People keep talking about all of these blue wincons in comparison to Craterhoof Behemoth. Keep in mind that a lot of those blue wincons are good in the right hands. Think about a more casual player where their deck is not as tuned and their plays are not as optimized. Craterhoof Behemoth stays as strong if not getting stronger while a lot of these blue situational strong cards dont have the same follow through.
Craterhoof also has a LOT more ways to be retrieved / played than ANY of these other cards that have been mentioned. Creatures have the most and most playable conditional tutors in the game.
It's not like the people who want to trash newbies are doing it with Hoof -- they're using 5c Hermit Druid, or oppressive stax, or one of the other top-tier combo/control strategies.
I see you've never played against a cEDH Yisan, the Wanderer Bard deck. The local one won on turn four twice in a row a couple months ago, through disruption both times. One win used Hoof. Check out this list, for example. The local version is similar, though I think it lacks the stax pieces.
I don't support a Hoof ban, but the card appears at least one competitive EDH deck.
I mostly agree, except that I can't really see the value in discussing any card without comparing it to what's on the ban list and what comparable cards are not. Doing so lets you discuss the issue in a realistic way that takes into account the purpose of the ban list. If Hoof meets the ban list's criteria, and I clearly do not believe that it does, than so do several other cards, including one that the Rules Committee just decided no longer meets the criteria. Hulk is the biggest elephant in the room, as its also a creature, costs less, and doesn't rely on the combat step to win (thus dodging many of the cards that can answer Hoof or delay it from going online). Again, we've already had this discussion, and then moved onto T&N, then moved onto other cards. We've even went over the ways in which it doesn't come close to most of the categories that could render a card bannable, and even in the category where it merits any discussion, casual omnipresence, it falls short. When you can't point to a category for banning that it the card clearly meets, but you can point to cards that are legal that do a better job of meeting those bannable categories, there isn't much left to discuss.
Can you define what are the characteristics that lead to a card being banned? You really cannot because there is no consistency in the banned list otherwise several cards would be either unbanned and or banned that are currently not. The banned list does not live by hard rules but it looks at each card in a vacuum. Since I have started playing there are at least a few cards that I cannot logically come to a consensus as to why they were banned and they do not fit into characteristics of the rest of the banned list.
Sundering Titan for example was a card that got banned in more recent years. I played with this card a bit myself and honestly its totally an elephant on the banned list because no other target or mass LD effect (excluding Sylvan Primordial whom is on there for value purposes) is on the banned list. You could look to cards like Ruination, Back to Basics, Blood Moon, Winter Orb, Stasis, Static Orb and ban so many other cards before or along side Sundering Titan.
My point in bringing up Sundering Titan is not that I really care but to point out that you cannot take the current banned list as an example of what cards should be banned. Sundering Titan is a complete abnormality to the list and does not really make sense in that it by itself is banned. You could put Terastodon into a very similar range of effect as what I expect Sundering Titan to do except that the titan is probably less versatile. I have heard it time and again, the cards on the banned list are not used directly to ban other cards because in the RC's eyes.
Sundering Titan, Primeval Titan, Griselbrand, and Primordial all have the same problem that got them axed. They end up wrecking games in ways people don't expect until they have significant experience with the card. It's pretty obvious what happens with those other hate cards you listed but they get out of hand with seemingly innocent things like reanimation, flicker effects, clones and kick someone who's down because you couldn't choose, oops my opponent just drew 28 cards and stomped the table, opps somebody just had a haste outlet and got a 6/6 trampler plus 3 Mana Reflections for 2-4 mana etc. I certainly don't see how Hoof fits with that either. Sure, it's slightly better than other Overruns and significantly more powerful than the card group's namesake, but it does exactly what anyone with even novice experience would expect it to do and isn't even all that powerful compared to other cards of the same cost. I'm not really a fan of any of those bans, though, or Emrakul, Coalition Victory, Gifts, Academy, Worldfire, Sway of the Stars, or Biorhythm and have lobbied for all of them to be let off.
I feel like this argument is splitting along 'tiers' of the format. Some people are argueing that Hoof is just not a card that has a significant impact on the game because the game can be ended by a combo 1 turn later off T&N or one turn earlier off Hulk. This is an accurate argument, but it also seems be coming from a tier 1 or tier 1.25 place of playgroup deck ptimization, while Hoof is a card that is going to be much more impactful in ending games in the tier 2 - tier 3 zone of the meta that a whole lot of players tune their decks too.
