MTG Salvation

Quote from Phone »

In terms of other Jund Commanders, there's slim pickings here. I would argue the issue isn't so much Prossh is overpowered (he is however very powered), but that the old "I love green big dragons" general was horrible nerfed (Karrthus).

• Shattergang Brothers
  
• Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper
  
• Kresh the Bloodbraided
  
• Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund
  
• Darigaaz, the Igniter
  
• Adun Oakenshield
  
• Bartel Runeaxe
  
• Vaevictus Asmadi
  
• Xira Arien

As far as normal banned list things go, I'd really love to see Coalition Victory, and Painter's Servant unbanned. I don't have intention of playing these, but I don't think they belong on there any more. The format has moved past them and I can't seem them really ruining games anymore. I think Recurring Nightmare would be a risky unbanning, but I also think that'd be fine.

I really only expect PS to come off this round, though.

I can think of anything I'd like to have banned, or anything that seems like it should get the ban hammer.

Just wanted to chime in that I have built a Sek'kuar deck and it is loads of fun. I went with an Orc/Goblin/Ogre theme (Ironclaw Orcs, Brassclaw Orcs, Ogre Enforcer, Siege-Gang Commander, etc) and to add a little kick backed it up with Grave Pact effects and some sacrifice outlets like Altar of Dementia, Phyrexian Plaguelord, GOblin Bombardment, Attrition and so on. It's super casual but if it is left unimpeded things will get really, really silly. I had a Solemn + Clamp + Altar of Dementia + Volrath's Stronghold going one game and that got silly haha.

As for the Banned List, I'd be shocked if we got anything more than clarification on Manifest and Commanders gaining that property (out of tuck or whatever). I'd still love Prophet of Kruphix, Deadeye Navigator to go but meh.

I also do not see the benefit of unbanning Painter's Servant, I mean I will buy a Lifeforce/Deathgrip for Sek'Kuar or get to use my Beta Gloom and just play broken hosers if that's the intent...because it doesn't add anything fun to the game at all.
:/

Quote from Wizards »

I think the problem with this format (compared to Commander) is that eventually it will get "solved" and the same cards will be played in the majority of decks, especially with the 50-cards limit (speaking from a competitive POV). For example, I know for sure that all of my BG decks will start with Abrupt Decay, Smother and Inquisition of Kozilek, because they hit everything in the format, and will also most likely include Pernicious Deed and Toxic Deluge, because they're the best cheap sweepers, and decks with Stoneforge Mystic will inevitably end up with Sword of Feast and Famine and Sword of Fire and Ice, because Skullclamp, Umezawa's Jitte and Sword of Body and Mind are banned, and Batterskull is out of range CMC-wise.

It's a fun idea nonetheless and I will start toying with deck ideas.

People are already making speed mill decks with a Sygg or Angus McKenzie shell. Use green for Gaea's Blessing to counter opponnet's mill and use blue for Stifle for the Blessing. I'm going to pass on this for a while until they do some bans or add a "can't mill to death" clause (which is probably too extreme) or the meta shifts a bit.

Quote from FracksUngiven »

I'm using Damia as my general so I should have relatively high card draw. Do you think Do or Die (being a one way semi-wrath) is any good?

It doesn't have to be limited to instants and sorceries. I just bought a Visara the Dreadful. It's just the kind of reusable creature removal I was looking for.

Don't use creature removal if you are running Damia. Just ramp to 7-10 mana then Tooth & Nail for Palinchron + Deadeye or the demon that tutors + Deadeye and keep fetching broken combo pieces to win. Use countermagic to protect your combo or Damia. Damia is super, super nasty, nice Commander choice there.

I'm a lttle lazy to post a list at the moment, but my friend Rico's Azusa deck is nuts. Uses Bazaar of Baghdad, all the extra land effects, that crazy Satyr from Legends that control magics Legends, Hall of Gemstone, it has easily gone off turn 3-4 with all the mana in play.

Billy's Edric deck was quite good too, he had ALL the time warp effects that cost 5-6, including Capture of Xingzhou (sp?), Temporal Manipulation and the zodiac weenies just cos, more cards.

I had a Mayael deck and it was completely gross. I had Strionic Resonator in it to copy the triggers off Terastodon, Primus, Sylvan Primordial (at the time) and also had Illusionist's Bracers, Rings of Brighthearth to copy Mayael's ability. Add bombs like Iona, Avacyn, Titans...force your opponent to deal with your stuff or you kill them on the spot.

Even if you don't want to be degenerate, there are a ton of fun fatties you can crank out with Mayael, so I recomend her wholeheartedly!

It's fine, but how often are you going to have more than one dragon for this to be over the top?
I would have preferred to have something like:

G/W dragon: Whenever a dragon you control attacks, naturalize.
U/B dragon: Whenever a dragon you control attacks, Recoil or Lim Dul's Vault or...

As is, these are too weak for Commander by far, pretty good in Limited and mehish for Standard.

Quote from Redlimit »

"Typical" is far from the norm, really.

I live in Ottawa, we have several "big" stores and a very healthy Magic scene with lots of events and tournaments (in the past few years we have had many PTQs and otherwise)...and all shops combined have a grand total of 4 Tarmogoyf available to sell.

This is a busy Magic city - there are four big name stores that are big enough to have their own online inventory and ordering.

Regardless of its powerlevel, the card needs reprinting again. MM failed in this respect for many rare/mythic staples. It brought down the price of fringe-playables and did the job for most key commons/uncommons, but real staple rares only went up in price, which to the average player means they are even less accessible than they were back when stores had no stock of them at all.

