This is a format where Flash Hulk is legal and we're arguing about whether or not a french vanilla beater should be banned. Truly, life is suffering.
Your comparison might as well be "But we have an unbanned creature-centric combo, so why we complaining about an aggressive aggro card?" its practically the definition of an, apples to bananas, argument.
Your comparison might as well be "But we have an unbanned creature-centric combo, so why we complaining about an aggressive aggro card?" Apples to Eggplants.
It was commentary on a) the absurdity of the current B&R list and b) how silly this thread is. You're either being deliberately obtuse or you really suck at analogies.
Your comparison might as well be "But we have an unbanned creature-centric combo, so why we complaining about an aggressive aggro card?" Apples to Eggplants.
It was commentary on a) the absurdity of the current B&R list and b) how silly this thread is. You're either being deliberately obtuse or you really suck at analogies.
I agree that there is an obscene amount of absurdity in the current B&R list. Who could forget such gems as Staff of Domination getting unbanned.
Yea their banlist is a joke at this point, so is many of their decisions. I mean seriously whats next? Trade Secrets? Recurring Nightmare? Coalition Victory? The only way the banlist will be more consistent and help the format out more is if WotC gained control of it from the RC members. Like yeah Serra Ascendant makes sense to be on the list, but we know the RC members will vote with the result being no to banning it. They are more likely nowadays to unban a card on the list than to keep it banned or add a new card to the list.
They were much more active with their list back in the mid to late 2000s. Like for example if you want some nuggets of interest on how things were originally banned and tweaked:
1) Portal and Starter only cards were banned for awhile in 2002, were lumped in with silver border cards.
2) Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant was errata'd at one point to trigger when your life total was "1.5 times your initial starting life" which nowadays would be 60 life.
3) Riftsweeper errata'd to not hit commanders at one point, since there was no such thing as a command zone and your commander was in exile.
4) Beacon of Immortality had been banned previously and then unbanned in 2007.
5) Riftsweeper banned.
6) Metalworker was banned, gets unbanned later.
7) Riftsweeper unbanned because there is now a command zone, even though that is how the errata worked for Riftsweeper.
8) Worldgorger Dragon unbanned.
9) Finally in 2012 was Sundering Titan banned.
10) Staff of Domination unbanned but Trade Secrets gets banned...
Trigger happy? Ah yeah, I'm sure you would want Smuggler's Copter, Felidar Guardian and Aetherworks Marvel unbanned. They were too strong for the format they were in and created an oppressive meta. R&D isn't infallible.
Correct – for the format they were in – one without sufficient answers. There has been a trend for years of creature power creep while depowering answers: more expensive counters and removal. I’m not saying power creep is good, but when you pair it with depowered answers, you create a mess.
Compare that to Commander. We have all the answers. Are any of the cards you listed a problem for us? Nope. And it’s not because of the life total – it’s because we have no shortage of answers. It’s just a small matter of people implementing them.
I love how often people forget that Helm of the host is not a 9 mana card. Turn with a couple of mana rocks, you can not only cast helm but also equip it turn 3 or 4. It is also possible turn 2 with god hand or even turn 1 with a hand of infinity.
Turn 2 you will be swinging with two 6/6 flyers with lifelink. You will be going form 40 life to 52, then three bringing you form 52 (assuming you took no damage) to 70. Bringing a player to 29 life seems a lot further now., 94 life, 124, people are not dead.
Sure you can get a board wipe, but if you are not drawing into them what are you gonna do? Even killing the helm, you still have to deal with the ascendants they already have on field.
But I can make Magical Christmasland 6-card combos that prove Grizzly Bears are overpowered.
I believe you should first look at the card in a vacuum – it’s really good early game, variable mid-game, and not great late game unless in a very dedicated lifegain deck that hasn’t been stopped. It also has no native protection and doesn’t actively disrupt your opponents’ plans.
Next, evaluate it in context with any other single card – I guess it’s nasty if you give it infect. But the cards that do that are one-shot or too expensive to play early.
