Painter’s Servant has been the fuel for unpleasant combos, most notably with Grindstone and Iona, Shield of Emeria. The latter two cards occupy some interesting design/deckbuilding space, so we’d like to see them in the format. Swapping Grindstone/Painter’s Servant seemed like a natural fit to bring back a decent card and get rid of the true offender.
I've said before that [Ugin, the Spirit Dragon] probably provided the final nail in the coffin making sure that Painter's Servant never comes off the banned list. I have no reason to move off that stance.
Edit: Adding some more quotes from the RC - cryogen
Quote from Ban Ki-moon »
Painter's Servant is banned, and should stay banned, because almost every purpose it can serve reduces interaction between players and/or removes lines of play as options. Painter's Servant almost always moves the game into a more linear, forced state, taking away from "Player A beat Player B" while building on "Player A's deck beat Player B's deck." Building a Painter's Servant deck is way more fun than playing with the card in a game.
Painter's Servant is definitely my least-favourite card to talk about, since the factors that keep it banned are rarely addressed directly by the people who want to play with it. Please note that power level, as always, isn't all that relevant to this issue.
Semi-casual players will realize all of that's boring as heck, and casual players will have never done that in the first place.
Disagree. Casual players who wouldn't otherwise think twice about various color hosers will be subtly encouraged to play them.
PS is a card where most of the benign interactions are griefy and the less benign ones really suck. The number of OK interactions that aren't basically irrelevant is teeny and nobody can claim with a straight face that those are the ones that'll be used. Sounds like a totally awesome card to have in casual play.
How can that argument not be made for most of the cards on the list? I could want to play Painter's Servant for all my cool Liege effects, and have my black Balthar deck bring back all of everyone's creatures, but obviously that fun is compromised "for the greater good." Maybe it's just me, but I've seen more casual players want to do fun things with PS than HD (I could also make the same argument for quite a few cards on this list, Panoptic Mirror, etc).
So, if such a line exists, where do you draw it?
An excellent question, and one that has generated a lot of thought and conversation over the years. I come back to the concept of "accidental" degeneracy that I alluded to earlier. It's very hard for Hermit Druid to be accidentally degenerate - until you actively set out to abuse Hermit Druid, it's a fine card. Banning it just means the player who wants to play the fastest and least interactive combo deck in the format goes and finds the second fastest, and trying to chase that game is not something we're interested in. You'll note over the past year that we've been taking degenerate combo pieces - Worldgordger, LED - off the list. We like to keep the banlist short, and having cards like that, which don't appeal to casual players anyway, while others that are just as powerful are out there, seemed pointless. This isn't an endorsement that you should play these cards, but a recognition that if you're going to, we're not building a format for you.
Our experience has shown that Servant (and Mirror) just seem to wreck games through unplanned interactions. You aren't setting out to abuse Mirror when you put it in your deck; it looks like a really fun card. But you threw in a Time Warp or an Armageddon at one point because it might also be fun and you just drew them both. Oops. You can either end the game randomly or make a suboptimal play, and making a suboptimal play, though sometimes necessary, is a feel-bad and we'd like to avoid it. It's a balancing act.
Note that folks asking about our playtesting groups miss the point a bit. We will occasionally have a group try something out and see what they think, but where playtesting excels is in balancing a format, and that's way down on the list of priorities.
We mostly figure out where the line is by lots of discussion, play, and theorycrafting and asking ourselves "would this change improve the type of game that we like to play". I'm sure this'll drive all the folks who find fun an arbitrary concept, but we didn't start out trying to create a popular format. We evolved a format that we enjoyed playing, and it turned out to resonate with an awful lot of people. Our goal is to continue resonating with those people, which means going with our gut and what we learn from talking to people rather than a more empirical measure.
(This is also a strong argument for being pretty conservative with change. We're clearly doing something right, so the pressure is strongly on the side of not screwing it up.)
I would like to take a moment to second this notion. I was originally against these sort of "corner case" additions to the rules, but since the redefinition of color identity (which felt had largely to do with the addition of 4 or 5 new generals), I have felt that perhaps the RC doesn't see them as such (also, I've wanted to build ninja Ink-Eyes EDH for a while now).
Color identity led to the addition of the new generals, not the other way around. As a general rule, we are very opposed to adding corner cases.
The majority of the Rules Committee consists of high-level judges. We're very rules-focused and write the rules we want, then see where the chips fall in terms of what cards actually get affected on the margins. This means things like Garruk Relentless only being playable in G/B isn't because we wanted to keep it out of mono-G decks, but because we figured out how it made sense for the rules to work with color identity and DFCs, then applied it. Off-color fetchlands aren't something we endorse as awesome, but the rules make them legal, and fixing that 'hole' isn't worth adding a pretty ugly corner case.