Think about comparing it to Prophet of Kruphix. PoK is a card that does exactly what it looks like it'll do in game. It let you play magic on everyones turn. PoK was a card that had a minimal if any impact in the top tiers of the format. Why play an ETB value deck with PoK when my opponents are going to combo out, stax you out, or out control you? The problem was that PoK has a huge impact on the lower tiers of decks that enevtually led to it bening banned.
I don't think is as centralizing as PoK was in it's day, but comparing Hoofs clock to intential combo decks in top tier metas is silly.
I see you've never played against a cEDH Yisan, the Wanderer Bard deck. The local one won on turn four twice in a row a couple months ago, through disruption both times. One win used Hoof. Check out this list, for example. The local version is similar, though I think it lacks the stax pieces.
I don't support a Hoof ban, but the card appears at least one competitive EDH deck.
And I see you didn't read the whole thread. Yisan was mentioned and I made a post addressing him on Page 3. I'll quote my post below:
I mean, trust me when I tell you that Temur Sabertooth is worth ten Craterhoof Behemoths.
If you're trying to solve the "problem" of mono-green creature decks being almost as good as top tier decks, at least look for the right problem.
All the cards I quoted, save Shaman of Forgotten Ways and Genesis Wave - which do feature in some competitive brews of Yisan and are extremely powerful cards -- appear in the deck you linked. I still consider all of them, along with Survival of the Fittest, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, and maybe a couple others to be stronger and more "ban-worthy" than Craterhoof Behemoth. Saying that Hoof should be banned because he is a win condition in Yisan (which is an insanely good deck, although I would argue it falls off the very top tier as he usually relies on the combat phase) is like saying that Azami, Lady of Scrolls should be banned because of her use in Hermit Druid. Sure, she wins the game -- but you're really looking at the least broken link in the chain.
Its interesting to hear the bit on cEDH and Yisan. I dont know that its really all that relevant though since the RC does not gear the banned list towards cEDH focused play. I think its still interesting to hear but I dont think its really relevant for the focus of what the EDH Multiplayer banned list is focused towards.
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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.
And I see you didn't read the whole thread. Yisan was mentioned and I made a post addressing him on Page 3.
Yet you magically forgot this in the post in question, as you made a demonstrably false claim. As Hoof's in all cEDH Yisan decks I've ever seen, banning Hoof would hurt the deck, if only slightly. You don't run a card in a cEDH deck unless it's the best card for the job.
Hushwing Gryff -> Niche Answer Torpor Orb -> Pre-emptive Answer Stifle -> Niche Answer Trickbind -> Niche Answer Fog -> Niche Answer Cryptic Command -> Draw-Go answer (Niche due to limited deck styles that could be understandably added) Silence the Believers -> Insanely expensive for a meaningful fix that requires you to keep a lot mana up at all times to deal with Craterhoof. Stranglehold -> Preemptive Answer
Creatures with banding that block well. -> Banding, really? It's a complicated rule and I am not even sure this deals with Craterhoof well enough.
I mention 'Preemptive Answer' because they are required before Craterhoof is played, most of these effects also draw the ire of everyone at the table and are prime removal targets. You also don't play a Craterhoof into these, which means you just hold it till they are gone. In terms to Stifle effects, I don't think I have seen decks run it consistently, and it is normally a niche response (Meaning when the effects are good, they are amazing otherwise they are pretty much dead cards). The same goes for fogs.
I know it is somewhat nit picky, but tech-ing to handle a Craterhoof usually makes a deck worse, arguing that there are responses is not as meaningful as there are good responses. Especially when banding appears on the list of potential answers to Craterhoof. Saying all of this, one of the only 'good response' is Counterspell.
Generally speaking the answers to craterhoof are one of a few things:
1) Pre emptive defenses such as Torpor Orb / Propaganda / Ensnaring Bridge
2) Instant speed responses (often narrow or control cards)
3) Killing their board every time
So, the first option can work but often its a stall measure. These are green decks after all and most of them do have access to / run answers especially on non creatures. Its still useful to stall but those defenses can fall at any time and suddenly you are wide open. I still like these tactics but when you go from defended to not defended and craterhoofed all in one turn it hurts.
