Commander is like Chocolate. Tons of people love it. Standard or modern or whatever is like Tomato Soup. People like it, it's a decent staple, not for everyone but that's okay. Companion is like someone saying "Our tomato soup isn't selling well enough, so we're going to throw chocolate in it."
Your analogy is spot on, but the way you interpret isn't. Commander isn't the beloved format that everyone enjoys. Yes it's popular, but a lot of people who don't play commander hates the format and the community due to them whining over basic mechanics. So it's more like a tomato soup company put chocolate in their soups because chocolate makes a lot of money.
I hate commander tbh. Two reasons: 1) card RNG is already the single biggest design problem in MTG, commanders absolutely inane 1 of rule just makes this 10x worse and makes you run a ton of absolute garbage cards that are just a bad copy of something else, really stupid 2) the entire community is all over the place because commander can either be "lol my deck is busted AF so you everyone gigadies on t3" or "omg you won on turn 20, i didn't even get to set up!" At least if I play vintage, standard, modern, pauper, w/e I know the power level of decks I'm going to be playing against. Commander is this weird thing of "you have to have 5 decks of differing power levels because this format is real dumb and poorly thought out"
@@danlorett2184 If you're running filler cards just to hit 100, you're not building a very good deck my friend. EDH is about finding agonizing cuts, not about stuffing in random fluff you don't actually want to draw. It sounds to me like you're trying to play the format too much like 4-of Constructed: The inconsistency of Singleton formats is part of the appeal. Not everybody has to like it, of course
i feel like it should've been mentioned that the companion cards didn't have that 3 mana move it to hand part when they were first printed and that was a BIG reason for the ban as well, the nerf to make them cost 3 more helped make them weaker but still too broken to be able to see healthy play, but it was SO much stronger without that nerf, like that zurda combo with the nerf is 9 mana to pull off, it used to be 6, also lurrus was played on turn 2 every game if not turn 1 with fast mana, so he was an engine that was there at the start of the game to take it over, instead of something to bring in later in the game as a comeback mechanic
As a general balancing note (regarding the idea of Memory Jar exiling itself if cheated out), the more traditional ways of stopping reanimation shenanigans in Magic is to have the card shuffle itself back into the deck if it goes into the graveyard, or to have some of the card's power tied up in a cast trigger. More recently, we've seen some ETB's that check if it was cast, which accomplishes much the same thing as a cast trigger, but being weaker against counterspells.
Memory Jar can also be used as part of a combo to cause upwards of 14 life lost once activation is done. Megrim (2B) or Liliana's Caress (1B) both have the effect of "Whenever an opponent discards a card, that player loses 2 life". Bring enough of the right cards together and you can do a turn one knockout (Rituals and Lotus to drive the mana, two of the aforementioned discard burns and then just rip the jar open).
This is like... the least dangerous way to use Memory Jar lol. It's like if I pulled a knife on you, then used it to cut a cake because I'm hoping you'll eat the cake and get diabetes.
@@jameshonaker585 How the hell didn't they see that coming lol, did they legitimately just forget about Megrim when they printed it less than a year prior? They were up to some weird power creep in the Urza's block
the other huge issue with an unbanned Memory Jar is the problem with "multi-jaring" and it's effect on the opponent's hands and libraries. I have had this happen to me several times in both Commander and even Vintage back in the day where someone would "Jar" multiple times in the same turn, pass, and I'd have all my cards exiled all previous "jars" while I only get back my original hand while my opponent also got his original hand back. This was very frustrating to deal with back in the day and once you see it happen once, you're glad it's banned in Legacy and restricted in vintage.
"How to fix Gitaxian Probe? Make it actually cost mana." They did. It's Peek. Which sucks. Pretty much all of the (good) Phyrexian cards are just existing cards with no mana requirements. So, 'fixing' it by making it cost mana is completely redundant.
I usually played probe in reanimator together with therapy to just remove powerful counter spells or graveyard hate from their hand, with the upside that I didnt need to cast therapy before I knew if a proactive counter was necessary. Also ran it in storm alongside silence for similar reasons.
Another thing about Zirda was that bomberman had a lot of redundancy: Grim and basalt monolith work, as well as Kinnan: Cards that are great without the combo. So not only did you have apart of your combo in the opening hand, but you had 8 copies of another part of it, or a self enabler after Zirda is removed with Kinnan
Mana drain would definitely be a problem. Counterspell is not that far off and getting a few mana, even if its just two, is super useful. It might be fine but it's risky and even when it does see just little play would push the format in a direction players probably won't like
The way it plays out is a little silly as well. Counterspell decks wants to hold up their mana forever so finding the window to cast their sorcery speed spells can be pretty tough. Mana Drain gets around this easily since the extra mana can be used to sneak out things like Jace, Retrofitter Foundry or Show and Tell without tapping all your islands for them.
Companion's already been nerfed which is the scary part. Prior to the nerf, you didn't have to pay the 3 mana tax to cast it, and it was immune to hand disruption.
Every now and then, there's a mechanic that makes you think: 'What were they even thinking when they made this? How did this make it past playtesting? How was this released as is?' With most cards, you see the point and power level and it makes some sort of sense but every now and then there's an outlier that completely baffles your mind and makes you question its design and if it was intentional or just a really big 'oopsie' on their part.