Color identity came about because WotC wanted to put Commander in the rulebook. That meant tightening things up, and because we cared about mana symbols on all parts of the card, part of the tightening it up was separating the concept from color. So, we worked with the Rules Manager to write a color identity rule that we liked and felt was clean. Making some generals work was a nice bonus, but making cards work is not really a goal. We like putting restrictions on the format - building and playing around them is fun.
We've discussed various play-from-hand options over the years, but haven't felt the addition was a rules improvement, and making a few more cards legal as generals isn't enough impetus to drive a serious effort. The proposed one here is about as good as we've come up with (and getting there identified many of the pitfalls in trying to do it!) and it still feels kind of clunky. (As a judge, the phrase "as though" gives me hives for all the problems it's caused over the years!)
That being said, we need formal rules so that they can appear in the Rulebook, but I'm not averse to tweaking things yourself within the spirit of the format. I used to play against a Genju of the Realm deck all the time (it was appropriately all lands and enchantments), and would certainly play against a flavorful Ink-Eyes or Ith deck. I might look at you funny if you showed up with Myojin of Night's Reach, but I guess I prefer knowing that it's coming, at least.
I feel that while both Enchanted Evening and Mycosynth Lattice have very similar effects the stuff like Iona, Sheild of Emeria, All is Dust, and their ilk, the main reason those aren't banned is that while they effect mostly everything, they don't effect the library which is huge and it leaves things colorless or just in their colors which is huge as being able to effect the library is huge.
Now I am one who I'd love to see PS unbanned for the sake of all the johnny things that can happen from an Isochron Scepter with Pyroblast to just having Compost out. The good out weights the evil for me in this case unlike majority of cards on the banned list but comparing PS to EE or ML is an underwhelming comparison in my eyes.
I feel that while both Enchanted Evening and Mycosynth Lattice have very similar effects the stuff like Iona, Sheild of Emeria, All is Dust, and their ilk, the main reason those aren't banned is that while they effect mostly everything, they don't effect the library which is huge and it leaves things colorless or just in their colors which is huge as being able to effect the library is huge.
Now I am one who I'd love to see PS unbanned for the sake of all the johnny things that can happen from an Isochron Scepter with Pyroblast to just having Compost out. The good out weights the evil for me in this case unlike majority of cards on the banned list but comparing PS to EE or ML is an underwhelming comparison in my eyes.
Agree. While PS is a unique card that doesn't in itself does anything busted or broken its interaction with a lot of other cards turns it into a bit of a problem child. We could argue for the ban of the rest of the cards mentioned, but instead of just chopping off the heads of a hydra that ultimately will regrow, I think it is correct to ban the engine itself that enable these cards. It is unfortunate as the effect is unique, but this seems to be a case of killing off one card in order to save many.
I have heard before (don't remember exact source) that painters servant is unlikely to be unbanned because it is better to ban it as an enabler that will continue to enable mean things with new cards than to ban the cards it enables.
I can see the point there but I disagree with it. If those things it enables are inherently unfun, they will probably always be unfun. So why ban a card that could be fun because it makes unfun cards (Iona) even more unfun.
I would prefer to see Iona banned than Painters servant. And I don't think Ugin is too much of an issue. It just means he also blows up lands. And while land destruction is contentious I fall on the side of it not being an issue when used properly so that factors into my Opinion as to why Painters servant shouldn't be banned.
I've edited the OP with a couple more quotes from the official forums:
Quote from Ban Ki-moon »
Painter's Servant is banned, and should stay banned, because almost every purpose it can serve reduces interaction between players and/or removes lines of play as options. Painter's Servant almost always moves the game into a more linear, forced state, taking away from "Player A beat Player B" while building on "Player A's deck beat Player B's deck." Building a Painter's Servant deck is way more fun than playing with the card in a game.
Painter's Servant is definitely my least-favourite card to talk about, since the factors that keep it banned are rarely addressed directly by the people who want to play with it. Please note that power level, as always, isn't all that relevant to this issue.
Semi-casual players will realize all of that's boring as heck, and casual players will have never done that in the first place.
Disagree. Casual players who wouldn't otherwise think twice about various color hosers will be subtly encouraged to play them.
PS is a card where most of the benign interactions are griefy and the less benign ones really suck. The number of OK interactions that aren't basically irrelevant is teeny and nobody can claim with a straight face that those are the ones that'll be used. Sounds like a totally awesome card to have in casual play.
