That list is almost exactly 5 years old. Much less cards in circulation at that time.
It's running gifts ungiven, cloud of fairies, tinker, mana severance, cloud key, dralnu?
Not sure if you want me to take this seriously, but my "pile" would twist this "pile" into a pretzel and force feed it to the original creator of this list. Hoping that's not you.
EDIT: these guys really love mana severance and goblin charbelcher.
Except Bob comes down a full turn earlier, attacks and blocks, holds equipment and is easier to get rid of when you need to.
Very few people/no one is using equipment, attacking/blocking in comp EDH.
The fact that you mention this shows that you lack a fundamental understanding of what makes Dark Confidant a good magic card, better than any other similar cards.
How is Bob good when most games don't last more than 6 turns, some ending on turn 4/5? You'd need him in your opening hand to be good, drawing into him is terrible past turn 2 and there are better options.
However I will admit that I'm a bit biased as Bob is my favorite magic card ever printed and will probably always be my favorite magic card. This is the first time I've ever head someone try and claim he wasn't good in competitive EDH decks. I can understand people not liking him in their Craw Wurm.deck because flipping for 6 a whole bunch of times is not particularly exciting, but in a deck where your average CMC is under 2 including lands, Dark Confidant is probably good in that deck.
Because he's a slow card when you can be using instant CA cards instead.
If you want to grind your opponents out you can use arena. I guess he may have a place in a low CMC, slow "comp" deck but it would certainly be a new archetype. I don't even know if that can exist, it would probably be esper lock with arcane lab/rule of law, heavy counterspells.
I'm not saying bob is terrible in every day, I'm saying he's not good in your standard comp EDH deck, you'd need to be creative, not jam him into every deck that has black. Most comp EDH decks have much better options when trying to win quickly -- and they're all trying to win quickly.
Then those lists you have are not optimal because Dark Confidant should be in there, especially in Hermit Druid, some times you get your plan disrupted and thats where Dark Confidant comes into play, you can just jam him and grind your opponents out.
If you absolutely needed long-term CA you'd go with phyrexian arena, much harder to remove, predictable life loss and no revealing of cards.
Again, Bob is a card that is so powerful that he forces opponents to answer him or just lose, for 1b that's absolutely insane.
When the game is lasting on average 4-6 turns, Bob doesn't have the time he needs to generate the CA that safer, faster cards do. Which is why he's not used.
Also you're saying top tier decks don't play him go look at a tuned Hermit Druid list, every single list I've seen plays Dark Confidant.
I have quite a few lists, Hermit and other 5 color combo, none run him. He's too slow unless you get him in your opening hand + can play turn 1, merely okay turn 2, terrible to draw into turn 3+. When considering drawing options, he doesn't out-perform cards like Night's Whisper in the context I am speaking about.
So bob needs to survive two table rotations in order to accrue the same CA that night's whisper gives instantly. Not to mention he forces you to reveal cards.
When the game is ending on turn 4-6, bob isn't a good choice. Assuming he is in your opening hand, and you could power him out turn 1, he'd be fine. But if you draw into him, he's awful... if you get him out turn 2 he's pretty bad... if he gets incidentally killed he's a waste of two mana... you can't be sure he will be consistently useful in that kind of environment, so he's more of a liability than he's worth, considering the other cards competing for a slot with him.
The only comp decks which include phyrexian arena are those which seek to draw out the game, and those decks want resiliency and control, not the vulnerability of creature-type which could be killed easily. It's far more likely to encounter multiple creature sweeps than it is to have multiple opponents using their resources to remove your phyrexian arena.
One of the two decks running Phyrexian Arena is Zur... that says something.
A great card when you can build around him and games last 10+ turns, in other words lower-tier games. Which is fine - since the majority of games are lower-tier, Bob is overall a great card for EDH.
Are we talking about the same game? Dark Confidant is insane, he's arguably the best creature ever printed in Magic. He's a 2/1 that forces your opponent to burn removal on him or just let you run away with the game by burying them in CA. All of the top tier decks I've seen in competitive decks that play black play him because he's just that good. Even Hermit Druid and Ad Nauseum play him because sometimes people have disruption and then you can just jam Bob and grind your opponent out.
Bob isn't in any of the 20+ top competitive decks, and about 70% of those contain black. Phyrexian arena is in 2.
You are still giving your opponents control over the outcome of the game. What if the other players aren't that great, or their decks just aren't up to par?
