MTG Salvation

Carthage has a bit of a point, unlike many other commanders that can be run a bunch of different ways but provide a path to something degenerate, the way Anje works really pushes you down that path. The bonus for playing madness cards is that you get to untap her and thus dig deeper. If you only run the good madness cards, this doesn't come up often and rarely gets you multiple untaps. You want to be able to take advantage of the bonus, but that means you have to run a bunch of weaker cards that you don't really want to play. Then, even if your intention is to use her as a CA machine than let's you cast madness spells as cantrips, you soon realize that you only have so much Mana and the weakness of many of the madness cards means you'd rather not waste your Mana on them, as you get to the untap anyway. So now you realize the payoff is really to cycle through all those bad cards to the good ones, which means you need to run some things worth spending all that time digging for. It's still an extra step to get from there to Worldgorger combo, but it's not much. And in any case, she's not really supporting madness.

She'd have worked better if she triggered off casting madness spells to cut off the temptation to cycle through all your madness cards. What would have worked even better though would have been to have her give all cards with madness Madness 0 instead of her untap ability. That would have supported actually playing those madness cards (because turning them into free cantrips once a turn, and free period if you have other discard options) makes even the weak ones a lot better.

Quote from Anachronity »

Quote from Macabre »

I am a little sad that the beautiful boarder of some of these new cards didn't translate to any legendary creature. The cast-for-discount to exile thing would have been interesting for a commander.

I'm actually pretty baffled about us not getting any legends with adventure in a set made for Brawl.

I like Questing Beast though; vigilance+haste+evasion at that CMC is unique to it, and it just sort of passively wrecks superfriends and planeswalker commanders as a bonus.

There's an adventure commander in the bant Brawl deck, Chulane, Teller of Tales. He doesn't have an adventure or directly reference it, but he's sort of an adventure lord that can operate more broadly (which is a good thing). Like, he's generally good for rewarding you for casting creatures and being able to get them back to your hand to do it again, but he really makes adventure creatures a lot better by giving you a reliable way to get them back in hand to recast their adventures. He lets you cycle the same adventures over and over again if need be, and he gives the otherwise generally tiny creatures some more oomph by having them draw you a card and sometimes ramp you when you cast them. He's in the colors with the payoffs, and you really need to be able to recycle adventure creatures because there are too few to actually make a deck with them otherwise, even in brawl.

Quote from Buffsam89 »

Really, the cause of repetitiveness with tutors is the opponents, not the pilot. If you are routinely playing the same deck(s), of course the tutor targets are going to be close to the same ever time. The only time I ever see tutoring as a problem is if it’s only used to end the game. There are exceptions to this, but “fair” tutoring is grabbing a tool to help you survive, not to end the game. So, if you are experiencing a high number of games where players are tutoring to win, then that’s a player problem and not a tutor problem. No matter what action gets taken against tutors, you’re going to experience games with players that are just going to do whatever it takes to win.

No doubt tutors reduce variance, but sometimes there is minimal amount of available redundancy in an effect *cough*Doubling Season*cough*, and without the tutor, you’d never be able to play it in the format on a consistent basis. I’d rather tutors exist to ensure obscure strategies can exist.

Personally, I’d rather slam my head against the wall than attempt to persuade those 2 individuals to “see it your way”, but fight on, brother.

Well, one is impossible to deal with, but Carthage is polite. I'm always fine with having a conversation with someone I disagree with when they aren't a dick.

