Show me a deck that doesn't want Sol Ring and I'll show you a deck that's been built wrong.
I don't have a decklist for my Edric, Spymaster of Trest deck because I retired it a while back before I started putting stuff online, but I didn't play Sol Ring there because it doesn't produce G or U and I'm very low to the ground. I also have Null Rod and would put the new Collector Ouphe in the deck.
Here are two decks that I already have put on tappedout:
I do like input on deck lists, so if you can justify Sol Ring in either of those decks, lmk. I don't have Sol Ring in Sram because I'm trying to cantrip with Wauras. I also don't play Sol Ring in Child, because I'm actively planning to trigger Child of Alara.
No... it's pretty clearly the tutors. I don't care how good Doubling Season is in your deck; when you can't easily tutor for it every game there is less repetition. This feels pretty self-explanatory.
Well, if Doubling Season wasn't that good, then the super friends player wouldn't tutor for it every time. And then your argument against tutors repetitively tutoring for the same thing each game wouldn't hold. Unless, of course, you still feel like the game is repetitive when a player tutors for different things each game.
I don't know if you're actually going to look through my deck lists and prove me wrong about Sol Ring. But if you do, you'll notice that my Land.dec is heavy in tutors. Rarely do I get the same card again and again so I know tutoring in and of itself doesn't lead to repetitive games. Tutors themselves are not the root causes of repetitiveness. In my lands.dec, having a Planar Cleansing as a commander leads to the repetitive games.
Your argument also doesn't hold because tutoring isn't the only way to end up with the same card each game. What if you see the same card dominate or end multiple games, but it was not tutored for? Even when the card(s) isn't tutored for, you're still going to say that the game was a repeat of the previous, right? For instance, in any game that lasts long enough versus a deck with Black, I can reasonably expect an eventual huge Exsanguinate and/or Torment of Hailfire to end the game. And thus, I play (e.g. plan whom I attack) with that possibility in mind. That isn't caused by tutoring, that's just caused by the card being in the 99.
Even if you play in a game where a player tutored for the same card over and over again, what about all of the actions prior to the tutor being cast? Wouldn't that also mean that the game was essentially the same each time before the tutor as well? How come the game state was the same each time such that the player could/would get the same thing again and again and play the same line again and again? Maybe your games are boring/repetitive because your pod is growing stale or lacks interaction? Maybe the tutor target is so powerful that it doesn't matter what the board state is? I don't think those are issues addressed with the ban of Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, or Imperial Seal.
Essentially, your only argument that tutoring causes repetitive games is that a player can tutor for the same card each game. And you and Carthage refuse to consider that other things can lead to repetitiveness, despite the glaringly obvious counter-argument that the same player who can tutor for the same card each time can also tutor for something else. When someone brings up other reasons why a game can be repetitive, you just repeat, "no, it's the tutors."
I don't really need/want to change your mind, I just want my opinion out there as much as anyone else. But if someone is going to complain about Bribery or list Mastermind's Acquisition just to make a point about the perils of tutors, those people should stay far away from any decisions about the banlist.
If anything, please look through my deck lists and if you feel Sol Ring can actually be justified, let me know.
When you allow tutors, it greatly hurts deck variety.
Why go deeper into the card pool when you have 10 slots devoted to the best tutors available?
They also encourage combos, which are innately overpowered by the format, especially multi-tutors.
It hurts variety in a casual format which makes decks and games go stale earlier than they should.
People "don't like" tutoring. When in all actuality, they do. In EDH, the card you want to play with the most is always available in every game in the command zone. They don't actually want randomness (i.e. see "mana-screw" and "color-screw").
This is rarely true. Even in my commander focused decks, at every mana cost there is a spell I'd rather have than my commander.
I guess it's "rarely true" just because you say so. "10 tutors" is really pushing it. Can you name all ten of them?
I find that powerful legendary creatures from Commander sets has done more to damage deck variety than tutor cards by far. Demonic Tutor goes into all decks that have black and that has never limited the variety of decks that I see. But Meren merely existing means I see Meren everywhere.
But the card I described DOES exist, given specific situations.
Pretend their is a copy of your deck sitting across from you every game as one of your opponents. Suddenly bribery is pretty much functionally equivalent to "search your library for a creature and put it directly into play"
A card that reads that for 5 mana would be banned in edh.