I feel that while both Enchanted Evening and Mycosynth Lattice have very similar effects the stuff like Iona, Sheild of Emeria, All is Dust, and their ilk, the main reason those aren't banned is that while they effect mostly everything, they don't effect the library which is huge and it leaves things colorless or just in their colors which is huge as being able to effect the library is huge.
Now I am one who I'd love to see PS unbanned for the sake of all the johnny things that can happen from an Isochron Scepter with Pyroblast to just having Compost out. The good out weights the evil for me in this case unlike majority of cards on the banned list but comparing PS to EE or ML is an underwhelming comparison in my eyes.
I don't see why affecting the library (or cards in hand for that matter) is the dealbreaker. You can play one and then play another card that combos with it to wipe the entire board. At that point does it really matter what's going on with the library?
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.
Just because a distinction can be made does not mean it is an important distinction.
In this context, PS is a fairly direct functional comparison with Mycosynth Lattice -- I do not understand why PS affecting libraries is "huge". Is it because of the 2-card combo with Grindstone? Because the RC is supposedly no longer in the business of policing intentional combos.
Furthermore, I like BKM a lot, but the reasoning in the post Cryogen quoted makes no sense to me. Is removing options (e.g. Duress) inherently undesirable? And do interactions combining PS with option-increasing cards (e.g. Compost, and Reap, as above) just get dismissed because they don't fit the narrative?
Where did you see the interaction called accidental?
One of the main arguments that I see for keeping Painter's Servant banned are that one player could be playing PS in a deck, while the other plays Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. Because both players intentionally left this combo out due to the "build casually" mindset, the "accidental" interaction between these two cards can leave a sour taste in the player's mouth.
My only issue with this is that there are WAY more cards (and way more that see regular play in all EDH decks) that pull off this effect "accidentally" with Mycosynth Lattice and/or Enchanted Evening (i.e. anything that destroys all enchantments and/or artifacts).
With that in mind, it makes no sense to keep PS banned and not the others if this is the reason to keep it banned.
One of the main arguments that I see for keeping Painter's Servant banned are that one player could be playing PS in a deck, while the other plays Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. Because both players intentionally left this combo out due to the "build casually" mindset, the "accidental" interaction between these two cards can leave a sour taste in the player's mouth.
Do you see that argument from the RC? Three RC members laid out reasons above, and I don't see accidental, or even two player involved, in any of them.
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.
One of the main arguments that I see for keeping Painter's Servant banned are that one player could be playing PS in a deck, while the other plays Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. Because both players intentionally left this combo out due to the "build casually" mindset, the "accidental" interaction between these two cards can leave a sour taste in the player's mouth.
Do you see that argument from the RC? Three RC members laid out reasons above, and I don't see accidental, or even two player involved, in any of them.
Sheldon's second quote relating to Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is exactly the quote that I am referencing. I am sure another quote can be found for making his statement more clear, but when you realize that he and the RC ignore intentional combo interactions between cards as a criteria for banning, you will have to determine that the only reason he would make that argument is because of possible unintended interactions between the two.
To address the other quotes:
Sheldon's first quote is from the original banning in 2009 and is since outdated. The reason he supplies is no longer considered a criteria for banning any card.
Ban Ki-moon & papa_funk's quotes are stating similar things that both relate to one key point of the current banning philosophy: "Creates Undesirable Games/Game Situations". This is the one and only point that Painter's Servant hits on. And I am arguing that PS doesn't create undesirable games or game situations any more than any other unbanned card (alone; i.e. Armageddon etc.), and actually creates less of these situations than are created through the incredibly similar cards Mycosynth Lattice and Enchanted Evening.
All I am stating is that if PS causes undesirable game states, then ML and EE are even worse at it, so they should be banned as well. As long as they stay unbanned, I will not understand the banning of PS.
One of the main arguments that I see for keeping Painter's Servant banned are that one player could be playing PS in a deck, while the other plays Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. Because both players intentionally left this combo out due to the "build casually" mindset, the "accidental" interaction between these two cards can leave a sour taste in the player's mouth.
Do you see that argument from the RC? Three RC members laid out reasons above, and I don't see accidental, or even two player involved, in any of them.
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.
PS can easily be unbanned without causing too much havoc. It can do things that are against the spirit of EDH, but it can also do things very much in the spirit of EDH. The Painter/Ugin accidental interaction is no more likely than the Mycosynth/March interaction.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
These days, some wizards are finding they have a little too much deck left at the end of their $$$.
MTG finance guy- follow me on Twitter@RichArschmann or RichardArschmann on Reddit
PS can easily be unbanned without causing too much havoc. It can do things that are against the spirit of EDH, but it can also do things very much in the spirit of EDH.
