Note: the rules committee has banned every U/G commander that has been printed if it has shown any promise. Edric, Derevi, and now Tasigur are on the chopping block.
In light of the new multi-player rule change, as a professional rules lawyer, this means that duel commander now gives you the option to send your commander to the command zone instead of your hand if bounced (the anti-tuck rule was already a part of duel commander).
This opens up some interesting new options (makes Skullbriar much better, he can actually win vs blue now!) and really helps out a lot of the newer generals that have interactions that only work from the command zone. This is a very good change I think that will help reduce the oppressiveness of blue in certain matchups, it might make some generals much more viable.
Spell Putty. Man that's cool. The power level is extremely high, however, as if you think about the 4 drops in the game, this is basically "demonic tutor by discarding a card". Slightly worse due to needing to cost 4, slightly better because you don't need the right mana to play it. Decks would be built around this card.
Jace's Tower
Land (R) T: Add U to your mana pool.
Other lands you control have hexproof.
Force of Will is actually one of the worst counterspells in the blue arsenal.
Uh... not sure if trolling. You can't, you just can't be serious.
Half the people in this thread are saying FoW is a bad card. This screams, "I'M A BAD CASUAL PLAYER". There is a reason the card is a 3 or 4 of in nearly every blue legacy deck. Hint: it's because it's the best counterspell in the game by leaps and bounds, and the kinds of things you use it on are WORTH the 2 for 1.
Force of Will is different in singleton. It's stronger, in singleton, because the cards you need to counter are more unique and the power of having a free spell is much stronger because the odds are inherently lower that you would have it in your hand. In legacy, you know you must play around Force so it's not as bad when it actually comes out against you. In singleton, it's just like... congrats you get to tap out for Jace (or another similar threat) in your control deck and keep it because you have Force. It's pretty silly. I'm not saying it should be banned (mostly because I don't care about the french format anymore because I'm jumping ship due to the overwhelmingly awful decisions and lack of communication of the rules committee), and I want to keep playing with it despite it's power level, but the things people are saying in this thread are utterly ridiculous.
At least a few of us decided that if Derevi was banned it was indicative that the rules committee was completely disconnected from the idea of a competitive format, and on top of that completely hypocritical. Zur gets 3 years with only pieces being banned before getting removed from the format - yet Derevi gets banned in a few months? At the very least it's hypocritical as there was no attempt to ban any cards that might have made the deck very strong in an attempt to balance it. And the reasoning itself names interactions with a few cards that, while strong certainly, already require a strong board and for you to be winning to be oppressive (Hokori). There are many decks that can create very strong board positions like this with just a card or two and their general.
There has been absolutely no communication between the french rules committee and the english-speaking players. This is the most active and largest forum, right here, and most people here were against banning Derevi in the thread in which is was discussed (and certainly, the people that actually gave any reasoning were mostly against it). Frankly, it seems to me that the french rules committee very much wants the french to continue controlling their format. And that's fine. But since they want to be insular and exert their control over others... well that's a reason we shouldn't follow them.
I want a competitive format. With competitive cards. Looking through the recent tournaments - really? The Derevi ban? Derevi did well, sure, but it was not oppressive or dominating top 8s. And people hadn't really been changing their decks to deal with it at all. Surely this format has been much more diverse than standard, for example (where you can find many lists with 7/8 decks being black or blue devotion).
The banning of Derevi, like Edric, says a few things: namely, that the only viable decks should be control and ramp. Derevi and Edric make red decks better. The good combos that can actually win have been banned (think about it... Protean Hulk, Loyal Retainers, Oath of Druids, Hermit Druid). And really... grim monolith?
And with that we will be creating an American Duel Commander. Information will be forthcoming. Time for the largest population of players to control the format.
Geist vs edric is definitely NOT a 50/50 matchup.
It is true that derevi, marath might do decently against edric, but as I said in my last post, besides decks (usually red) that have tons of spot removal for a 2/2 and fast boardwipes like pyroclasm OR decks that run a large number of creatures maybe 35-40 +, most of the other decks in the field would be discouraged simply because of edrics existence. U dont want tournaments to be a luck of the draw pairings or you dont want a edric to completely shut off a few archetypes of decks by himself. As you said, legacy has a SIDEBOARD to change the game 1 matchup which french duelcommander does not.
