MTG Salvation

Quote from Cranial_extraction »

You cannot have a 3rd party that exists in the secondary market be in charge of a banlist. It leads to corruption. Prime example unbanning Painter's Servant. Any player who's been in mtg awhile knows the cards that are inherently used around this and can just hoard them, unban servant and sell out.

It's insider trading and WotC needs to take over the banlist before this gets out of hand.

Quote from ChazA4 »

Done, and done. I like this idea(must have missed it previous years), and I look forward to the data that results. Will you share said data after the polls close?

Quote from shenabagananins »

Her effect is 100% up front. It's not like playing, say, white Crovax for fun as an anthem that's hard to kill but then you realize, uh oh, I didn't mean to totally lock out the saproling player! Locking out a color is pretty unambiguous.



How is a card doing exactly what it says a trap? Because trap cards are things that seem cool but are more detrimental to your game plan than you realize, like a Temple of the False God in a rock-heavy deck without land ramp.

Also, the "target audience" of Iona is someone who wants to hit another player, possibly players, in the face with a brick. She does that very well. It's a big part of the reason why she just got banned. It's not that the Angels player wasn't playing prison; it's that they didn't need to play prison because they could just slot in an Iona and play her when they needed to make a sharp turn to prison town.

Quote from KevinL337 »

PE ban is an incredibly personal and biased decision. Only casuals want this card banned.

There's a stronger case for PE not to be banned than for it to be banned. Not only does PE only fit into decks that run large amounts of rocks or dorks, it also requires set up and does nothing by itself.

The card doesn't even untap lands, and there are multiple ways to deal with it before it goes off. This is a casual salt ban for a card which wasn't a problem in cedh.

Now casuals will just find somehitng new to complain about and flashhulk has become more oppressive for no reason in cedh.

Quote from JqlGirl »

Also, stop focusing on the bullet points in the philosophy document. The "banning criteria" section was taken out of the philosophy document because people focus too much on the letter of the law over the spirit of the format. Don't look at cards just related to those bullet points, look at them in light of what the philosophy document talks about and the types of games of Commander that we're trying to encourage.

Commander Banned List Update, 8 July 2019

ADMIN
Philosophy Document Update

CARDS
Paradox Engine is banned
Iona, Shield of Emeria is banned
Painter’s Servant is unbanned

RULES
No changes.

The Philosophy Document update coalesces the important elements of how we think about the format into a concise and easily-digestible set of ideals, answering the question “what is Commander?” We haven’t changed the underlying philosophy of Commander: it’s specifically intended to be something other than a tournament format in which players consider each other’s experiences alongside their own. You’ll notice that we’ve eliminated categories for banning cards. We’d found that many folks misinterpreted them as hard criteria for banning as opposed the guidelines we always considered them. There might be some common threads among banned cards, but the primary reason cards get put on the list is that they challenge the positive experience we want to promote.

Paradox Engine is a card that has proven to be intensely problematic. Not only does it provide easy wins seemingly out of nowhere, it has demonstrated the potential to unintentionally wreck games. Easily inserted into any deck, it combines with cards which players already have heavy incentives to play, generating a great deal of mana with virtually no deck building cost. While we don’t ban cards which are only problematic if you build around them, Paradox Engine has clearly demonstrated that it doesn’t need to be built around to be broken.

Iona, Shield of Emeria creates a negative experience for many players without the benefit of a positive application. We had previously considered its high mana cost sufficient to keep it from getting played, but deeper investigation demonstrated many ways of getting it onto the battlefield without paying that cost. Iona, Shield of Emeria is also an exemplar as the type of card which creates an experience we wish to discourage, namely shutting players out of games.

Painter’s Servant is a card that’s been discussed for a long time and it’s time to take off the shackles. We feel as though there are now more weird and fun uses for the card than there are dangerous ones. The card will provide deck builders with some additional paths to explore in expressing their creativity.

Many thanks to the Commander Advisory Group for the input and insights into putting together this update. Their presence continues to add great value to the format.

Quote from Jivanmukta »

Death to Iona.
Free Painter.
Ban Cryo.

If we look at a statistical breakdown of the commander metagame we can see that PoK is in the top 20 creatures of all commander beating out many monocolor bombs that are considered staples, such as Deadeye Navigator, Craterhoof Behemoth, Terastadon, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, and Woodfall Primus. You are more likely to see a PoK in a random opponents deck then any of the cards listed.

Quote from Carthage »

Shared summons

Can we finally get gifts off the damn banlist? It never should have been on there in the first place.

This card is almost better than gifts because you don't need to do any setup or run any extra cards. It's just an instant search for your game winning creature combo for one more mana.