The second way is through instant speed responses. Counterspells are the least narrow of all of them but honestly I am not always in every deck making draw go control especially not forcing blue every time as I dont enjoy that style of deckbuilding. Fogs fit the situation of craterhoof but often make your deck very weak to most everything else so I am going to call them often too niche. Control decks in general can do well against craterhoof but it takes the right build to do so and or reserving tricks specifically for it to really do it.
The third can work depending on what their deck is. More realistically though their commander probably comes with a big wave of tokens so its like saying have a wrath every time someone plays their commander which is not really that realistic.
If you are telling me that you never have issues with craterhoof then I want to know what you are playing and or what your meta is playing.
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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.
Yet you magically forgot this in the post in question, as you made a demonstrably false claim. As Hoof's in all cEDH Yisan decks I've ever seen, banning Hoof would hurt the deck, if only slightly. You don't run a card in a cEDH deck unless it's the best card for the job.
Two things: As I mentioned, I don't consider Yisan to be a top tier deck. He's very, very good, even oppressive, but I do feel that he falls outside the scope of the best-of-the-best. Most of the lists floating around the internet seem to peg him as Tier 1.5, which I think is generally fair based on my experience. I know that evaluating singleton multiplayer decks is difficult, so my main criteria is that most Yisan decks that I have seen -- especially the one you posted, as it lacks Shaman of Forgotten Ways -- rely on the combat phase to get wins, whereas the best decks do not.
Secondly, I said that (paraphrasing) Hoof is not the card "trashing newbies" and that sentiment is correct. In a Yisan list, Gaea's Cradle and Seedborn Muse are the ones doing the trashing. Hoof is just the last - and frankly the worst/most replaceable - card played in a series of generally broken cards. Everything in the post I quoted to you directly supports that position.
I know that evaluating singleton multiplayer decks is difficult, so my main criteria is that most Yisan decks that I have seen -- especially the one you posted, as it lacks Shaman of Forgotten Ways -- rely on the combat phase to get wins, whereas the best decks do not.
When Yisan decks combo out with Staff of Domination or Umbral Mantle, they can lock opponents out of the game via casting Beast Within an arbitrary number of times and killing the Beasts with Somberwald Stag. (The deck I linked to could also drop Sphere of Resistance and company to seal the deal.) That still technically kills through combat, but not in a meaningful sense.
Hoof is just the last - and frankly the worst/most replaceable - card played in a series of generally broken cards.
In one of the turn-four games I mentioned, searching up Hoof critically provide a way to counter a damage-based sweeper that otherwise would have set the Yisan player back significantly. Hoof is versatile in that regard.
Hushwing Gryff -> Niche Answer Torpor Orb -> Pre-emptive Answer Stifle -> Niche Answer Trickbind -> Niche Answer Fog -> Niche Answer Cryptic Command -> Draw-Go answer (Niche due to limited deck styles that could be understandably added) Silence the Believers -> Insanely expensive for a meaningful fix that requires you to keep a lot mana up at all times to deal with Craterhoof. Stranglehold -> Preemptive Answer
Creatures with banding that block well. -> Banding, really? It's a complicated rule and I am not even sure this deals with Craterhoof well enough.
I mention 'Preemptive Answer' because they are required before Craterhoof is played, most of these effects also draw the ire of everyone at the table and are prime removal targets. You also don't play a Craterhoof into these, which means you just hold it till they are gone. In terms to Stifle effects, I don't think I have seen decks run it consistently, and it is normally a niche response (Meaning when the effects are good, they are amazing otherwise they are pretty much dead cards). The same goes for fogs.
I know it is somewhat nit picky, but tech-ing to handle a Craterhoof usually makes a deck worse, arguing that there are responses is not as meaningful as there are good responses. Especially when banding appears on the list of potential answers to Craterhoof. Saying all of this, one of the only 'good response' is Counterspell.
Bold above.
This cannot be more true. You know what else is true? You don't play Craterhoof Behemoth onto an empty board. I've never seen it happen, at least. I'll also admit I've never seen a Behemoth resolve and not eliminate a player.
