Benalish Foot SoldierW
Creature - Human Soldier (C)
Benalish Foot Soldier gets +1/+1 as long as you control two or more other white creatures.
A deck can have any number of cards named Benalish Foot Soldier. These soldiers are the armor which protects the beating heart of New Benalia.
1/2
IIW: Cards that are better in Commander but don't mention the command zone.
Blood Augury1UB
Enchantment
Whenever a spell or ability you control causes you to lose life, look at the top X cards of your library, where X is the amount of life you lost. Put one of those cards on top of your library and exile the rest. (Damage causes loss of life. Paying life doesn't cause this ability to trigger.)
Gaseous Formation + Apocalypse Bloodfire MistsURW
Enchantment U, exile a card from your hand: Prevent the next X damage a source of your choice would deal this turn, where X is the exiled card's converted mana cost. R, exile a land you control: Prevent the next 3 damage a source of your choice would deal this turn. W, exile a nontoken, nonland permanent you control: Prevent all damage a source of your choice would deal this turn.
Devour for Power XBB
Sorcery
As an additional cost to cast ~, sacrifice a creature with power X.
Return a planeswalker card from your graveyard to the battlefield with X additional loyalty counters on it.
The Stuff of LegendsUU
Enchantment - Aura (U)
Enchant legendary permanent
Enchanted permanent has hexproof.
If enchanted permanent would leave the battlefield, return it to its owner's hand instead of putting it anywhere else. "Old legends never die, they just get better in the retelling." -- Hakim, Loreweaver
How competitive is your regular EDH meta, by the way?
I don't, no. As much as I love Bronze Sable, even I admit that a vanilla 2/1 for 2 doesn't really carry its weight in Commander. I'll just have to be happy with the hundreds of foil ones I have in binders and boxes.
My local playgroup is a reasonable mix of decks ranging from about 60% to say 90% or so. Nothing approaching cEDH levels, but varied enough that there are occasional power differential issues in games. It really depends on who's at the shop on any given day.
Trinisphere
So what are people's thoughts on Trinisphere in EDH? Specifically regarding its use outside of stax/LD strategies as its merits in those strategies is fairly obvious..
I just added one to my Rakdos, the Showstopper deck since the deck has a hefty curve and players at my local store love their 1 and 2 CMC value spells.
I've only gotten it out in one game so far, and not early in the game, but it still put in work mostly by being forgotten until it could hose a few 3+ spell turns. Notably, the Muldrotha player wasn't able to recur their Spore Frog, which allowed me to swing in for a lethal attack on my next turn.
What's your desert island album?
What's your opinion on fast mana and low cost combo enablers and their impact on the format?
My desert island album is "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" by David Bowie. Still one of the best full albums of all time.
I'm fine with the current state of fast mana in the format right now. I wouldn't want to add more, though.
What low cost combo enablers are you talking about specifically? I'm fine with most combos as long as they make the game end.
Could you expand a bit on your thoughts behind Avacyn and why you feel she is unhealthy enough to be on your radar?
My disdain for Avacyn comes from the same place as my disdain for Iona in that she can basically lock out some mono-color decks from ever doing anything meaningful against that player again. How does mono-red get rid of Avacyn? They can't. Avacyn leads to unfun game states and limits interaction to the point where I feel that she's bad for the format.
Can you speak yet about how you (and the RC + CAG by extension) evaluate potential unbans as a group? I think Sheldon has spoken to this previously, but I'm curious as to your perspective in working with the group.
We haven't had any sort of formal talks yet, just chatter on our discord about what we would like to see, both within the CAG and in the combined CAG/RC group. The rising trend in the past week or so seems to be looking to evaluate cards more philosophically as a whole so that similar cards will generally be treated similarly. For example, is an 8+ CMC spell that ends the game allowable or not? Is there a meaningful distinction in this category between something like Biorhythm and something like Coalition Victory? This is where we're at at the moment.
Have you noticed if there's a certain density of Sphinxes (Sphinxi? Sphinges? not sure on the plural form of Sphinx...) required in order to effectively Storm off? I can see that you have approximately 25% of your deck dedicated to Sphinxes and/or Clone effects to maximize the effectiveness of Unesh.
Around 25% seems like the right amount to me since we want to average one sphinx per Unesh trigger most of the time and 25% does that. I haven't crunched any numbers, but the way the deck plays, it usually feels like I have the right amount in hand at any given time.
Do you think that you have redundant win conditions in Brain Freeze or Temporal Fissure? It seems like once the deck gets going that you can chew through your deck several times and you might really only need 1, maybe 2 win conditions at most.
Yes I only need one or two win conditions in a game (other than sphinx bodies) but the problem with limiting myself to that is that I need other cards to set up, so often one or more win condition will end up in the graveyard on the way to the being ready to win, so I need that redundancy to make the deck play more smoothly and not take forever to win.
Up until a few weeks ago, the deck didn't run Reservoir or Walk and took a lot longer to win games. A winning turn with this deck can take quite a while to play out, and I'd rather not make the rest of the table wait an extra 5-10 minutes for me to cycle through my deck AGAIN in order to win the game. I want games of EDH to be fun and I'd rather not have people in my local playgroup hate me or this deck because of how long it can take to win.
