I don't see anyone groan any more when someone plays Paradox Engine than they do when they see Mikaeous, the Unhallowed, Aetherflux Reservoir, Exquisite Blood, Seedborn Muse or any other number of powerful combo piece cards hit the table. At this point this crusade over Paradox Engine is reaching the level of absurdity as those for Cyclonic Rift, Sol Ring and numerous other perceived boogiemen. The only metric I've seen in this thread has been anecdotal evidence where you could replace Paradox Engine with any number of other cards and say "Then the game just ended!" and it'd be the same ending to these stories attempting to make apparent how bad Paradox Engine supposedly is for the format. People tend to read reactions and emotions based on their own biases, so it's no surprise that one will automatically translate anyone else's response to something matching their own feelings. And for the record, I'm neutral - I play it in one deck and have played that deck and won plenty without it (so don't try to turn the point I made around on me).
I appreciate healthy debate and discussion over the format. BUT, it gets a bit ridiculous seeing months and months of discussion of the same handful of vocal people coming back and posting new anecdotal stories to try to crusade to make their case when the entire rest of the format has settled fine. Especially considering this card has been out in the wild for... *looks up the release date of Aether Revolt* ...almost 3 years, now. Because that's not enough, the argument is now "It's getting worse! New cards are being printed!" ...And? How many threads pop up here every set with a kneejerk reaction about the supposed power level of a card. Simic Ascendancy anyone? Narset, Parter of Veils? Razaketh, the Foulblooded? Please. Give the sensationalism a rest.
Maybe the game IS getting worse as they design more and more cards to be "good" in edh to sell packs and end up making the game less fun in the end as a result.
You say the format is just fine, but I would disagree. The rate at which casual games get ruined by power creep because one guy just has to play that new stronger card that ends the game regardless of what happened earlier has definitely increased substantially.
One could then say to try and enforce it with social contract, but the more we have to try and house rule things the worse the format is getting.
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.
So your argument to unban Gifts Ungiven is to compare it to a new card that is actually just bad?
Gifts searches for twice the number of cards, without card type restrictions, and for less mana.
I would play Gifts in every blue deck.
I will never use Shared Summons
The most usual search pattern for gifts ungiven is to search for two cards you actually want, and two cards that recur the two cards you actually want, because your opponent will never give you the cards you actually want. So gifts ends up being one mana cheaper, but you have to spend time getting back the cards you actually want, with effects like academy ruins and noxious revival.
Shared summons fetches up your game winning combo outright, your opponents have no say in the matter, and you get to do it at instant speed at the end of the last opponent's turn before you win, with no additional mana/life spent recurring them. There are quite a number of two card wins you can search up here.
To say you would never play shared summons is very poor card evaluation. The card is insanely powerful.
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.
red one looks pretty bad, but it may be better in standard or modern.
It already has probably the best leyline that continues to be in extremely high demand in all formats it's legal in. It's currently a 50$!!!! card. Reprint is welcome.
We've gotten so much easy grave yard hate and ways to deal with grave yards the last two years that I don't even know why this would be considered an issue. It might trigger at the end of turn, but 16 artifacts in the grave yard? At worst it shifts the meta towards playing graveyard hate besides expecting a single Bokjuka Bog to cover it, and I'm fine with this. So, you know, we should be good if a very niche card that will only go in very specific Blue Artiact decks who actually expend effort in dumping their Artifacts into their graveyard for some reason - instead of onto the battlefield to combo and just win as they normally do - warps the entire meta. But I might be just a bit skeptical. Just a bit.
[quote from="Taleran »" url="/forums/the-game/commander-edh/commander-rules-discussion-forum/810779-mirrodin-besieged?comment=11"]It's more that the vast majority of players are absolutely awful at card evaluation. Even more are bad at understanding the EDH banlist philosophy.
The EDH banlist philosophy is not even internally consistent so of course players don't understand it.
If it was consistent gifts ungiven would have been unbanned years ago.
Also revel in riches is not a fun casual card.
This response is so ironic it could be in Napoleon Dynamite 2. Jivantuna is spot on and the response actually proves his point. I'm dying.
We should clearly unban coalition victory because creatures are even easier to hate out than graveyards. That'll make the format better right?
Thanks for saying graveyard hate answers a graveyard based card. It really contributes.
And revel in riches is not a fun casual card and I would never play with anyone who thinks it is. It's not a competitive card, but it is not fun in casual games.
I think it's more likely that Urza causes Paradox to go than to go himself. Granted, neither will probably happen (nor should they).
We disagree on paradox engine
That card is a disaster that makes the game worse in its existence. If it goes infinite, it's a lame combo that takes away from the game's buildup, and if it doesn't go infinite, it makes turns long.
And on urza's fail state being worse than rofellos' fail state:
A two mana creature that you always have on turn 2 and always taps for its mana cost or more is way better than urza playing a random card from your library every turn.
To me, what differentiates this from Rofellos is Rofellos can let you cast a 6 mana spell on turn 3 if all you did was play lands and your general. Every game, turn 3 6-drop.
Urza will have fast starts, but not nearly the consistency of Rofellos.
Rofellos also requires you to actually have a 6-drop. Urza doesn't; 4 lands and your general lets you start freerolling the top of your deck with no other cards required.
True, but casting a random card from your library for 5 mana is not banworthy, nor is it even particularly strong.
The card as a whole is obviously strong, but that line of play isn't.
Or Mortal Combat, the most directly-analogous card to this one?
I mean, in my Iname as One deck, I could cast Iname, Death Aspect and immediately dump 20 spirits in my graveyard to win with Mortal Combat. And I've done it before, too. But nobody is clamoring to ban Mortal Combat.