What cheap answers are there? You could wrath – I mean, if the Serra Ascendant player gets to ramp into Helm of the Host, surely their opponents get to ramp into a wrath?! But let’s say the Ascendant player has a monopoly on ramp because they’re evil. How about a turn 2 Baleful Strix? Draw a card and stop the Ascendant from swinging at you – must be OP. Or a turn one Innocent Blood, turn three Merciless Executioner, or even a turn four Barter in Blood? Those even all dodge Greaves/Boots. Or how about a Soul Snare/Blessed Alliance/Wing Shards? I could go on and on, listing cheap, single cards that get around Ascendant.
I'm unsure every deck can just keep getting answers stuffed into it while the deckbuilder is being told "Well obviously you didn't put enough answers in your deck, you obviously didn't build your deck right."
If the person's deck doesn't have answers then it should have threats and Serra Ascendant just gets outclassed very quickly by most threats.
Oh really. Which threats again? And how fast do these "outclassing threats" come out again? Cause we are talking about a threat that hits as soon as turn 1 or even turn 0 if its Leyline of Anticipation + Lotus Petal. If a Serra Ascendant gets in 5 hits by the time your "outclassing threat" comes out to stop it, the ascendant has dealt 30 damage by itself.
Three players don't have access to any form of removal for 5 turns and a single player lost a good chunk of life. T5 is where most EDH decks start to drop infinite combos, smokestack locks, inifnite turns etc. It's a threat, but there is no way you can convince me it is more powerful than Tooth and Nail, Sol Ring, Craterhoof Behemoth, Kaalia of the vast, Animar, Staff of Domination, Armageddon, etc etc
Serra Ascendant absolutely hits the "interacts problematically with the format" criteria. It is a card that gets a lot better because of the special rules associated with Commander.
That doesn't get it banned, though. It just gets it a lot more scrutiny. Ultimately, the interaction isn't all that problematic. Opponent life totals are also higher, so a 6/6 on turn 1 isn't the end of the world. What usually ends up happening is that it gets in for a couple hits, eats some removal, and the controller is now a target. As a later draw, it's actively bad if you've been dropped under 30 life.
The rules of Commander elevate it to "good card," but there are lots of good cards.
You may notice something if you pay attention closely to my hypothetical questions, Like:
"is a Worldfire just as powerful as a Yawgmoth's Bargain?"
"Is Tinker just as powerful as a Limited Resources?"
If your answer is "no, but..." then you realize that the banned cards are banned for different reasons.
Yes, but you are speaking about banning a card due to direct power level, not nuanced discussions of interactions with the format. Thats an apples to apples comparison if the question is 'is X more powerful than Serra Ascendant?'
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.
You may notice something if you pay attention closely to my hypothetical questions, Like:
"is a Worldfire just as powerful as a Yawgmoth's Bargain?"
"Is Tinker just as powerful as a Limited Resources?"
If your answer is "no, but..." then you realize that the banned cards are banned for different reasons.
Yes, but you are speaking about banning a card due to direct power level, not nuanced discussions of interactions with the format. Thats an apples to apples comparison if the question is 'is X more powerful than Serra Ascendant?'
Even considering this is a 1 mana creature, it isn't close to being banworthy. I'd much rather have a T1 mana dork like Birds of Paradise - they're significantly more powerful than Serra Ascendant. Doing everything in my deck a turn earlier is going to be more effective over the course of a game that a 6/6 creature with a couple of keywords.
Maybe one aspect is also that is just feels unfair if a player is having a 6/6 on turn 1, while everyone else has nothing. Yesterday I was in a game where one of my opponents played Purphoros, God of the Forge on turn 3 in his Marath, will of the wild token deck. The first thing I thought was: "This is so unfair, they should ban Purphoros". It's just a play that feels bad in that very moment, because someone else is that lucky.
And of course he almost killed everyone with all the tokens he made in the following turns. But everybody ganged up on the Marath player, and we took him out, problem solved. That's the risk you take when going into Archenemy mode early game, same with the Ascendant. Sometimes it works, and sometimes you're going down.
Also, with these type of plays, if a player gets a head start early on, and the advantage persists, the game also tends to be over fairly quickly. And so you just move on to the next game, no big deal for me. They're likely not going to have a T1 Serra Ascendant in the next game.