Not a problem in my meta. But yeah in a different, less comp meta I can see spot removal being ok
Now I'll counter: I generally dislike using preemptive answers over reactionary ones as you are widening the array of ways in which your opponents can respond to you and giving them more control of the outcome. I don't feel these are bad answers, but I feel that using them over instant speed options is a mistake. Swords and Path are good because when I cast them you have to respond immediately on my terms; Orb and Totem allow your opponents to deal with them on theirs.
ok but if one dude is ready to combo and tries to remove your torpor orb, and you can't stop him, do you think the other two guys are going to let him kill it? combo = win, sure as **** your opponents are gong to protect your orb.
Suddenly you have your opponents working to protect your card, because its also helping them. I've seen it happen before... more often than you'd think. Now they are using their cards to help you, instead of you using your spot removal to help them. and since they are spending cards to help you, you have an advantage. keep in mind, if they are also running cards that are stopped by orb, they are using cards to keep orb in play - the same orb that they will eventually have to spend more resources to remove. brutal!
You can also layer defenses, such as copy artifact + torpor orb + cursed totem, and if they're running spot removal they are going to need three cards instead of one mass.
You're also running counterspells, so you have your own spot removal if you absolutely must.
It's running gifts ungiven, cloud of fairies, tinker, mana severance, cloud key, dralnu?
Not sure if you want me to take this seriously, but my "pile" would twist this "pile" into a pretzel and force feed it to the original creator of this list. Hoping that's not you.
EDIT: these guys really love mana severance and goblin charbelcher.
Very few people/no one is using equipment, attacking/blocking in comp EDH.
How is Bob good when most games don't last more than 6 turns, some ending on turn 4/5? You'd need him in your opening hand to be good, drawing into him is terrible past turn 2 and there are better options.
Because he's a slow card when you can be using instant CA cards instead.
If you want to grind your opponents out you can use arena. I guess he may have a place in a low CMC, slow "comp" deck but it would certainly be a new archetype. I don't even know if that can exist, it would probably be esper lock with arcane lab/rule of law, heavy counterspells.
I'm not saying bob is terrible in every day, I'm saying he's not good in your standard comp EDH deck, you'd need to be creative, not jam him into every deck that has black. Most comp EDH decks have much better options when trying to win quickly -- and they're all trying to win quickly.
Still, it's was a new deck that never caught on, so I'm not sure if that means anything.
If you absolutely needed long-term CA you'd go with phyrexian arena, much harder to remove, predictable life loss and no revealing of cards.
When the game is lasting on average 4-6 turns, Bob doesn't have the time he needs to generate the CA that safer, faster cards do. Which is why he's not used.
I have quite a few lists, Hermit and other 5 color combo, none run him. He's too slow unless you get him in your opening hand + can play turn 1, merely okay turn 2, terrible to draw into turn 3+. When considering drawing options, he doesn't out-perform cards like Night's Whisper in the context I am speaking about.
When the game is ending on turn 4-6, bob isn't a good choice. Assuming he is in your opening hand, and you could power him out turn 1, he'd be fine. But if you draw into him, he's awful... if you get him out turn 2 he's pretty bad... if he gets incidentally killed he's a waste of two mana... you can't be sure he will be consistently useful in that kind of environment, so he's more of a liability than he's worth, considering the other cards competing for a slot with him.
The only comp decks which include phyrexian arena are those which seek to draw out the game, and those decks want resiliency and control, not the vulnerability of creature-type which could be killed easily. It's far more likely to encounter multiple creature sweeps than it is to have multiple opponents using their resources to remove your phyrexian arena.
One of the two decks running Phyrexian Arena is Zur... that says something.
A great card when you can build around him and games last 10+ turns, in other words lower-tier games. Which is fine - since the majority of games are lower-tier, Bob is overall a great card for EDH.
That's a possibility.
That is a good mix of philosophical might and christian perspective
Maybe someday
Blue is in 95%+ of the top comp decks.
Bob isn't in any of the 20+ top competitive decks, and about 70% of those contain black. Phyrexian arena is in 2.
Not a problem in my meta. But yeah in a different, less comp meta I can see spot removal being ok
ok but if one dude is ready to combo and tries to remove your torpor orb, and you can't stop him, do you think the other two guys are going to let him kill it? combo = win, sure as **** your opponents are gong to protect your orb.
Suddenly you have your opponents working to protect your card, because its also helping them. I've seen it happen before... more often than you'd think. Now they are using their cards to help you, instead of you using your spot removal to help them. and since they are spending cards to help you, you have an advantage. keep in mind, if they are also running cards that are stopped by orb, they are using cards to keep orb in play - the same orb that they will eventually have to spend more resources to remove. brutal!
You can also layer defenses, such as copy artifact + torpor orb + cursed totem, and if they're running spot removal they are going to need three cards instead of one mass.
You're also running counterspells, so you have your own spot removal if you absolutely must.