For all its sins, I think the Companion ability should've stayed the way it was. Let the cards be broken, and let the mechanic be an overpowered mistake. The nerf did very little with the viability of the cards anyway; if anything, it buried the more interesting, weaker ones.
@@Xylarxcode There's a lot of these, too. I took a long break from magic and when I came back I took one look at Phyrexian mana, read what it did, and said out loud "oh so this whole mechanic is just busted". Companion is like that too. Just them tryna crowbar some yugioh stuff into MTG.
@@Xylarxcode Companion is top down design at its finest. The designers wanted to make a companion like mechanic for years but couldn't find an organic way of putting it in. So they simply forced it into the game because they wanted the idea to work despite its obvious failures. Aka "They thought if they could, not if they should."
Arguably, the nerf was a buff in some ways, due to the existence of force of will and the evokimentals. Decks will play any companion they can reasonably get away with, due to the fact they can be added to hand the turn before they’re needed to turn on these spells, or they can be held onto, for purposes of having a simple beater in play.
Gitaxian probe is a pushed version of peek. Literally the same card but peek actually requires 1 blue mana. It just doesn't get run because ironically, 1 blue mana is too high of a cost for it to push out the staple cantrips of the format.
Git Probe shouldn't be a straight cantrip imo. It can still draw you a card, but then it should be followed by "then discard a card." Replacing itself after paying zero mana for the effect is too good.
@@corey2232 that would honestly actually make it even stronger than it already is. Free information AND I get to loot my reanimating target into the graveyard for free?
Corner-case "Wishboards" notwithstanding, Companion basically added the Extra Deck to 60-card Magic, but the game isn't correctly fitted to interact with super useful utility-generating "boss monsters" on demand.
Deathrite Shaman (AKA the “1 mana planeswalker”) ends up being a must-play in every deck that runs green or black, except for hyper-focused combo decks like storm or reanimator. Turns out, having a way to have perfect mana fixing, PLUS be targeted graveyard hate for just about anything relevant in the game, PLUS be a win condition due to the fact that the card can functionally ping an opponent for 2 every turn, is obscenely powerful. The format just saw the banning of arcum’s astrolabe, which only does one of these three things (perfect mana fixing), and even that was too much for the format. At the end of the day, legacy is a format that has the second-best mana fixing in the format (behind vintage, because moxen), and this fixing is kept in check by the existence of wasteland in the format (a land which can be tapped and sacrificed to destroy a nonbasic land). If you upset this balance by letting cards like deathrite run amok, the format gets very unhealthy, very quickly.
Deathrite would hurt UR delver decks by attacking delirium and Murktide. In all honesty the card could probably come off the banlist and HELP the format against UR decks.
You would just get ragavan + deathrite decks with dragonrage and murktide falling off a bit. You will always have legacy decks with cheap threats, cheap interaction and cheap card draw/interaction. It's just a highly stable and strong setup.
The other thing to remember with it is, like Mental Misstep, the Deathrite mirror is horrible. If I hold up mine during your turn, I can eat the land you target for your Deathrite in response so you miss out on the mana. And it's the same for all the effects. This often means whoever gets ahead on Deathrites is at a big advantage.
It kind of flies under the radar when it's only one card in a deck of 100, but I'd just as soon ban Deathrite Shaman in commander too. The flexible cost means it'll almost always be live even in 3+ color decks, fixes and ramps their mana (damn you fetch lands...), and then holds a gun to GY reliant strategies and combos forcing them to spend removal on something with so little cost to play.
That’s possibly one of the worst takes I’ve ever seen. If you’re going to ban death rite in commander there’s WAY more cards that need to be banned first.
I'm not sure if a Gitaxian Probe like card could exist in Yugioh. Maybe if it belonged to a specific archetype it wouldn't be an issue, but I'm 50/50 if a generic card like that would be fine or a problem. Memory Jar definitely couldn't be a thing. It'd be like if something akin to Morphing Jar added back all the cards you discarded at the end of the turn.
A card like Gitaxian Probe (which is basically a better Peek) would a three of in every single deck because it turns your 40 card deck into a 37 card deck.
@@TheTundraTerror Like I said, if it belonged to a specific archetype it could probably be okay as is, depending on how good that archetype is. If it was generic, you'd probably have to put some restrictions on it. Like a HOPT and you're opponent has to have at least three cards in their hand before you can activate it.
@@melvinshine9841 hand knowledge without losing card advantage is always going to be unhealthy for yugioh, if your hand can play around an opponent's going first then you just do that.
Part of the problem with Mana Drain is that it breaks a convention that has been around since the first set in Magic, that being that staple cards in that set cannot be directly Power Creeped. As you said in the entry, it's literally just Counterspell with an additional upside for no increased cost. If it was ever allowed to come back, it have to get a nerf of costing additional Mana.
What if Lurrus restricted all of your cards to costing 2 or less? Keruga doesn't let you have *anything* less than 3 in your deck, so why does Lurrus let you play non-permanent things over 2?