I say may 20% of games I see it, which isn't so bad, but the guy play plays his derevi deck 90% of the games he plays and wins 90% of the time. It is a CEDH vs non competitive decks. most people at my LGS don't want to convert to CEDH, but we have to. I mean he has been kind enough to dumb down his deck to just be having one win con (beat down) but that does not excuse for still playing a competitive deck.
so CEDH combined wit a T1 Seraa ascendat every 5 games is not fun. I already have enough trouble facing him down as it is.
(i also go all out on derevi plays, which is due to Evil Adam playing dervi all this time)
Maybe one aspect is also that is just feels unfair if a player is having a 6/6 on turn 1, while everyone else has nothing. Yesterday I was in a game where one of my opponents played Purphoros, God of the Forge on turn 3 in his Marath, will of the wild token deck. The first thing I thought was: "This is so unfair, they should ban Purphoros". It's just a play that feels bad in that very moment, because someone else is that lucky.
And of course he almost killed everyone with all the tokens he made in the following turns. But everybody ganged up on the Marath player, and we took him out, problem solved. That's the risk you take when going into Archenemy mode early game, same with the Ascendant. Sometimes it works, and sometimes you're going down.
Also, with these type of plays, if a player gets a head start early on, and the advantage persists, the game also tends to be over fairly quickly. And so you just move on to the next game, no big deal for me. They're likely not going to have a T1 Serra Ascendant in the next game.
I say may 20% of games I see it, which isn't so bad, but the guy play plays his derevi deck 90% of the games he plays and wins 90% of the time. It is a CEDH vs non competitive decks. most people at my LGS don't want to convert to CEDH, but we have to. I mean he has been kind enough to dumb down his deck to just be having one win con (beat down) but that does not excuse for still playing a competitive deck.
so CEDH combined wit a T1 Seraa ascendat every 5 games is not fun. I already have enough trouble facing him down as it is.
(i also go all out on derevi plays, which is due to Evil Adam playing dervi all this time)
So, this isn’t a Serra Ascendant problem?
Not to single you out, because people do this all the time, but it’s truly infuriating to read comments like these. “Yeah, My decks not as good as the other deck, so if we just ban some of these better cards I’d have a chance”.
This is a people problem, as is 90% of the complaints that drive “ban card X” discussions, not a problem with the card itself.
It muddys the water and makes having actual discussions near impossible. Everybody trying to play mental magic against one another, and most people forget the points they’ve actually made and end up contradicting themselves. Context is everything, after all.
I say may 20% of games I see it, which isn't so bad, but the guy play plays his derevi deck 90% of the games he plays and wins 90% of the time. It is a CEDH vs non competitive decks. most people at my LGS don't want to convert to CEDH, but we have to. I mean he has been kind enough to dumb down his deck to just be having one win con (beat down) but that does not excuse for still playing a competitive deck.
so CEDH combined wit a T1 Seraa ascendat every 5 games is not fun. I already have enough trouble facing him down as it is.
(i also go all out on derevi plays, which is due to Evil Adam playing dervi all this time)
But even in a competitive Derevi deck, what's so bad about Serra Ascendant? Again, Birds of Paradise is a much more powerful one drop - it taps for two mana a turn thanks to the Bird Wizard and makes things like Winter Orb, which pretty much all competitive Derevi decks run, asymmetric. Should we ban BoP?
Not to single you out, because people do this all the time, but it’s truly infuriating to read comments like these. “Yeah, My decks not as good as the other deck, so if we just ban some of these better cards I’d have a chance”.
This is a people problem, as is 90% of the complaints that drive “ban card X” discussions, not a problem with the card itself.
It muddys the water and makes having actual discussions near impossible. Everybody trying to play mental magic against one another, and most people forget the points they’ve actually made and end up contradicting themselves. Context is everything, after all.
No it is still a serra acendant problem, not just Evil adam but really any game where I see it. SOME people are kind enough to not swing, but then again, they still have a 6/6 blocker making it very unappealing to attack them. Even if you have a blocker for an Ascendant, other players at the table may not, meaning they can end up being the ones attacked, and in turn feed the life gain the serra player is getting.