Mortal combat requires setup and then a full turn cycle, whereas besieged can only be answered by instants.
However Mortal Combat also wins the entire game right away which this...doesn't.
That's probably a point in MC's favor honestly. A full turn cycle to win the game means everyone will have incentive to answer it, and if they don't it wins the game. Mirrodin Besieged knocks someone out right away, but then gives everyone else a full round to answer it with the same incentive as MC, meaning that with MC it either gets answered or the player wins, while with Mirrodin Besieged one player is losing unless someone has an instant speed answer, even if it doesn't live through the round. And its that scenario, where it fires off early and just knocks one person out of the game, that worries me. Hatred is similarly capable of doing this, but is less likely to be used this way, as it comes with a significant cost (you pay enough life to make you an easy target for the rest of the table in order to one hit kill with it) and its best used to either take out someone you cannot deal with otherwise or to finish off the final player, as without spell recursion its a trick you can only do once. Mirridon B lets you go for the early kill with the further payoff of killing off more players if it sticks, so you are encouraged to play it earlier, and more often, than Hatred.
Its not extraordinarily powerful, and it does take set up, but the set up it requires isn't much, and it has a high potential for just ruining people's nights (ending the game quickly with a combo is worse at ruining nights than just taking one guy out quickly, as with the former you can start a new game, while with the latter one just doesn't get to play for a couple hours). Its not as bad an offender as CV (it doesn't combo with your commander, it is easier to interact with, and it requires more setup), but its worse than MC (setup is easier, it has the potential to just grief one player, shorter window of interaction). MC is a card that shouldn't be banned because its niche and requires too much work to make work, while CV is a card that should stay banned because its too easy to pull off and is an easy addition to any 5 color deck that actually has a 5 color commander. Mirrodin Besieged being in the middle means that I don't know yet if it will end up being problematic, just that it has the potential to be. Its certainly an example of things you shouldn't be doing in commander, but perhaps its inconsistent enough that it won't prove to be as bad as its potential. It also has an alternate fair use, which helps its case for staying unbanned. All cards like this should be watchlisted, now that it exists, but being watchlisted obviously doesn't mean its getting banned.
What are these games you are playing where one person dies to an intricate combo but then the game takes two hours to finish beyond that?
Self mill + one three mana spell is not an intricate combo.
Or Mortal Combat, the most directly-analogous card to this one?
I mean, in my Iname as One deck, I could cast Iname, Death Aspect and immediately dump 20 spirits in my graveyard to win with Mortal Combat. And I've done it before, too. But nobody is clamoring to ban Mortal Combat.
Mortal combat requires setup and then a full turn cycle, whereas besieged can only be answered by instants.
Maybe the game IS getting worse as they design more and more cards to be "good" in edh to sell packs and end up making the game less fun in the end as a result.
You say the format is just fine, but I would disagree. The rate at which casual games get ruined by power creep because one guy just has to play that new stronger card that ends the game regardless of what happened earlier has definitely increased substantially.
One could then say to try and enforce it with social contract, but the more we have to try and house rule things the worse the format is getting.
The most usual search pattern for gifts ungiven is to search for two cards you actually want, and two cards that recur the two cards you actually want, because your opponent will never give you the cards you actually want. So gifts ends up being one mana cheaper, but you have to spend time getting back the cards you actually want, with effects like academy ruins and noxious revival.
Shared summons fetches up your game winning combo outright, your opponents have no say in the matter, and you get to do it at instant speed at the end of the last opponent's turn before you win, with no additional mana/life spent recurring them. There are quite a number of two card wins you can search up here.
To say you would never play shared summons is very poor card evaluation. The card is insanely powerful.
Being BUG automatically makes it one of the strongest generals you can run, even if it has no text.
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.
laboratory maniac
It already has probably the best leyline that continues to be in extremely high demand in all formats it's legal in. It's currently a 50$!!!! card. Reprint is welcome.
searing touch + enough cost reduction is infinite damage
clash of realities is pretty nice
There's a whole lot of cards that will also create creature tokens on spell cast if you want to go that way thematically
talrand, sky summoner
monastery mentor
young pyromancer
murmuring mystic
metallurgic summonings
mirrodin besieged
saheeli, sublime artificer
sai, master thopterist
docent of perfection
We should clearly unban coalition victory because creatures are even easier to hate out than graveyards. That'll make the format better right?
Thanks for saying graveyard hate answers a graveyard based card. It really contributes.
And revel in riches is not a fun casual card and I would never play with anyone who thinks it is. It's not a competitive card, but it is not fun in casual games.
We disagree on paradox engine
That card is a disaster that makes the game worse in its existence. If it goes infinite, it's a lame combo that takes away from the game's buildup, and if it doesn't go infinite, it makes turns long.
And on urza's fail state being worse than rofellos' fail state:
A two mana creature that you always have on turn 2 and always taps for its mana cost or more is way better than urza playing a random card from your library every turn.
True, but casting a random card from your library for 5 mana is not banworthy, nor is it even particularly strong.
The card as a whole is obviously strong, but that line of play isn't.
mana crypt
sol ring
mana vault
mox diamond
all on color signets
fellwar stone
grim monolith
coalition relic
thran dynamo
gilded lotus
Not all of these make the final cut, and there is often many more
But we have very different deck baselines.
Does urza effortlessly generate enough mana every game to be considered a ban?
I'm leaning towards no, because he is a 4 mana card himself.
Self mill + one three mana spell is not an intricate combo.
Mortal combat requires setup and then a full turn cycle, whereas besieged can only be answered by instants.
The EDH banlist philosophy is not even internally consistent so of course players don't understand it.
If it was consistent gifts ungiven would have been unbanned years ago.
Also revel in riches is not a fun casual card.