inefficient-in-casting-cost answers as a remedy for cards that have ridiculous defensive abilities by themselves. People always use the "flexibility-in-use" trying to justify that the cards are generically useful for all solutions hence the "defensive" card is fine without realizing that said defenses actually reduce the flexibility of those answers instead. Considering most of these cards are already "inefficient-in-casting-cost", they effectively render a "inefficient-but-flexible" card into a "inefficient-silver-bullet" card.
To put it in a simplistic terms (that's probably going to get countered rather easily, but I'm just trying to get the basic point across): Scour from Existence without Emrakul is a inefficient but flexible piece of removal, but with Emrakul in the format, it becomes a Silver Bullet. Yes, it still has the flexibility to be used for other things, but are you really going to be giving up your Emrakul Silver Bullet for that? Outside of game-ending scenarios, using that Silver Bullet seems to be an utter waste since Emrakul is a game-ending scenario in by itself a lot of times, with vastly less answers.
I fail to see how Emrakul can ever be centralizing. Other cards/combos/decks are more powerful, faster, and resilient, yet those fail to be centralizing. I think that Emrakul was only centralizing since people started playing her due to all the new hype. There are many other legal ways to destroy a game or meta, all of which are better than Emrakul. If it's centralizing in your meta then you've likely house-banned all the more degenerate decks, so just house-ban Emrakul as well.
This just is not the way it turned out in a lot of groups / stores. It was legal, it was centralizing per the groups that played then and the RC in the ban announcement. As Sheldon said at the time "This is one on which we listened heavily to what the community was saying, and nearly without exception, everyone hates Emrakul. It’s a card that makes the game devolve into a war over a single card whenever it hits the table." Sure other combos can be better, but few singular cards have that many good abilities stapled on. It is banned, so it is not centralizing in my meta now , but it sure was when it was legal. Nothing was house banned, as there are no house rules where I play. Again I ask what has changed since 2010 besides better colorless ramp and colorless tutoring?
If your group is getting to the point where Emrakul hits the table, then you're effectively house banning tier one decks, since Emrakul shouldn't come out against those unless your ramp player gets a relatively amazing hand, or your stax player is doing a really ***** job at stopping the Emrakul player.
What has changed is that there is now more removal that hits emrakul, black has grip of desolation, every colour has the (albeit ineffective) scour from existence, and there's probably other new removal that hits Emrakul which I've missed.
Maybe Emrakul can be reintroduced into the format once ever colour has playable instant speed removal that hits Emrakul.
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You bright up more mana efficient cards but unlike Emrakul they can't oppress by themselves nor do they protect themselves. They need their combo pieces and to generally be built around more than Emrakul does, giving you a more fair window to disrupt. Emrakul is the combo.
There's one other factor that I believe allows infamous cards like Prossh and Arcum Dagsson to go on unbanned unlike Emrakul: They're not inherently unfun. There's options to use them for "fun" rather than "nefarious" purposes. I use Prossh. I don't run Food chain and Blood Artist and other combo nonsense. He helms dragon tribal and the kobolds are used as sac fodder to draw cards, to protect me as I build my board, or to fuel Descent of the Dragons. Even Narset players can overcome the temptation to spam extra turns and MLD to do like, a fun super friends deck or something. There's nothing fun about Emrakul. How can anything in its mess of abilities amount to anything fun? It can't even be appreciated as a "Wow big guy" because you can't unsee the terrible rules text. Heck, even other blatantly unfun cards that are more viable like Hokori, Dust Drinker can be countered and answered by common removal. You have much more of a chance to fight back against them allowing for something at least more interesting.
Emrakul is bad on turn 3 but good on turn 30.
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It's called eliminating an opponent, and is usually the correct play.
And if 'the people you see' means everyone, then yes.
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If by 'people you see' you mean everyone, then yes.
It is called eliminating an opponent, and is usually the correct line of play.
The difference between Emrakul, the Aeons Torn & Kozilek, Butcher of Truth or Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre is that it is not to difficult to recover from, or deal with the latter two.
The problem with Emrakul is that it tends to become the go-to target for everything (overly centralizing), the game revolves around removing it or loosing if it hits the battlefield (overly centralizing), and even if it is removed, it has effectively eliminated one opponent.
It is way to easy to 'cheat' Emrakul into play, and way to easy to cast it. The card is a problem.
It was competitive, and cast, in Standard
It is competitive, and was cast (prior to a central piece of that deck being banned) in Modern
It is competitive, and I have personally seen it cast in Legacy
It was highly problematic and frequently cast in Commander prior to it being banned, and I see no reason that has changed. The card is, at best, badly designed.