Lurris is weird since he only cares about perminants but the card that is the opposite keruga who is only have spells with 3 or more mana cares about all spells
I really like the idea of the companion ability, but the deckbuilding restrictions really do need to be more taxing in order to balance them. Forcing you to run a larger deck is fine, but their are far too many cards with activated effects and 2 or less mana cost for those to be balanced in any way. Maybe you could flip those restrictions on their heads by limiting the number of activated or cheap permanents you could run in the deck
Companion is already hard to keep track of, but at least it's consistently "all cards have to meet this condition". Something like "You can't have more than 10 permanent spells with mana value 3 or less" would be harder to check during a deck check, and impossible for your opponent to know if you're not cheating.
@@williamdrum9899 Love all those ideas. The original one I was thinking about was making a deck where every permanent was 3 or higher, but that sounded a bit too harsh to be playable. Then again, I don't play Magic myself I'm more of a Pokemon or Yugioh player. Do still find the game interesting though
@@fernandobanda5734 Only 9 of them are like that. Lutri the Spellchaser has "Each nonland card in your starting deck has a different name." That's not necessarily verifiable through normal gameplay. Combined with its implications for commander and they really should not have done that one.
I quite enjoyed the video itself and the breakdown, however I disagree with the last 2 cards' assessment so much that it made me write this comment. 1) Mana drain is so powerful in a format like Legacy, compared to Vintage, that it would completely sway the balance of power of control decks and would become a format staple in decks like sharkstill (or any deck that plays Shark Typhoon for that matter), Urza's Saga control decks would also like it quite a bit, and it would undoubtedly boost control strategies overall, as they would be able to get a serious discount on any big threat after dealing with opponent's card. 2) Memory Jar is so much weaker these days compared to the time of it's release. Goblin welder, while being a strong card with a lot of potential for synergies, sees very little play outside of painter. And memory jar in my opinion is no more busted than something like Bolas's Citadel as an artifact draw spell, and no more abusable than echo of eons. It folds to pretty much any gravehate/creature hate/artifact activation hate, at least the way you described it. So I couldn't really see a good reason why this card would be so busted these days, as it's no better than any wheel effect if it's not abused into play, and the biggest synergy is still not as relevant to give any unfair advantage to any deck that would use it
I think deathrite could be fair if he didn't let you exile your opponents stuff, at that point like, you really have to do nothing to make the card good
I played legacy 2013-2018, with DRS, probe and top legal. Honestly I never thought they were overly oppressive. I also believe that legacy was in a healthy state during that time. A far cry from the mess legacy is today :(
Why not just change memory jar to exile itself rather than sacrifice itself, effectively making it not a possible target for goblin welder? That seems like a pretty simple fix
Keep in mind that welder with jar really isn't that powerful. If you're untapping and have the ability to use welder even something like intuition will just win the game if you have a welder up allowing you to get the painter and grindstone combo together and intuition costs 3 mana.
Your reasoning for git probe's strength is sort of wrong. While it's true that it is a "free" spell that adds to storm count while also checking your opponents hand is good, that is not the main reason why its so strong. It is broken beyond belief because it does not technically take a spot in your deck. Free cards that draw (or thin your deck for that matter) are powerful in all levels of every format. For example, cards like the fetch lands, street wraith, the baubles, and manamorphose are all incredibly strong (or banned) because they decrease in deck variance (free card), which is the net driver of deck competitiveness/viability. Alongside this, probe can be run in any deck, meaning that because of how format-defining the card is, it is an auto-include in every deck, a premise that WotC notoriously hates. Like git probe, mental misstep is broken/banned for the same reason: it can be run in any deck, regardless of color/archetype. That should be your main point in what was driving its ban.
I'm not sure the point of your quotes. There are niche situations where the new companion rules makes them better, but in general terms companions are much much weaker than they're pre nerf. Lurrus basically used to cost half as much and couldn't be thought seized, completely bonkers.
I disagree on lurrus the ban was before the Companienrework. So it got a lot weekend since then. It is now a 6 instead of a 3 mana play Wich makes it a lot weeker
Nah. Being 6 mana doesn’t even matter because it’s not 6 mana. It’s 3 mana twice and that’s way different than 6 mana. Doesn’t change the power of a free card AND a good card
Unbanning Memory Jar would require wotc to smoke so much crack they definitely wouldn't survive long enough to actually make the announcement Memory Jar is just up there with cards like Wheel of Fortune that are just too busted to be allowed.
I think Gitaxian Probe could be fixed by changing it to say "Draw a card, then discard a card" (or whatever the proper wording is). At that point, you're still getting the info & getting to dig through some cards, but you're also 2 for 1'ing yourself in cards. Replacing itself for free is the biggest issue imo.
Literally it's that it's free. There are other cards that do basically the exact same thing as Probe but cost U, so they're pretty MEH. Phyrexian mana was a mistake - it's a mechanic that is literally either broken or garbage with practically no in between.
@@danlorett2184 Honestly, phyrexian mana should have been colorless only, and every card with phyrexian mana having some normal colored pips in it. Beyond making some cards free, it makes cards colorless. Alternatively, give phyrexian mana a clause similar to cards like Force of Will. So in addition to paying 2 life for the phyrexian mana, you also needed exile a card that shared a color with the phyrexian mana pip. Either of these would've stopped the cards from being ubiquitous everywhere, while still leaving them reasonably powerful in the right situations.
