MTG Salvation

You could always do a pauper qumulox or quillspike deck for Q.

Quote from LimDuhl

It's to much for you but there are more people out who think it's not.

If you have problems with ramp spells why do you don't whant them banned?
Cultivate gives you cardadvantage all way. You tutor two land's drop one (ramp) and take the other for next turn. I think cultivate is fine doesen't matter if you play it Turn 2 or three...

I'm just sick of hearing the same crap from different people again and again...

Let's count: Land / Mana Craypt / Cultivate / Land / Land = 5 Mana on turn two, used card's: 5
We're coming back to the ridicolous stupid godhand-scenarios...

You can't lose to SolRing because SolRing doesen't kill unless you make it a 1/1 creature to beat face's...
Otherwise we would have the same ridicolous scenarios like "I don't whana count all the times when I was beaten by Islands..."

If you as one of the let's say 30% of the playerbase who think that all this kind of cards you mentioned are broken and should be banned. Why you don't think about the other 70% who think it's not?
From my point of view you don't whant to make commander a better format. You just whant to increase your own win-percentage while ya don't whant to spend your money in card's that make your deck better.
Maybe that's just me.

I love how much crap you're assuming about me as a player in your arguments. You think I don't want to spend MONEY to get a sol ring or mana crypt? I've got six sol rings and a mana crypt, and if I wanted I could get 3 more mana crypts without spending a dime just from the store credit at my LGS. And if they got banned tomorrow and all of them were worth a nickel I'd rejoice, because the health of the format is way more important to me than how much I spend on a few cards. And I already told you, I haven't lost any games recently to the card. That doesn't mean it isn't broken and a half.

People who say sol ring/mana crypt aren't broken, imo, say it for one of two reasons: either they don't have any powerful decks in their meta, or they just really don't want to lose it in their own decks.

I agree that, if your meta doesn't have any powerful decks, sol ring is not dangerously overpowered. It gives one person a speed advantage which is offset by the table attacking them harder. In that situation, it's mostly fine. But when you're looking at powerful bombs coming out 2 turns earlier it gets degenerate as all hell. Just looking down at my binder and noticing vorinclex...In a vorinclex deck it'd be fairly typical with a mana crypt hand to go T1 land, crypt, 3-mana ramp spell (cultivate, darksteel ingot, coalition relic, worn powerstone, kodama's reach, etc...), T2 land, 4-5 mana ramp spell (sisay's ring, ur-golem's eye, explosive vegetation, hunting wilds, etc....did you notice that most of these cards aren't even very good?), T3 land, vorinclex.

So in an, imo, pretty typical hand for vorinclex, we've suddenly got a freaking 8-drop - and a very dangerous 8-drop - hitting the field on turn THREE. Hell, if this was GB and he had a tooth and nail he could have just WON. And don't get all whiny about "godhand scenarios", there are literally dozens of cards that fit the bill for 3-mana-ramp and 4-mana-ramp, and many of them are played in a deck like that. Vorinclex on turn 5? Reasonable. Vorinclex on turn 3? Ridiculous. And all it takes is a mana crypt to get that ball rolling. It's functioning like a time stretch for ZERO.

If you think I'm the only one who thinks mana crypt and sol ring should be banned...do me a favor and look at the legality of sol ring and mana crypt in other formats. Oh, what's that? Banned in legacy and restricted in vintage? Gee, it's almost like the DCI, who's job it is to control the power level of formats, thinks the card is massively OP. Hell, it's banned on the french EDH list too. For some reason multiplayer EDH is the one format where these cards are totally legal and it's a freaking joke. We're banning Emrakul and sundering titan because they're big scary bombs, without seeing that what makes them so much more degenerate is the ability to play them TWO TURNS EARLIER off the broken ramp that we stubbornly keep legal. Banning fast mana would balance this format so much better it's not even funny.

EDIT: alltime favorite quote from your post: "You can't lose to SolRing because SolRing doesen't kill unless you make it a 1/1 creature to beat face's...". Wow. That's just some stunning logic right there. Well in that case let's legalize time walk and ancestral recall, right? You don't lose to those cards either!

Quote from timmiej

So you are arguing that 2 mana is way too much mana in the first turns..?

4 mana on turn 2? Yeah, it's too much. and it can roll into other mana rocks too...land -> sol ring -> talisan, or land -> crypt -> cultivate give you 5 mana on turn 2.

