They’re all in good fun when that’s the desired effect of the interactions... and also not the point since the point is that the issue is the interaction with the cards other people play, not your own two card combos.
And what do you know, a lot of them actually see significant play in EDH already, meaning it is more likely an opponent will have one of these cards in their deck when you play your Lattice.
Come on, man. At least pretend to address the point.
If the issue is, as you said, the unfortunate and unintended interaction with the cards other people play, that issue applies equally -- if not more so -- to Mycosynth Lattice. I listed almost 40 cards that will absolutely destroy a game if played into a Lattice, regardless of who controls it. And a good portion of those cards already see widespread play in EDH. Meaning that even IF YOU play YOUR LATTICE with noble intentions, it is highly likely SOMEONE ELSE at the table will have one of the listed cards and be able to ruin the game on accident. Thus, if that's the reason PS is banned, because of it's unintended game wrecking by the non-PS player using Deathgrip or Iona, Lattice (and by extension, Evening) should be banned as well.
But most importantly...I was not responding to all is dust or ugin, which both at least kind of make sense. Ravnica at war is...well, first of all, a really bad card that won't get played, but also really not a problematic interaction AT ALL with painter's servant.
Ravnica at war will certainly be meta dependent,but I don't think it's bad per say (I plan to get one if not more since we have one God deck in my meta and I feel it's a good wipe in general for what it hits.) But let's looks at Ugin's "Exile each permanent with converted mana cost X or less that's one or more colors. compared to "Exile all multicolored permanents." there's also like i said the fact that R&D is looking at more wipes that are color dependent, as it stands it's easier and less rules to keep PS banned than wait to see how the new color wipe shakes out each time one is printed. But YMMV.
They’re all in good fun when that’s the desired effect of the interactions... and also not the point since the point is that the issue is the interaction with the cards other people play, not your own two card combos.
And what do you know, a lot of them actually see significant play in EDH already, meaning it is more likely an opponent will have one of these cards in their deck when you play your Lattice.
Come on, man. At least pretend to address the point.
If the issue is, as you said, the unfortunate and unintended interaction with the cards other people play, that issue applies equally -- if not more so -- to Mycosynth Lattice. I listed almost 40 cards that will absolutely destroy a game if played into a Lattice, regardless of who controls it. And a good portion of those cards already see widespread play in EDH. Meaning that even IF YOU play YOUR LATTICE with noble intentions, it is highly likely SOMEONE ELSE at the table will have one of the listed cards and be able to ruin the game on accident. Thus, if that's the reason PS is banned, because of it's unintended game wrecking by the non-PS player using Deathgrip or Iona, Lattice (and by extension, Evening) should be banned as well.
Precisely. It seems like people get a bit of amnesia by things that are already possible.
This can happen with Living Lands and Living Plane as well. Has anybody ever been so concerned as to ban them because of the unintentional interaction of casting cards like Wrath of God as an Armageddon? No of course not, it's part of the game.
It concerns me that a 8 card (Ugin) is seen as problematic in a format that is often finishing on Turn 4.
My point is that there is plenty of real broken things going on.
It concerns me that a 8 card (Ugin) is seen as problematic in a format that is often finishing on Turn 4.
My point is that there is plenty of real broken things going on.
Because running Jokulhaups is one thing and being 'forced' to cast one is another, specially when that isn't even the intent of the card in your deck (also Jokulhaups spares enchantments so you can come up on top of it). Living lands interacts badly with less cards than Servant, ie basically just boardwipes and Linvala.
Thirty Saprolings (which seems like a very likely undercount) into puprophorus or repeatably discarding peoples hands isn't particularly sweet.
You do realize "repeatedly discards people's hands" is exactly what OG nicol bolas does WITHOUT support, right? Anyone think legends nicol bolas is too strong? No?
If someone pulls off a 3-card combo for non-infinite damage then hell yeah, that's a fair way to win.
There are a few things PS is definitely unpleasant with - ugin and iona, mostly - and a fair number of things that are at least a bit annoying, like wash out and all is dust. Do those justify banning it when the same is true for a nobody card like living plane that, to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever tried to get banned? Probably not.