@@danlorett2184 Yes, but it simply being free isn't enough to get it banned. Notice how long it took to be banned in Modern & Legacy. But free + replacing itself made it problematic, as there was zero downside. Paying 2 cards to look at an opponent's hand for free isn't worth banning. I played in Legacy for a long time as my primary format, and there are far more potent things to do for free. Force of Will is fair even though it has a far more powerful effect than "Look at your opponent's hand," because it makes you 2 for 1 yourself. Imagine if you drew a card to replace it instead.
There’s No way you could unban Mana Drain. Not when it gives control decks free mana to cast their planeswalkers or monastery mentors, and have mana available to cast their brainstorms or ponders. And sure, there’s a lot of cheap spells. But people still play spells with higher mana value such as Seasoned Dungeoner, Force of Will, Ad Nauseam, Sneak Attack, or Natural Order. Even then, just countering a 2 mana spell and getting 2 mana for your next turn would make these decks run off.
It'd be way worse than that. Think of how many high CC spells are played because they're basically "free". All the pitch elementals, force, murktide, kappa cannoneer, affinity nonsense, treasure cruise, etc.
Deathrite Shaman will never be unbanned. Simply put it single handedly shuts down an entire architype in the format with no effort, meaning noone would play any deck that interacts with the graveyard. This would be bad for any format.
I remember when all the mouth breathers were like OMG, it is so unfair they banned the card. It doesn't deserve to be banned, fetch lands this, blue that yadda yadda dumb arguments.
I remember playing probe for all the reasons it was banned for but when it was new I was told I was silly and that it was bad...feels good to be vindicated after so many years.
What if they put a number after the companion keyword instead of a flat 3? So the companions in this video get companion 10 to be unbanned but the weakest companions can have companion 0 or maybe even a negative number that gives you mana.
WotC could fix the issue of alternative costs running away by just adding a rule in the rulebook that any spell cast using an alternative resource alone except involving a discard from the caster's hand will also forbid them from gaining or spending mana for the rest of the turn.
Mana drain was designed to be a worse version of counterspell. When it was originally printed, there was a rule called mana burn around. What mana burn did was was deal damage to a player for each unused mana they had floating between phases. This would work as a restriction at the time as mostly only control decks wanted such a color dependant permission magic, and it would force the heavily reactive control decks to actually be proactive or face passive damage. Obviously, that changed when mana burn went away.
To be fair... the prospect of mana burn didn't hurt the card AT ALL. Literally more people played mana drain back when mana burn was actually a thing than they do now, because back then there was less power creep. Mana Draining a 3cc spell and taking 1 damage because you couldn't spend it all was 100% still a blowout for you. Now we have a LOT of really good counter spells (force of negation, flusterstorm, whatever the "counter 1cc spells" one is, etc.
@@danlorett2184 true, I'm taking more in the hypothetical as to why it was printed in the first place. But I have no doubt that a counter with free mana attached would still be a no Brainer in most situations. Also, the card you forgot the name of is probably mental misstep. Or if you are looking at Phyrexia: All will be One spoiler season, Minor Misstep.
I don’t think you’d need to remove the Companion ability to make Lurus fair. Just make it so you can only cast one card from the graveyard on the turn you Cast Lurus would make it fair imo
I've always thought the biggest problem with Deathrite Shaman is its mana cost. Decks that do not play green should not have access to one drop mana dorks period, let alone the best one ever printed. I would argue that if Deathrite cost one green, there's a pretty good chance that it would still be unbanned in Legacy.
The main problem i see with it only being green is that it will still end up assisting one of the most powerful decks in the format, Delver. I think its unbanning will just see the return of RUG delver instead of just UR delver. I also feel like it would just see play in alot of decks and become too prominent and format affecting. Which is a shame because it is a fun card
!["Free" to Cast Cards - Explaining All Banned Cards in Modern [Part 2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/lwP6up5wF2E/mqdefault.jpg)
Commander is like Chocolate. Tons of people love it.
Standard or modern or whatever is like Tomato Soup. People like it, it's a decent staple, not for everyone but that's okay.
Companion is like someone saying "Our tomato soup isn't selling well enough, so we're going to throw chocolate in it."
Your analogy is spot on, but the way you interpret isn't. Commander isn't the beloved format that everyone enjoys. Yes it's popular, but a lot of people who don't play commander hates the format and the community due to them whining over basic mechanics.
So it's more like a tomato soup company put chocolate in their soups because chocolate makes a lot of money.
I hate commander tbh. Two reasons:
1) card RNG is already the single biggest design problem in MTG, commanders absolutely inane 1 of rule just makes this 10x worse and makes you run a ton of absolute garbage cards that are just a bad copy of something else, really stupid
2) the entire community is all over the place because commander can either be "lol my deck is busted AF so you everyone gigadies on t3" or "omg you won on turn 20, i didn't even get to set up!"
At least if I play vintage, standard, modern, pauper, w/e I know the power level of decks I'm going to be playing against. Commander is this weird thing of "you have to have 5 decks of differing power levels because this format is real dumb and poorly thought out"
@@danlorett2184 If you're running filler cards just to hit 100, you're not building a very good deck my friend. EDH is about finding agonizing cuts, not about stuffing in random fluff you don't actually want to draw. It sounds to me like you're trying to play the format too much like 4-of Constructed: The inconsistency of Singleton formats is part of the appeal. Not everybody has to like it, of course
@@danlorett2184I disagree
You've forgotten to add this one to your Explaining Banned Legacy Cards playlist.