If you refer to http://duelcommander.com/ and read the article "What's in a banlist". The article clearly says the "criteria" the french duel commander consider when making a banlist. They mention in the article about wanting to give every archetype a chance and they also mention regarding casual french commander playgroups. Below is a paragraph directly copy and pasted from the article.
"We’ve received an e-mail coming for a player who said that his group of friends started Duel Commander, but at some point one of them figured he’d try Edric, Spymaster of Trest as a Commander, and as a result not only crushed the others, but left them with the impression that there was nothing they could do about it. This group of players is not playing Duel Commander anymore. Edric was winning tournaments and the numbers could have been sufficient to justify a ban, but this kind of mishap, which can easily happen as Edric is very easy to build and play, is a big enough reason to leave it banned. We care about casual players as much as about competitive ones. Having strong decks is fine, but having strong decks which are still strong in the hands of noncompetitive players and very hard to fight against is not fine."
You can see based on the paragraph that edric being very strong in terms of power level is not the only consideration for its ban. The rules committee also cares about other aspects of the game such as the causal community in order for the french duel commander format to grow. I think unbanning edric would be very bad for the format overall, considering more then just matchups and dominance inside the competitive meta game.
At the end of the day, posting our thoughts or discussing on the forums is quite useless. I will have my opinion and you will have yours and it would be hard to change eachother's minds. I just hope that French Duel commander committee does NOT unban edric and instead does something about zur's dominance, maybe even derevi x)
Except we already showed, in this thread, that Edric never dominated the format the way Zur has, and Zur has been doing it for literally years.
Your assertion that Giest/Edric isn't 50/50 is unfounded. They met many times in those top 8s and split the top spots (go ahead and look at Tagas post and verify for yourself). You also have two former Edric players here that also played hundreds of their games vs Geist lists and are telling you it's 50/50. No game in that matchup is a gimme and that's why they split the prize so many times. Without Image and Metamorph that matchup also becomes more problematic, as Geist can race very well and even with tons of draws Edric can't answer it well. But that's a discussion about one matchup, let's not let it distract from the overall point.
Every archetype except control will be boosted by Edric being in the game. And control won't go away entirely, it will still win tournaments because they can still get wins against Edric and will still dominate most other matchups. I'd love to see Marath taking top spots, Nin returning to the game, Rhada...
If the reasoning is truly that Edric is too strong in a casual playgroup, then we have a problem, because the rest of the banlist is clearly oriented around competitive play. You know what generals are unfun in casual play? Geist. Zur. Grand Arbiter. These are not fun decks to play against with a casual deck (honestly I don't enjoy playing against them with any deck, and I have decks that can beat them consistently!). That whole article (here for those reading) raises a serious issue in my opinion. No format, no game, should be balanced mostly around low-level play, but I also don't think the argument holds because none of the top decks would be fun in casual play. Also, frankly, an anecdote is just that, some casual playgroup throwing decks together and being shocked that one deck is much stronger is not really meaningful. Give them a few months to build a deck and put some effort into it and let's see what happens.
Note that the last time Taga and I supported a card being unbanned, it was Bitterblossom. And everyone argued against us for the better part of a year. But I think the last several months have proven us to be correct that it should be unbanned, and I think we are right again.
I think if we unban it and it's a problem (meaning, winning every tournament asymmetrically for 6 months) then we can say we were wrong. But I don't think this will happen. I don't think people practicing in their playgroups vs their Zur and GA lists really mean much. Unleash it in a competitive environment with the new decks and let's see. I don't even want to play it again, but I don't think it should be banned. Note that this doesn't mean I expect it to do poorly (I think we'll see an Edric in many if not most top 8s), but I am certain, 100% certain, that it will not even be as dominant as Zur has been in the past year or two.
unbanning edric is probably one of the worse ideas I have heard.
A lot of people seem to think that unbanning a broken/OP general (edric) is an acceptable way to deal with another OP general (zur). This is not true for sure.
Edric is a very very oppressive commander that usually gets cast on turn 2 and draws 2 cards on turn 3 on a regular basis. Sure there are lots of ways to "deal" with this, counters, removal and all these things that players will mention. In reality, if you have played vs edric, there are games where u will have force spike or swords in hand and you don't lose right away but for every game that u dont have it, you automatically lose. Edric simply generates WAY too much card advantage if hes not IMMEDIATELY dealt with. This turns french duel commander more into a luck of the draw or mull till you have a cheap removal game. Edric also encourages a very oppressive game play which is attack, draw tons of cards then counter what the opponent is doing and repeat until you win.