But staaaahhhhhhp bringing up all these completely fair combos like freaking rith the awakener and mother of runes. You're just muddying the waters by creating an infinite number of pointless discussions about non-issues. If Sheldon thinks Ugin is justification alone for keep PS banned...well, he's wrong, living lands does the same thing with like 80 cards, but fine, whatever, at least it's actually a problematic interaction.
Anyways dunno why you even bothered asking that since you've constantly dismissed everything that doesn't agree with you, but that's to be expected since it's what you've been doing across several different threads.
I've constantly dismissed everything that doesn't agree with me AND IS A BAD ARGUMENT.
I'm sorry, when you bring up mother of runes I'm under no obligation to say "oh yeah, GREAT point. Can't believe I didn't realize how 'busted' mother of runes was going to be "
It concerns me that a 8 card (Ugin) is seen as problematic in a format that is often finishing on Turn 4.
My point is that there is plenty of real broken things going on.
Ravnica at war will certainly be meta dependent,but I don't think it's bad per say (I plan to get one if not more since we have one God deck in my meta and I feel it's a good wipe in general for what it hits.) But let's looks at Ugin's "Exile each permanent with converted mana cost X or less that's one or more colors. compared to "Exile all multicolored permanents." there's also like i said the fact that R&D is looking at more wipes that are color dependent, as it stands it's easier and less rules to keep PS banned than wait to see how the new color wipe shakes out each time one is printed. But YMMV.
Ravnica at war is not even close to problematic with PS. Even if you could guarantee that it only hit enemy stuff and never hit your stuff, a 2-card combo that wipes enemy non-artifact non-lands is completely fair and fine.
Keeping something banned on speculations of future cards is a slippery slope. Any card could end up busted because of future interactions, are we supposed to never unban anything lest something be released next set that makes it too scary?
Also I have no idea what you mean by "less rules". Nobody is adding or removing any rules. We're maybe removing a card from the banlist, but that's not a rule. And yes, you SHOULD see how things shake out each time a new powerful interaction is printed. That's how banlists are supposed to work, not preemptively banning "just in case". And R@W just weakens your argument, since it's a cares-about-color wipe that's completely fair with PS.
Ravnica at war will certainly be meta dependent,but I don't think it's bad per say (I plan to get one if not more since we have one God deck in my meta and I feel it's a good wipe in general for what it hits.) But let's looks at Ugin's "Exile each permanent with converted mana cost X or less that's one or more colors. compared to "Exile all multicolored permanents." there's also like i said the fact that R&D is looking at more wipes that are color dependent, as it stands it's easier and less rules to keep PS banned than wait to see how the new color wipe shakes out each time one is printed. But YMMV.
Ravnica at war is not even close to problematic with PS. Even if you could guarantee that it only hit enemy stuff and never hit your stuff, a 2-card combo that wipes enemy non-artifact non-lands is completely fair and fine.
Keeping something banned on speculations of future cards is a slippery slope. Any card could end up busted because of future interactions, are we supposed to never unban anything lest something be released next set that makes it too scary?
Also I have no idea what you mean by "less rules". Nobody is adding or removing any rules. We're maybe removing a card from the banlist, but that's not a rule. And yes, you SHOULD see how things shake out each time a new powerful interaction is printed. That's how banlists are supposed to work, not preemptively banning "just in case". And R@W just weakens your argument, since it's a cares-about-color wipe that's completely fair with PS.
I meant a shorter ban list (teach me to type after midnight my time with little to no sleep) and it's clear that we're not going to agree that PS should stay banned. Which should have been clear to me when you declared that RaW to be a bad card...
It concerns me that a 8 card (Ugin) is seen as problematic in a format that is often finishing on Turn 4.
My point is that there is plenty of real broken things going on.
It's honestly so weird to me that this card is banned, when there are so many far more unpleasant and things allowed in play.
People already talked about a great example in Living Plane which is definitely a more unpleasant card. I have a Derevi, Empyrial Tactician deck which wins via living plane with Elesh Norn, after applying Stasis, Winter Orb and other such fun stuff. I guarantee you I would be gaining friends faster if I was going for the much less reliable ugin+painter. My point is this being banned feels arbitrary with all the crazy stuff that happens in this game. People have already been putting this more eloquently than I am but I just wanted to add another voice.