It leads to bad gameplay, having the card strength be so heavily determined by what people sleeved up, ranging from a ban worthy card to a dead card.
Once again, a hypothetical card in a made up situation. But sure, let's pretend there's mirror match and two blue decks with Bribery at the table. Bribery in that situation is still not ban-worthy.
Even in the specific case that you mentioned, Bribery still doesn't play like a functional tutor/tinker for the exact card that you want from your deck because,
1.) A 5 cmc tutor should get you exactly the card you want from your deck. Unless you know your opponents' hands, Bribery isn't a guaranteed tutor for what you want since they might already hold it in their hands.
2.) And if your Bribery choice gets bounced it doesn't go into your hand. It goes to your opponent's hand. So no, it's not a tutor
Bribery the way it literally reads in real life will never be banned in EDH. Bribery the way the card plays out in EDH will also never be banned in EDH.
Bribery does not lead to any worse gameplay than that creature just coming out anyway. There are ways less than 5 mana to cheat mana-costs in commander. Do you complain about every single one of those as well?
You are being extremely low on Bribery to call it "dead." Lots of cards' playability are determined by what opponents play. That doesn't mean a thing. A Golgari deck has a tough time vs Sword of Feast and Famine than an Azorius deck. That's just a part of the game. It's a feature not a bug.
I don't particularly like bribery, because the card ranges from banworthy to useless depending not on your own deckbuilding ability, but on the random chance of what your opponents are playing.
Would bribery be legal if you could search your own deck? Almost certainly not. The card would be broken, letting you cheat out any creature for 5 mana that's in your deck.
So if your opponents have the creature you would search out in their decks, you are playing a card that would never be allowed in the format.
It's like a sideboard card that hates against part of what makes edh fun.
Not a fan, wouldn't mind seeing it gone, but that list of cards is pretty big nowadays.
"What if" none of your opponents play any creatures? Would Bribery be ban worthy?
You being upset about the variance of Bribery is the entire point of the card. It being 100% awesome or 0% sucks and everything in between is a feature of the card, not a bug.
Bribery only searches your opponents deck and that is a huge difference. Even if you're playing a mirror-match, you still don't know what's in your opponents' hands and what's left in their libraries?
There's also the HUGE drawback of your opponents being able to answer the creature with a bounce spell. Then you essentially spent 5 mana and tutored a creature for your opponent....yeah, the feel bads for Bribery can run both ways.
I play nine different decks and all of them have problems with Yarok. For example I have a Saffi Eriksdotter combo deck full of spot removal but I can't run the anti-ETB cards because I depend on ETBs myself. It's easy to say "Oh just run answers" when for 4 mana (Venser) the Yarok player can repeatedly answer your answers. Eventually the Yarok player gets out Panharmonicon so that's two things that demand an answer, in a deck that runs blue packed with counterspells.
Yeah the Yarok player has two or three opponents, but they get two or three turns for each turn their opponents get. It focuses the game to be entirely about keeping Yarok off the field. Last I checked that's ban criteria.
So you're playing Saffi, a combo deck with a combo piece in the command zone and you're having a problem with Yarok (a Panharmonicon in the command zone)?
How come you view one as an issue and not the other? It really just seems to me that you don't like or can't/won't accept losing games.
Yes, it's easy for others to say you should run removal because Yarok is a 5-cmc that generates ZERO value on his own. If a player can loop Venser over and over for 4 mana each time, that also doesn't really seem impressive either. That's a 4-cmc counterspell that isn't even an actual counter. It bounces back to your hand and you can just target Yarok again.
If someone was able to achieve that, it seems like an epic & memorable play. It's also imminently stoppable. And if you do it once, the salt-level would probably get you hated out of doing anything for the rest of the day.
If someone won with a Craterhoof (btw, winning a game is more productive and actually easier than stopping others from winning the game), the salt-level is no where near the same as with the Iona scenario. And even if you did it again and again, what are your opponents going to do about it? Countering ETB's is tougher than removing a creature.