Guess what though, I've never seen an Enter the Infinite cast and not win. I could go on, but I'm sure your savvy enough(along with ISBpathfinder) to see where I'm going with this. I mean, the defining factor here is that you need a board presence, a hefty one at that, and that only ensures one player is eliminated with ~40 life, and also leaves you wide open for retaliation.
This card hits no ban criteria imho. Its a format defining card, honestly. Flashy beaters that bring the pain.
I think some of you severely underestimate how powerful Torpor Orb and Hushwing Gryff actually are. Also the broad application of Trickbind, it stops ETB, Oblivion Stone, it even stops things like DEN and similar combos for the while turn.
The thing about Orb and Gryff is that you don't play them and assume that the Craterhoof player is shut out forever, you play them to delay long enough to win yourself. You don't win games with answers, you delay people from winning before you with answers.
Stranglehold -> Preemptive Answer
Creatures with banding that block well. -> Banding, really? It's a complicated rule and I am not even sure this deals with Craterhoof well enough.
Stranglehold doesn't even do anything against Craterhoof. It stops you using T&N to drop it into play from your library, but it doesn't stop you simply playing it.
Banding is only sort-of useful against a Craterhoof attack. If a creature with trample is blocked by a creature with banding, the defending player can prevent the damage from that creature from trampling over. But that means in order to make banding matter against Craterhoof, you need multiple banding creatures, and all the creatures that actually have banding kinda suck. There are only 2 instants in the game that grant banding or create a token with banding (Errand of Duty creates a 1/1 with banding, and Formation grants banding to a single creature for a turn). The only way to grant banding to a large number of creatures is some spell-copying combo with Formation, or using Baton of Morale (or Soraya the Falconer if you've got birds), and the Craterhoof player can clearly see those options.
When Yisan decks combo out with Staff of Domination or Umbral Mantle, they can lock opponents out of the game via casting Beast Within an arbitrary number of times and killing the Beasts with Somberwald Stag. (The deck I linked to could also drop Sphere of Resistance and company to seal the deal.) That still technically kills through combat, but not in a meaningful sense.
And this non-combat win is far clunkier, slower, requires more tutors, and is more subject to disruption than, say, the Hermit Druid combo. I mean, the two pieces that enable it -- Staff of Domination and Umbral Mantle -- are artifacts that can't be effectively tutored in mono-green. The only way Yisan competes with the clock of a good combo deck is through combat damage.
In one of the turn-four games I mentioned, searching up Hoof critically provide a way to counter a damage-based sweeper that otherwise would have set the Yisan player back significantly. Hoof is versatile in that regard.
Hoof is versatile. It is very good. It is still not one of the ten best cards in a Yisan deck.
Hushwing Gryff -> Niche Answer Torpor Orb -> Pre-emptive Answer Stifle -> Niche Answer Trickbind -> Niche Answer Fog -> Niche Answer Cryptic Command -> Draw-Go answer (Niche due to limited deck styles that could be understandably added) Silence the Believers -> Insanely expensive for a meaningful fix that requires you to keep a lot mana up at all times to deal with Craterhoof. Stranglehold -> Preemptive Answer
Creatures with banding that block well. -> Banding, really? It's a complicated rule and I am not even sure this deals with Craterhoof well enough.
I mention 'Preemptive Answer' because they are required before Craterhoof is played, most of these effects also draw the ire of everyone at the table and are prime removal targets. You also don't play a Craterhoof into these, which means you just hold it till they are gone. In terms to Stifle effects, I don't think I have seen decks run it consistently, and it is normally a niche response (Meaning when the effects are good, they are amazing otherwise they are pretty much dead cards). The same goes for fogs.
I know it is somewhat nit picky, but tech-ing to handle a Craterhoof usually makes a deck worse, arguing that there are responses is not as meaningful as there are good responses. Especially when banding appears on the list of potential answers to Craterhoof. Saying all of this, one of the only 'good response' is Counterspell.
Hey man don't diss my bro stifle. Stifle is a super versatile answer to any deck that isn't french vanilla tribal. I've won so many games thanks to stifle countering some critical ability that would allow my opponents' to win. Stifle basically says " destroy target opponent" because when you stifle that Hoof etb trigger they thought they could just win and you just break them. Just look at some edh general tier list and count how many legends just get rekt by stifle. (hint it's like all of them).