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Uril can be countered, but it also comes out 10 mana earlier. And that's only an answer in one colour to Uril, and that colour also has Time Stop available then.
Also, Emrakul's protection from coloured spells can be overcome by any destruction ability, or any colorless exile, like in the rather common Duplicant.
Door to nothingness is also a one card combo that deletes people from the game for a very comparable mana cost. Emrakul's disruption window is only smaller if it's ramped into, and that ramp can be disrupted and removed (mass artifact removal, mass creature removal, mass land removal).
Narset needs no other cards on the board to be abusable. It becomes especially abusable if there is a single haste enabler on the board, which is very easy for her colours to come by. She is also more consistent since she makes a good commander, and so doesn't need to be drawn/tutored into. You have almost no time to disrupt Narset if there's haste. I've had many games where I've lost as soon as Narset has swung after being hasted out. All of this happens 9 mana before Emrakul.
I've played against Narset superfriends. Having 5 planeswalkers casted for free on turn 4 isn't a fun super friends deck, it's nearly as strong as normal Narset.
I don't see why you bring up countering so much, that's only one colour's way of answering a card. And that colour has other ways of dealing with Emrakul (Ixidron, Cyclonic Rift). Emrakul may not be able to be removed by removal that's common in your meta, but in my meta boardclears are fairly common, and those deal with Emrakul easily (unless you're using a red damage-based boardclear).
Armageddon can only be stopped by either playing blue, someone at the table playing Terra Eternal, having tons of mana rocks, or by you slowly recovering with Crucible of Worlds.
And so if it's one card that stops everyone else from playing the game unless they follow fairly strict conditions, why isn't it banned alongside Emrakul?
The difference between Emrakul, Kozilek, and Ulamog is 2 permanents per attack. It's hard for me to see how that crosses the line into making it difficult to recover from.
And while I agree that Kozilek is easier to deal with, Ulamog can't be destroyed by creatures, deathtouch, or anything that says destroy. You can only remove it with bounce/tuck/exile/flip. We may be in drastically different metas, but I generally see boardclears more often than I see targeted exile. Ulamog avoids the former, while Kozilek avoids the latter.
Just because a card becomes the go-to target doesn't mean it's over centralizing and therefore should be banned. I have a near-death experience deck, and when that hits it is the go to target to get removed, since if it's still there on my upkeep I'll drop my health to 1 and win. I don't think anyone's calling for it to get banned.
It is as easy to cheat Emrakul into play as it is any other creature. It's actually harder due to its last ability which means it can't be reanimated.
Also, it's way too easy to cast? It costs 15 mana, and if you're going to be ramping up to that quickly you're likely not going to be playing colorless, so you'd need to use another commander, which means you'd need to tutor her out. If you want to tutor out an "I win" card, you can do much better than Emrakul. I don't see why it's worse for the format than any competitive deck. If people in your play group don't play turn 3 wins out of respect for your social environment, then house ban Emrakul as well.
Also, just because it was competitive and/or banned in other formats does not mean it should be banned in commander. There are strategies which are stronger than casting Emrakul in legacy which have EDH counterparts (doomsday) which are legal.
The main issue I've been bringing up with Emrakul is that the combination of abilities it has are difficult to deal with responsively and once it swings into action it becomes dramatically harder to fight back against it. The answers you mainly bring up are not responsive, they're either cards that need to be on the table first and then activated (Which can be played around easily because unlike responsive answers they're right there out in the open) or are not at instant speed. Duplicant can't be cast before Emrakul is declared an attacker. Almost all boardwipes can't be cast before Emrakul is declared an attacker. This is especially important against Emrakul because it gives its caster an additional turn.
Door to Nothingness requires 2 of each color which is technically harder to establish, harder to include in decks due to 5 color identity, can be countered, is not protected from colored spells, doesn't grant its caster an extra turn to untap and use it with, and comes into play tapped. It's a lot easier to stop. Not even comparable. Also I'm not sure I like the sound of "Increase mass land removal just to make sure Emrakul never resolves". Like, if a card makes a group's players have to limit each other's resources and what they can generally even do far more tightly because they need to to avoid the existence of an oppressive monster under the pretense of being a cool splashy timmy creature then I'd say it's already done it's job of being an oppressive issue without even being on the battlefield.
She doesn't have haste by herself and it's not hard to make sure she doesn't get haste. Then she will have to wait until she recovers from summoning sickness ensuring ample time for the other players to boardwipe or answer her in any other way. She also needs to be built around more tightly than Emrakul to be abused as well. Not saying I think she was a well designed card (She's really annoying too) but she doesn't deserve the ban as much because she requires more commitment and gives more chance to be fought back against.