I know I am also biased, I mean painter is my favorite card in all of magic and I'm not allowed to play it because I don't have friends who play magic to let me.
But most importantly...I was not responding to all is dust or ugin, which both at least kind of make sense. Ravnica at war is...well, first of all, a really bad card that won't get played, but also really not a problematic interaction AT ALL with painter's servant.
Ravnica at war will certainly be meta dependent,but I don't think it's bad per say (I plan to get one if not more since we have one God deck in my meta and I feel it's a good wipe in general for what it hits.) But let's looks at Ugin's "Exile each permanent with converted mana cost X or less that's one or more colors. compared to "Exile all multicolored permanents." there's also like i said the fact that R&D is looking at more wipes that are color dependent, as it stands it's easier and less rules to keep PS banned than wait to see how the new color wipe shakes out each time one is printed. But YMMV.
I think people are mis-reading what ravnica at war does. it exiles multicoloured permanents, so it's not going to touch pre-painter colourless permanents (since they only have 1 colour that painter's painting). And i get that some EDH players are a bit touchy about their lands.
If we play this as a pure best-case scenario (lets say we're mono white and no one else plays white), it's a one-sided non-land, non-artifact/devoid board wipe using 2 cards. Blue can already do that with just 1 card (cyclonic rift).
And with the comparison to living plane, it has 2 ways to be interacted with, enchantment destruction and other world enchantments. painter is hit by the 2 most prolific destroy effects, for creatures and artefacts. I think enchantments are probably the second hardest permanent to deal with (especially in black and red) and creatures are the easiest for all colours. I'm not really aware of anyone using world enchantments to hit other world enchantments either. Not that "dies to removal" is a strong argument, but being relatively easy to kill, especially in the face of "whoops, i forgot it'd kill that too" style effects like shatterstorm or wildfire.
I don't know how to draw tables here on this forum, but so far, it feels to me that the arguments for unbanning painter outweighs the ones arguing for it being banned. I'm actually predicting that i'd be one of like.. 4? 5? people who'd wanna chuck painter in a deck to run it for funsies, and then probably it'd just go back into obscurity.
anecdotal field tests: Yesterday, 3 games, 1 with blind seer and 2 with zedruu. painter would have made my hydroblast active, but i already had a blind seer that did basically the same thing. I also would have been able to pitch excess land in hand for force of will. But outside of that, i don't think i had any relevant cards to the game. My opponents didn't have anything relevant either, that i saw.
So over the weekend, it happened. someone brought oona, queen of the fae. Basically spent turn after turn churning out masses of 1/1 fliers all day. I wouldn't really call it 'broken' as such, but it actually made painter's servant feel pretty bonkers. I think there were at least 15-20 fliers in play before someone disenchanted painter's servant.
On the other side of the spectrum, i managed to make thought prison work its magic. it successfully managed to ping a total of like 10 damage maybe before it got shatterstormed.
One big knock against it though was against someone's eye of ugin. it explicitly says that the discount applies to only colourless eldrazi, so it basically blanks the card. I'm not sure he was planning to do anything 'fair' with it, but hosing that down wasn't great either.
Then with the grindstone activation on the stack, one of my opponents bedevils the painter. Then another opponent showed me that they had an ancient grudge too. So i ended up milling 2 cards. Then everything I tried to get the combo back together with got countered or killed or exiled.
One vaguely relevant thing that did happen was making a sword of feast and famine falling off a guy after naming green as a colour (since the sword gives the creature protection from green, and green equipment and auras then all fall off). So that was fun. hardly amazing though.
Dunno what this shows, really. I guess that painter is really easy to kill? or that i'm a lousy deck-builder/brewer? It's no real argument for or against though, really. But the more i'm using painter, the more annoyed my playgroup seems to be getting, since i'm making a bit of a hubbub for no real consequence (for them).
8 years later and this is still the discussion: "What about this 3 card combo that probably wins the game?"
As Carthage points out just above me, you could have just gotten Mikaeus + Triskelion that actually does win the game. I haven't seen a single good reason why this is banned that isn't just worse than an already legal avenue. Neither Painter's Servant nor Grindstone are even banned in Duel Commander or MTGO Commander which are tuned for balance from tournament results, card prevalence, and other online data.