I may be a little bias, a steh main deck that runs it is a CEDH and already looks far more powerful than the casual decks we all play, but it is a problem no matter who gets the card early game.
But even in a competitive Derevi deck, what's so bad about Serra Ascendant? Again, Birds of Paradise is a much more powerful one drop - it taps for two mana a turn thanks to the Bird Wizard and makes things like Winter Orb, which pretty much all competitive Derevi decks run, asymmetric. Should we ban BoP?
Not to single you out, because people do this all the time, but it’s truly infuriating to read comments like these. “Yeah, My decks not as good as the other deck, so if we just ban some of these better cards I’d have a chance”.
This is a people problem, as is 90% of the complaints that drive “ban card X” discussions, not a problem with the card itself.
It muddys the water and makes having actual discussions near impossible. Everybody trying to play mental magic against one another, and most people forget the points they’ve actually made and end up contradicting themselves. Context is everything, after all.
No it is still a serra acendant problem, not just Evil adam but really any game where I see it. SOME people are kind enough to not swing, but then again, they still have a 6/6 blocker making it very unappealing to attack them. Even if you have a blocker for an Ascendant, other players at the table may not, meaning they can end up being the ones attacked, and in turn feed the life gain the serra player is getting.
I may be a little bias, a steh main deck that runs it is a CEDH and already looks far more powerful than the casual decks we all play, but it is a problem no matter who gets the card early game.
But even in a competitive Derevi deck, what's so bad about Serra Ascendant? Again, Birds of Paradise is a much more powerful one drop - it taps for two mana a turn thanks to the Bird Wizard and makes things like Winter Orb, which pretty much all competitive Derevi decks run, asymmetric. Should we ban BoP?
I’ve played it, and played against it. It was a staple of early EDH. Not so much anymore.
It still is a staple of the format.
I literally cannot remember the last time I saw Ascendant in a Commander game. A staple of the format is something like Sol Ring, in nearly every deck that can run it. I cannot call a card I haven't seen played in years a "staple" any more.
I'm unsure every deck can just keep getting answers stuffed into it while the deckbuilder is being told "Well obviously you didn't put enough answers in your deck, you obviously didn't build your deck right."
It's a 6/6 beater with flying and lifelink and no other abilities. Yeah, it costs one mana, but there are answers, and you have to draw it in your opening hand for it to be that kind of a threat. I mean, after that, what else can you do? Wild Pair it to get a 6/6 beater after casting Elvish Visionary or Mother of Runes? A 6/6 beater you can retrieve with Reveillark or Sun Titan?
As a late draw, it becomes significantly worse. But "good early game, bad late game" would also apply to nonland mana sources. And no one's tutoring for Ascendant. If I'm going to tutor for something, it'll either be an engine of some sort, a combo piece, or some sort of answer that I need nao.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
I say may 20% of games I see it, which isn't so bad, but the guy play plays his derevi deck 90% of the games he plays and wins 90% of the time. It is a CEDH vs non competitive decks. most people at my LGS don't want to convert to CEDH, but we have to. I mean he has been kind enough to dumb down his deck to just be having one win con (beat down) but that does not excuse for still playing a competitive deck.
If most people dont want to convert, thats easy. People have to have conviction about it, and that sounds like the real issue here. Fold up to the few cEDH folks as opposed to have a serious discussion among the people who don't want it.
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.
In a 4 player game, Serra Ascendant needs to be unopposed for a very long time before it actually kills someone. If you're telling me that the game goes 8 turns before you have a single removal spell, board wipe, grave pact or baleful strix... and before anybody else combos off and wins, then I am afraid I cannot relate to your meta.
I would never be afraid of a deck with Serra Ascendant on turn 1. Even if they had it every game I would take that over so many other broken things.
I admit that it is a weird card that is much better in EDH, but I am not afraid of it in the least.
If your only solution to a 6/6 flyer is to block with your own 6/6 flyer, then you are not adapting to your meta. You are hoping the meta will adapt to you.
I'm a believer in "rules as intended". So Serra Ascendant was printed with the rules as intended for a 20 life game. Thus meaning that it was intended to 'Trigger' the effect when you had 10 more life that starting total.