Trickbind is also pretty good due to the extra abilities.
Fogs are also really good cards. Some decks just literally can't beat fogs. Most of the time you don't even need cast a fog for hoof because you can just reveal that you have a fog and BAM instant immunity from creatures this turn.
I mostly agree, except that I can't really see the value in discussing any card without comparing it to what's on the ban list and what comparable cards are not. Doing so lets you discuss the issue in a realistic way that takes into account the purpose of the ban list. If Hoof meets the ban list's criteria, and I clearly do not believe that it does, than so do several other cards, including one that the Rules Committee just decided no longer meets the criteria. Hulk is the biggest elephant in the room, as its also a creature, costs less, and doesn't rely on the combat step to win (thus dodging many of the cards that can answer Hoof or delay it from going online). Again, we've already had this discussion, and then moved onto T&N, then moved onto other cards. We've even went over the ways in which it doesn't come close to most of the categories that could render a card bannable, and even in the category where it merits any discussion, casual omnipresence, it falls short. When you can't point to a category for banning that it the card clearly meets, but you can point to cards that are legal that do a better job of meeting those bannable categories, there isn't much left to discuss.
Can you define what are the characteristics that lead to a card being banned? You really cannot because there is no consistency in the banned list otherwise several cards would be either unbanned and or banned that are currently not. The banned list does not live by hard rules but it looks at each card in a vacuum. Since I have started playing there are at least a few cards that I cannot logically come to a consensus as to why they were banned and they do not fit into characteristics of the rest of the banned list.
Sundering Titan for example was a card that got banned in more recent years. I played with this card a bit myself and honestly its totally an elephant on the banned list because no other target or mass LD effect (excluding Sylvan Primordial whom is on there for value purposes) is on the banned list. You could look to cards like Ruination, Back to Basics, Blood Moon, Winter Orb, Stasis, Static Orb and ban so many other cards before or along side Sundering Titan.
My point in bringing up Sundering Titan is not that I really care but to point out that you cannot take the current banned list as an example of what cards should be banned. Sundering Titan is a complete abnormality to the list and does not really make sense in that it by itself is banned. You could put Terastodon into a very similar range of effect as what I expect Sundering Titan to do except that the titan is probably less versatile. I have heard it time and again, the cards on the banned list are not used directly to ban other cards because in the RC's eyes.
Your Sundering Titan argument is more of an argument for unbanning Sundering Titan than banning any card in a vacuum (although as others have pointed out Sundering Titan is a pain in the ass that ruins games when cheated out). You seem to have ignored the part where I said that the few inconsistencies on the banlist should be dealt with, not added to. We should want the RC to make it more consistent and lobby for that, as many users did vis a vis Protean Hulk and T&N, and example I used. The wrong approach would be to point out where the ban list is inconsistent and decide that is free reign to be even MORE inconsistent. That way lies madness and chaos.
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Your Sundering Titan argument is more of an argument for unbanning Sundering Titan than banning any card in a vacuum (although as others have pointed out Sundering Titan is a pain in the ass that ruins games when cheated out). You seem to have ignored the part where I said that the few inconsistencies on the banlist should be dealt with, not added to. We should want the RC to make it more consistent and lobby for that, as many users did vis a vis Protean Hulk and T&N, and example I used. The wrong approach would be to point out where the ban list is inconsistent and decide that is free reign to be even MORE inconsistent. That way lies madness and chaos.
I was more pointing to the inconsistency that Sundering Titan is. The things it does could be a problem but you could do more or less the same things with Armageddon or any other land disruption effect. I don't know why it was picked out as a problem but the rest of land disruption effects all left alone. Ruination / Back to Back to basics for example can be just as one sided.
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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.
Ruination/Back to Basics/Armageddon also require more building around. It's also way better for lobbing targeted hate at someone than a lot of other options especially since it gets to trigger twice and it hits people with collateral damage. When they were banning for combos, they banned Crucible of Worlds because it's stupid with Strip Mine. That kinds of thing is heavily frowned upon but Primordial and Sundering gave people enough wiggle room to actually sneak into more casual decks and actually wreck lots of games as a result. Primordial was actually really fun the way I usually saw it played though. Hoof is nothing like that. Overruns encourage creature combat and creatures the gathering is very popular with most Magic players.