Edric is a very oppressive commander that forces players to build their decks a certain way with tons of early game removal to kill a 2/2 and boardwipes. All other types of decks or slower decks will cease to exist in the format.
Bottom line is: there will always be players that will give tons and tons of situations where edric can be dealt with or where edric is not op. But in reality if you have played against the commander with large enough sample size the results are different. Unless u are playing a red deck with 50 burn/boardwipes in it (exaggeration) or your deck has tons of creatures to stop edric's creatures from attacking.
No no no. You are still not getting it. Let's break this down.
"In reality, if you have played vs edric, there are games where u will have force spike or swords in hand and you don't lose right away but for every game that u dont have it, you automatically lose."
No. This is just untrue. If you are playing a control deck, yes, you need a cheap counter or removal. OTHER DECKS DO NOT CARE. Aggro decks do not care if you play Edric. You can't swing with him or your other creatures against them. They can burn him or wait.
If you aren't a) playing a removal spell b) playing a counterspell or c) playing creatures on the first 3 turns of the game, then what exactly was your plan? You kept a bad hand, you have a terrible deck, or you are really confused and somebody put you at a table in front of a pile of cards and said "go nuts".
"Edric simply generates WAY too much card advantage if hes not IMMEDIATELY dealt with."
This is hyperbole. If Edric draws 1-2 cards early? Yeah, he's doing what Edric does and it's an advantage for him (every card you play should generate some sort of advantage!). But this is not "way too much" card advantage. After his first or second turn swinging without any blocks or removal he equals a harmonize. And again, if you're doing literally nothing to interact with your opponent, you deserve to lose and lose badly.
"This turns french duel commander more into a luck of the draw or mull till you have a cheap removal game."
As I said earlier, I'd consider a hand that doesn't have any way to deal with the threats your opponent has or doesn't give you a strong board position to be a bad one. In any matchup. You don't need removal. You can have removal (red, white, or black), discard, blockers, or bigger threats that Edric must address quickly. You can even have bounce or sweepers.
"Edric is a very oppressive commander that forces players to build their decks a certain way with tons of early game removal to kill a 2/2 and boardwipes. All other types of decks or slower decks will cease to exist in the format."
No. They will just lose to Edric. And that is OK. Even in Legacy, some decks have an overwhelming advantage vs certain other archetypes. To the point where wins are extremely unlikely (at least after game 1). While Edric was legal, we had wins by combo decks (Iname), ramp decks (Wanderer), and aggro decks (Ezuri). Cease to exist? This has already been disproven.
To address this idea more generally (that certain decks would have to change builds to deal with other decks), this is part of the reason that sideboards might make more sense in this format than most think. You could have a sideboard running a few sweepers, or spot removal, or other tools you might need to beat certain matchups you might otherwise have trouble with. Why should a 60 card format have a 15 card sideboard while EDH has none? I think a 10-15 card sideboard would be fine and might open up some more deckbuilding options and result in better tournament games.
"Bottom line is: there will always be players that will give tons and tons of situations where edric can be dealt with or where edric is not op. But in reality if you have played against the commander with large enough sample size the results are different. Unless u are playing a red deck with 50 burn/boardwipes in it (exaggeration) or your deck has tons of creatures to stop edric's creatures from attacking."
We've just listed several decks that have 50/50 or favorable matchups against Edric. Geist is 50/50, Marath and Derevi will crush it (along with some others). And these decks are POPULAR.
asimov also makes a good point, without being able to deal with generals as easily now (since Image and Metamorph are useless now) the deck is probably significantly weaker than it was. It used to be survival of the fittest for one of these if there was a general you couldn't get off the table (like Geist, Zur).
The fact that the rules committee never looked at banning Image or Survival at the time also indicates that they weren't really giving Edric the same chance they gave Zur. I think that removing either would have dropped Edric's winrate enormously, and it was being played by other decks at the time (though it is now).
I don't really agree with most of your suggested matchups Merlot. Marath is obviously good against Edric, but others like Derevi are just bad. Derevi gives you access to W which usually ends up being a splash. Most Deveri's lists are just trying to put an Edric effect into play (like Coastal Piracy).
Edric is just far more superior, you don't have to search for it, it's already there. And if your opponent plays Derevi, just copy it, swing with 5-6 creatures and don't care about one dying to Derevi considering you are going to untap everything anyway.
Decks with R do usually fine against Edric. Marath and Prossh really help to make Edric less of a threat in the format, I have to agree with that. However, I don't really see Geist, GAAIV or Doran winning much against Edric honestly.
You ignored the content of his post and don't understand the deck.
Edric's static ability is strong, that's why Derevi (or any deck running lots of creature and blue) wants it. Derevi just happens to be the only one suited for it in the meta.
I played Edric vs Geist hundreds of times as well, it's a 50/50. Maybe slightly in Edric's favor with certain builds.
Derevi would crush Edric for the reasons Merlot listed - Edric would never get a clean swing in. You can even blink in Derevi on the turn he would attack to tap down his biggest threat and kill Edric. You can do this over and over. This is the same reason that Derevi can have its way with Geist, because being a 2/3 flier makes it just big enough to block the general and then some, plus there is the rest of the deck. "Swing in with 5-6 creatures". You don't understand. That's what Derevi would be doing. And they'll be bigger. And then Derevi will untap them to prevent any counter swing.
I played midrange Edric and played a lot of games vs Rhada with it, it was a 50/50. The swarm version of Edric gets crushed by it horribly.
Doran is really disruptive and if you've never played against it, you should know that this guy is getting a 5/5 on the same turn that you get your 2/2. How does Edric swing into that? Dorans also has plenty of removal to get rid of Edric and other significant threats. Plan on winning the game on the backs of 1/1 fliers without those draws? Good luck.
Marath would wreck Edric.
I don't really care anymore really, as I'm going to stick with Derevi and probably build Marath which will beat both, so... do what you want, but Edric 100% does not need a ban (and didn't before, but that's another topic).
I just think it's disingenuous for everyone to be saying things like "if Edric has a counterspell in his opening hand, only rotten luck will save you." It's like everyone is looking at these situations as though they expect to do nothing for the first few turns, and also expect their opponent to somehow be able to set up his board without spending any mana. The way I see it, if you can't interact with your opponent in any way on turns 1-3 (which includes drawing out an opposing counter), then you kept a bad hand and you deserve to lose, regardless of what general you're playing against.
I mean, yes, Edric has a very good chance of coming down on turn 2 thanks to mana dorks, but that means your opponent is tapping out to play him. Say Edric goes T1 mana dork, T2 Edric, and Marath goes T1 mana dork, T2 Marath. Now what? The Edric player is instantly on the defensive. If he's lucky, he's got one of his scanty removal/bounce options in hand. But most of the time he's going to be unable to attack into Marath's 3/3 body, and as soon as Marath untaps, Edric and the dork are dead.
This is the thing that no one really seems to remember about Edric: Edric decks suck without Edric. All it takes is disrupting or killing him once, and things become way easier. Yeah, that means you have to tailor your opening few turns to keeping your opponent off Edric, but so what? That's the exact same way you play against Geist or Zur or any general who costs 3 or 4 and is integral to your opponent's win. Or do none of these UWx decks play Force Spike or Daze or Mana Tithe or any 1-cc removal any more? Zur, Derevi, and plenty of other decks can easily win without ever casting their general. Edric can't.
I could also see Doran returning to the top of the ladder if Edric were unbanned. Back when I played Edric, Doran could completely waste me. Between hand disruption, oodles of removal, and his own ramp, more often than not Edric was not coming down early, or else he'd just be staring down a 5/5 or be killed.
I really feel like unbanning Edric for a few months to see what happens would actually help the meta; Marath would be hands down a tier 1 deck for good, which is a good thing, because what this format needs is more non-U decks in the upper ranks. And it would probably make a Zur ban unnecessary. Pressure from Derevi alone isn't going to break Zur's dominance, but pressure from Derevi and Edric, and Marath as a Derevi and Edric-killer, would almost certainly even things out substantially.
Agree again with everything you've said. If you can't handle a tapped-out players defenseless 2/2 on turn 2 or 3, then you kept a bad hand. Sure, once every 15-20 games they will have a Force of Will as well as their only out, but otherwise, you should have blockers or removal.
Reintroducing Edric will weaken the current top tier slightly but will help a lot of decks become more viable because they have favorable matchups against Edric (Marath, other aggro, combo) who would probably be fairly popular.