How would encouraging color hosing mechanics in a 'color matters' format be "in the spirit of EDH"?
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.
Cards that care about color are not necessarily color hosers.
But how about this: if Servant being legal would "subtley encourage" casual players to do otherwise obviously unfun things, I would posit that 1) Servant is hardly unique in that regard, 2) Servant is hardly the most offensive card in that category.
For example, does Narset being legal subtley encourage mass land destruction and time magic? PF's use of this argument seems like cherry-picking at its finest.
The two cards combined are 10, are wildly different types of cards and if a board of decks can not deal with one of them or the other by the time Ugin drops something else is the problem in that game.
11 mana, sure the two of them can be Tooth and Nailed onto the board, however I feel the person who is going to pick those two creatures to grab is already playing so far out of the RCs wheelhouse that the banlist shouldn't be a part of the discussion, or you swap the two creatures and ban Iona in the spot Painter currently has.
This one is tricky because it is basically Upheaval that requires two cards. However again that requiring two cards is important here, also unless the person has done something devious they will be just as behind as everyone else and the set up for that deviousness adds more complexity into the mix and therefore moves it further out of the criteria for being banned.
Compare those 5 to the 20-30+ cards that use colors in fun ways my Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed deck is a pretty good example off the top of my head.
I'm planning on tossing Painter's into my mono-U Oona deck to test it out. It runs Wash Out as well for an additional "combo".
I'll try and report back if/when it ever comes up and how the game handles it. Similar as to the discussions in the Protean Hulk thread if others want to do the same (in real deck scenarios) actual results would be great. Painter's is a card who I think is current;y damned by the theory behind it rather than actual non-forced applications.
I have never seen PS as a huge issue by itself, its when paired with Grindstone or Iona that it becomes a problem. So unban PS, and ban grindstne and Iona. You now have PS unbanned which allows for some oombos but nothing that locks players out, and got rid of annoying cards that make the game unfun.
Another often debated card that brings up interesting issues about how the format views combos.
Painter's Servant (December 20, 2009)
Source: Official site, December 3, 2009
Source: Star City Games
Edit: Adding some more quotes from the RC - cryogen
I feel that while both Enchanted Evening and Mycosynth Lattice have very similar effects the stuff like Iona, Sheild of Emeria, All is Dust, and their ilk, the main reason those aren't banned is that while they effect mostly everything, they don't effect the library which is huge and it leaves things colorless or just in their colors which is huge as being able to effect the library is huge.
Now I am one who I'd love to see PS unbanned for the sake of all the johnny things that can happen from an Isochron Scepter with Pyroblast to just having Compost out. The good out weights the evil for me in this case unlike majority of cards on the banned list but comparing PS to EE or ML is an underwhelming comparison in my eyes.
Agree. While PS is a unique card that doesn't in itself does anything busted or broken its interaction with a lot of other cards turns it into a bit of a problem child. We could argue for the ban of the rest of the cards mentioned, but instead of just chopping off the heads of a hydra that ultimately will regrow, I think it is correct to ban the engine itself that enable these cards. It is unfortunate as the effect is unique, but this seems to be a case of killing off one card in order to save many.
I can see the point there but I disagree with it. If those things it enables are inherently unfun, they will probably always be unfun. So why ban a card that could be fun because it makes unfun cards (Iona) even more unfun.
I would prefer to see Iona banned than Painters servant. And I don't think Ugin is too much of an issue. It just means he also blows up lands. And while land destruction is contentious I fall on the side of it not being an issue when used properly so that factors into my Opinion as to why Painters servant shouldn't be banned.
Marath, Will of the Wild Tokens!! / Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund Dragons! / Muzzio, Visionary Architect / Brago, King Eternal / Daretti, Scrap Savant / Narset, Enlightened Master / Alesha, Who Smiles at Death / Bruna, Light of Alabaster / Marchesa, the Black Rose / Iroas, God of Victory / Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury / Omnath, Locus of rage / Titania, Protector of Argoth / Kozilek, the Great Distortion
Modern
Elves / Titanshift / Merfolk
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
I don't see why affecting the library (or cards in hand for that matter) is the dealbreaker. You can play one and then play another card that combos with it to wipe the entire board. At that point does it really matter what's going on with the library?
WUBRGProgenitus
URGMaelstrom Wanderer
WUBOloro, Ageless Ascetic
WURZedruu, the Greathearted
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher ($100)
GWUDerevi, Empyrial Tactician ($100)
UGKruphix, God of Horizons ($100)(retired)UTalrand, Sky Summoner (French 1v1, $100)
In this context, PS is a fairly direct functional comparison with Mycosynth Lattice -- I do not understand why PS affecting libraries is "huge". Is it because of the 2-card combo with Grindstone? Because the RC is supposedly no longer in the business of policing intentional combos.