I agree and to back this up did a search of Kessel Run, WIzard's Tower, Carta Magica and Tower has 6 'goyfs at the moment, Face to Face (in Montreal but deliveres within a day or two at near zero shipping cost) has 12, could not find the Carta search tool and...did it in a cirucuitous manner and found zero. I know CBS doesn't have any though.

And yes, reprinting it and a ton of other good commons like Serum Visions et al. is essential. Less Kamigawa dragons and more tournament playables...

We have some "not really pro" guys in Ottawa that are very competitive and successful at events and they do play Commander, but their decks are mostly highlander Legacy. Captain Sisay was a quite popular build for a while. Great to test against for sure.

Statecraft. Run it and love it. You are basically crippling one player from attacking for the rest of the game.
Moat if you can afford it.
Words of War and Words of Worship (skip a Zedruu draw, shock or gain five life)
Zur's Weirding, since you'll likely have more life than they do.

On the topic of Narset, I've never seen a build that didn't have multiple extra combat step enablers or extra turn enablers. The builds are pretty rote: Signets, other mana rocks, top of library enablers/top of library tutors, a few counterspells like Force of Will or soem small wipes like Pyroclasm to clear out weenies, then go for the win.

You need to focusfire the Narset player from turn 1 (strip their lands, naturalize their mana) or you're just not going to win in the long run. Narset generally has haste as well, either through Hall of the Bandit Lord or so on. Now, Arcane Lighthouse has been printed and it may allay things, but Narset is definitely not a fun commander to play against. Is it banworthy? Probably not (I'd ban a bunch of tutors before Narset) but it's definitely one of those social contract breakers.

my friend Jia has a really annoying pillow fort deck. He uses Child of Alara as his commander and the deck basically just tutors up Glacial Chasm, uses Life from the Loam to get the Chasm back, Oath of Druids to get Spike Weaver (and Gaea's Blessing trigger to get the other stuff back) and he has Constant Mists in there as well. Eventually you just get bored unless you play Armageddon or red for removal of damage-prevention. His only creatures are Eternal Witness and Spike Weaver. The other colours are basically all tutors and draw.

Quote from cryogen »

Quote from DTrain »

Library of Alexandria would compete with other colorless lands, but the reality is that it would win nearly every time. Very rarely are utility lands doing anything that's anywhere near as powerful as "draw a card," so it would be very rare that a utility land fits a deck so well that you're pushing Library out to be able to run it.

A lot of it will depend on the deck. There's only a certain set of decks that will consistently be able to hover around 6-7 cards in order to utilize Library, and of those decks, how many will be able to make room for Library?

Quote from Mercury01 »

Library of Alexandria would be an enormously powerful card in EDH. Think of all the ways to get a 7-card hand:

It would be an auto-include in any deck that runs Damia, Sage of Stone. Blue decks could use it with Timetwister, Time Spiral, Time Reversal, Temporal Cascade... heck, any X-spell like Skyscribing or Prosperity would give you an advantage. Red decks could use it with Wheel of Fortune, Reforge the Soul, and Dragon Mage. Any colour could use it with Memory Jar.

It's an incremental card advantage available to any deck, and that can add up over the course of a game, but it's also already a high-demand, expensive and scarce card.

It's not even that hard to stay at seven cards. Skullclamp still exists in this format, and there are endless dorks you can off to get back to seven. Or you just play Edric as your commander. Or use Sword of Fire and Ice or...the seven cards in hand drawback is negligible. The issue really is which other colorless lands are you competing with to insert Library of Alexandria.

Because everyone else at the table will try to get one too. Back when Phantasmal Image was a kill spell for commanders (and saw much more play), it wasn't uncommon for Prime Time to be immediately copied, or killed/reanimated etc. It was the definition of a centralizing card. The game basically stopped until everyone got 2-4 lands and those that didn't were pretty much dead in the water.

It should have just fetched basics (or just basic forests), but it was pushed pretty badly.

In my Teeg deck I use Avacyn's Pilgrim, Llanowar Elves, Krosan Verge, Windswept Heath, Arid Mesa, Kodama's Reach and Sakura-tribe Elder. I could probably run a few more Cultivate effects but I want threats out more often than I want to ramp, and really need 2-4 mana to win so...

Quote from GumgodMTG »

I was really hoping Tolarian would have a fair discussion and not a series of people just calling each other names. Yes it is powerful, but there are other powerful cards in the format, and it's very fun to play with. EDH is one of the places where cards like this could find a home since Vintage is not as popular now.

I also wish they would bring back mana burn in the official rules, but that's not going to happen anytime soon.

I'm just an old player wanting to play his old broken cards. Please leave your stereotypes out of it. I play artifacts, and blue is a good color to support them. I'm not a "blue player" here to ruin your format.

Well you can play Academy with your buds. I know I don't want to see it anywhere in any decks here in Ottawa:

1)Powered up Memnarch with Academy? Nope.
2)Powered up Arcum Dagson with Academy? Nope.
3)Azami, Lady of Scrolls with Academy for an extra 4-5 mana? Nope
4)Other blue splash decks that just throw it in for 4-7 more colorless? Nope.
5)Sygg deck with more room to counter/bounce? No thanks.

There isn't really a place where Academy wouldn't warp stuff, make stuff unfun or just become centralzing. I'd rather ban more fast mana than unban it.