There's really only (to my mind) a small handful of cards that really destroy the speed of acceptable ramp. the vast majority of ramp follows a pretty reasonable cost, like talismans and cultivate. 2 mana gives you +1 mana, and 3 gives you +1 mana with some sort of nice bonus usually (like a land to hand, or colorfixing on lands, or indestrictibility, or whatever). 4 mana usually gets you 2 mana.

Sol ring and mana crypt are just so stupidly beyond the acceptable curve for ramp that it's obvious that wizards didn't understand how powerful the ability was at the time. Nowadays you'd expect to pay FOUR for a sol ring.

Cards like burgeoning are borderline imo because, while they can ramp you insanely, they take up a card that doesn't "do anything" per se. You might be able to get 5 mana on turn 2, but you'd have to use 6 cards to do it. So burgeoning is a maybe.

And for the record, I don't hate sol ring because i've lost a lot of games to it or anything. I hate it because it's a symbol of what's keeping commander from being a better format. Infinite combos are annoying but most of them are answerable, the problem is when there's insane mana ramp like sol ring it feels like the whole table started 2 turns behind, and any kind of degeneracy becomes ridiculously overpowered when you've got 2 extra mana on everyone else.

Quote from asteriskreaper

dies has only been around for a year, before then it did trigger.

"dies" only changed the wording, the conditions required for kresh to trigger (or anything else with the word "dies") has never changed.

My complaint with "dies" is that it obscures what the condition is. A general does "die" in colloquial language when you terminate it...however it doesn't get sent to the graveyard, in the more specific original language of the card.

Quote from asteriskreaper

Rule change... i hate this one above most.

If it's a change, I think it was in 2007. If it's a surprise to you, it's probably that you just didn't read carefully enough. I've screwed it up before too (with glissa).

it is definitely a bummer for some generals in some games, but at least in my experience kresh grows plenty quickly even without that benefit. My suggestion would be to include more sackable creatures on your side of the field, so that if someone's playing a deck with few creatures your general won't be so badly hosed.

EDIT: the command zone was adopted in sept. 2009, and there's a post from Sheldon that specifically mentions that generals moving to the general zone doesn't trigger "dies" triggers from september 2009.

http://mtgcommander.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2768

I think that even before then, when it was just the exile zone, it still didn't trigger, but I was only playing for a few months before the change so I don't remember.

Quote from BetweenWalls

That's an interesting point you bring up about house bans being unable to create a balanced format - it seems strange that such a thing would be impossible, (this thread has much to do about creating balance) but the very nature of house banning means that it has to be done on a per-playgroup basis.

Is it inconceivable that you could talk with those who you do play with consistently and adjust your decks when you play against them? There shouldn't be too many additional cards that you'd want to ban, right? If you're already talking before each game, you may be able to switch the cards out while doing so. If anyone new shows up, just let them know what the group's doing and talk it out. Of course, you're right that the official list doesn't create the most balanced format outside of dedicated playgroups... but it's not meant for that.

I've previously had decks that required switching out cards, and it's a PitA to keep them separated correctly and always have a 100 card deck at the end of the day, in my experience.

But the bigger problem is this "talk it out" thing with other people, because usually when I'm playing EDH it's about 50% regulars and 50% random strangers. Cards like sol ring that obviously warrant a ban are played in EVERY deck (or very nearly), and people don't exactly bring around their 101st - 105th choices for their deck. Even if they've got a suitable replacement they've probably got to root around in trade binders first, they'd have to re-replace them afterwards, and their deck still won't be tuned as well as if they'd come in knowing the rules.

Know what I'd say if I went into a gaming store, found some guys who wanted to play EDH, and they told me to take out part of my deck and replace it if I wanted to play? I'd say "forget it" and leave.

My other group is somewhat more stable, percentage-wise, but there's around 20 people who come on different weeks, and there's no way in hell we'd all agree on a stable list.

House banning is a cute idea in an ideal world, but in the real world it's a giant pain outside of idyllic stable playgroups where everyone agrees and doesn't play anywhere else. I think Sheldon puts way too much importance on house rules for balancing the format, when it's not possible or efficient for most people. In all honesty I think we could create a reasonably balanced format by growing the banlist by a reasonable, imo, 1.5x or so.

Quote from parinoid

I calculated the maximum efficiency is with replicating the High Tide either 2 or 3 times (there is no difference between the two) and tapping out the final 3 islands to cast the Turnabout. I end up with 7 turnabouts and a x9 multiplier on the islands before the turnabouts start.