Furthermore, I like BKM a lot, but the reasoning in the post Cryogen quoted makes no sense to me. Is removing options (e.g. Duress) inherently undesirable? And do interactions combining PS with option-increasing cards (e.g. Compost, and Reap, as above) just get dismissed because they don't fit the narrative?
Draft my Mono-Blue Cube!
lichess.org | chess.com
One of the main arguments that I see for keeping Painter's Servant banned are that one player could be playing PS in a deck, while the other plays Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. Because both players intentionally left this combo out due to the "build casually" mindset, the "accidental" interaction between these two cards can leave a sour taste in the player's mouth.
My only issue with this is that there are WAY more cards (and way more that see regular play in all EDH decks) that pull off this effect "accidentally" with Mycosynth Lattice and/or Enchanted Evening (i.e. anything that destroys all enchantments and/or artifacts).
With that in mind, it makes no sense to keep PS banned and not the others if this is the reason to keep it banned.
Sheldon's second quote relating to Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is exactly the quote that I am referencing. I am sure another quote can be found for making his statement more clear, but when you realize that he and the RC ignore intentional combo interactions between cards as a criteria for banning, you will have to determine that the only reason he would make that argument is because of possible unintended interactions between the two.
To address the other quotes:
Sheldon's first quote is from the original banning in 2009 and is since outdated. The reason he supplies is no longer considered a criteria for banning any card.
Ban Ki-moon & papa_funk's quotes are stating similar things that both relate to one key point of the current banning philosophy: "Creates Undesirable Games/Game Situations". This is the one and only point that Painter's Servant hits on. And I am arguing that PS doesn't create undesirable games or game situations any more than any other unbanned card (alone; i.e. Armageddon etc.), and actually creates less of these situations than are created through the incredibly similar cards Mycosynth Lattice and Enchanted Evening.
All I am stating is that if PS causes undesirable game states, then ML and EE are even worse at it, so they should be banned as well. As long as they stay unbanned, I will not understand the banning of PS.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/199691-rules-committee-q-a?comment=128
Draft my Mono-Blue Cube!
lichess.org | chess.com
Thank you.
cryogen, could we get this added to the top? Thanks!
MTG finance guy- follow me on Twitter@RichArschmann or RichardArschmann on Reddit
Edit: It would be helpful to PM one of us requests like this. I do try to keep up with all of the threads, but I'm guaranteed to see a PM.
My Helpdesk
[Pr] Marath | [Pr] Lovisa | Jodah | Saskia | Najeela | Yisan | Lord Windgrace | Atraxa | Meren | Gisa and Geralf
But how about this: if Servant being legal would "subtley encourage" casual players to do otherwise obviously unfun things, I would posit that 1) Servant is hardly unique in that regard, 2) Servant is hardly the most offensive card in that category.
For example, does Narset being legal subtley encourage mass land destruction and time magic? PF's use of this argument seems like cherry-picking at its finest.
Draft my Mono-Blue Cube!
lichess.org | chess.com
1) Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
The two cards combined are 10, are wildly different types of cards and if a board of decks can not deal with one of them or the other by the time Ugin drops something else is the problem in that game.
2) All is Dust
Again 9 nothing instant speed, plenty of time to remove the artifact/creature (the two easiest types of things to remove in Commander)
3) Grindstone
The RC doesn't ban based on combos like this, you can see this in everything they say.
4) Iona, Shield of Emeria
11 mana, sure the two of them can be Tooth and Nailed onto the board, however I feel the person who is going to pick those two creatures to grab is already playing so far out of the RCs wheelhouse that the banlist shouldn't be a part of the discussion, or you swap the two creatures and ban Iona in the spot Painter currently has.
5) Wash Out
This one is tricky because it is basically Upheaval that requires two cards. However again that requiring two cards is important here, also unless the person has done something devious they will be just as behind as everyone else and the set up for that deviousness adds more complexity into the mix and therefore moves it further out of the criteria for being banned.
Compare those 5 to the 20-30+ cards that use colors in fun ways my Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed deck is a pretty good example off the top of my head.
I'll try and report back if/when it ever comes up and how the game handles it. Similar as to the discussions in the Protean Hulk thread if others want to do the same (in real deck scenarios) actual results would be great. Painter's is a card who I think is current;y damned by the theory behind it rather than actual non-forced applications.
What about the large selection of 1-mana counterspells/permanent destruction?
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist