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  • 1

    posted a message on April 2019 Banlist & Rules Updates
    I'm anti-wishboard for a stupidly simple reason (relative to the "grand philosophical musings" above and below): I don't think wishboards would be intuitive, affordable, or fun for new players and we need them.

    Fact is, if wishes suddenly became more than a house-rule rarity, they'd spike in both price and popularity. *****, I've got a slot in basically every red deck for a burning wish with 15+ modes. The buyouts would be real. Chump change cards would now be both prohibitively expensive for casual players and ubiquitous in more competitive circles. So now we have more precons being stomped in pick-ups by unattainable cards that essentially constitute as the ultimate tutor effect. Sure most people would fix up a proper sideboards, but "outside the game" is a pretty nebulous term in social play and the first time a person whips out their 60 page binder and eats 10 minutes to resolve a wish, it won't leave a memorably pleasant taste in anyone's mouth.

    That's all worst case scenario talk, yes. But I like our fabulous format as-is, and the growing popularity of EDH reflects that a lot of other people do too. I don't think extrapolating the wishboard experience is going to do us any favors in the long run, and I think that may be why the RC is choosing this direction as the status quo.

    Edit:spelling
    While yes that is a worry, its a bit of an inevitability with prices. Maybe its not a wish, but instead the standard player has to deal with its a psychotic fury or a balduvian rage or aurelia's fury or sunforger because of feather, the redeemed they got from a pack or draft. Now people experience the feeling of missing out or FOMO because they could have easily bought these cards at any point, but didn't want to until it was too late.

    A person who searches their library slowly for a card is not much better than person who slowly decides what card outside the game they want to put into their hand. A person who slowly calculates and recalculates the size of their board of their creatures and who they can go after isn't much better either. A person who goes through an infinite or near-infinite combo but takes a long time isn't much better either. A person who slowly decides if they let a spell resolve even if they couldn't actually respond to it anyway isn't much better either.
    Posted in: Commander (EDH)
  • 3

    posted a message on Why isn't Magus of the Library an EDH staple?
    Time to play Tibalt's Advocate.
    Quote from Cranky »
    The card is really quite bad, and appropriately rated by the community.
    So a 4.031/5 is "bad" based on community rating?

    It's an absolutely awful mana dork stapled to a very situational draw spell.
    Draw spell? I assume your not referring to the land or just its activated ability in general.

    Library is good because it can come down early enough to reliably draw you a couple cards. Magus cannot do that unless you're twiddling your thumbs and not unloading your hand
    T1: Forest
    T2: Forest, Magus
    T3: Draw, tap Magus to draw, play up to 2 cards from hand.
    T4: Draw, tap magus to draw, play up to 2 cards from hand.

    You can still play your hand, you just have to pace yourself.

    and also has the added fragility of being a creature.
    A toughness of 1 would have been a better argument than being a creature.

    A good deck would always rather have a Llanowar Elves
    Llanowar is fairly mediocre if you aren't capitalizing on the elf or druid tribal if that is what you meant by a "good deck". At best case scenario, when outside of those themes, its a 1/1 that might get a boost from an overrun-based effect.

    or Sylvan Library
    Which is a different style of card draw and is more comparable to a brainstorm that lets you pay life to not put cards back on top of the library. Unless you have the lifegain to back it up for a +2, your effectively getting a +0 in net value most of the time; +1 if you actually need to hold onto something in hand but not likely to happen every turn.

    It's so far down the list of options it's not really worth considering.
    From this thread, quite the contrary if its been brought up.

    The one thing Magus has is that it's cheap, but financial cost should never factor in to power level assessment.
    This seems quite random for a statement like you ran out of ammunition.

    You're alone in this one OP.
    False statement.

    It's fine to have pet cards, but I'm not going around telling everyone that Mystic Snake is an amazing card that goes in every UG deck, I just quietly enjoy playing my stupid bad snapcaster snek with the full understanding that it's not great.
    Mystic Snake sees plenty of play, I don't know why you would think the opposite.
    Posted in: Commander (EDH)
  • 1

    posted a message on Ban//Unban
    Quote from umtiger »
    It would be my preference to only unban, since telling people what they can and can't play always feels bad.
    Here are some unban suggestions:
    Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary (relic of the old ban list, doesn't lock anyone out, many other unbanned generals more dangerous)
    Braids, Cabal Minion & Erayo, Soratami Ascendant (relics of the old ban list, both require entire decks built around and has a mono-color penalty unlike Leovold)
    Coalition Victory (should be considered an achievement rather than a feels-bad)
    You had me till here.

    Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary: Simply too easy to abuse since Rofellos's strength is based on mana ramping and tossing down creatures sooner than others. Rofellos has been unbanned before but has proven to be still problematic even when allowed to be just in the ninety-nine.

    Braids, Cabal Minion: Just because its a lesser evil in stax doesn't mean its safe. Also being mono color is not really that much of a weakness if its within the three horsemen that is BUG. As mono being a weakness only applies to R and W as they aren't very suited to this format and only recent years have gained some power thanks to more recent sets.

    Erayo, Soratami Ascendant: See Braids.

    Coalition Victory: One of the easiest to fulfill win conditions. Your commander fulfills 25% of the win condition. The other 25% requirement is having each basic land type which can be performed in a number of ways like a scapeshift or a prismatic omen. Next 25% is just get 8 mana (3 colorless, 1 of each color). Final 25% is nobody has an instant speed answer.
    Posted in: Commander Rules Discussion Forum
  • 1

    posted a message on Brawl - the format
    Quote from BlueTronFTW »
    I knew they were gonna use it to sell planeswalkers lol.

    Honestly, it sort of makes sense. Most card games, once the card pool gets especially large, introduce a rotating format as a means of lowering the barrier to entry for newer players to compete (and sell the most recent set to competitive individuals).
    Yep this is 100% what is happening. I remember trying to introduce new players to Commander but they found the massive cardpool and deck size to be daunting.

    As what WotC is basically doing is: Instead of trying to climb a mountain, climb a wall first.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • 1

    posted a message on {COMMAND TOWER} - Commander Format Resource
    Yona, Wandering Chieftain WRGU
    Legendary Creature - Elf Mystic Nomad (R)
    Auras that target a Nomad or Mystic creature you control cost 2 less to cast.
    Auras enchanting creatures you control have totem armor.
    Whenever an Aura would enter your graveyard from anywhere, you may draw a card. If you do, discard a card.
    1/1

    Artwork: https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/gwent/images/8/82/Elven_Scout.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20171209011353
    Posted in: Custom Card Creation
  • 1

    posted a message on Portal Commander
    So I was having a discussion with a friend of mine the other evening and they came up with an amusing commadner variant format. It gets its name from "Portal", "Portal Second Age" and "Portal Three Kingdoms". Legendary creatures are still allowed as "Portal Three Kingdoms" has legendary creatures.

    Rules
    1) Include all rules associated with commander normally.
    2) No deck, commander included, may have any enchantments, artifacts, planeswalkers or nonbasic lands.
    3) Activated abilities can only be activated before attackers are declared.
    4) Instants are always played at sorcery speed except for counterspells and "only during the declare attackers step and only if you've been attacked this step."

    I just personally felt like sharing is all.
    Posted in: Variant Commander
  • 1

    posted a message on Mastermind's Acquisition - Wish Tutor
    Just a Diabolic Tutor unless your playgroup lets you play with a wishboard in Commander.
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • 1

    posted a message on [RIX] - Nezahal, Primal Tide
    I found the Loch Ness Monster!
    Posted in: The Rumor Mill
  • 2

    posted a message on Polyraptor
    Yeah a mix of the two, as this thing will just grow out of control if not properly stopped like with a Wrath of God. Funny enough, Hour of Devastation really doesn't affect it.
    Posted in: Polyraptor
  • 2

    posted a message on Jungle Creeper
    Actually not bad for an uncommon. As its 3m for a 3/3 that can return itself back to the hand whenever you want. Reminds me of Hammer of Bogardan really.
    Posted in: Jungle Creeper
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