Ruination/Back to Basics/Armageddon also require more building around. It's also way better for lobbing targeted hate at someone than a lot of other options especially since it gets to trigger twice and it hits people with collateral damage. When they were banning for combos, they banned Crucible of Worlds because it's stupid with Strip Mine. That kinds of thing is heavily frowned upon but Primordial and Sundering gave people enough wiggle room to actually sneak into more casual decks and actually wreck lots of games as a result. Primordial was actually really fun the way I usually saw it played though. Hoof is nothing like that. Overruns encourage creature combat and creatures the gathering is very popular with most Magic players.
craterhoof encourages killing everyone all at once. That's not combat, that's combo.
A multiplayer victory has to exist beyond simply beating your opponent, there has to be a mutual enjoyment of everyone involved. If you win the game and everyone else is miserable then you've still lost. What gets played is irrelevant.
Ruination/Back to Basics/Armageddon also require more building around. It's also way better for lobbing targeted hate at someone than a lot of other options especially since it gets to trigger twice and it hits people with collateral damage. When they were banning for combos, they banned Crucible of Worlds because it's stupid with Strip Mine. That kinds of thing is heavily frowned upon but Primordial and Sundering gave people enough wiggle room to actually sneak into more casual decks and actually wreck lots of games as a result. Primordial was actually really fun the way I usually saw it played though. Hoof is nothing like that. Overruns encourage creature combat and creatures the gathering is very popular with most Magic players.
craterhoof encourages killing everyone all at once. That's not combat, that's combo.
That's like saying Burn is Aggro...
If you've amassed a boardstate that allows you to kill 3 players off a single CHoof, well, good for you, your opponents must suck.
Ruination/Back to Basics/Armageddon also require more building around. It's also way better for lobbing targeted hate at someone than a lot of other options especially since it gets to trigger twice and it hits people with collateral damage. When they were banning for combos, they banned Crucible of Worlds because it's stupid with Strip Mine. That kinds of thing is heavily frowned upon but Primordial and Sundering gave people enough wiggle room to actually sneak into more casual decks and actually wreck lots of games as a result. Primordial was actually really fun the way I usually saw it played though. Hoof is nothing like that. Overruns encourage creature combat and creatures the gathering is very popular with most Magic players.
craterhoof encourages killing everyone all at once. That's not combat, that's combo.
I consider it the most efficient form of combat. Combat that either has become so refined or simply combat involving a bunch of dudes and an overrun that it almost produces the same result as combo.
Also, unlike some combos, there's no risk of it ever happening on turn 3, and I can't imagine it being easy to pull off on turn 6.
Well, I guess you could call Hoof a combo, but in that case, it's a slow, circumstantial combo or 3+ pieces since creatures have summoning sickness. At some point you could call any win condition a combo since it pretty much always involves multiple cards.
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Blue situational cards? What, you mean like Battle of Wits or Hedron Alignment?
The fact is that while Craterhoof is powerful, 99% of the time it's not exactly backbreaking.
There have been times where it didn't outright end the game, but >99% kill rate doesn't sound like "99% of the time it's not exactly backbreaking."
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I see you've never played against a cEDH Yisan, the Wanderer Bard deck. The local one won on turn four twice in a row a couple months ago, through disruption both times. One win used Hoof. Check out this list, for example. The local version is similar, though I think it lacks the stax pieces.
I don't support a Hoof ban, but the card appears at least one competitive EDH deck.
Think about comparing it to Prophet of Kruphix. PoK is a card that does exactly what it looks like it'll do in game. It let you play magic on everyones turn. PoK was a card that had a minimal if any impact in the top tiers of the format. Why play an ETB value deck with PoK when my opponents are going to combo out, stax you out, or out control you? The problem was that PoK has a huge impact on the lower tiers of decks that enevtually led to it bening banned.
I don't think is as centralizing as PoK was in it's day, but comparing Hoofs clock to intential combo decks in top tier metas is silly.