For those interested, replicating twice means Island:
#4 taps for 3 mana, 1 copy, r0
#5 taps for 4 mana, 1 copy , r1
#6 taps for 5 mana, 2 copies, r0
#7 taps for 7 mana, 2 copies, r1
#8, 9 and 10 tap for 9 mana each, making 28 total.
28/4=7 turnabouts.

With the power of Excel I resolved each, taking into account the spare mana from tapping for mana that isn't a multiple of 3. In the end the most mana possible is by tapping the final 4 islands for 1,557,075,270 mana each, resulting in 6,228,301,081 mana (1 mana was spare from the previous iteration.)

Note that you can also tap the final 3 Islands for 2,076,100,360 mana each, resulting in a total of 6,228,301,080 mana.

So you can get just over 6.2 billion mana in this scenario.

You're right, I dunno why I thought I needed to copy it 4 times with djinn, obviously 2-3 was the correct number of copies...for some reason I was thinking 3-4. Well done, sir!

Quote from Thoughtcast

Your math is wrong, if you are copying high tide 4 times you should have tapped 5 islands initially. You have at least 2 less turnabouts.

Edit: Also, you just go infinite with Reset and the same parameters.

My math was fine, I just mislabeled the islands...it says islands 5, 6, 7, 9, and 10. it should be 6 taps for 5, 7 taps for 6, 8 taps for 8, 9 and 10 tap for 10, which, with the extra 4 from 8, leaves 24 = 6 turnabouts.

yeah wasn't thinking about Guildmage with reset. Infinite is so booooring though.

Quote from Ninja Caterpie

Hey now do it, but use Reset instead of Turnabout. (b'-')b

it's actually not that hard to approximate...since you can untap twice as many times (actually a little more, so a total of 13 untaps instead of 6) you'd be around 112 quadrillion. But I'd be happy if I was within even a factor of 10, since the approximations get sketchier and sketchier at those numbers.

Unfortunately, your only wincon is a mind spring, though, so you can't win despite having over 100000000000000000 mana on their turn. But since it takes so long to do the math, you manage to go to time. Score!

Thought of this one in the shower and it's driving me crazy. stay away, lest it consume you too!

In play:
djinn illuminatus
izzet guildmage
10x island

in hand:
high tide
turnabout

What's the maximum amount of mana that can be generated?

Quote from The_Cooler

Hua Tuo, Honored Physician seems good.

ofc, doesn't work as a general for the deck (fine for the 99 though).

general-wise, adun oakenshield seems like the tech. Sadly pretty expensive, though.

Quote from Xaios

Also, to paraphrase Sheldon, "build casually, play competitively."

Hah, I found it:

my quote:

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=8295686&postcount=40

Sheldon:

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=8408806&postcount=601

I realize this is slightly childish, but LET THE RECORD SHOW I said that first, yo.

EDIT: aww man, Sheldon's been totally ripping me off.

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=8409929&postcount=23

Plus this guy:

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=8845232&postcount=1

I should demand royalties

Nah, it's cool Sheldon, glad to provide a "soundbite" for the format.

One problem I've got with the idea of house banning is that I play in several different "groups", and some of those groups are just "me and some friends at an LGS, plus whoever happens to be there and also has an EDH deck" so it's sort of impossible to say "hey, I know you've never played here before, but you aren't allowed to have sol ring because we house banned it". And similarly, I don't want to have to reconfigure my decks every time I play somewhere else.

The RC's insistence that house bannings can help create a balanced format is crap, imo, because they're presupposing that you have a single, consistent playgroup, or at least several playgroups who agree about the same things, which is insane (just look at the banlist thread...no one agrees on anything). The official list is the only one worth a damn for (from my perspective) most people, and it's really not ideal for a balanced format.

I guess what I'm trying to say is...BAN SOL RING.

Quote from Xaios

Also, to paraphrase Sheldon, "build casually, play competitively."

Pretty sure I was the one who said exactly that. Although maybe Sheldon said it too, idk.

Anyway, it's been said, but getting more people is really the key to a good EDH game, imo. Multiplayer really helps to balance casual formats where power levels might be disparate. You could try tuning down your decks, but then you basically have to make a ton of decks to be able to play everyone at the same level.

if you want to look at his deck...jester's cap? or maybe make a thada adel deck?

Quote from Narvuntien

nargh I miss read it. I pointed out my problem to my friends and they suggested it but apparently they were wrong and I believed them.

:S... it doesn't look like there really is a good way to do it... not repeatedly.

well, isochron scepter + stifle or trickbind works just fine.

no single card works, though, no.