I agree that 30 life (or starting life total) can be an entirely separate discussion apart from combo being so strong.
edhREC is quite an imperfect source of data. We don't need data to know that Blue is best. It's cute to suggest another color is better. But Blue not even being the 2nd best color...yeah, sure. Blue can be overrated and the best at the same time.
Protean Hulk was printed in Dissension but was been banned for a while. So it's disingenuous to suggest that it's been around the entire time since 2006.
You point to the data and want to be "scientific." I'm not going to move goalposts, Humans is an aggro deck and it has done its fair share of winning. Having 12 free City of Brass and impactful additions from each and every set will do that for you. Well, you only present a limited glance of the data (mtgtop8 or tcdecks.net).
Sure, take a cursory glance of the data and "aggro" shows at a decent rate. But any serious look into the data shows otherwise. Is a "fish" deck really aggro when it's only 5 creatures are Snapcaster, Tasigur, Yixlid Jailer, and 2x Deathrite? In Modern, I would not consider Izzet Phoenix "aggro."
The way they categorize decks will never be perfect, but a look at the actual decklists will show that attacking for damage just does not win games.
C'mon...optimal play or deck building is not enough to close the gap between combo and aggro. You telling someone to "git gud" is essentially telling them to play Edgar or Edric to close the gap or play combo. Being "gud" at combo sure is easier when you have 40 life.
You can look at EDH through a rock-paper-scissors lens, but I don't think EDH resembles that. That's a framework for looking at competitive formats, and like you said, EDH isn't a competitive format. EDH isn't about archetypes so much as it's about what decks try to do. It's not aggro-control-combo. But in EDH it's voltron, tribal, infect, +1/+1 counters, pillowfort, group slug, stax, draw-go, food chain, flash, eggs, T&N, group-hug, artifacts-matters, lands-matter, Urza themed, all white-bordered, etc.
I don't view combos being around as a problem. I view the chasm between combo and attacking for damage as the problem. It's impossible to outrace combo as the format stands.
Very fun card. You're definitely right about sad robot. It was the favorite thing to imprint for awhile.
It does have a lower floor than people realize. I've seen people fit it in their 99 without having many/enough creatures themselves. I guess they're banking on other players having creatures for them? But then, they're also not playing enough removal, so what exactly was their plan...?
Thought experiment: if Expropriate was a modal spell and the first one was Ponder for UU, would it be broken?
It's already broken enough, so...yeah
However, I think it wouldn't be treated the same as Finale of Devastation. I believe most players psychologically don't see playing a non-ultimate'd Finale as a downer. Whereas, if Expropriate had that lesser mode, few players would ever play it for the lesser mode, even if it was the right play.
Ponder is a bigger step down from Expropriate than Green Sun's Zenith is from ultimate-form Finale. Having a creature Wargate'd into play is still more than good.
I think a better card to reference it against would be Cyclonic Rift. Rarely played for it's 2 cmc mode, but still clutch when you have to. Except Cyclonic Rift is a powerful answer card (perhaps the best), and it cannot be a finisher on its own. Finale is an okay answer card (sorcery speed), and can still be a devastating finisher on its own.
By the way, I play and resolve Ad Nauseam a bunch. I play it a bunch because my main deck has 60 lands. I get to resolve it because I'm playing it in a pod where I'm trying to win with Maze's End. I wouldn't say it's a problem card in cEDH or non-cEDH.
1
I don't have a decklist for my Edric, Spymaster of Trest deck because I retired it a while back before I started putting stuff online, but I didn't play Sol Ring there because it doesn't produce G or U and I'm very low to the ground. I also have Null Rod and would put the new Collector Ouphe in the deck.
Here are two decks that I already have put on tappedout:
I do like input on deck lists, so if you can justify Sol Ring in either of those decks, lmk. I don't have Sol Ring in Sram because I'm trying to cantrip with Wauras. I also don't play Sol Ring in Child, because I'm actively planning to trigger Child of Alara.
Well, if Doubling Season wasn't that good, then the super friends player wouldn't tutor for it every time. And then your argument against tutors repetitively tutoring for the same thing each game wouldn't hold. Unless, of course, you still feel like the game is repetitive when a player tutors for different things each game.