I think it is both funny and telling that everyone is just ignoring the actual results Taga posted. Edric never dominated the way Zur did, the results prove it, you guys just don't want to play against it.
Zavros and I have been playtesting various decks against edric tonight and the deck still feels hyper oppressive. the main problem with edric is that you need a sweeper every game on turn 2/3/4 depending on if he is on the play or the draw. because of this decks have to play 4 or 5 early sweepers just to try and keep up, from here edric can still recover because you throw so much card disadvantage in order to try and wrath his board, digging with cantrips or tutors etc that he can still recover on his second drop. in addition, theres nothing you can take from his hand to stop him from coming down on turn 3. The deck still feels rather oppressive, and the thing is the decks we pulled from the final tournament edric was in, actually felt untuned in comparison to the quality of decks we are seeing in duel commander today. Yes toxic deluge has been printed and so have a few other cards but edric now has true name nemesis, as well as the quality of deckbuilders today. I think that the deck would remove more decks from the format than it would add. Also it isnt fun to play against at all.
In addition we have to remember that force of will exists in the format and if a sweeper drops on turn 3 and the edric player forces you lose. By adding cards into your deck to play against edric you weaken your other matchups. the deck does play counters, including force spike and other one drop counter spells. Also the decks we were playing werent even running spiketail hatchling or drake, which would further protect the deck from pyroclasm effects.
Zur draws you a single card when it swings, edric draws you 2 or 3 every single attack step, not to mention whatever kill spells the opponent has to discard in order to kill edric himself or whatever creatures are sitting on the field.
I'm so happy this card is banned after playing it, this general is broken beyond anything else
*throws hands in air*
No no no.
You need a sweeper turn 3/4 if you are playing a non-interactive control deck that wants to answer Edric's entire board with one card. Aggro strategies can just ignore most of what Edric does, have blockers, etc, and kill spells for his evasive creatures or Edric itself. If Edric plays 3-4 creatures and you kill them all with one sweeper how is that card disadvantage for the control deck like you said?! Heavens forbid that you might have to play midrange or aggro to have a good matchup against Edric! It's almost like the format could have more than one archetype!
Zur doesn't draw a card. It TUTORS and PUTS IT INTO PLAY. Not sure you're away how much stronger that is, but it's probably 2 orders of magnitude more potent.
The fact that control decks DON'T have to run 4-5 sweepers already should be an utter condemnation of the state of the format. Control decks can basically play as if aggro doesn't exist (or partly aggro strategies), because frankly, it barely does in this format.
As for being "fun to play against", I don't think anyone in their right mind would say they enjoy playing against Zur or Grand Arbiter, which are actually far more oppressive decks by a mile that literally prevent their opponents from playing magic. Edric games were at least interactive in my experience and if you had one in your playgroup people had to run interactive cards and the first few turns of the game actually mattered.
You know what happened when Edric was banned? Edric disappeared from top 8s. So did a lot of mono-color decks, aggro, and combo decks. Then Zur, GA, Geist started dominating without any worries, with the occasional MW thrown in when they lucked out against a control deck. The effect the rules committee desired is simply not what happened, their assessment was wrong in implementing the ban, and the results speak for themselves.
1 Maelstrom Wanderer
2 Zur the Enchanter
3/4 Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
3/4 Zur the Enchanter
5/8 Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
5/8 Prossh, Skyraider of Kher
5/8 Nin, the Pain Artist
5/8 Zur the Enchanter
Two very different Derevi lists, quite surprised that the 5/8 did well, but I guess that shows the power of control in this format that running only a few threats and relying on equipment can win.
Three Zur as usual. Each one running Helm / Rest in Peace as what seems to be their main wincon (other than grinding with Zur of course).
The 2nd place Derevi there is running even less creatures and a few more control pieces (like O ring, D sphere). The 8th place list is running far more creatures (42!) and is the only one running Survival. The 4th and 8th place lists both run Natural Order, which I might include just because I can turn a mana dork into Prime Time early.
This opens up some interesting new options (makes Skullbriar much better, he can actually win vs blue now!) and really helps out a lot of the newer generals that have interactions that only work from the command zone. This is a very good change I think that will help reduce the oppressiveness of blue in certain matchups, it might make some generals much more viable.
Jace's Tower
Land (R)
T: Add U to your mana pool.
Other lands you control have hexproof.
Uh... not sure if trolling. You can't, you just can't be serious.