The same can be applied to Sorin Markov his -3 'As rules were intended' should, in EDH, be 20 life. The same for Magister sphinx, Blessed Wind (whilst not OP in any sense was intended to put you back to starting health).
Cards like Chalice of Life have, what i consider to be, the correct wording that doesn't change any cards power as intended by the rules.
In my playgroup (which has 6 players where infi combos and mass/repeatable land destruction are banned) we've seen this card come down extreamly often and as ,long as it just focuses one person, noone else cares about it until that one person is beat to death. Serra Ascendant enables this beat-down very quickly and is in a deck that has plenty of answers to your own answers to it.
Whilst i'm not say ban the card i do believe that considerations need to be given on any given card like this when rule as intended are a contested point.
I'm so very happy so many people in this thread win in "competitive metas" with what I assume are all decks of 35 lands, a Sol Ring, and 63 pieces of removal. I guess it takes a "Master Deckbuilder" to understand this mindset.
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"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
I'm so very happy so many people in this thread win in "competitive metas" with what I assume are all decks of 35 lands, a Sol Ring, and 63 pieces of removal. I guess it takes a "Master Deckbuilder" to understand this mindset.
If your argument is that relying solely on control (counters and removals) is not an effective strategy in fully competitive EDH... Well, then neither is Serra Ascendant. Fully competitive EDH is the land of decks that pull off infinite combos by turn 4, I fail to see how a 6/6 beater can possibly stop those.
So yeah, if you want to talk about a realistic situation, in which statistically the chances of someone at the table holding at least one removal at any given point of the game are reasonably high, then Serra Ascendant is not a problem, on the account of being easy to answer. And if you want to talk about an absolutely competitive, perfectly optimized environment where decks are streamlined for the best performances, then Serra Ascendant is STILL not a problem because, in such an environment, someone will pull off a winning combo long before the little beater can accomplish anything relevant.
Again, if I have to luck out and spend my 7% chance of getting a powerful 1-drop on turn one, I'll take Sol Ring over this any day of the week.
I don't think a meta where it takes longer to shuffle your deck then you actually get to play it is terribly healthy or fun, but that's probably me. And Serra probably doesn't ruin hyper competitive games because she doesn't instant kill the board.
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"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
And Serra probably doesn't ruin hyper competitive games because she doesn't instant kill the board.
Exactly. So in games that end on turn 4, Ascendant won't have the time to impact the board... But my point was that even in fair games, chances are people will have enough removal to deal with it. So either way, I fail to see what exactly makes it broken to the point of having this topic.
Because starting the game at 22-28 life because I didn't draw my Path or Swords by Turn 3, and the table doesn't care as long as they're not being swung at kinda sucks?
I'm glad you have perfect removal every single game. That doesn't happen to everyone. My main deck runs 28 pieces of removal, including the aforementioned Path and Swords. But it doesn't help if it isn't in my hand when SA is swinging Turn 2 and Turn 3.
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"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
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Truly, life is suffering.
[Primer] Erebos, God of the Dead
HONK HONK
[Primer] Erebos, God of the Dead
HONK HONK
GloriousGoose, I also apologize, that was my bad.
They were much more active with their list back in the mid to late 2000s. Like for example if you want some nuggets of interest on how things were originally banned and tweaked:
1) Portal and Starter only cards were banned for awhile in 2002, were lumped in with silver border cards.
2) Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant was errata'd at one point to trigger when your life total was "1.5 times your initial starting life" which nowadays would be 60 life.
3) Riftsweeper errata'd to not hit commanders at one point, since there was no such thing as a command zone and your commander was in exile.
4) Beacon of Immortality had been banned previously and then unbanned in 2007.
5) Riftsweeper banned.
6) Metalworker was banned, gets unbanned later.
7) Riftsweeper unbanned because there is now a command zone, even though that is how the errata worked for Riftsweeper.
8) Worldgorger Dragon unbanned.
9) Finally in 2012 was Sundering Titan banned.
10) Staff of Domination unbanned but Trade Secrets gets banned...
Compare that to Commander. We have all the answers. Are any of the cards you listed a problem for us? Nope. And it’s not because of the life total – it’s because we have no shortage of answers. It’s just a small matter of people implementing them. Excellent! Well done, them!
But I can make Magical Christmasland 6-card combos that prove Grizzly Bears are overpowered.
I believe you should first look at the card in a vacuum – it’s really good early game, variable mid-game, and not great late game unless in a very dedicated lifegain deck that hasn’t been stopped. It also has no native protection and doesn’t actively disrupt your opponents’ plans.
Next, evaluate it in context with any other single card – I guess it’s nasty if you give it infect. But the cards that do that are one-shot or too expensive to play early.
What cheap answers are there? You could wrath – I mean, if the Serra Ascendant player gets to ramp into Helm of the Host, surely their opponents get to ramp into a wrath?! But let’s say the Ascendant player has a monopoly on ramp because they’re evil. How about a turn 2 Baleful Strix? Draw a card and stop the Ascendant from swinging at you – must be OP. Or a turn one Innocent Blood, turn three Merciless Executioner, or even a turn four Barter in Blood? Those even all dodge Greaves/Boots. Or how about a Soul Snare/Blessed Alliance/Wing Shards? I could go on and on, listing cheap, single cards that get around Ascendant.
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Three players don't have access to any form of removal for 5 turns and a single player lost a good chunk of life. T5 is where most EDH decks start to drop infinite combos, smokestack locks, inifnite turns etc. It's a threat, but there is no way you can convince me it is more powerful than Tooth and Nail, Sol Ring, Craterhoof Behemoth, Kaalia of the vast, Animar, Staff of Domination, Armageddon, etc etc
That doesn't get it banned, though. It just gets it a lot more scrutiny. Ultimately, the interaction isn't all that problematic. Opponent life totals are also higher, so a 6/6 on turn 1 isn't the end of the world. What usually ends up happening is that it gets in for a couple hits, eats some removal, and the controller is now a target. As a later draw, it's actively bad if you've been dropped under 30 life.
The rules of Commander elevate it to "good card," but there are lots of good cards.
Are we really supposed to consider god hands in ban discussions now? CrawWurm.dec will be all thats left.
My god hand comparison was actually aimed at helm not Ascendant.
I just thin a 6/6 turn one is unfair. But i guess there are worse things, A show and tell into a Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
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I think we all agree on that, but it doesn't happen often enough IMO to be banned.
I say may 20% of games I see it, which isn't so bad, but the guy play plays his derevi deck 90% of the games he plays and wins 90% of the time. It is a CEDH vs non competitive decks. most people at my LGS don't want to convert to CEDH, but we have to. I mean he has been kind enough to dumb down his deck to just be having one win con (beat down) but that does not excuse for still playing a competitive deck.
so CEDH combined wit a T1 Seraa ascendat every 5 games is not fun. I already have enough trouble facing him down as it is.
(i also go all out on derevi plays, which is due to Evil Adam playing dervi all this time)
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So, this isn’t a Serra Ascendant problem?
Not to single you out, because people do this all the time, but it’s truly infuriating to read comments like these. “Yeah, My decks not as good as the other deck, so if we just ban some of these better cards I’d have a chance”.
This is a people problem, as is 90% of the complaints that drive “ban card X” discussions, not a problem with the card itself.
It muddys the water and makes having actual discussions near impossible. Everybody trying to play mental magic against one another, and most people forget the points they’ve actually made and end up contradicting themselves. Context is everything, after all.
But even in a competitive Derevi deck, what's so bad about Serra Ascendant? Again, Birds of Paradise is a much more powerful one drop - it taps for two mana a turn thanks to the Bird Wizard and makes things like Winter Orb, which pretty much all competitive Derevi decks run, asymmetric. Should we ban BoP?
No it is still a serra acendant problem, not just Evil adam but really any game where I see it. SOME people are kind enough to not swing, but then again, they still have a 6/6 blocker making it very unappealing to attack them. Even if you have a blocker for an Ascendant, other players at the table may not, meaning they can end up being the ones attacked, and in turn feed the life gain the serra player is getting.