I don't know if you're actually going to look through my deck lists and prove me wrong about Sol Ring. But if you do, you'll notice that my Land.dec is heavy in tutors. Rarely do I get the same card again and again so I know tutoring in and of itself doesn't lead to repetitive games. Tutors themselves are not the root causes of repetitiveness. In my lands.dec, having a Planar Cleansing as a commander leads to the repetitive games.
Your argument also doesn't hold because tutoring isn't the only way to end up with the same card each game. What if you see the same card dominate or end multiple games, but it was not tutored for? Even when the card(s) isn't tutored for, you're still going to say that the game was a repeat of the previous, right? For instance, in any game that lasts long enough versus a deck with Black, I can reasonably expect an eventual huge Exsanguinate and/or Torment of Hailfire to end the game. And thus, I play (e.g. plan whom I attack) with that possibility in mind. That isn't caused by tutoring, that's just caused by the card being in the 99.
Even if you play in a game where a player tutored for the same card over and over again, what about all of the actions prior to the tutor being cast? Wouldn't that also mean that the game was essentially the same each time before the tutor as well? How come the game state was the same each time such that the player could/would get the same thing again and again and play the same line again and again? Maybe your games are boring/repetitive because your pod is growing stale or lacks interaction? Maybe the tutor target is so powerful that it doesn't matter what the board state is? I don't think those are issues addressed with the ban of Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, or Imperial Seal.
Essentially, your only argument that tutoring causes repetitive games is that a player can tutor for the same card each game. And you and Carthage refuse to consider that other things can lead to repetitiveness, despite the glaringly obvious counter-argument that the same player who can tutor for the same card each time can also tutor for something else. When someone brings up other reasons why a game can be repetitive, you just repeat, "no, it's the tutors."
I don't really need/want to change your mind, I just want my opinion out there as much as anyone else. But if someone is going to complain about Bribery or list Mastermind's Acquisition just to make a point about the perils of tutors, those people should stay far away from any decisions about the banlist.
If anything, please look through my deck lists and if you feel Sol Ring can actually be justified, let me know.
1
I guess it's "rarely true" just because you say so. "10 tutors" is really pushing it. Can you name all ten of them?
I find that powerful legendary creatures from Commander sets has done more to damage deck variety than tutor cards by far. Demonic Tutor goes into all decks that have black and that has never limited the variety of decks that I see. But Meren merely existing means I see Meren everywhere.
1
1
Once again, a hypothetical card in a made up situation. But sure, let's pretend there's mirror match and two blue decks with Bribery at the table. Bribery in that situation is still not ban-worthy.
Even in the specific case that you mentioned, Bribery still doesn't play like a functional tutor/tinker for the exact card that you want from your deck because,
1.) A 5 cmc tutor should get you exactly the card you want from your deck. Unless you know your opponents' hands, Bribery isn't a guaranteed tutor for what you want since they might already hold it in their hands.
2.) And if your Bribery choice gets bounced it doesn't go into your hand. It goes to your opponent's hand. So no, it's not a tutor
Bribery the way it literally reads in real life will never be banned in EDH. Bribery the way the card plays out in EDH will also never be banned in EDH.
Bribery does not lead to any worse gameplay than that creature just coming out anyway. There are ways less than 5 mana to cheat mana-costs in commander. Do you complain about every single one of those as well?
You are being extremely low on Bribery to call it "dead." Lots of cards' playability are determined by what opponents play. That doesn't mean a thing. A Golgari deck has a tough time vs Sword of Feast and Famine than an Azorius deck. That's just a part of the game. It's a feature not a bug.
1
"What if" none of your opponents play any creatures? Would Bribery be ban worthy?
You being upset about the variance of Bribery is the entire point of the card. It being 100% awesome or 0% sucks and everything in between is a feature of the card, not a bug.
Bribery only searches your opponents deck and that is a huge difference. Even if you're playing a mirror-match, you still don't know what's in your opponents' hands and what's left in their libraries?
There's also the HUGE drawback of your opponents being able to answer the creature with a bounce spell. Then you essentially spent 5 mana and tutored a creature for your opponent....yeah, the feel bads for Bribery can run both ways.
2
So you're playing Saffi, a combo deck with a combo piece in the command zone and you're having a problem with Yarok (a Panharmonicon in the command zone)?
