MTG Salvation

Quote from Pokken »

Yeah, so I think the issue with PE is fundamentally is that it's not so good that casuals don't play it and ruin games with accidental combos. That plus it being a really strong and fairly accessible combo enabler in a lot of decks means you see it in a lot of 75% decks. And then it's also playable in CEDH.

Being both competitive and casual makes it even worse than POK for me, when you combine in how much more annoying it is to remove at instant speed in comparison (and how much less punishing it is when you do so in most cases).

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And for a little more exegesis on my favorite quote from the Prophet thread:

If we look at a statistical breakdown of the commander metagame we can see that PoK is in the top 20 creatures of all commander beating out many monocolor bombs that are considered staples, such as Deadeye Navigator, Craterhoof Behemoth, Terastadon, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, and Woodfall Primus. You are more likely to see a PoK in a random opponents deck then any of the cards listed.

I did some more prevalence research by the way. At the time PoK was running rampant, it was in the vicinity of the 20th most played creature in EDH and it was the only multicolored creature to be there.

I give you the 20th most played creature in EDH today:
Xenagos, God of Revels https://edhrec.com/cards/xenagos-god-of-revels

It is in 13% of decks it can go in and a total of 5600 decks out of 44878 decks.

The closest comparison to it (the next most common UG creature) is Prime Speaker Zegana) in 6561 of 53567 decks (at 23rd).

So for all of you "prophet was in every UG decK!!!" people it is extremely likely that Prophet was in around 7000-10000 of 54000 decks.

It was probably in fewer decks than Paradox Engine is in now, though its prevalence rate is higher because it's UG specific vs. being able to be played in any deck.

So the next time you feel the urge to say "Prophet was played way more than Paradox Engine!" This is almost certainly incorrect.

Quote from Pokken »

Thanks. Here's the only SCD I can find for PoK:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/607230-prophet-of-kruphix


Such gems as:

Quit being a crybaby and kill it. Yes it's strong but it's really no different than Deadeye Navigator, another highly complained about card. Just kill it. If you can't then you need to consider your deckbuilding strategy. (With mod note for flaming)

Whenever I play Prophet, nothing really changes much. Sure, I get extra mana and my stuff untaps, but my opponents are usually more solitaire-like with their decks, so it mostly acts as just "And untap" each turn.

Prophet isn't particularly durable. In fact, there's no color that can't take care of it.

PoK in EDH reminds me a little of Tarmogoyf in that removal dies to it. It's a card that forces your opponents to react instead of playing pro-actively, which is phenomenal against decks that have low levels of interaction. Also, forcing out removal for a 2/3 is great when you are sitting on a wincon in your hand that you're afraid will get blown up

At this point I have accepted that it rarely survives the turn and is more removal bait than useful card. Having said this the one time it lands and sticks you're on to a winner.

because i run a full suite of spot removal and play magic both proactively and reactively. I realize that I'm not playing solitaire and need to interact with my opponent's deck.

If a table cant band together to kill a measley 2/3 with no built in protection, then they were destined to lose anyways. If your deck doesnt have answers to a measley 2/3 with no built in protection, then it was destined to lose anyways. There are MUCH scarier threats that can hit the battlefield than a Prophet of Kruphix. You need to build your decks accordingly or risk being blown out by them.

Power level aside, I find the play pattern it creates to be very annoying. You can't just say "I'm done. You're turn." You say that and then you and the players who has the next turn have to look at the player with PoK and be like "Well, Can I go now or do you have stuff?" and this happens at the end of every turn as long as the card is out. It's tedious and annoying on a Chaos Moon level and it's in ever single Simic/x deck, at least nobody plays Chaos Moon.

I despise this card. Sometimes it will be answered immediately - but when its not, it capitalizes the majority of the time available for everyone in the game.

PoK is a card that completely centralizes the game because it is either "steal/clone it" or "kill it before I get buried in advantage" for every player.

Its super powerful.. but its only an enabler. It doesn't do a huge amount alone it requires something else for it to abuse.

Maybe the solution is to unban other tempting Bribery targets? The recurring theme of Commander seems to be that green gets a card that all the blue players want to steal, and the green card gets banned so they can't. Ban bribery so that once PoK is banned, we don't have threads on how all the metas have warped into three blue players racing to bribery the green player's Courser of Kruphix or something.

To me its most impressive power has been its ability to avoid the banlist. Like what's up with that?

There are so many broken things in this format. This has a fragile body, requires two colors to be played, and doesn't actually win the game.

I hate Dead-Eye much more. It is monocolor, wins the game and is quite hard to remove once it's soulbonded.

As has been said multiple times, Prophet is the enabler, not the killer. It was the Momir Vig that got out of hand. It was the cards drawn from Zegana that swung the game in that player's favor.

I'm a bit sick of hearing people complain about this card, TBH. (Editorial comment: I died at this one, deja vu much?)

Find a group that wants to play the same kind of games you do, and understand that if you play with someone new, you have to be prepared for anything.

(this is me) I'm kinda 60/40 in favor of banning Prophet at this point but not because of power primarily, more the undesirable board state that it tends to create. It's really not fun to play with or against.