Half the people in this thread are saying FoW is a bad card. This screams, "I'M A BAD CASUAL PLAYER". There is a reason the card is a 3 or 4 of in nearly every blue legacy deck. Hint: it's because it's the best counterspell in the game by leaps and bounds, and the kinds of things you use it on are WORTH the 2 for 1.
Force of Will is different in singleton. It's stronger, in singleton, because the cards you need to counter are more unique and the power of having a free spell is much stronger because the odds are inherently lower that you would have it in your hand. In legacy, you know you must play around Force so it's not as bad when it actually comes out against you. In singleton, it's just like... congrats you get to tap out for Jace (or another similar threat) in your control deck and keep it because you have Force. It's pretty silly. I'm not saying it should be banned (mostly because I don't care about the french format anymore because I'm jumping ship due to the overwhelmingly awful decisions and lack of communication of the rules committee), and I want to keep playing with it despite it's power level, but the things people are saying in this thread are utterly ridiculous.
Also, @Lyserg: all three Zur lists from this event ran it (http://www.mtgtop8.com/event2?e=6264&d=236000), one of the two from this ran it (http://www.mtgtop8.com/event2?e=6298&d=236235) and this is just 2 of the last 3 triple star events from mtgtop8. I just checked the most recent even on there as well, where it was run in all 4 of the top 4 decks (http://www.mtgtop8.com/event2?e=6364&d=236641). In other words, I'm calling you out for your blatantly false statement.
At least a few of us decided that if Derevi was banned it was indicative that the rules committee was completely disconnected from the idea of a competitive format, and on top of that completely hypocritical. Zur gets 3 years with only pieces being banned before getting removed from the format - yet Derevi gets banned in a few months? At the very least it's hypocritical as there was no attempt to ban any cards that might have made the deck very strong in an attempt to balance it. And the reasoning itself names interactions with a few cards that, while strong certainly, already require a strong board and for you to be winning to be oppressive (Hokori). There are many decks that can create very strong board positions like this with just a card or two and their general.
There has been absolutely no communication between the french rules committee and the english-speaking players. This is the most active and largest forum, right here, and most people here were against banning Derevi in the thread in which is was discussed (and certainly, the people that actually gave any reasoning were mostly against it). Frankly, it seems to me that the french rules committee very much wants the french to continue controlling their format. And that's fine. But since they want to be insular and exert their control over others... well that's a reason we shouldn't follow them.
I want a competitive format. With competitive cards. Looking through the recent tournaments - really? The Derevi ban? Derevi did well, sure, but it was not oppressive or dominating top 8s. And people hadn't really been changing their decks to deal with it at all. Surely this format has been much more diverse than standard, for example (where you can find many lists with 7/8 decks being black or blue devotion).
The banning of Derevi, like Edric, says a few things: namely, that the only viable decks should be control and ramp. Derevi and Edric make red decks better. The good combos that can actually win have been banned (think about it... Protean Hulk, Loyal Retainers, Oath of Druids, Hermit Druid). And really... grim monolith?
My official seal of "terrible, who put this card at rare". The meta would have to be perfect for it to be playable, even in monored I think...
Except we already showed, in this thread, that Edric never dominated the format the way Zur has, and Zur has been doing it for literally years.
Your assertion that Giest/Edric isn't 50/50 is unfounded. They met many times in those top 8s and split the top spots (go ahead and look at Tagas post and verify for yourself). You also have two former Edric players here that also played hundreds of their games vs Geist lists and are telling you it's 50/50. No game in that matchup is a gimme and that's why they split the prize so many times. Without Image and Metamorph that matchup also becomes more problematic, as Geist can race very well and even with tons of draws Edric can't answer it well. But that's a discussion about one matchup, let's not let it distract from the overall point.
Every archetype except control will be boosted by Edric being in the game. And control won't go away entirely, it will still win tournaments because they can still get wins against Edric and will still dominate most other matchups. I'd love to see Marath taking top spots, Nin returning to the game, Rhada...
If the reasoning is truly that Edric is too strong in a casual playgroup, then we have a problem, because the rest of the banlist is clearly oriented around competitive play. You know what generals are unfun in casual play? Geist. Zur. Grand Arbiter. These are not fun decks to play against with a casual deck (honestly I don't enjoy playing against them with any deck, and I have decks that can beat them consistently!). That whole article (here for those reading) raises a serious issue in my opinion. No format, no game, should be balanced mostly around low-level play, but I also don't think the argument holds because none of the top decks would be fun in casual play. Also, frankly, an anecdote is just that, some casual playgroup throwing decks together and being shocked that one deck is much stronger is not really meaningful. Give them a few months to build a deck and put some effort into it and let's see what happens.