How come you view one as an issue and not the other? It really just seems to me that you don't like or can't/won't accept losing games.
Yes, it's easy for others to say you should run removal because Yarok is a 5-cmc that generates ZERO value on his own. If a player can loop Venser over and over for 4 mana each time, that also doesn't really seem impressive either. That's a 4-cmc counterspell that isn't even an actual counter. It bounces back to your hand and you can just target Yarok again.
1
To be fair, there's a fair argument that Helm of the Host + Iona, Shield of Emeria is fun and games in and of itself.
If someone was able to achieve that, it seems like an epic & memorable play. It's also imminently stoppable. And if you do it once, the salt-level would probably get you hated out of doing anything for the rest of the day.
If someone won with a Craterhoof (btw, winning a game is more productive and actually easier than stopping others from winning the game), the salt-level is no where near the same as with the Iona scenario. And even if you did it again and again, what are your opponents going to do about it? Countering ETB's is tougher than removing a creature.
1
I agree that 30 life (or starting life total) can be an entirely separate discussion apart from combo being so strong.
edhREC is quite an imperfect source of data. We don't need data to know that Blue is best. It's cute to suggest another color is better. But Blue not even being the 2nd best color...yeah, sure. Blue can be overrated and the best at the same time.
Protean Hulk was printed in Dissension but was been banned for a while. So it's disingenuous to suggest that it's been around the entire time since 2006.
You point to the data and want to be "scientific." I'm not going to move goalposts, Humans is an aggro deck and it has done its fair share of winning. Having 12 free City of Brass and impactful additions from each and every set will do that for you. Well, you only present a limited glance of the data (mtgtop8 or tcdecks.net).
Sure, take a cursory glance of the data and "aggro" shows at a decent rate. But any serious look into the data shows otherwise. Is a "fish" deck really aggro when it's only 5 creatures are Snapcaster, Tasigur, Yixlid Jailer, and 2x Deathrite? In Modern, I would not consider Izzet Phoenix "aggro."
The way they categorize decks will never be perfect, but a look at the actual decklists will show that attacking for damage just does not win games.
C'mon...optimal play or deck building is not enough to close the gap between combo and aggro. You telling someone to "git gud" is essentially telling them to play Edgar or Edric to close the gap or play combo. Being "gud" at combo sure is easier when you have 40 life.
You can look at EDH through a rock-paper-scissors lens, but I don't think EDH resembles that. That's a framework for looking at competitive formats, and like you said, EDH isn't a competitive format. EDH isn't about archetypes so much as it's about what decks try to do. It's not aggro-control-combo. But in EDH it's voltron, tribal, infect, +1/+1 counters, pillowfort, group slug, stax, draw-go, food chain, flash, eggs, T&N, group-hug, artifacts-matters, lands-matter, Urza themed, all white-bordered, etc.
I don't view combos being around as a problem. I view the chasm between combo and attacking for damage as the problem. It's impossible to outrace combo as the format stands.
1
Very fun card. You're definitely right about sad robot. It was the favorite thing to imprint for awhile.
It does have a lower floor than people realize. I've seen people fit it in their 99 without having many/enough creatures themselves. I guess they're banking on other players having creatures for them? But then, they're also not playing enough removal, so what exactly was their plan...?
1
It's already broken enough, so...yeah
However, I think it wouldn't be treated the same as Finale of Devastation. I believe most players psychologically don't see playing a non-ultimate'd Finale as a downer. Whereas, if Expropriate had that lesser mode, few players would ever play it for the lesser mode, even if it was the right play.
Ponder is a bigger step down from Expropriate than Green Sun's Zenith is from ultimate-form Finale. Having a creature Wargate'd into play is still more than good.
I think a better card to reference it against would be Cyclonic Rift. Rarely played for it's 2 cmc mode, but still clutch when you have to. Except Cyclonic Rift is a powerful answer card (perhaps the best), and it cannot be a finisher on its own. Finale is an okay answer card (sorcery speed), and can still be a devastating finisher on its own.
By the way, I play and resolve Ad Nauseam a bunch. I play it a bunch because my main deck has 60 lands. I get to resolve it because I'm playing it in a pod where I'm trying to win with Maze's End. I wouldn't say it's a problem card in cEDH or non-cEDH.