(And someone telling me I'm a whiner for not liking the board states): The phrase "unfun board state" is going to be the death of the format. House rules are one of the supposed cores of the format, and house rules should weed out house problems. (Editorial comment: Dead enough for ya yet chief?)

Prophet, in my meta, is strong, sure, but certainly nothing like the other two [Sylvan Primordial and primeval titan]. Prophet requires me to have a hand to be useful. The others did not.

I commonly cast PoK and fail to win - even if it doesn't immediately eat removal.

At least until people decide Seedborn Muse needs to be banned, too, because people are never going to stop being douchebags with cards, and for some reason, a large number of the casual Magic base derives fun at the lack of fun they can force others to have, thus causing the vocal minority to be even louder. Turn 2-4 Iona when you're playing monocolor is so much more unfun, IMO.


If we look at a statistical breakdown of the commander metagame we can see that PoK is in the top 20 creatures of all commander beating out many monocolor bombs that are considered staples, such as Deadeye Navigator, Craterhoof Behemoth, Terastadon, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, and Woodfall Primus. You are more likely to see a PoK in a random opponents deck then any of the cards listed. (Editorial comment: I really found this one interesting because it shows that my prevalence estimates are fairly close to correct - PoK was only in the top 20 creatures, and the few creatures referenced such as Hoofdaddy and Deadeye are both hovering around 10% today; so it's unlikely PoK was much higher than 10%)

if prophet resolves and the person playing it is even remotely competent at magic, the game is over. Prophet is hands down the most broken card in the format, it is essentially the equivalent of taking four turns to each other player's single turn, the card should not have been printed (editorial: Mmmm, hyperbole)

I'm guessing people on the committee play the card, that's why it's never been touched. Probably tooth and nail too. (Editorial comment: Wow, the more things change

Oh man...mods can we please get this thread either locked or merged with the ban list thread. This isn't even a conversation anymore.

This is a 5 mana card that produces no mana draws no cards doesn't tutor has no etb litteraly does nothing before being open to any instant removal for god sakes it dies to a lightning bolt.. If you don't have the counter to stop a prophet be glad your not aginst a real broken card like doomsday doomsday + any cmc 1 cabtrip kills the table for the same mana cost as this slow creature based enabler.

Prophet by itself is not a must answer. With a board and a card advantage engine it needs to die the turn it was played. A T2 PoK from Land, Manavault, Land isn't a threat, yet. A T5 PoK with Mystic Remora or Survival out is a different story, the game will end. PoK is one among many 'must answer' cards. I don't feel like it sits that high on the list. Hermit Druid, Ad Nauseam, Necro, Doomsday, Tooth and Nail, and C Sphinx are all higher up in my book

I play at more than just my own table. FNM, etc., gives me legitimate cause for concern regarding a card's legality.

The prophet isn't the most broken card in the format however, I believe it is the most commonly broken card in the format. What I mean by that is, it is the card that is ruining the largest number of games. It seems like everybody and their grandmother has a copy of PoK and a large number of them think it's a good idea to put it into their decks.

Mods - apologies if this summary of the previous thread is too much C&P for this topic, but I think it's really salient stuff. Prophet is a stellar example of a card where people were very divided (even me, with my very balanced commentary if I do say so myself).

People made literally the exact same arguments against it and for it in a lot of cases.

The biggest difference is that we don't see the same level of cloning/bribing as we saw with prophet, and of course the reason for that is that PE is a somewhat narrower card. But not narrow enough in my opinion:) Its power level ceiling is much higher but it's not quite busted enough to join dramatic scepter in CEDH only town.

The other major parallel I see with PE and Prophet is the kind of line of thinking of:

~"it's just a broken enabler that enables what you choose to do with it"

How that plays out is quite a bit different. PE is far more likely to straight up combo out, and far less likely to durdle out during other people's turns. But that is a major parallel; there's kind of a venn diagram happening where PE and Prophet both overlap with ruining the game and comboing like this:

Too many circles to also add "And a fun time was had by someone other than just the guy playing it" but suffice it to say it's a small sad circle for both

EDIT:

For some prevalence numbers, I went through the comparison of EDhrec numbers similar to this quote from the previous thread on Prophet

If we look at a statistical breakdown of the commander metagame we can see that PoK is in the top 20 creatures of all commander beating out many monocolor bombs that are considered staples, such as Deadeye Navigator, Craterhoof Behemoth, Terastadon, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, and Woodfall Primus. You are more likely to see a PoK in a random opponents deck then any of the cards listed.

On the list of artifacts in the last 2 years, Paradox Engine is 59th on the top 100. That is insaaaane. Prophet broke top 20 on creatures, but let's remember that creatures are way worse in EDH than spells and artifacts almost invariably. The threshold for a creature to be played is pretty huge, and at that time most of the creature decks were UGx - these days most decks will be playing a ton of artifacts with or without paradox engine.

The artifacts list is rather skewed as well because things like Fist of the Suns sit at 18th or so on the back of being in 18% of 5-color decks (derp) and Sunforger being in 12% of WRx decks. If you correct for purely actually mono colored artifacts, PE comes in:

1. sol ring
2. lightning greaves
3. swiftfoot boots
4. commander's sphere
5. solemn simulacrum
6. skullclamp
7. chromatic lantern
8. mind stone
9. darksteel ingot
10. gilded lotus
11. fellwar stone
12. thought vessel
13. sensei's divining top
14. thran dynamo
15. ashnod's altar
16. burnished hart
17. worn powerstone
18. hedron archive
19. mana crypt
20. caged sun
21. mana vault
22. whispersilk cloak
23. expedition map
24. everflowing chalice
25. sword of the animist
26. nevinyrral's disk
27. panharmonicon
28. wayfarer's bauble
29. steel hellkite
30. paradox engine

A fairly respectable 30th.

Quote from Hermes_ »

Would it be mean to run this with some sort of no untapping effect?

Quote from Pokken »

I think the power creep is a huge problem. Wizards just keeps making 6+ mana spells do more and more and more until you can have an entire deck full of ramp, draw and cantrips, and nonsense that does way too much for its mana in a format where you can your backup card advantage in the command zone.

Re: Paradox engine and sensationalism

The case against PE is reasonably strong compared to the casual banmania stuff:

• The detailed numbers I have run suggest that PE is fairly high on the "too much mana too quickly" spectrum independently of casual appeal or whatever. So I think that alone allows a case for the card to be considered.
• Has many scenarios in which it creates game ending loops that take a long time to execute
• As far as prevalence goes in just 5 months it went from in 5% or so of possible decks to 6%

Take that prevalence number on edhrec and that is still one of the interesting cases for banning to me. This is a colorless card that is in 1 in 18 decks, despite its admittedly serious deckbuilding consequences -- you really cannot be on a ramp package other than dorks or rocks.

It sees play in a fairly diverse array of commanders, and takes up a huge share of the builds of many of them

~ 70% of urza, arcum decks
~ 60% of Azami, seton, rishkar, dralnu
~ 50% of new jhoira, sisay, karn, several partner pairs, mono g selvala
~ 40% of selvala, kydele, muzzio decks

Wizards seems to print a new PE general basically every set or two.

Comparing this card to banmania like Simic Ascendancy is completely unfair. There're many argments for this thing being a problem that are legitimate and should not be thrown out with the "Well it's been around for 3 years and not everyone sees it frequently" stuff.

I have surely shared my anecdotes, because ultimately that is something people think about. How does the card affect actual games of magic?

That's why Prophet got banned - its prevalence was partially the issue, but it had many things in common

1) It warped many UG decks to a be a prophet deck - check, PE strongly encourages artifact and dork decks to play it
2) It dominated the table both of playing time and of focus when it dropped - PE Checks this box although significantly less so than Prophet
3) It was a target for theft, cloning and so on - this is much less of an issue though I have seen cloned and acquired PEs win games infrequently

I think Prophet is probably the best ban comparison we can make other than possibly Metalworker - which compares very interestingly on the mana spectrum.


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tiny prevalence nugget
PE sees more play than

• chrome mox
  
• mox diamond
  
• grim monolith
  

Good times

Quote from TeacherMask »

As the title says, what do you folks think of Morophon as the head of an Allies focused deck?Tarzi is a good commander, but I feel like she might be a bit better as a 99 due to need to bounce to get her Ally Tutor effect.

Side note: I feel like Morophon makes for a great Eldrazi leader as he lets us have access to not only the colored eldrazi, but colored spells that grant Eldrazi.

Quote from schweinefett »

ok, so if i understood that right, it feels very niche, and though you didn't really say it, it feels like you're leaning on the "it's probably fine" camp? correct me if i'm wrong.

But does it feel broken? lead to feel-bads? And was it quick enough for those narrow decks to employ that would lead to awkward/feel bad moments? I suspect that it's going to be like simic ascendency; a card that leads to deflating wins, so much so that the owners would just take it out of their deck out of boredom. Is that close?

Quote from schweinefett »

anyone actually play with it yet? I'm wondering if it's as feel-bad as most people think it will be.

Quote from schweinefett »

Quote from Pokken »

Personally though it's just a card I wished didn't exist rather than one I would ban. I have no idea why wizards prints stuff like this. Nobody is ever going to feel good about this and it has no real constructed applications that I can see yet (some kind of elite affinity sideboard tech against shatterstorm decks I guess?:P)

....it's possibly playable in tezzerator in legacy. possibly. works well with thopter sword combo, so it could work as a surprise non-artifact win.

Anyways, i tend to agree with your assessment of it though; it only makes feel-bad situations. I'm not sure why that's being a thing now instead of just win the game. maybe it's just too good otherwise?

But that being said, door to nothingness is also a feel-bad, since it specifically takes a player out of the game instead of just winning.

Quote from Pokken »

TO BE FAYUH

Eggs is an archetype in EDH (see new Jhoira, amongst others)

(though I will say that it's obviously not a casual omnipresence type thing)