😇
"Unlimited... gitaxian probes!" *force lightning*
XD
Unbanned cards would be a fun idea once you get through it.
Or cards banned in different standards throughout the years
I too would love to see lists on cards that got unbanned
i feel like it should've been mentioned that the companion cards didn't have that 3 mana move it to hand part when they were first printed and that was a BIG reason for the ban as well, the nerf to make them cost 3 more helped make them weaker but still too broken to be able to see healthy play, but it was SO much stronger without that nerf, like that zurda combo with the nerf is 9 mana to pull off, it used to be 6, also lurrus was played on turn 2 every game if not turn 1 with fast mana, so he was an engine that was there at the start of the game to take it over, instead of something to bring in later in the game as a comeback mechanic
This video is currently not in the "Explaining Banned Legacy Cards" playlist.
As a general balancing note (regarding the idea of Memory Jar exiling itself if cheated out), the more traditional ways of stopping reanimation shenanigans in Magic is to have the card shuffle itself back into the deck if it goes into the graveyard, or to have some of the card's power tied up in a cast trigger. More recently, we've seen some ETB's that check if it was cast, which accomplishes much the same thing as a cast trigger, but being weaker against counterspells.
Sometimes shuffling itself back in makes it more broken, like Nexus of Fate
Memory Jar can also be used as part of a combo to cause upwards of 14 life lost once activation is done. Megrim (2B) or Liliana's Caress (1B) both have the effect of "Whenever an opponent discards a card, that player loses 2 life". Bring enough of the right cards together and you can do a turn one knockout (Rituals and Lotus to drive the mana, two of the aforementioned discard burns and then just rip the jar open).
This is like... the least dangerous way to use Memory Jar lol. It's like if I pulled a knife on you, then used it to cut a cake because I'm hoping you'll eat the cake and get diabetes.
The combo with Megrim actually was what got Memory Jar emergency banned in Standard.
@@jameshonaker585 Surprised the video fails to mention that.
@@jameshonaker585 How the hell didn't they see that coming lol, did they legitimately just forget about Megrim when they printed it less than a year prior?
They were up to some weird power creep in the Urza's block
Don't forget underworld dreams and teferis puzzlebox were part of that deck too.
the other huge issue with an unbanned Memory Jar is the problem with "multi-jaring" and it's effect on the opponent's hands and libraries. I have had this happen to me several times in both Commander and even Vintage back in the day where someone would "Jar" multiple times in the same turn, pass, and I'd have all my cards exiled all previous "jars" while I only get back my original hand while my opponent also got his original hand back. This was very frustrating to deal with back in the day and once you see it happen once, you're glad it's banned in Legacy and restricted in vintage.
may you please add this video to the “explaining banned legacy cards” playlist?
Add this to your playlist please
This video isn't in the legacy banlist playlist
"How to fix Gitaxian Probe? Make it actually cost mana."
They did. It's Peek. Which sucks. Pretty much all of the (good) Phyrexian cards are just existing cards with no mana requirements. So, 'fixing' it by making it cost mana is completely redundant.
I usually played probe in reanimator together with therapy to just remove powerful counter spells or graveyard hate from their hand, with the upside that I didnt need to cast therapy before I knew if a proactive counter was necessary. Also ran it in storm alongside silence for similar reasons.
"Bathsalt Monolith" is definitely my new favorite manalogs mispronunciation
Another thing about Zirda was that bomberman had a lot of redundancy: Grim and basalt monolith work, as well as Kinnan: Cards that are great without the combo.
So not only did you have apart of your combo in the opening hand, but you had 8 copies of another part of it, or a self enabler after Zirda is removed with Kinnan
Another way to fix the Memory Jar could be to have it enter the battlefield tapped and/or add a mana cost to activate the ability.
9:11 gotta love TheDuelLogs showing an easter egg card.
Mana drain would definitely be a problem. Counterspell is not that far off and getting a few mana, even if its just two, is super useful.
It might be fine but it's risky and even when it does see just little play would push the format in a direction players probably won't like
The way it plays out is a little silly as well. Counterspell decks wants to hold up their mana forever so finding the window to cast their sorcery speed spells can be pretty tough. Mana Drain gets around this easily since the extra mana can be used to sneak out things like Jace, Retrofitter Foundry or Show and Tell without tapping all your islands for them.
Companion's already been nerfed which is the scary part. Prior to the nerf, you didn't have to pay the 3 mana tax to cast it, and it was immune to hand disruption.
Every now and then, there's a mechanic that makes you think: 'What were they even thinking when they made this? How did this make it past playtesting? How was this released as is?' With most cards, you see the point and power level and it makes some sort of sense but every now and then there's an outlier that completely baffles your mind and makes you question its design and if it was intentional or just a really big 'oopsie' on their part.
For all its sins, I think the Companion ability should've stayed the way it was. Let the cards be broken, and let the mechanic be an overpowered mistake. The nerf did very little with the viability of the cards anyway; if anything, it buried the more interesting, weaker ones.