Which cards, if any, would you add or remove from the banlist if you had total control?
Kind of curious to ask that question of everyone on the committee, tbh.
Disclaimer: This is my own personal opinion only and doesn't represent the opinions of anyone else on the CAG or the RC, nor what might happen in the future.
I've been testing out Trinisphere in my Rakdos, the Showstopper deck.
I've only gotten it out in one game so far, and not early enough to wreak any real havoc, but there were some great satisfying moments later in that game of other players casting a couple of spells and then trying to finish up their turns with a 1 or 2 CMC spell that they couldn't afford and whose omission really messed up their plans. The best of which was the Muldrotha player not being able to return their Spore Frog to play and allowing me to kill them on my next turn.
Benalish Foot Soldier W
Creature - Human Soldier (C)
Benalish Foot Soldier gets +1/+1 as long as you control two or more other white creatures.
A deck can have any number of cards named Benalish Foot Soldier.
These soldiers are the armor which protects the beating heart of New Benalia.
1/2
IIW: Cards that are better in Commander but don't mention the command zone.
Enchantment
Whenever a spell or ability you control causes you to lose life, look at the top X cards of your library, where X is the amount of life you lost. Put one of those cards on top of your library and exile the rest. (Damage causes loss of life. Paying life doesn't cause this ability to trigger.)
Artifact
Tap a permanent you control but don't own, T: Draw a card.
Next:
Angus Mackenzie
Bloodfire Mists URW
Enchantment
U, exile a card from your hand: Prevent the next X damage a source of your choice would deal this turn, where X is the exiled card's converted mana cost.
R, exile a land you control: Prevent the next 3 damage a source of your choice would deal this turn.
W, exile a nontoken, nonland permanent you control: Prevent all damage a source of your choice would deal this turn.
Sorcery
As an additional cost to cast ~, sacrifice a creature with power X.
Return a planeswalker card from your graveyard to the battlefield with X additional loyalty counters on it.
The Stuff of Legends UU
Enchantment - Aura (U)
Enchant legendary permanent
Enchanted permanent has hexproof.
If enchanted permanent would leave the battlefield, return it to its owner's hand instead of putting it anywhere else.
"Old legends never die, they just get better in the retelling." -- Hakim, Loreweaver
I don't, no. As much as I love Bronze Sable, even I admit that a vanilla 2/1 for 2 doesn't really carry its weight in Commander. I'll just have to be happy with the hundreds of foil ones I have in binders and boxes.
My local playgroup is a reasonable mix of decks ranging from about 60% to say 90% or so. Nothing approaching cEDH levels, but varied enough that there are occasional power differential issues in games. It really depends on who's at the shop on any given day.
So what are people's thoughts on Trinisphere in EDH? Specifically regarding its use outside of stax/LD strategies as its merits in those strategies is fairly obvious..
I just added one to my Rakdos, the Showstopper deck since the deck has a hefty curve and players at my local store love their 1 and 2 CMC value spells.
I've only gotten it out in one game so far, and not early in the game, but it still put in work mostly by being forgotten until it could hose a few 3+ spell turns. Notably, the Muldrotha player wasn't able to recur their Spore Frog, which allowed me to swing in for a lethal attack on my next turn.
So, thoughts? Opinions? Do y'all run it anywhere?
My desert island album is "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" by David Bowie. Still one of the best full albums of all time.
I'm fine with the current state of fast mana in the format right now. I wouldn't want to add more, though.
What low cost combo enablers are you talking about specifically? I'm fine with most combos as long as they make the game end.
My disdain for Avacyn comes from the same place as my disdain for Iona in that she can basically lock out some mono-color decks from ever doing anything meaningful against that player again. How does mono-red get rid of Avacyn? They can't. Avacyn leads to unfun game states and limits interaction to the point where I feel that she's bad for the format.
Yes I only need one or two win conditions in a game (other than sphinx bodies) but the problem with limiting myself to that is that I need other cards to set up, so often one or more win condition will end up in the graveyard on the way to the being ready to win, so I need that redundancy to make the deck play more smoothly and not take forever to win.
Up until a few weeks ago, the deck didn't run Reservoir or Walk and took a lot longer to win games. A winning turn with this deck can take quite a while to play out, and I'd rather not make the rest of the table wait an extra 5-10 minutes for me to cycle through my deck AGAIN in order to win the game. I want games of EDH to be fun and I'd rather not have people in my local playgroup hate me or this deck because of how long it can take to win.
Disclaimer: This is my own personal opinion only and doesn't represent the opinions of anyone else on the CAG or the RC, nor what might happen in the future.
If it were solely up to me, I would unban Biorhythm, Gifts Ungiven, Painter's Servant, and Worldfire. I would ban Avacyn, Angel of Hope, Iona, Shield of Emeria, and Cyclonic Rift.
I've only gotten it out in one game so far, and not early enough to wreak any real havoc, but there were some great satisfying moments later in that game of other players casting a couple of spells and then trying to finish up their turns with a 1 or 2 CMC spell that they couldn't afford and whose omission really messed up their plans. The best of which was the Muldrotha player not being able to return their Spore Frog to play and allowing me to kill them on my next turn.