Note that the last time Taga and I supported a card being unbanned, it was Bitterblossom. And everyone argued against us for the better part of a year. But I think the last several months have proven us to be correct that it should be unbanned, and I think we are right again.
I think if we unban it and it's a problem (meaning, winning every tournament asymmetrically for 6 months) then we can say we were wrong. But I don't think this will happen. I don't think people practicing in their playgroups vs their Zur and GA lists really mean much. Unleash it in a competitive environment with the new decks and let's see. I don't even want to play it again, but I don't think it should be banned. Note that this doesn't mean I expect it to do poorly (I think we'll see an Edric in many if not most top 8s), but I am certain, 100% certain, that it will not even be as dominant as Zur has been in the past year or two.
No no no. You are still not getting it. Let's break this down.
"In reality, if you have played vs edric, there are games where u will have force spike or swords in hand and you don't lose right away but for every game that u dont have it, you automatically lose."
No. This is just untrue. If you are playing a control deck, yes, you need a cheap counter or removal. OTHER DECKS DO NOT CARE. Aggro decks do not care if you play Edric. You can't swing with him or your other creatures against them. They can burn him or wait.
If you aren't a) playing a removal spell b) playing a counterspell or c) playing creatures on the first 3 turns of the game, then what exactly was your plan? You kept a bad hand, you have a terrible deck, or you are really confused and somebody put you at a table in front of a pile of cards and said "go nuts".
"Edric simply generates WAY too much card advantage if hes not IMMEDIATELY dealt with."
This is hyperbole. If Edric draws 1-2 cards early? Yeah, he's doing what Edric does and it's an advantage for him (every card you play should generate some sort of advantage!). But this is not "way too much" card advantage. After his first or second turn swinging without any blocks or removal he equals a harmonize. And again, if you're doing literally nothing to interact with your opponent, you deserve to lose and lose badly.
"This turns french duel commander more into a luck of the draw or mull till you have a cheap removal game."
As I said earlier, I'd consider a hand that doesn't have any way to deal with the threats your opponent has or doesn't give you a strong board position to be a bad one. In any matchup. You don't need removal. You can have removal (red, white, or black), discard, blockers, or bigger threats that Edric must address quickly. You can even have bounce or sweepers.
"Edric is a very oppressive commander that forces players to build their decks a certain way with tons of early game removal to kill a 2/2 and boardwipes. All other types of decks or slower decks will cease to exist in the format."
No. They will just lose to Edric. And that is OK. Even in Legacy, some decks have an overwhelming advantage vs certain other archetypes. To the point where wins are extremely unlikely (at least after game 1). While Edric was legal, we had wins by combo decks (Iname), ramp decks (Wanderer), and aggro decks (Ezuri). Cease to exist? This has already been disproven.
To address this idea more generally (that certain decks would have to change builds to deal with other decks), this is part of the reason that sideboards might make more sense in this format than most think. You could have a sideboard running a few sweepers, or spot removal, or other tools you might need to beat certain matchups you might otherwise have trouble with. Why should a 60 card format have a 15 card sideboard while EDH has none? I think a 10-15 card sideboard would be fine and might open up some more deckbuilding options and result in better tournament games.
"Bottom line is: there will always be players that will give tons and tons of situations where edric can be dealt with or where edric is not op. But in reality if you have played against the commander with large enough sample size the results are different. Unless u are playing a red deck with 50 burn/boardwipes in it (exaggeration) or your deck has tons of creatures to stop edric's creatures from attacking."
We've just listed several decks that have 50/50 or favorable matchups against Edric. Geist is 50/50, Marath and Derevi will crush it (along with some others). And these decks are POPULAR.
asimov also makes a good point, without being able to deal with generals as easily now (since Image and Metamorph are useless now) the deck is probably significantly weaker than it was. It used to be survival of the fittest for one of these if there was a general you couldn't get off the table (like Geist, Zur).
The fact that the rules committee never looked at banning Image or Survival at the time also indicates that they weren't really giving Edric the same chance they gave Zur. I think that removing either would have dropped Edric's winrate enormously, and it was being played by other decks at the time (though it is now).