And I see you didn't read the whole thread. Yisan was mentioned and I made a post addressing him on Page 3. I'll quote my post below:
All the cards I quoted, save Shaman of Forgotten Ways and Genesis Wave - which do feature in some competitive brews of Yisan and are extremely powerful cards -- appear in the deck you linked. I still consider all of them, along with Survival of the Fittest, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, and maybe a couple others to be stronger and more "ban-worthy" than Craterhoof Behemoth. Saying that Hoof should be banned because he is a win condition in Yisan (which is an insanely good deck, although I would argue it falls off the very top tier as he usually relies on the combat phase) is like saying that Azami, Lady of Scrolls should be banned because of her use in Hermit Druid. Sure, she wins the game -- but you're really looking at the least broken link in the chain.
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Sounds like nobody is running answers for it where you're playing... Amongst others:
Hushwing Gryff
Torpor Orb
Stifle
Trickbind
Fog
Cryptic Command
Silence the Believers
Stranglehold
Creatures with banding that block well.
Yet you magically forgot this in the post in question, as you made a demonstrably false claim. As Hoof's in all cEDH Yisan decks I've ever seen, banning Hoof would hurt the deck, if only slightly. You don't run a card in a cEDH deck unless it's the best card for the job.
Hushwing Gryff -> Niche Answer
Torpor Orb -> Pre-emptive Answer
Stifle -> Niche Answer
Trickbind -> Niche Answer
Fog -> Niche Answer
Cryptic Command -> Draw-Go answer (Niche due to limited deck styles that could be understandably added)
Silence the Believers -> Insanely expensive for a meaningful fix that requires you to keep a lot mana up at all times to deal with Craterhoof.
Stranglehold -> Preemptive Answer
Creatures with banding that block well. -> Banding, really? It's a complicated rule and I am not even sure this deals with Craterhoof well enough.
I mention 'Preemptive Answer' because they are required before Craterhoof is played, most of these effects also draw the ire of everyone at the table and are prime removal targets. You also don't play a Craterhoof into these, which means you just hold it till they are gone. In terms to Stifle effects, I don't think I have seen decks run it consistently, and it is normally a niche response (Meaning when the effects are good, they are amazing otherwise they are pretty much dead cards). The same goes for fogs.
I know it is somewhat nit picky, but tech-ing to handle a Craterhoof usually makes a deck worse, arguing that there are responses is not as meaningful as there are good responses. Especially when banding appears on the list of potential answers to Craterhoof. Saying all of this, one of the only 'good response' is Counterspell.
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1) Pre emptive defenses such as Torpor Orb / Propaganda / Ensnaring Bridge
2) Instant speed responses (often narrow or control cards)
3) Killing their board every time
So, the first option can work but often its a stall measure. These are green decks after all and most of them do have access to / run answers especially on non creatures. Its still useful to stall but those defenses can fall at any time and suddenly you are wide open. I still like these tactics but when you go from defended to not defended and craterhoofed all in one turn it hurts.
The second way is through instant speed responses. Counterspells are the least narrow of all of them but honestly I am not always in every deck making draw go control especially not forcing blue every time as I dont enjoy that style of deckbuilding. Fogs fit the situation of craterhoof but often make your deck very weak to most everything else so I am going to call them often too niche. Control decks in general can do well against craterhoof but it takes the right build to do so and or reserving tricks specifically for it to really do it.
The third can work depending on what their deck is. More realistically though their commander probably comes with a big wave of tokens so its like saying have a wrath every time someone plays their commander which is not really that realistic.
If you are telling me that you never have issues with craterhoof then I want to know what you are playing and or what your meta is playing.
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[Modern] Allies
Two things: As I mentioned, I don't consider Yisan to be a top tier deck. He's very, very good, even oppressive, but I do feel that he falls outside the scope of the best-of-the-best. Most of the lists floating around the internet seem to peg him as Tier 1.5, which I think is generally fair based on my experience. I know that evaluating singleton multiplayer decks is difficult, so my main criteria is that most Yisan decks that I have seen -- especially the one you posted, as it lacks Shaman of Forgotten Ways -- rely on the combat phase to get wins, whereas the best decks do not.
Secondly, I said that (paraphrasing) Hoof is not the card "trashing newbies" and that sentiment is correct. In a Yisan list, Gaea's Cradle and Seedborn Muse are the ones doing the trashing. Hoof is just the last - and frankly the worst/most replaceable - card played in a series of generally broken cards. Everything in the post I quoted to you directly supports that position.
