MTG Salvation

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)

I see a revamped philosophy document that more clearly defines what the CaG and RC see as the baseline for the format, including talking about discouraged strategies in broad strokes. Rather than "combos are bad" I expect something along the lines of "in a typical commander game, your deck shouldn't be tutoring up it's combo at the earliest possibility. While this is certainly something that some players like, it should be kept to playgroups and players that want a more competitive edge to their games." I also see adjustments to the banlist criteria to clarify a few points, and potentially break out some of the more expensive criteria into multiple criteria focusing on specific points, or using bullet points to draw focus to the individual points (problematic casual omnipresence comes to mind, as does undesirable game states).

Yeah, its GSZ until you hit 12, and once you hit 12 you should be casting haymakers. I'm always miffed by single card wincons, but its 3 mana more than the alternatives, and I don't think being otherwise useful puts it over the top.

Quote from Taleran »

My problem with designating a card a card or cards into that is Commander and EDH is a place full of trickle down cards.

If you are gonna tell me that Ad Nauseam is a card that only sees play within a competitive environment I am gonna call you a liar as one example. People see mechanics and decks and synergies that work well in all kinds of decks and the parts of them they like or are affordable are re-purposed into decks they have made that sacrifice the speed of being tuned for some good hay maker all in strategies.

It is why it is dangerous to ascribe any card to any specific place alone because these formats are not vacuums.

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I for one don't think that a change to a lower life total would impact the things you are talking about, because a balanced increase of aggro leads to people also running more responses to said aggro so the control decks and the combo decks both wanting to survive in early portions of the game becomes a real thing. This also allows for a meta that plays mostly in battlecruiser and similar configurations to play largely the same game sure the things that generally happened in those games would happen sooner but the amount of give and take would not be lessened I do not think.


I was more wondering about reasons people like 40 life outside of those, because as it stands right now the reasons to keep the life total where it is seem minimal.

Well, once again, I'm not designating them anything, I'm calling it as I see it, and I don't see Ad Nauseum being problematic in casual games. I almost never see it there, and when I do its not doing anything broken. I rarely hear it complained about outside of cEDH either, except for you, right now, as it suits your point. Even the point you try to make acknowledges that when these cards do get ran in more casual settings, its not in the same kind of all in way that would make them problematic. And calling me a liar is, as is so often your style, a baseless personal attack. I mean, maybe you've seen differently in your meta and that's why you are saying it, but if I wanted to be a jerk I could call you a liar and say you are making it up to suit your argument because I have not seen it. That would be asinine, because I have no proof that you have seen it, and that's a reasonable explanation for you insisting that its a problem. But unfortunately for your argument Ad Naus is not something that's running around ruining casual games of commander to any degree that would make it hit the banlist criteria, nor is Doomsday. They are cEDH cards simply because that is where they are ran. Should they actually spread out to casual and start making a splash in a problematic way, then they would cease to be cEDH cards. Then they would be relevant to the conversation on rules changes. And all this would be possible while still ignoring cEDH. We aren't ignoring the CARDS, we're ignoring the cEDH meta, and thus the impact that ANY card has in it. This also works for cards that are problematic in casual but bad in cEDH, as "it isn't in tier 1 decks" isn't an argument against banning.

Saying its a cEDH card isn't ignoring the card, its ignoring its impact on cEDH. The impact of the card on casual is still considered (as I do in my posts) and I don't believe those cards to be problematic in casual, or even prolific there. In order to argue that Ad Naus and Doomsday are significant in the format, you need to bring in cEDH, and that is irrelevant to rules discussion.

Quote from Taleran »

I think quarantining certain cards in cEDH-ville while you are thinking about Commander can also be disastrous.

I guess to go back to an older style of doing this so much of this post is people posting reasons why we should have life totals lower than 40 and why that would be good and people responding as to why those things are bad.

What are the reasons other than it already being at 40 that it being at 40 is a good number?

I'm not quarantining card to cEDH, I'm noting that if a card is really only seen in cEDH then it is not an issue because cEDH is irrelevant to the banlist and rules making. A big reason that certain cards get played a lot in cEDH but see little play in more casual settings is because they just aren't as good for casual. Doomsday is a classic example: if you are playing Doomsday you are trying to win on the spot, and you also have to both dedicate a few deckslots to the combo. It puts you on the path of aiming directly for that combo, but unlike other combo cards this is a turn off for more casual players, because it's also a high risk card that is also fairly skill intensive. The best Doomsday lists have a couple different packages they can grab in case one won't work because of the board state. Ad Nauseum meanwhile is awesome when you build your deck to win if it resolves, and super risky and not particularly great otherwise. Again, this makes it less of a fit in more causal decks where instead of a 5 Mana sorcery that wins the game it's a 5 Mana sorcery that draws 5-7 cards for a decent chunk of life, which starts competing with cards like promise of power, which is a 5 Mana draw five lose five life with flexibility (ok, even in casual decks Ad Naus can draw a lot more, but it's highly variable, sometimes you hit a couple six drops right away and you aren't going to be able to dig too deep without getting yourself in range of attacks).


As for the "what's good about leaving it at 40" question, read the thread. It's disingenuous to dismiss the arguments as to why 30 life would be bad, as their mirror is often why 40 life is good. For instance, one complaint about 30 life is that it would push out battle cruiser decks, but the other way of looking at that argument is that it's saying that 40 life is good because it allows battle cruiser decks to happen. On the other side, you see people saying 30 life would be good because it would make aggro more viable, but that could also be rephrased as an argument saying that 40 life is bad because it makes aggro too weak. It doesn't take much thinking to figure that out.

Quote from Taleran »

There is more to life payment that Necro.

Ad Naus, Citadel, Deluge and Fire Covenant are the first things that come to mind as absurd cards with 40 life that get reigned in with a change.

And none of them need to be reigned in. Which is what I said. Is Fire Covenant a problem? Does Ad Naus see play outside of cEDH (remember, being good in cEDH is irrelevant to rules decisions)? Citadel has more life to work with than in other formats, but is also going to cause more life loss because its also going to be dealing with higher casting costs, especially in non cEDH metas, so it largely balances out (like Bob or similar cards).


To Dirk: I never said it was your main argument, but I've already said what I would say to dispute your other arguments, so no sense rehashing it. In fact, you actually replied to those posts. I hadn't went to deep into the life payment and life matters cards so that's what I focused on.

I also don't really agree that ignorance is what drives people to play suboptimal decks. Its actually probably quite low on the list of reasons because of how easy it is to net deck. No, I do really think that some people like a jankier environment, whether because they want slower games, or want to play with oddball cards, or want to play unique strategies, or want to play a vorthos deck, or even want to set up janky combos. This is going to be less evident in pick up games at events because the social contract is weaker and even many people who prefer weaker metas will build one or two "pimp" decks they can pull out when they sit down with try hards, but those situations aren't the norm. Even on mtgo, where cards are cheap and you play with strangers, I rarely see people plop down outright cEDH decks, because thats ******* boring when nobody else is playing at that level. So I think the number one reason you don't see everyone gravitate to the best strategies built optimally is because most people simply do not want that. After that, for paper magic I'd say price would be the next most important reason, precluding some who would want the most optimized decks from getting them because they don't want to pay that much. But ignorance? Only the spikiest noobs are held back from tier 1 play by ignorance.