MTG Salvation

The more casual the group, the less likely you will see mass artifact destruction. Casual players typically don't pack a lot of non creature removal.

Quote from ISBPathfinder »

If the deck is not a busted combo deck I think there are a number of other issues still:

1. The more "fair" your deck is the more likely you will be playing against decks that destroy all artifacts. Unlike creatures, its a lot harder to play one card and get multiple bodies out of it. This means that academy has a much worse over time gameplan than cradle does. Its upside is entirely on the front end assuming you play fast into a fast wincon.

I don't disagree with this sentiment. For a while, I had a hard time playing my Bosh or Karn decks that are artifact heavy because of all the new mass-artifact kill that was being printed at the time that was either really flexible (Bane of Progress, Subterranean Tremors, Fiery Confluence) or had a potentially cheaper casting cost (specifically Vandalblast). I'm happy that a lot of those cards don't see as much play as they once did in the circles that I play, but I'm always on the lookout for someone playing mass artifact hate.

I will say that the artifact decks that run blue (and hence can run Academy) don't have the same issue just from the fact that they have counterspells. So while yes there is a potential to be blown out and have your Academy tap for zero, it happens a lot less in practice than it does in theory.

1. Complexity, I keep hearing people saying that its easy to play a whole heap of artifacts early + academy. What does that leave you with for a hand? What are you using all this mana for or with? If you design a deck to play an early academy and ramp up what it can do it kind of has an issue that it doesn't really have good synergy with X mana spells. I am just saying if you design the deck in a way where it can put its hand into play on turns 2/3 then yea, your hand will be in play but what are you doing then? This again..... kind of goes back to this being probably a combo enabler in a lot of cases.

I can think of a few cards worth playing that would utilize all that mana, but in general artifact based decks need all that mana as their effects tend to just cost ore than colored spells. You can also deploy threats and still have mana left over for counters, other reactive spells, or card draw. This doesn't have to be a combo deck; it is really about having a "fair" artifact deck with so much additional velocity once Academy hits the battlefield.

1. We keep talking about how "busted" this card can be. I keep seeing situations where its like..... more situational sol ring starts that require specific hands and colors. I am not saying that Sol Ring is a fair card but its also not banned and it doesn't require you to build in any direction or way. This isn't me saying we need to ban Sol Ring but I am just saying, in light of that thought it makes this argument look a little different to me.

Well, Sol Ring can only ever tap for two mana, and as good as that it is it will never be "too much mana too quickly". Academy is not without its potential downside, but in practical terms it is just so much better.

I still think that in a lot of cases its not going to spin up with as much mana or as fast as a lot of people have been saying. You can cherry pick all day and say what about this hand or that but most decks don't build heavy on 0-1 mana artifacts. I used to play Kozilek, the Great Distortion with like literally almost every ramp stone in existence and while I could pick out hands where I could T1-T2 him I never experienced any game faster than T3. There were actually somewhat of a lot of ways in which I could have potentially gotten him T2 but even with all of that my average was something like T4-T5 with a good hand. I only bring this up because it was a deck where I was running almost every possible artifact ramp option out there so it feels a bit like this discussion.

I run a couple of different artifact decks like this, but most of them do not have blue. I will say that I would not hesitate to run Tolarian Academy in my Niv-Mizzet deck (where I already considered reconfiguring things a bit to run Storm the Vault/Vault of Catlacan) where it would be amazingly good. I'm pretty sure that any blue artifact deck (Arcum Dagsson, Breya, Etherium Shaper, Sydri, Galvanic Genius, Sharuum the Hegemon, Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain jsut to name a few) would all be disgusting with Academy in the deck (even the "fair" ones). In these cases, its not just about vomiting your hand onto the table for someone to Wrath it away and you are left with nothing; its about having the resources to vomit you hand on the table and then keep going because you aren't constrained by mana.

In the end, I understand the arguments you are trying to make, but I just don't agree that those are good enough arguments to allow Tolarian Academy back int the EDH card pool.

Quote from cryogen »

The more casual the group, the less likely you will see mass artifact destruction. Casual players typically don't pack a lot of non creature removal.

Its going to depend on the meta and what is being played. Austere Command is plenty popular even in casual commander. I would actually say white / green are probably better than red is these days since most of the red ones don't have flexibility or the ability to be tutored. Red's advantage on this front tends to be efficiency / quick use options rather than flexibility.

Academy will also probably be less of a problem in a casual group than cradle would be though.

Quote from ISBPathfinder »

Its going to depend on the meta and what is being played. Austere Command is plenty popular even in casual commander. I would actually say white / green are probably better than red is these days since most of the red ones don't have flexibility or the ability to be tutored. Red's advantage on this front tends to be efficiency / quick use options rather than flexibility.

Academy will also probably be less of a problem in a casual group than cradle would be though.

Really? $30 ramp land or $300 ramp land. Which do you think will be purchased first?

well tolarian academy would hit 300 in about a week of unbanning to be fair, it's an RL card after all.

Quote from cryogen »

Really? $30 ramp land or $300 ramp land. Which do you think will be purchased first?

Yea...... its only cheap because its not playable anywhere. Cradle has a leg up being that it sees some legacy play where as academy is banned there.

Quote from ISBPathfinder »

Quote from cryogen »

Really? $30 ramp land or $300 ramp land. Which do you think will be purchased first?

Yea...... its only cheap because its not playable anywhere. Cradle has a leg up being that it sees some legacy play where as academy is banned there.

Well, it does see a lot of play in paradox, control, shops, bomberman, among other decks in vintage. But yea, not really playable anywhere else.

I can see tolarian academy as a largely 'safe' unban, just 'cuz it really needs some amount of work to make it 'busted', compared to say gaea's cradle, but i can't see the potential benefits of it outweighing the potential downs of it. the number of people who're gonna be scared off EDH after seeing a 'god-hand' start (especially more likely after the mulligan rules change) would put off enough people to make us all err on the side of caution.

But yea, that type 2 standard was 'fun'. In fact, i'd wager that the academy deck is probably the single strongest deck of all time through all formats. If not the strongest (in terms of it's fast, consistent AND has protection, can kill turn 1-2), then definitely within top 3.