@@Xylarxcode There's a lot of these, too. I took a long break from magic and when I came back I took one look at Phyrexian mana, read what it did, and said out loud "oh so this whole mechanic is just busted". Companion is like that too. Just them tryna crowbar some yugioh stuff into MTG.
@@Xylarxcode Companion is top down design at its finest. The designers wanted to make a companion like mechanic for years but couldn't find an organic way of putting it in.
So they simply forced it into the game because they wanted the idea to work despite its obvious failures.
Aka "They thought if they could, not if they should."
Arguably, the nerf was a buff in some ways, due to the existence of force of will and the evokimentals.
Decks will play any companion they can reasonably get away with, due to the fact they can be added to hand the turn before they’re needed to turn on these spells, or they can be held onto, for purposes of having a simple beater in play.
Love the videos. Its a good day when you post.
Go over the restricted list in vintage that are legal in other formats!!
Gitaxian probe is a pushed version of peek. Literally the same card but peek actually requires 1 blue mana. It just doesn't get run because ironically, 1 blue mana is too high of a cost for it to push out the staple cantrips of the format.
Yeah the problem isn't the effect, it's that Phyrexian mana as a mechanic is either busted AF or garbage. Most busted AF.
Git Probe shouldn't be a straight cantrip imo.
It can still draw you a card, but then it should be followed by "then discard a card." Replacing itself after paying zero mana for the effect is too good.
@@corey2232 that would honestly actually make it even stronger than it already is. Free information AND I get to loot my reanimating target into the graveyard for free?
Corner-case "Wishboards" notwithstanding, Companion basically added the Extra Deck to 60-card Magic, but the game isn't correctly fitted to interact with super useful utility-generating "boss monsters" on demand.
Neat analysis video! Thanks for uploading!
Why was memory jar banned................. and that was the video thank you for joining us
Shame that Lurrus is crazy OP. The art is cute.
one thing of note companion, as the reminder text suggests, didn't used to cost 3 to add it to your hand, which made lurrus even more absurd
Deathrite Shaman (AKA the “1 mana planeswalker”) ends up being a must-play in every deck that runs green or black, except for hyper-focused combo decks like storm or reanimator. Turns out, having a way to have perfect mana fixing, PLUS be targeted graveyard hate for just about anything relevant in the game, PLUS be a win condition due to the fact that the card can functionally ping an opponent for 2 every turn, is obscenely powerful.
The format just saw the banning of arcum’s astrolabe, which only does one of these three things (perfect mana fixing), and even that was too much for the format.
At the end of the day, legacy is a format that has the second-best mana fixing in the format (behind vintage, because moxen), and this fixing is kept in check by the existence of wasteland in the format (a land which can be tapped and sacrificed to destroy a nonbasic land). If you upset this balance by letting cards like deathrite run amok, the format gets very unhealthy, very quickly.
Deathrite would hurt UR delver decks by attacking delirium and Murktide. In all honesty the card could probably come off the banlist and HELP the format against UR decks.
You would just get ragavan + deathrite decks with dragonrage and murktide falling off a bit.
You will always have legacy decks with cheap threats, cheap interaction and cheap card draw/interaction. It's just a highly stable and strong setup.
The other thing to remember with it is, like Mental Misstep, the Deathrite mirror is horrible. If I hold up mine during your turn, I can eat the land you target for your Deathrite in response so you miss out on the mana. And it's the same for all the effects. This often means whoever gets ahead on Deathrites is at a big advantage.
It kind of flies under the radar when it's only one card in a deck of 100, but I'd just as soon ban Deathrite Shaman in commander too. The flexible cost means it'll almost always be live even in 3+ color decks, fixes and ramps their mana (damn you fetch lands...), and then holds a gun to GY reliant strategies and combos forcing them to spend removal on something with so little cost to play.
That’s possibly one of the worst takes I’ve ever seen. If you’re going to ban death rite in commander there’s WAY more cards that need to be banned first.
How about a list on the artist with the most cards?
Amazing!
I'm not sure if a Gitaxian Probe like card could exist in Yugioh. Maybe if it belonged to a specific archetype it wouldn't be an issue, but I'm 50/50 if a generic card like that would be fine or a problem.
Memory Jar definitely couldn't be a thing. It'd be like if something akin to Morphing Jar added back all the cards you discarded at the end of the turn.
Definitely not. Upstart Goblin effectively costs you nothing as is
A card like Gitaxian Probe (which is basically a better Peek) would a three of in every single deck because it turns your 40 card deck into a 37 card deck.
@@TheTundraTerror Like I said, if it belonged to a specific archetype it could probably be okay as is, depending on how good that archetype is. If it was generic, you'd probably have to put some restrictions on it. Like a HOPT and you're opponent has to have at least three cards in their hand before you can activate it.
@@melvinshine9841 hand knowledge without losing card advantage is always going to be unhealthy for yugioh, if your hand can play around an opponent's going first then you just do that.
It would be nice to see cards that are banned in commander since I play almost exclusively commander
Part of the problem with Mana Drain is that it breaks a convention that has been around since the first set in Magic, that being that staple cards in that set cannot be directly Power Creeped. As you said in the entry, it's literally just Counterspell with an additional upside for no increased cost. If it was ever allowed to come back, it have to get a nerf of costing additional Mana.