8 years later and this is still the discussion: "What about this 3 card combo that probably wins the game?"
As Carthage points out just above me, you could have just gotten Mikaeus + Triskelion that actually does win the game. I haven't seen a single good reason why this is banned that isn't just worse than an already legal avenue. Neither Painter's Servant nor Grindstone are even banned in Duel Commander or MTGO Commander which are tuned for balance from tournament results, card prevalence, and other online data.
That is the issue it does not outright win the game. Instead it locks the game down so your opponents can do anything but play lands and use what they already have on board. You need a good hand to pull it off turn 1 but by no means is it a magical Christmas land hand. Turn 2, 3. If you opponents do not have an answer it is game over. Sure they may have a creature, but usually that early in the game, Oona can handle it. I bet the table will scoop. Even if they have a way to win, they will die to damage first.
Iona is a very Timmy-esque card and it's quite epic to have in play. It also isn't good enough on it's own to carry most games (I guess sometimes you do face 3 mono-same-color decks). EDH is a heavily multi-color environment where every color has removal options, on top of the enough colorless removal options.
I haven't seen anyone wanting to do actual fun stuff with Painter's Servant. People just describe "cool" ways they want to use color-hosers (ala Jaya Ballard). Meanwhile, these are the same people who poo-poo on Iona as a color-hoser. Can't have it both ways. Besides, all color shenanigans with it can be achieved with non-banned color-hacking cards.
To appease all involved, just unban Painter because
1. Unbanning cards is mostly good.
2. and keep Iona unbanned because it + Painter isn't any more offensive than other available two card options
3. and keep Grindstone unbanned as well because it + Painter is really just another version of Rest in Peace + Helm of Obedience, albeit a colorless version of it.
The RC i can only assume are aware that there's a reasonable argument for it being unbanned; but at the same time, i can imagine that they're going to be extremely cautious about it, simply 'cuz it's very embarrassing to have to reban something after an unbanning.
I can say that there's not been too many oppressive interactions in the new set that isn't already nuts-oppressive (looking at most of the PWs, including new karn and new teferi) to do with painter's servant.
@umtiger; you also realise though, that painter+grindstone just mills (i.e. if there's an emrakul/kozilek trigger, the whole graveyard gets shuffled back in), whereas RIP+helm actually exiles the library (effectively).
Unfortunately, I think it's really tough for us to 'objectively' say whether or not painter is ok, mostly 'cuz the RC deals with 90% of the EDH players. Us who peruse mtgsalvation might not be representative of that. I mean, i recall a time when i thought that chromium was way OP, and thought that it should be banned (it wouldn't die to terror!). It's those people the RC are looking out for.
...but that being said, most of the more casual interactions don't involve things like ugin, iona and all is dust, so i can only assume that painter's servant is also fine 99% of the time.
If the issue is, as you said, the unfortunate and unintended interaction with the cards other people play, that issue applies equally -- if not more so -- to Mycosynth Lattice. I listed almost 40 cards that will absolutely destroy a game if played into a Lattice, regardless of who controls it. And a good portion of those cards already see widespread play in EDH. Meaning that even IF YOU play YOUR LATTICE with noble intentions, it is highly likely SOMEONE ELSE at the table will have one of the listed cards and be able to ruin the game on accident. Thus, if that's the reason PS is banned, because of it's unintended game wrecking by the non-PS player using Deathgrip or Iona, Lattice (and by extension, Evening) should be banned as well.
Ravnica at war will certainly be meta dependent,but I don't think it's bad per say (I plan to get one if not more since we have one God deck in my meta and I feel it's a good wipe in general for what it hits.) But let's looks at Ugin's "Exile each permanent with converted mana cost X or less that's one or more colors. compared to "Exile all multicolored permanents." there's also like i said the fact that R&D is looking at more wipes that are color dependent, as it stands it's easier and less rules to keep PS banned than wait to see how the new color wipe shakes out each time one is printed. But YMMV.
