I see the arguments for and against, and granted, there's probably a smaller difference in power level between it and other cards now than when Em was first released. Nonetheless, I think it should stay banned.
1. Several countercards exist to Emrakul being cheated into play. Obviously Emrakul is at her scariest early in the game where she can threaten to quickly annihilate most of a players board, this is basically the way she is played in the 60 card, 4 copy formats modern and legacy. Hoever, there have been several cards printed that strait up hose trying to cheat a creature into play. Most notably Containment Priest.
Sure, there's ways to stop it entering play. There's two things here; firstly, that cast trigger is, while not entirely OP, when available from the command zone a bit much. And there are very few ways to stop it happening - Stifle, Voidslime, Nimble Obstructionist, that's it. Secondly, while cheating into play is less of a concern now, there's still a ton of ways to make big mana happen, in more or less any variation of colours you'd like, even colorless.
2. Protection from colored spells isn't actually that good anymore. Sure, you can't just Swords to Plowshares Emrakul, but there are plenty of good removal spells that can deal with her. WE've had several printings of better style Oblivion Rings, lots of planeswalkers can kill creatures, way more wrath effcts now then there used to be, we have colorless removal spells, Cyclonic Rift is the #2 EDH card behind Sol Ring, and there are fantastic EDH cards like Crackling Doom and Profane Procession that somebody will often be back packing in their decks.
Like, it's not always relevant, sure. But it's not entirely useless either, and Em has protection from literally every colour. I don't want that staring me down from the command zone, it basically means game over if there is ever a swing - and Em ensures this can happen, both by having evasion (flying) and giving an extra turn for a swing - it doesn't even need shoes, it just needs a pump for a OTK. Per other player, sure, but that's still gross. Her abilities also mean that even if you do stand a chance in combat, you only stand it if you're running Steel Hellkite or Ornithopter variants, which will always lose a trade in combat.
3. Annihilator 6 isn't that good anymore either. It seems like MTG has been really gungho on the tokens as of late. It seems like every set we get some new type of token, be it treasure, clues, gold, or just creature tokens that decks are so capable of flooding a board with so many paper tokens that we politely ask them to just use a dice. I've been playing with and against the other OG titans Ulamog and Kozilek and I've had cards like Smothering Tithe, Curse of Opulence, Spell Swindle, and Nesting Dragon just completly absord annihilator triggers through multiple rounds of combat. Let's not forget about Teferi's Protection either.
Annihilator is still strong. There's no guarantee that anyone has sufficient tokens to soak up the trigger even once, let alone on mutliple turns. Personally, I've managed to make it work making goats with Trading Post in the past against It that Betrays, but we're talking 6 per trigger, which is repeatable with Strionic Resonator. At any rate, if you control Em and attack into tokens, you are 100% doing it wrong. You attack the player whose board you're going to wreck, or you're going easy on the board.
All this being said and done, what throws the nail in the coffin for me is the absence of 'banned as a commander' these days. I'm far less squeamish about the titans now than I was when I started playing EDH. They're not immediately game over, and you'd be surprised what you can live through. Sometimes it makes for a super intense game too, which can be fun. However, there is no way I want to sleeve up and see Emrakul, the Aeons Torn staring me down, playable as many times as you can cast it, sitting there in the command zone. It's too much power to be available at any point throughout the game whenever you might like to cast it. Even at 15 it's busted, and this is from someone who has run a colorless Kozilek, Butcher of Truth in the past and knows how gross colorless mana can be. Mine was far from optimized too, and it just gets to the point where CMC doesn't even matter.
If BAAC were still a thing, or were to become a thing again into the future, I'd think there would be a case for Em being legal again, but as is it's just too much on one card.
Emmy is actually safer in the Command Zone. All the Eldrazi titans are glass cannons because you dump your hand into play on the first few turns. The Kozis are played because they refill your now empty hand, so even if you hit removal or a counterspell you aren't in top deck mode. I would much rather be able to Bribery or Through the Breach her early game than spend 15 mana for an extra turn.