You ignored the content of his post and don't understand the deck.
Edric's static ability is strong, that's why Derevi (or any deck running lots of creature and blue) wants it. Derevi just happens to be the only one suited for it in the meta.
I played Edric vs Geist hundreds of times as well, it's a 50/50. Maybe slightly in Edric's favor with certain builds.
Derevi would crush Edric for the reasons Merlot listed - Edric would never get a clean swing in. You can even blink in Derevi on the turn he would attack to tap down his biggest threat and kill Edric. You can do this over and over. This is the same reason that Derevi can have its way with Geist, because being a 2/3 flier makes it just big enough to block the general and then some, plus there is the rest of the deck. "Swing in with 5-6 creatures". You don't understand. That's what Derevi would be doing. And they'll be bigger. And then Derevi will untap them to prevent any counter swing.
I played midrange Edric and played a lot of games vs Rhada with it, it was a 50/50. The swarm version of Edric gets crushed by it horribly.
Doran is really disruptive and if you've never played against it, you should know that this guy is getting a 5/5 on the same turn that you get your 2/2. How does Edric swing into that? Dorans also has plenty of removal to get rid of Edric and other significant threats. Plan on winning the game on the backs of 1/1 fliers without those draws? Good luck.
Marath would wreck Edric.
I don't really care anymore really, as I'm going to stick with Derevi and probably build Marath which will beat both, so... do what you want, but Edric 100% does not need a ban (and didn't before, but that's another topic).
Agree again with everything you've said. If you can't handle a tapped-out players defenseless 2/2 on turn 2 or 3, then you kept a bad hand. Sure, once every 15-20 games they will have a Force of Will as well as their only out, but otherwise, you should have blockers or removal.
Reintroducing Edric will weaken the current top tier slightly but will help a lot of decks become more viable because they have favorable matchups against Edric (Marath, other aggro, combo) who would probably be fairly popular.
No no no.
You need a sweeper turn 3/4 if you are playing a non-interactive control deck that wants to answer Edric's entire board with one card. Aggro strategies can just ignore most of what Edric does, have blockers, etc, and kill spells for his evasive creatures or Edric itself. If Edric plays 3-4 creatures and you kill them all with one sweeper how is that card disadvantage for the control deck like you said?! Heavens forbid that you might have to play midrange or aggro to have a good matchup against Edric! It's almost like the format could have more than one archetype!
Zur doesn't draw a card. It TUTORS and PUTS IT INTO PLAY. Not sure you're away how much stronger that is, but it's probably 2 orders of magnitude more potent.
The fact that control decks DON'T have to run 4-5 sweepers already should be an utter condemnation of the state of the format. Control decks can basically play as if aggro doesn't exist (or partly aggro strategies), because frankly, it barely does in this format.
As for being "fun to play against", I don't think anyone in their right mind would say they enjoy playing against Zur or Grand Arbiter, which are actually far more oppressive decks by a mile that literally prevent their opponents from playing magic. Edric games were at least interactive in my experience and if you had one in your playgroup people had to run interactive cards and the first few turns of the game actually mattered.
You know what happened when Edric was banned? Edric disappeared from top 8s. So did a lot of mono-color decks, aggro, and combo decks. Then Zur, GA, Geist started dominating without any worries, with the occasional MW thrown in when they lucked out against a control deck. The effect the rules committee desired is simply not what happened, their assessment was wrong in implementing the ban, and the results speak for themselves.
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event2?e=6298
Top 8:
1 Maelstrom Wanderer
2 Zur the Enchanter
3/4 Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
3/4 Zur the Enchanter
5/8 Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
5/8 Prossh, Skyraider of Kher
5/8 Nin, the Pain Artist
5/8 Zur the Enchanter
Two very different Derevi lists, quite surprised that the 5/8 did well, but I guess that shows the power of control in this format that running only a few threats and relying on equipment can win.
Three Zur as usual. Each one running Helm / Rest in Peace as what seems to be their main wincon (other than grinding with Zur of course).
The 2nd place Derevi there is running even less creatures and a few more control pieces (like O ring, D sphere). The 8th place list is running far more creatures (42!) and is the only one running Survival. The 4th and 8th place lists both run Natural Order, which I might include just because I can turn a mana dork into Prime Time early.