Quote from Carthage »

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Quote from Impossible »

I mean... what colors are we and what is our definition of "tutor"? Enlightened Tutor, Idyllic Tutor, Open the Armory, Steelshaper's Gift, Recruiter of the Guard, Stonehewer Giant, Thalia's Lancers, Plea for Guidance
Mystical Tutor, Personal Tutor, Fabricate, Trinket/Trophy/Treasure mages, Muddle the Mixture, Tezzeret the Seeker, Whir of Invention, Merchant Scroll, Spellseeker, Long-Term Plans
Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Grim Tutor, Imperial Seal, Diabolic Tutor, Buried Alive, Rune-scarred Demon, Entomb, Diabolic Intent, Dark Petition, Razaketh, the Foulblooded, Beseech the Queen, Increasing Ambition, Ad Nauseam, Mausoleum Secrets, Tainted Pact, Demonic Consultation, Insidious Dreams, Diabolic Revelation, Mastermind's Acquisition
Gamble, Godo, Bandit Warlord. Imperial Recruiter
Green Sun's Zenith, Worldly Tutor, Chord of Calling, Birthing Pod, Tooth and Nail, Eldritch Evolution, Protean Hulk, Woodland Bellower, Summoner's Pact, Primal Command, Natural Order, Fauna Shaman, Survival of the Fittest, Finale of Devastation, Defense of the Heart, Wild Pair
I got bored before I got to the multicolor ones like Eladamri's Call, but I think I proved the point. There are roughly a bajillion tutors in EDH.

Depending on the colors and how much disposable income one has access to (I see you, Imperial Seal), it's pretty easy to end up running maybe a dozen tutors. Even if one tries to avoid the "broken" tutors, there are still the "not-good-enough-for-cEDH-but-still-pretty-powerful" tutors like T&N and Diabolic Revelation that can end up warping more casual metas when every game ends with double-tutoring for a combo or something.

You listed many, many options. And some aren't even worth playing. I love Diabolic Revelation. Honestly, why would anyone bring that up as a problem?
And, if someone wants to play Wild Pair or Thalia's Lancers? What do you have against them?

I'm also sure that my question was facetious. I can count to ten and use gatherer as well + not many or any good decks will waste 10 slots on a pure tutors. Using gatherer or edhrec to stuff your deck full of tutors will not build a good deck.

Also, many of the tutors you list also support weaker decks. There's also a case to be made that tutoring allows weaker decks to compete with stronger decks. and once again, where you might see T&N as a problem card in casual, I see T&N as the epitome of being a Timmy in EDH. Doing powerful things is fun.

Competitive edh decks run TONS of tutors

Here's a sample of the tutors that are run in a teferi cedh deck, which is mono blue so they don't even go into other colors:
intuition
muddle the mixture
mystical tutor
whir of invention
spellseeker
trinket mage
fabricate
merchant scroll
reshape
transmute artifact
tezzeret the seeker
inventor's fair

This is not out of place at all for more competitive decks.

Yes, competitive decks, which is why the core of your argument that "It hurts variety in a casual format which makes decks and games go stale earlier than they should" is bull. cEDH doesn't count when discussing casual, just like Modern tournament diversity doesn't count when discussing 60 card casual. When playing at the highest levels, decks streamline and the number of viable decks inevitably decreases. And more importantly, its not something that defines the casual meta. lack of diversity and variance in cEDH does nothing to casual games. Even trying to argue about it as a problem is foolish. cEDH is a Spike meta. Its for people who want to challenge their skill with the best decks against the best decks. Yeah, competitive Teferi is going to have more tutors than a casual deck and play with far less variance than a casual deck, because that's the play experience cEDH players WANT. If you're arguing that its a problem, you're arguing that they shouldn't play the way they like. If you're arguing that its harming casual, you've got nothing to back it up.

Most of those cards from that list, for instance, aren't going to be issues outside of cEDH where they are searching up combos in a streamlined list as soon as possible. Is Trinket Mage typically a problem? How often does Transmute Artifact pop up outside of tuned lists? How about Muddle the Mixture, is that causing tons of problems when it pops up?

The biggest issue with this argument is that I can see where people are coming form when they say we should ban the fast universal tutors. Demonic, Vampirirc, and Imperial Seal are cheap, have little to no opportunity cost (2 life is negligible), and do the most to streamline even casual decks. But tutors exist on a continuum, two actually, from universal to highly specific, and from efficient to crap. Demonic is both highly efficient and universal, Urborg Panther is both extremely narrow and extremely crap. In between there is a wide variety of tutors, and you have to draw the line somewhere on where they become problematic. No reasonable person should argue that Rampant Growth or Muddle the Mixture are hurting the format, just as no reasonable person can argue that Demonic Tutor doesn't have an impact on variance. I disagree that the tutors should be banned, but I concede there are issues with Demonic, Vampiric, and Imperial Seal and can understand the argument for banning them despite disagreeing with it. Once you get to something like Diabolic Tutor I start doubting the relevance of your opinion, because Diabolic Tutor is not a good card and a sure sign that the pilot is working on a tight budget at best. When someone starts bringing up absolute garbage like Tainted Pact or Insidious Dreams, I have stifle laughter.

Jesus, ten tutors seems excessive unless you are counting ramp spells. Demonic and Vampiric definitely, then Imperial Seal if your rich or play online, then depending on the deck Sidisi and maybe Rune Scarred? Maybe if you are all in on a combo you'll go for some of the more esoteric black tutors, like demonic consultation or even cruel tutor, but usually your going to be mono black if you get that deep, which means you can't use the better non universal tutors like Worldy, Enlightened, and Mystical. But sure, if your pushing and in 4+ colors, you could find 10. Its unrealistic as hell though. Most people simply don't play that way, so your argument is bogus. Demonic and Vampiric are auto includes if you own them, which with Demonic has become more common as its been reprinted, but tell me how many casual players run Demonic Consultation or Cruel Tutor? How many run the uber pricey Imperial Seal? Then many tutors that casuals do run, like Diabolic, suck.

Perhaps if you count narrow tutors like Trinket mage and pals, or the harbingers, things like that, then hitting ten is easier, but those are narrow enough to not cause the same issues as the universal tutors. The ones that search for a broader category like Worldy etc are closer to the universal tutors in this regard. On the opposite end of the scale, Defense of the Heart, PHulk, and T&N aren't just tutors, they're self contained combos that grab multiple cards directly to play (typically grabbing an instant win combo). There's more of an issue with the total package there than the fact that they tutor, and yet when not grabbing combo they are perfectly fine (sidebar anecdote incoming: I just played a game on mtgo yesterday in which a guy running Ezuri flash hulked turn 2 and we were all ready to be upsetty until he just grabbed a bunch of mana dorks and creatures that grab lands because he didn't run any combos besides the flash hulk itself. It put him way ahead on mana but he lacked the draw to leverage it and we all lost turn 6 to grind clock Duskmantle Guildmage combo).

I mean, Natural Order does that with very little support. An extra mana vs a creature that dies is somewhat reasonable. Hell, Defense of the Heart gets you 2 creatures and is usually on, for 4 mana, but is much more vulnerable so its a wash. I still think that because its self contained in one card, with no downside or preconditions, and in Blue instead of Green, Bribery for your library would be a fat piece of cheese that shouldn't be printed and could potentially be banned, but I'm not sure if it would be a guarantee. Entomb + any 2 mana or less reanimation spell is just better, even as a combo. Defense of the Heart is higher risk higher reward, while NO is worth the nominal setup for cutting off a mana.

Quote from Cereberus632 »

It’s also in a deck that has no real ramp/very little ramp. Only 1 haste outlet and secondly, it’s a perfectly valid target to steal my blighsteel with various effects I never said it wasn’t. But I was also playing a deck which whole theme was partly big stompy collossai (now big colourless creatures).

And secondly, regardless of if I was running Blightsteel or not (which is the point of EDH partly to run big stompy things), what isn’t in favor is tell players “don’t play big dumb stompy archtype because it could be taken from deck and used against you”.

Like I am hearing “Well if you don’t want to be bribed don’t run Blighsteel” but actually reading “don’t run big stompy win condition cards like Blighsteel (Worldspine Wurm, various Eldrazi, the Praetors, the many Collossai etc) Because they could be bribery.

That isn’t a mindset and espacially when someone main reason for a card like bribery is simply to make the point “you shouldn’t big stompy” instead claim “you should *****ty cards that are synergetistically a win condition but useless on their lonesome”. Your focusing on the mechanical aspect, like why shouldn’t I play a card because it’s being bribed?

You guys keep trying to focus on “Well your salty you got blighsteeled/why should you be angry got killed by a card you were playing when you were one playing it”. To just reemphasis, I am not salty about being killed by own blighsteel.

If I play a card like blighsteel, I fine with playing against a Blighsteel (which is also why I don’t play Sol Ring. I am not fine playing against Sol Ring so I won’t in my EDH decks). And let’s take apart what you said, “Run answers” you know like I said in the OP, “I know Homeward Path and more exist”.

It’s not an issue of a card I am running being used against me there are 1001 answers to that. It’s the issue of being told “Well if you didn’t run (Big Stompy/Individual Powerful Cards not requiring Synergstic Themetic connection to work) you wouldn’t be bribed”.

You see no issue with that statement and the ideology of someone who would genuine believe that and try to push that as the way someone should play EDH?

Like I said, the other half of "if you don't want it to be stolen with bribery, don't run it" is "If you run it, expect it to be a bribery target." Nobody is telling you not to run Blightsteel, they are telling you to accept that running blightsteel means you have a great bribery target in your library. You admit in your first post that this thread exists because you were salty that someone killed you with your own blightsteel. Did you complain about it? Were you obviously upset? If it seemed like you were being overly salty about it, then I could see your opponents telling you not to run Blightsteel if you don't want that to happen again. You of course don't have to take their advice, but if you continue to run it you should just accept that it may get stolen. Steal effects are just part of the game, and healthy for it.

Quote from Cereberus632 »

Quote from plushpenguin »

I've played my fair share of goodstuff decks and I have nothing against anyone who wants to build something of the sort.

However, you just gotta have some kind of plan for a Bribery and a Knowledge Exploitation targeting you. And if the opponent knows that you are playing a goodstuff deck, they are more likely to target you because you are more likely to have something relevant to the current situation.

Which I have talked about already in my first post above. I know there are answers (Homeward Path for one). But telling someone “they shouldn’t build an EDH deck filled with stompy things so they don’t get briberied” is actively against the spirit of the format. Which is why I am posting this thread.

And for the reanimate strategy is distinctly different from telling someone “they cannot/shouldn’t play x which format design to enable you to play because it could cheated out on you by your opponent”.

Nah, not really. Not running such creatures is a way to avoid bribery, but when someone says something like "if you don't want to get your blightsteel taken by bribery, don't run blightsteel" they are also implicitly saying "if you want to run blightsteel, be prepared to see it grabbed by bribery effects." Basically, if you want to run big, stompy, game winning fatties, don't complain when someone else steals them. You've already decided that it's ok to run those creatures so you have no room to complain when they get used against you. Is it a bit of a feel bad to get killed by your own blightsteel? Of course, but no more than it's a feel bad to get killed by someone else's. Heck, it's a feel bad to get your wincon creature exiled by STP as well. These are pretty low level feel bad that are impossible to remove from the game without ruining the game. This isn't a case of locking people out or pulling off a cheesy combo or just targeting on person, it's just a player not having something go well for them, which is going to happen at some point to all but one player at most in any game.

What's actively against the spirit of the format is the attitude that you should be able to run what you want without your opponents being able to take advantage of that in any way. Bribery is as much an EDH card as blightsteel, a fun splashy card that only gets to shine in this format. You think it's fun to run blightsteel, they think it's fun to use bribery to grab it from your deck. If that is really so problematic for you, then you should cut blightsteel because that prevents it, otherwise stop complaining and deal with the fact that it gets stolen sometimes. You know that in addition to counter magic there are other options for dealing with that. You can exile blightsteel, you can hit it with an aura that prevents it from attacking, you can steal it back, etc. If someone manages to stick boots on it oh well, too bad, they got a 2 card combo that needed a card from your deck to work. If that's something they are gunning for every game, taking out blightsteel would be worth it for the look on their face when it's not there, while if it's just something that happens occasionally oh well, sometimes you don't win. You should run some artifact removal to deal with the boot up anyway, it's an equipment that shouldn't be allowed to stick. Throw in homeward path and some tutors for it to turn their bribery in your favor. Through in brand if your red. Through in that mass path to exile spell from Ixalan that exiles all attackers. Use mass sacrifice spells.

Btw, blightsteel is more problematic than bribery, it's a cheesy one hit kill. Its not banworthy, but it checks more boxes than bribery. It's a classic centralizing card whose existence in a game results in it being fought over, it's just not prevelant enough to spur people to run steal effects just to get it. If you consistently include it in your decks, you'll sleep your meta into running more steal effects as it's such a juicy target. That's a problem caused by blightsteel. What you are doing is complaining that the other players want a chance to benefit from you running such a swingy card that can end them out of nowhere. You should also consider that if blightsteel gets hit with bribery and thrown directly at your face rather than used to take out the table first, then perhaps your opponents don't like playing against blightsteel and using it only to take you out as a way to remove it from the game (and send you a message, which they also sent by literally telling you to stop running it). People don't like getting one hit killed by a surprise blightsteel, as you seem to be figuring out.

Quote from schweinefett »

Quote from illakunsaa »

I'm pretty sure the ban criteria is a joke. Sol ring has hit all criteria for years and it's still legal.

just as mishra's workshop hits all the restricted criteria for vintage; brainstorm for legacy. But each format needs their 'signature' card(s) that help define the format. It just so happens that sol ring is that card for EDH.

....and wait a minute; does sol ring really break all of these points?

• Cause severe resource imbalances (i'd severely debate the qualifier severe)
• Allow players to win out of nowhere (not by itself)
• Prevent players from contributing to the game in a meaningful way. (it's not a hoser)
• Cause other players to feel they must play certain cards, even though they are also problematic. (yes; though on any given game, there's usually some number of other artefacts i'd rather be stealing)
• Are very difficult for other players to interact with, especially if doing so requires dedicated, narrow responses when deck-building. (every colour can deal with artefacts - though mana abilities can't be interacted with easily)
• Interact poorly with the multiplayer nature of the format or the specific rules of Commander. (not really?)
• Lead to repetitive game play. (sol ring does this, but in the same way that basic island does.)

I think that many EDH players are a bit too hung up on not having structure to the rules. Maybe a larger emphasis on a social agreement is needed? Maybe as a part of the official rules, before the game starts, players need to describe their deck and what they expect to contribute/expect from the upcoming game.

An aside - I played with randoms one day at the local LGS some months ago, and i started the game by saying that i got a rakdos suicide aggro deck that's somewhat tuned ~75%-90% probably. one other person described their deck as a warrior tribal, another as a nearly unmodified precon, and the 4th kept tightlipped. The table got crushed on turn 3 or 4 by human tribal. By calling it human tribal, it's like he was deliberately hiding the fact that it's a hermit druid combo. the fact that it and najeela are humans is irrelevant.

At that point, everyone's playing the game by the rules, but the 'human tribal' guy was not playing by the spirit of the format, or at least how i saw the format to be. If i want to crush my opponent, i have legacy for that. If i wanna play magical cardboard wizard with a pet lord of tresserhorn who leads my pile of old-school rubbish, i got EDH for that. But if my mates want to play magical cardboard wizards with a more 'serious' bent to it, i'd wanna know so i'd know to choose a gun over a toothpick to the gunfight.

I don't think the banlist is the problem; it's the ideals and principles/philosophy of the format not being well understood by some players.

I'd say most of those players understand just fine, they just take advantage because they're dicks. That dude knew he intended to combo before turn 5, and knew that the purpose of describing the decks was to give everyone an idea of the power level to expect in the game, and he knew the power level of everyone else's deck was lower than what he was rolling with, and still made a decision to describe his deck in a way that understated it's power level and hid that it was a combo deck. He knew he was going to get an in game advantage from doing so, and knew that doing so would go against what everyone else in the group was trying to do, namely to have a social game where people were being honest about power level. That's just a dick move.