This can happen with Living Lands and Living Plane as well. Has anybody ever been so concerned as to ban them because of the unintentional interaction of casting cards like Wrath of God as an Armageddon? No of course not, it's part of the game.
It concerns me that a 8 card (Ugin) is seen as problematic in a format that is often finishing on Turn 4.
My point is that there is plenty of real broken things going on.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
In what meta are your games finishing by turn 4?
living plane:
You do realize "repeatedly discards people's hands" is exactly what OG nicol bolas does WITHOUT support, right? Anyone think legends nicol bolas is too strong? No?
If someone pulls off a 3-card combo for non-infinite damage then hell yeah, that's a fair way to win.
There are a few things PS is definitely unpleasant with - ugin and iona, mostly - and a fair number of things that are at least a bit annoying, like wash out and all is dust. Do those justify banning it when the same is true for a nobody card like living plane that, to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever tried to get banned? Probably not.
But staaaahhhhhhp bringing up all these completely fair combos like freaking rith the awakener and mother of runes. You're just muddying the waters by creating an infinite number of pointless discussions about non-issues. If Sheldon thinks Ugin is justification alone for keep PS banned...well, he's wrong, living lands does the same thing with like 80 cards, but fine, whatever, at least it's actually a problematic interaction.
I've constantly dismissed everything that doesn't agree with me AND IS A BAD ARGUMENT.
I'm sorry, when you bring up mother of runes I'm under no obligation to say "oh yeah, GREAT point. Can't believe I didn't realize how 'busted' mother of runes was going to be "
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
Keeping something banned on speculations of future cards is a slippery slope. Any card could end up busted because of future interactions, are we supposed to never unban anything lest something be released next set that makes it too scary?
Also I have no idea what you mean by "less rules". Nobody is adding or removing any rules. We're maybe removing a card from the banlist, but that's not a rule. And yes, you SHOULD see how things shake out each time a new powerful interaction is printed. That's how banlists are supposed to work, not preemptively banning "just in case". And R@W just weakens your argument, since it's a cares-about-color wipe that's completely fair with PS.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
I meant a shorter ban list (teach me to type after midnight my time with little to no sleep) and it's clear that we're not going to agree that PS should stay banned. Which should have been clear to me when you declared that RaW to be a bad card...
Ewwww
People already talked about a great example in Living Plane which is definitely a more unpleasant card. I have a Derevi, Empyrial Tactician deck which wins via living plane with Elesh Norn, after applying Stasis, Winter Orb and other such fun stuff. I guarantee you I would be gaining friends faster if I was going for the much less reliable ugin+painter. My point is this being banned feels arbitrary with all the crazy stuff that happens in this game. People have already been putting this more eloquently than I am but I just wanted to add another voice.
I know I am also biased, I mean painter is my favorite card in all of magic and I'm not allowed to play it because I don't have friends who play magic to let me.
I think people are mis-reading what ravnica at war does. it exiles multicoloured permanents, so it's not going to touch pre-painter colourless permanents (since they only have 1 colour that painter's painting). And i get that some EDH players are a bit touchy about their lands.
If we play this as a pure best-case scenario (lets say we're mono white and no one else plays white), it's a one-sided non-land, non-artifact/devoid board wipe using 2 cards. Blue can already do that with just 1 card (cyclonic rift).
And with the comparison to living plane, it has 2 ways to be interacted with, enchantment destruction and other world enchantments. painter is hit by the 2 most prolific destroy effects, for creatures and artefacts. I think enchantments are probably the second hardest permanent to deal with (especially in black and red) and creatures are the easiest for all colours. I'm not really aware of anyone using world enchantments to hit other world enchantments either. Not that "dies to removal" is a strong argument, but being relatively easy to kill, especially in the face of "whoops, i forgot it'd kill that too" style effects like shatterstorm or wildfire.
I don't know how to draw tables here on this forum, but so far, it feels to me that the arguments for unbanning painter outweighs the ones arguing for it being banned. I'm actually predicting that i'd be one of like.. 4? 5? people who'd wanna chuck painter in a deck to run it for funsies, and then probably it'd just go back into obscurity.
anecdotal field tests: Yesterday, 3 games, 1 with blind seer and 2 with zedruu. painter would have made my hydroblast active, but i already had a blind seer that did basically the same thing. I also would have been able to pitch excess land in hand for force of will. But outside of that, i don't think i had any relevant cards to the game. My opponents didn't have anything relevant either, that i saw.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
On the other side of the spectrum, i managed to make thought prison work its magic. it successfully managed to ping a total of like 10 damage maybe before it got shatterstormed.
One big knock against it though was against someone's eye of ugin. it explicitly says that the discount applies to only colourless eldrazi, so it basically blanks the card. I'm not sure he was planning to do anything 'fair' with it, but hosing that down wasn't great either.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
it ended up being like turn 3 trinket mage for grindstone, and turn 4 the antiquities war that found the painter's servant to start milling the table (not amazing, but variation, i guess).
Then with the grindstone activation on the stack, one of my opponents bedevils the painter. Then another opponent showed me that they had an ancient grudge too. So i ended up milling 2 cards. Then everything I tried to get the combo back together with got countered or killed or exiled.
One vaguely relevant thing that did happen was making a sword of feast and famine falling off a guy after naming green as a colour (since the sword gives the creature protection from green, and green equipment and auras then all fall off). So that was fun. hardly amazing though.
Dunno what this shows, really. I guess that painter is really easy to kill? or that i'm a lousy deck-builder/brewer? It's no real argument for or against though, really. But the more i'm using painter, the more annoyed my playgroup seems to be getting, since i'm making a bit of a hubbub for no real consequence (for them).
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
Victimize + Painter's Servant + Iona, Shield of Emeria can also heavily restrict a table from interaction, as an example.
THE JUICE[BOX]³ CUBE
Victimize already ends the game in mono black if you get different creatures
As Carthage points out just above me, you could have just gotten Mikaeus + Triskelion that actually does win the game. I haven't seen a single good reason why this is banned that isn't just worse than an already legal avenue. Neither Painter's Servant nor Grindstone are even banned in Duel Commander or MTGO Commander which are tuned for balance from tournament results, card prevalence, and other online data.
cEDH: [G(U/R) Animar] - [(U/B)(G/W) Redless Wheels] - [(G/U)(W/B) Redless Pod] - [(B/G)W Ghave Metapod]
That is the issue it does not outright win the game. Instead it locks the game down so your opponents can do anything but play lands and use what they already have on board. You need a good hand to pull it off turn 1 but by no means is it a magical Christmas land hand. Turn 2, 3. If you opponents do not have an answer it is game over. Sure they may have a creature, but usually that early in the game, Oona can handle it. I bet the table will scoop. Even if they have a way to win, they will die to damage first.
I haven't seen anyone wanting to do actual fun stuff with Painter's Servant. People just describe "cool" ways they want to use color-hosers (ala Jaya Ballard). Meanwhile, these are the same people who poo-poo on Iona as a color-hoser. Can't have it both ways. Besides, all color shenanigans with it can be achieved with non-banned color-hacking cards.
To appease all involved, just unban Painter because
1. Unbanning cards is mostly good.
2. and keep Iona unbanned because it + Painter isn't any more offensive than other available two card options
3. and keep Grindstone unbanned as well because it + Painter is really just another version of Rest in Peace + Helm of Obedience, albeit a colorless version of it.
I can say that there's not been too many oppressive interactions in the new set that isn't already nuts-oppressive (looking at most of the PWs, including new karn and new teferi) to do with painter's servant.
@umtiger; you also realise though, that painter+grindstone just mills (i.e. if there's an emrakul/kozilek trigger, the whole graveyard gets shuffled back in), whereas RIP+helm actually exiles the library (effectively).
Unfortunately, I think it's really tough for us to 'objectively' say whether or not painter is ok, mostly 'cuz the RC deals with 90% of the EDH players. Us who peruse mtgsalvation might not be representative of that. I mean, i recall a time when i thought that chromium was way OP, and thought that it should be banned (it wouldn't die to terror!). It's those people the RC are looking out for.
...but that being said, most of the more casual interactions don't involve things like ugin, iona and all is dust, so i can only assume that painter's servant is also fine 99% of the time.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
Yep and aside from Iona, it still interacts poorly with some other cards