When Yisan decks combo out with Staff of Domination or Umbral Mantle, they can lock opponents out of the game via casting Beast Within an arbitrary number of times and killing the Beasts with Somberwald Stag. (The deck I linked to could also drop Sphere of Resistance and company to seal the deal.) That still technically kills through combat, but not in a meaningful sense.
In one of the turn-four games I mentioned, searching up Hoof critically provide a way to counter a damage-based sweeper that otherwise would have set the Yisan player back significantly. Hoof is versatile in that regard.
Bold above.
This cannot be more true. You know what else is true? You don't play Craterhoof Behemoth onto an empty board. I've never seen it happen, at least. I'll also admit I've never seen a Behemoth resolve and not eliminate a player.
Guess what though, I've never seen an Enter the Infinite cast and not win. I could go on, but I'm sure your savvy enough(along with ISBpathfinder) to see where I'm going with this. I mean, the defining factor here is that you need a board presence, a hefty one at that, and that only ensures one player is eliminated with ~40 life, and also leaves you wide open for retaliation.
This card hits no ban criteria imho. Its a format defining card, honestly. Flashy beaters that bring the pain.
The thing about Orb and Gryff is that you don't play them and assume that the Craterhoof player is shut out forever, you play them to delay long enough to win yourself. You don't win games with answers, you delay people from winning before you with answers.
Banding is only sort-of useful against a Craterhoof attack. If a creature with trample is blocked by a creature with banding, the defending player can prevent the damage from that creature from trampling over. But that means in order to make banding matter against Craterhoof, you need multiple banding creatures, and all the creatures that actually have banding kinda suck. There are only 2 instants in the game that grant banding or create a token with banding (Errand of Duty creates a 1/1 with banding, and Formation grants banding to a single creature for a turn). The only way to grant banding to a large number of creatures is some spell-copying combo with Formation, or using Baton of Morale (or Soraya the Falconer if you've got birds), and the Craterhoof player can clearly see those options.
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And this non-combat win is far clunkier, slower, requires more tutors, and is more subject to disruption than, say, the Hermit Druid combo. I mean, the two pieces that enable it -- Staff of Domination and Umbral Mantle -- are artifacts that can't be effectively tutored in mono-green. The only way Yisan competes with the clock of a good combo deck is through combat damage.
Hoof is versatile. It is very good. It is still not one of the ten best cards in a Yisan deck.
Hey man don't diss my bro stifle. Stifle is a super versatile answer to any deck that isn't french vanilla tribal. I've won so many games thanks to stifle countering some critical ability that would allow my opponents' to win. Stifle basically says " destroy target opponent" because when you stifle that Hoof etb trigger they thought they could just win and you just break them. Just look at some edh general tier list and count how many legends just get rekt by stifle. (hint it's like all of them).
Trickbind is also pretty good due to the extra abilities.
Fogs are also really good cards. Some decks just literally can't beat fogs. Most of the time you don't even need cast a fog for hoof because you can just reveal that you have a fog and BAM instant immunity from creatures this turn.
Your Sundering Titan argument is more of an argument for unbanning Sundering Titan than banning any card in a vacuum (although as others have pointed out Sundering Titan is a pain in the ass that ruins games when cheated out). You seem to have ignored the part where I said that the few inconsistencies on the banlist should be dealt with, not added to. We should want the RC to make it more consistent and lobby for that, as many users did vis a vis Protean Hulk and T&N, and example I used. The wrong approach would be to point out where the ban list is inconsistent and decide that is free reign to be even MORE inconsistent. That way lies madness and chaos.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
I was more pointing to the inconsistency that Sundering Titan is. The things it does could be a problem but you could do more or less the same things with Armageddon or any other land disruption effect. I don't know why it was picked out as a problem but the rest of land disruption effects all left alone. Ruination / Back to Back to basics for example can be just as one sided.
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[Modern] Allies
craterhoof encourages killing everyone all at once. That's not combat, that's combo.
That's like saying Burn is Aggro...
If you've amassed a boardstate that allows you to kill 3 players off a single CHoof, well, good for you, your opponents must suck.
I consider it the most efficient form of combat. Combat that either has become so refined or simply combat involving a bunch of dudes and an overrun that it almost produces the same result as combo.
Also, unlike some combos, there's no risk of it ever happening on turn 3, and I can't imagine it being easy to pull off on turn 6.
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