What if Lurrus restricted all of your cards to costing 2 or less? Keruga doesn't let you have *anything* less than 3 in your deck, so why does Lurrus let you play non-permanent things over 2?
Lurris is weird since he only cares about perminants but the card that is the opposite keruga who is only have spells with 3 or more mana cares about all spells
Not like the lurrus decks cared about other spells... But Keruga sure would.
@@k.bularga Well, it does mean that Force of Will/Negation decks can still play Lurrus...
I really like the idea of the companion ability, but the deckbuilding restrictions really do need to be more taxing in order to balance them. Forcing you to run a larger deck is fine, but their are far too many cards with activated effects and 2 or less mana cost for those to be balanced in any way. Maybe you could flip those restrictions on their heads by limiting the number of activated or cheap permanents you could run in the deck
Companion is already hard to keep track of, but at least it's consistently "all cards have to meet this condition". Something like "You can't have more than 10 permanent spells with mana value 3 or less" would be harder to check during a deck check, and impossible for your opponent to know if you're not cheating.
Here's a few ideas:
Every nonland card in your deck is a creature card (on its front face)
All lands in your deck are basic lands named Wastes
@@williamdrum9899 Love all those ideas. The original one I was thinking about was making a deck where every permanent was 3 or higher, but that sounded a bit too harsh to be playable. Then again, I don't play Magic myself I'm more of a Pokemon or Yugioh player. Do still find the game interesting though
@@fernandobanda5734 Only 9 of them are like that. Lutri the Spellchaser has "Each nonland card in your starting deck has a different name." That's not necessarily verifiable through normal gameplay. Combined with its implications for commander and they really should not have done that one.
@@petrie911 How about "Every nonland card has a different mana cost?"
I quite enjoyed the video itself and the breakdown, however I disagree with the last 2 cards' assessment so much that it made me write this comment.
1) Mana drain is so powerful in a format like Legacy, compared to Vintage, that it would completely sway the balance of power of control decks and would become a format staple in decks like sharkstill (or any deck that plays Shark Typhoon for that matter), Urza's Saga control decks would also like it quite a bit, and it would undoubtedly boost control strategies overall, as they would be able to get a serious discount on any big threat after dealing with opponent's card.
2) Memory Jar is so much weaker these days compared to the time of it's release. Goblin welder, while being a strong card with a lot of potential for synergies, sees very little play outside of painter. And memory jar in my opinion is no more busted than something like Bolas's Citadel as an artifact draw spell, and no more abusable than echo of eons. It folds to pretty much any gravehate/creature hate/artifact activation hate, at least the way you described it. So I couldn't really see a good reason why this card would be so busted these days, as it's no better than any wheel effect if it's not abused into play, and the biggest synergy is still not as relevant to give any unfair advantage to any deck that would use it
Memory Jar could be somewhat nerfed by changing "T, Sacrifice Memory Jar:" to "T, Exile Memory Jar".
Can tell you don’t play legacy that you think Mana Drain could be unbanned lol
The fact that DRS is banned in legacy still blows my mind. Definitely shouldn’t be on the banned list in 2023
Fix for memory jar would be to have it entered tapped
Couldn't you fix Memory Jar by exiling it instead of sacrificing it to activate its effect?
Companion was even worse when it first released, since there wasn't even a cost to go with it.
Why not make Memory Jar's activated ability exile it instead of sacrificing it to fix it?
I think deathrite could be fair if he didn't let you exile your opponents stuff, at that point like, you really have to do nothing to make the card good
I played legacy 2013-2018, with DRS, probe and top legal. Honestly I never thought they were overly oppressive. I also believe that legacy was in a healthy state during that time. A far cry from the mess legacy is today :(
Why not just change memory jar to exile itself rather than sacrifice itself, effectively making it not a possible target for goblin welder? That seems like a pretty simple fix
it was absurd that Lurrus only restricts permanents not spells. running not Forces would be an actual cost.
Keep in mind that welder with jar really isn't that powerful. If you're untapping and have the ability to use welder even something like intuition will just win the game if you have a welder up allowing you to get the painter and grindstone combo together and intuition costs 3 mana.
Your reasoning for git probe's strength is sort of wrong. While it's true that it is a "free" spell that adds to storm count while also checking your opponents hand is good, that is not the main reason why its so strong. It is broken beyond belief because it does not technically take a spot in your deck. Free cards that draw (or thin your deck for that matter) are powerful in all levels of every format. For example, cards like the fetch lands, street wraith, the baubles, and manamorphose are all incredibly strong (or banned) because they decrease in deck variance (free card), which is the net driver of deck competitiveness/viability. Alongside this, probe can be run in any deck, meaning that because of how format-defining the card is, it is an auto-include in every deck, a premise that WotC notoriously hates. Like git probe, mental misstep is broken/banned for the same reason: it can be run in any deck, regardless of color/archetype. That should be your main point in what was driving its ban.
today i learnt Zirda has an activated ability
"Wait guys, companion Zirda stops you playing Zirda in the main as well, what do we do?"
Urza's block confirmed broken.
Could you unban lurris by making it exile the cards when they leave battlefield?
The dumbest thing about the companion “nerf” is that it actually just gave companions a new utility once the pitch elementals were printed.
