If it were instant or hit any creature, I might consider it in monoblack as a way to mitigate some of the life loss frequently encountered in my monoblack builds. As a sorcery with targeting restrictions, I find it too underwhelming.
If there's a good mix at the table, land-wise, it's a reasonable way to steal some tempo. Especially against greedy GXY decks. Sometimes though, it does cause situations where there's one person with a Plains and they happen to also be mana screwed and that's usually crummy. However...I've been able to blank people's lands with Blood Moon and/or contamination, which is a bit harder to maintain but can have much greater mana screwing potential.
T-Don feels very Sundering Titan-like at times, the 3/3s are inconsequential most of the time and the additional options seem to make up for the lower number of destroyed permanents.
We play "assassin" which assigns a "target" to each player. If the target dies, that player wins. It helps keep the games moving and avoids awkward sudden-death type of things. We also play star quite a bit if we want something slightly longer than assassin but faster than "last man standing".
I love this rule, entices so much politics. Mind if I borrow it?
My group does not obey the new tuck rule. Some generals, like Derevi, Empyreal Tactician, are just too hard to remove for certain decks, so it's silly to frustrate everyone with the new rule.
We also allow people to use non-legendary creature as commander, provided that they are 'cool' enough by the group's vote, like Chromanticore
Please enjoy and let me know how your group likes the variant. We deployed it to get more games per night and avoid the dreaded "dead in the first 30 minutes of a 3 hour game".
We play "assassin" which assigns a "target" to each player. If the target dies, that player wins. It helps keep the games moving and avoids awkward sudden-death type of things. We also play star quite a bit if we want something slightly longer than assassin but faster than "last man standing".
Also have a gentleman's agreement to not run combos, it helps keep the playgroup on more level footing as we span a wide skill/finance range.
Not worth it in EDH. You'll plateau at 4-6 mana and all of the G/X decks will zip past you and start dropping bombs. Monoblack doesn't need LotD in EDH.
Cryptghast, nirkana Revenant, gauntlet of power, caged sun, tomb of yawg, coffers, vesuva, thespian, etc. If unmolested, monoblack is one of the few colors that can keep up with G/X in mana production, with no drawback!
It's fun on something like MTGO which automates a lot of the steps necessary to fully play it. It's a huge PITA when played IRL. That said, I've had some fun with it in 4x - decks. Toss an early harvest or rude awakening in there and go HAM.
Honestly, the main thing I want out of the banlist is more consistency.
I think everyone agrees that consistency would be nice, but I imagine that the RC believes that they are being pretty consistent within the guidelines that they've set up.
Painter's servant strikes me as a card that can be used in fair, fun ways.
I'm actually not sure about this. When you think of the cards that Painter's Servant interacts with, it is either going to generate a large advantage for you, say by drawing cards for every permanent you control of the specified colour, or a big disadvantage for your opponents, say by destroying all of their cards since they are of the specified colour. Once you start reaching past the early game, the sheer number of permanents on the battlefield that are suddenly going to become the chosen colour is going to be giving a huge swing that will only benefit the owner of the painter's servant. Maybe that isn't enough to get it banned by itself, but I doubt that it will feel especially fair to anyone but the owner of the Painter's Servant.
This applies to so many cards though. Damn near every card in the deck, assuming winning is of interest, is run and used to create an advantage. You play "destroy all creatures" when you have few or no creatures, you play "destroy all lands" when your mana comes from artifacts, you pay 2 mana to counter a 5 mana spell, and so on.
Griefers will grief, the means don't matter as the ends are what drives them.
This is too innocuous to draw a spot removal and therefore will probably only get blown up via sweepers. For a 2 mana down payment, this looks like it could be a solid cog in a deck's engine.
If there's a good mix at the table, land-wise, it's a reasonable way to steal some tempo. Especially against greedy GXY decks. Sometimes though, it does cause situations where there's one person with a Plains and they happen to also be mana screwed and that's usually crummy. However...I've been able to blank people's lands with Blood Moon and/or contamination, which is a bit harder to maintain but can have much greater mana screwing potential.
T-Don feels very Sundering Titan-like at times, the 3/3s are inconsequential most of the time and the additional options seem to make up for the lower number of destroyed permanents.
Please enjoy and let me know how your group likes the variant. We deployed it to get more games per night and avoid the dreaded "dead in the first 30 minutes of a 3 hour game".
Also have a gentleman's agreement to not run combos, it helps keep the playgroup on more level footing as we span a wide skill/finance range.
Cryptghast, nirkana Revenant, gauntlet of power, caged sun, tomb of yawg, coffers, vesuva, thespian, etc. If unmolested, monoblack is one of the few colors that can keep up with G/X in mana production, with no drawback!
As a combat general he lacks haste and doesn't hit particularly hard
As a control/combo general he doesn't do much to support either
Still fun to cast other people's spells though.
This applies to so many cards though. Damn near every card in the deck, assuming winning is of interest, is run and used to create an advantage. You play "destroy all creatures" when you have few or no creatures, you play "destroy all lands" when your mana comes from artifacts, you pay 2 mana to counter a 5 mana spell, and so on.
Griefers will grief, the means don't matter as the ends are what drives them.