I may be a little bias, a steh main deck that runs it is a CEDH and already looks far more powerful than the casual decks we all play, but it is a problem no matter who gets the card early game.
Most turn 1 creatures can die to a bolt, shock or even a simple Fungal Infection. Serra does not.
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Nobody is dying tona turn-1 Serra Ascendant, not on a regular basis anyways. Hard to take this seriously if you honestly expect me to believe that.
I mean, sure, turn 1 creatures die to cards that don’t see a ton of EDH play, but SA dies to a ton of cards that do see play, like Go fo the Throat Doom Blade Fatal Push Innocent Blood Cruel Edict Chainers Edict Swords to Plowshares Path to Exile. It dies to basically everything, so singleing out 1% of the cards that don’t kill it doesn’t help your argument in the slightest. I could do far as to say Arbor Elf is stronger because it doesn’t die to Plummet. This is silly mental magic stuff, again.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
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It's a 6/6 beater with flying and lifelink and no other abilities. Yeah, it costs one mana, but there are answers, and you have to draw it in your opening hand for it to be that kind of a threat. I mean, after that, what else can you do? Wild Pair it to get a 6/6 beater after casting Elvish Visionary or Mother of Runes? A 6/6 beater you can retrieve with Reveillark or Sun Titan?
As a late draw, it becomes significantly worse. But "good early game, bad late game" would also apply to nonland mana sources. And no one's tutoring for Ascendant. If I'm going to tutor for something, it'll either be an engine of some sort, a combo piece, or some sort of answer that I need nao.
On phasing:
I would never be afraid of a deck with Serra Ascendant on turn 1. Even if they had it every game I would take that over so many other broken things.
I admit that it is a weird card that is much better in EDH, but I am not afraid of it in the least.
If your only solution to a 6/6 flyer is to block with your own 6/6 flyer, then you are not adapting to your meta. You are hoping the meta will adapt to you.
8.RG Green Devotion Ramp/Combo 9.UR Draw Triggers 10.WUR Group stalling 11.WUR Voltron Spellslinger 12.WB Sacrificial Shenanigans
13.BR Creatureless Panharmonicon 14.BR Pingers and Eldrazi 15.URG Untapped Cascading
16.Reyhan, last of the Abzan's WUBG +1/+1 Counter Craziness 17.WUBRG Dragons aka Why did I make this?
Building: The Gitrog Monster lands, Glissa the Traitor stax, Muldrotha, the Gravetide Planeswalker Combo, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa Clues, and Tribal Scarecrow Planeswalkers
I'm a believer in "rules as intended". So Serra Ascendant was printed with the rules as intended for a 20 life game. Thus meaning that it was intended to 'Trigger' the effect when you had 10 more life that starting total.
The same can be applied to Sorin Markov his -3 'As rules were intended' should, in EDH, be 20 life. The same for Magister sphinx, Blessed Wind (whilst not OP in any sense was intended to put you back to starting health).
Cards like Chalice of Life have, what i consider to be, the correct wording that doesn't change any cards power as intended by the rules.
In my playgroup (which has 6 players where infi combos and mass/repeatable land destruction are banned) we've seen this card come down extreamly often and as ,long as it just focuses one person, noone else cares about it until that one person is beat to death. Serra Ascendant enables this beat-down very quickly and is in a deck that has plenty of answers to your own answers to it.
Whilst i'm not say ban the card i do believe that considerations need to be given on any given card like this when rule as intended are a contested point.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
I don't think a meta where it takes longer to shuffle your deck then you actually get to play it is terribly healthy or fun, but that's probably me. And Serra probably doesn't ruin hyper competitive games because she doesn't instant kill the board.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."
Because starting the game at 22-28 life because I didn't draw my Path or Swords by Turn 3, and the table doesn't care as long as they're not being swung at kinda sucks?
I'm glad you have perfect removal every single game. That doesn't happen to everyone. My main deck runs 28 pieces of removal, including the aforementioned Path and Swords. But it doesn't help if it isn't in my hand when SA is swinging Turn 2 and Turn 3.
"I hope to have such a death... lying in triumph atop the broken bodies of those who slew me..."