Quote from Daemion »

Expropriate is so much better than most cards on the ban list. I can't take this ban list seriously and it's irony that they now offer these criteria - it all just looks even more random

Expropriate should typically be worse than Time Stretch. Blatant Thievery is a good card, but Time Warp is better, and I'd rather have 2 Time Warps than a Time Warp plus a Blatant Thievery most of the time, especially when the former comes at a lower cost. It's a great splashy card, but it only becomes a problem when someone other than the caster votes for time. That's a problem that you should head off before it resolves by explaining how stupid it is to vote for time. 3+ time walks is usually going to be insurmountable, but a timewalk plus a Blatant Thievery should not be (at least when Time Warp wouldn't win on its own).

If you already have an account here you just register there? There's nothing special you have to do to verify?

Quote from MRdown2urth »

Okay one-drop for your aggro Yuan Shao, the Indecisive deck.

That's, actually interesting. Menace matters

People need to stop acting like painter/grindstone being in the format changes anything outside of perhaps cEDH. The combo existed already with RiP/Void Helm. Sure, painter stone is faster and colorless, but it's not new, and unless I'm reading it wrong it can only take out one player per turn like RiP Helm. Blood Clock requires more setup but kills the table.

Quote from Dunharrow »

Quote from JqlGirl »

Wins out of nowhere is why Biorhythm, Coalition Victory, and Worldfire are also banned, among other reasons.
Remember, a card isn't banned just for falling into one of those categories. A card can fit a category and not be banworthy.

What other reasons were Paradox Engine banned for? This was the only thing mentioned, and also that doesn't require very specific deckbuilding. Isn't Tooth and Nail in the same boat?
Biorhythm, CV and Worldfire interact poorly with the rules of the format.

Quote from papa_funk »

The new philosophy document goes to great lengths to say "these are not a checklist," just some things we look for.

Honestly, if you want the most important sentence in that paragraph, I would bold "it combines with cards which players already have heavy incentives to play,"

That was not one of criteria on the list. I understand it is not a checklist, but that is also not a criteria for banning - it just tipped the scale.
I would say that T&N also just has for incentive cards that you are already incentivized to play - mana and impactful creatures.


If PE is banned then it seems to me that there are other cards that also seemingly win out of nowhere with minimal deckbuilding restraints. I think T&N is obvious. I think Expropriate is probably close.

I understand that Doomsday is not played enough to be in the same conversation - that there is a consideration for how much a card is played - and I am not saying any of the cards I mentioned need to be banned. It just seems to me that PE is really the only card to be banned solely based on this one criteria, and that it ought to warrant discussion about other cards that play similarly to PE.

T&N grabbing a couple swole bois to wreck face is fine, but the combo creatures that can win almost regardless of board state are not necessarily cards you'd normally play. Triskelion is only hitting decks that combo with it. Hoof/Avenger is a combo that involves two cards you are already incentivized to run in green, but it doesn't get the win off of an empty board unless you've already got a decent amount of lands (so ramping into T&N off of rocks isn't going to do it, turn 5 it'll kill 1 person).

I'm all for a T&N banning though, it's as borderline as they come

I'm surprised but not disappointed with the PE ban. I mentioned in the thread that I was beginning to feel as if a ban was inevitable as more cards that had broken interactions with it kept being printed (like Urza) but that I wasn't sure if it was there yet. Perhaps it was, or perhaps the inevitability of it getting there was enough.

The Iona/Painter switch was one of the few things I've thought was clearly in need of a change, and it's nice to see it's been made.

I'll be digging into the philosophy document later. While I'm sad to see the categories go, because I thought they provided some valuable insight into the thought process used when deciding whether cards where problematic enough to be banned, I agree that people sometimes missed the nuances, and missed the forest through the trees (that the categories meant nothing by themselves, but where ways that cards went against the RC's vision for what kind of experience people should have with EDH)