I bring up countering because that's a responsive answer. Emrakul can't be countered and is protected from color spells for a one-two punch to the throat of anyone trying to deal with it. With Emrakul your answers need to be responsive especially if it wasn't cheated into play because Emrakul's controller gets an extra turn. Also, Cyclonic Rift is like, the opposite of what you'd answer Emrakul with. "Well okay I guess I'll have another extra turn then thanks!". Instant speed removal is largely colored and target based. Believe me my meta uses plenty of wrath effects but if Emrakul comes a' calling off Sneak Attack or was simply cast then someone's game is gonna get wrecked before wraths could be cast.
Armageddon is a symmetrical effect by itself, fulfills a role in metas, is easier to do anything about, and can backfire as easily as it can steal a game (There's been more occasion than one where by not over-extending myself I used ramp to recover faster than everyone else and take the game).
2 is a bigger difference when you consider that's probably how many more turns the target was knocked behind. 6 is a lot of permanents to lose unless you're like, having a thanksgiving extravaganza with tokens and somehow still didn't kill everyone.
Ulamog is a lot easier to respond to than Emrakul especially with the ever-increasing amount of target exile like Silence the Believers and Reality Shift as well as the more different kinds of answers like Chaos Warp and Tragic Slip. Oh and it can be countered even though that cast ability's definitely gonna go for something you control now. Better 1 than 6 at least.
15 mana is really not that hard to pull off in your average "we just want to play big cool cards you'd see played in no other format" group.
I think Emrakul something that should be House Allowed than House Banned.
You're right about Emrakul having a combination of abilities that makes it hard to deal with, but I think that if your group is too casual to run answers to it and/or win or have a really threatening board before it comes out, then you should just house ban Emrakul if it starts becoming a problem. But it's more likely that I'm just a crazy person that thinks the banlist should only consist of cards that can't be dealt with unless you're playing certain colours.
And I'm not so sure about the dealt with unless playing certain colors idea for the ban list. That'd mean panoptic mirror and the moxen should be ok and that kinda sounds wrong.
Now, emrakul can be cheated into play, but idk if it's any more devastating than Jin, Iona, Blightsteel, or another titan, all of which come with built in protection except Jin and Kozilek. In that case, Emrakul has a comparable amount of answers to indestructible. Removal that isn't targeted and colored and removal that isn't destroy are both relatively limited pools. The Bribery issue becomes a lot less prevalent the fewer Emrakuls there are, as well.
Don't even remind me of Bribery if Emrakul was legal. Turn 3-5 Emrakul yeah no and thank you.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
Moxen I'd make an exception for due to their obscenely high price, making some decks better by virtue of the owner paying $10,000 more for it.
As far as I can tell, panoptic mirror is only banned because of a 15 mana infinite combo you can do with it + 2 extra turn cards, as otherwise there is at least a turn for everyone on the table to try and respond to it. But, as far as I'm aware, the RC isn't banning for infinite combos any more, and that combo is harder to pull off and easier to disrupt than Emrakul.
Personally I'm annoyed that people raise those flexible-in-use but inefficient-in-casting-cost answers as a remedy for cards that have ridiculous defensive abilities by themselves. People always use the "flexibility-in-use" trying to justify that the cards are generically useful for all solutions hence the "defensive" card is fine without realizing that said defenses actually reduce the flexibility of those answers instead. Considering most of these cards are already "inefficient-in-casting-cost", they effectively render a "inefficient-but-flexible" card into a "inefficient-silver-bullet" card.
To put it in a simplistic terms (that's probably going to get countered rather easily, but I'm just trying to get the basic point across): Scour from Existence without Emrakul is a inefficient but flexible piece of removal, but with Emrakul in the format, it becomes a Silver Bullet. Yes, it still has the flexibility to be used for other things, but are you really going to be giving up your Emrakul Silver Bullet for that? Outside of game-ending scenarios, using that Silver Bullet seems to be an utter waste since Emrakul is a game-ending scenario in by itself a lot of times, with vastly less answers.
If your group is getting to the point where Emrakul hits the table, then you're effectively house banning tier one decks, since Emrakul shouldn't come out against those unless your ramp player gets a relatively amazing hand, or your stax player is doing a really ***** job at stopping the Emrakul player.
What has changed is that there is now more removal that hits emrakul, black has grip of desolation, every colour has the (albeit ineffective) scour from existence, and there's probably other new removal that hits Emrakul which I've missed.
Maybe Emrakul can be reintroduced into the format once ever colour has playable instant speed removal that hits Emrakul.