Early turn Em is definitely disgusting, but it’s easily as possible from the command zone as much as the library. Either way I think it’s still too strong, so it’s a moot point for me.
I started playing commander originally before Emrakul 1.0 was released. When the eldrazi were released EVERYONE was playing with them. Emrakul seemed to be the most common one. Being that my own playing with Emrakul was so early in me playing commander its hard to really relate how I would play it now if it were legal.
Emrakul is incredibly hard to interact with and if it comes for you first you are just kind of done. Usually if you weren't the one to take the swing then you were ok (assuming the game wasn't just over). I don't really feel like the game is missing anything with Emrakul banned. I also don't think it would be the end of the world if Emrakul was allowed though. If I were to pick an order of unban for the cards on the banned list I would say Emrakul would be about 1/3rd of the way in as far as when I would unban it.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Oh yeah, Em is definitely not the first nor last thing to come off the list theoretically. I just don’t see the benefit of setting her loose. The format gains very little having her out and about, and could easily be significantly less fun with her about. I doubt it’d be ubiquitous, but I also can’t see games where it features heavily as being fun either. Seems a meta call though. In more competitive or ‘game hard’ groups Em would be fine.
Sure, there's ways to stop it entering play. There's two things here; firstly, that cast trigger is, while not entirely OP, when available from the command zone a bit much. And there are very few ways to stop it happening - Stifle, Voidslime, Nimble Obstructionist, that's it. Secondly, while cheating into play is less of a concern now, there's still a ton of ways to make big mana happen, in more or less any variation of colours you'd like, even colorless.
Like, it's not always relevant, sure. But it's not entirely useless either, and Em has protection from literally every colour. I don't want that staring me down from the command zone, it basically means game over if there is ever a swing - and Em ensures this can happen, both by having evasion (flying) and giving an extra turn for a swing - it doesn't even need shoes, it just needs a pump for a OTK. Per other player, sure, but that's still gross. Her abilities also mean that even if you do stand a chance in combat, you only stand it if you're running Steel Hellkite or Ornithopter variants, which will always lose a trade in combat.
Annihilator is still strong. There's no guarantee that anyone has sufficient tokens to soak up the trigger even once, let alone on mutliple turns. Personally, I've managed to make it work making goats with Trading Post in the past against It that Betrays, but we're talking 6 per trigger, which is repeatable with Strionic Resonator. At any rate, if you control Em and attack into tokens, you are 100% doing it wrong. You attack the player whose board you're going to wreck, or you're going easy on the board.
All this being said and done, what throws the nail in the coffin for me is the absence of 'banned as a commander' these days. I'm far less squeamish about the titans now than I was when I started playing EDH. They're not immediately game over, and you'd be surprised what you can live through. Sometimes it makes for a super intense game too, which can be fun. However, there is no way I want to sleeve up and see Emrakul, the Aeons Torn staring me down, playable as many times as you can cast it, sitting there in the command zone. It's too much power to be available at any point throughout the game whenever you might like to cast it. Even at 15 it's busted, and this is from someone who has run a colorless Kozilek, Butcher of Truth in the past and knows how gross colorless mana can be. Mine was far from optimized too, and it just gets to the point where CMC doesn't even matter.
If BAAC were still a thing, or were to become a thing again into the future, I'd think there would be a case for Em being legal again, but as is it's just too much on one card.
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Early turn Em is definitely disgusting, but it’s easily as possible from the command zone as much as the library. Either way I think it’s still too strong, so it’s a moot point for me.
Emrakul is incredibly hard to interact with and if it comes for you first you are just kind of done. Usually if you weren't the one to take the swing then you were ok (assuming the game wasn't just over). I don't really feel like the game is missing anything with Emrakul banned. I also don't think it would be the end of the world if Emrakul was allowed though. If I were to pick an order of unban for the cards on the banned list I would say Emrakul would be about 1/3rd of the way in as far as when I would unban it.
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