I'm not sure the point of your quotes. There are niche situations where the new companion rules makes them better, but in general terms companions are much much weaker than they're pre nerf. Lurrus basically used to cost half as much and couldn't be thought seized, completely bonkers.
@@Gab8riel well now you still can't turn 1 thoughtseize it
Ah yes my favorite. Bath salt monolith
I disagree on lurrus the ban was before the Companienrework. So it got a lot weekend since then. It is now a 6 instead of a 3 mana play Wich makes it a lot weeker
Nah. Being 6 mana doesn’t even matter because it’s not 6 mana. It’s 3 mana twice and that’s way different than 6 mana. Doesn’t change the power of a free card AND a good card
Unbanning Memory Jar would require banning Goblin Welder.
Unbanning Memory Jar would require wotc to smoke so much crack they definitely wouldn't survive long enough to actually make the announcement
Memory Jar is just up there with cards like Wheel of Fortune that are just too busted to be allowed.
I think Gitaxian Probe could be fixed by changing it to say "Draw a card, then discard a card" (or whatever the proper wording is).
At that point, you're still getting the info & getting to dig through some cards, but you're also 2 for 1'ing yourself in cards. Replacing itself for free is the biggest issue imo.
Literally it's that it's free. There are other cards that do basically the exact same thing as Probe but cost U, so they're pretty MEH. Phyrexian mana was a mistake - it's a mechanic that is literally either broken or garbage with practically no in between.
@@danlorett2184 Honestly, phyrexian mana should have been colorless only, and every card with phyrexian mana having some normal colored pips in it. Beyond making some cards free, it makes cards colorless. Alternatively, give phyrexian mana a clause similar to cards like Force of Will. So in addition to paying 2 life for the phyrexian mana, you also needed exile a card that shared a color with the phyrexian mana pip. Either of these would've stopped the cards from being ubiquitous everywhere, while still leaving them reasonably powerful in the right situations.
@@danlorett2184 Yes, but it simply being free isn't enough to get it banned. Notice how long it took to be banned in Modern & Legacy. But free + replacing itself made it problematic, as there was zero downside. Paying 2 cards to look at an opponent's hand for free isn't worth banning. I played in Legacy for a long time as my primary format, and there are far more potent things to do for free.
Force of Will is fair even though it has a far more powerful effect than "Look at your opponent's hand," because it makes you 2 for 1 yourself. Imagine if you drew a card to replace it instead.
@@corey2232 But it's a 2-for-1 that basically says "If your opponent would win this turn, they don't"
"Oh, I get to draw a card, see what my opponents hand, AND set up my graveyard?!"
Think because you speak, please.
How close are we to “cards banned for non power reasons”
There’s No way you could unban Mana Drain. Not when it gives control decks free mana to cast their planeswalkers or monastery mentors, and have mana available to cast their brainstorms or ponders. And sure, there’s a lot of cheap spells. But people still play spells with higher mana value such as Seasoned Dungeoner, Force of Will, Ad Nauseam, Sneak Attack, or Natural Order. Even then, just countering a 2 mana spell and getting 2 mana for your next turn would make these decks run off.
It'd be way worse than that. Think of how many high CC spells are played because they're basically "free". All the pitch elementals, force, murktide, kappa cannoneer, affinity nonsense, treasure cruise, etc.
HIRUMAREDX?!
I'd love to see you do a spotlight on the Swords cards, like Feast & Famine, War & Peace, and the like
Zirda banned in 20 20 or 2022?
Bass Salt Monolith.
So you realy think that delver would drop murky T for Lurrus If IT was legal again?
Absolutely and there’s no chance it wouldn’t.
I think DRS would be ok to unban in Modern
Deathrite Shaman will never be unbanned. Simply put it single handedly shuts down an entire architype in the format with no effort, meaning noone would play any deck that interacts with the graveyard. This would be bad for any format.
I remember when all the mouth breathers were like OMG, it is so unfair they banned the card. It doesn't deserve to be banned, fetch lands this, blue that yadda yadda dumb arguments.
Wait . . . . . HOW IS BASALT MONOLITH'S ABILITY NOT A MANA ABILITY!?
The pay 3 mana to untap it is not a mana ability.
@@theicyphoenix1063 you know what, completely missed which part it was reducing, that makes sense.
I remember playing probe for all the reasons it was banned for but when it was new I was told I was silly and that it was bad...feels good to be vindicated after so many years.
Bath-salt monolith
what about "most powerful keywords/mechanics"
Top 10 "pay half your life" Cards
u should make a video on “top 15 cards in this pack of mtg I found”
Finally
companions aren't relevant anymore since the nerf.
What if they put a number after the companion keyword instead of a flat 3? So the companions in this video get companion 10 to be unbanned but the weakest companions can have companion 0 or maybe even a negative number that gives you mana.
BoP? Who the hell says BoP?
A lot of people?
Birds of Paradise? That used to be what we called it. That and just "Birds"
WotC could fix the issue of alternative costs running away by just adding a rule in the rulebook that any spell cast using an alternative resource alone except involving a discard from the caster's hand will also forbid them from gaining or spending mana for the rest of the turn.
This makes no sense lmao.
Gitaxian probe and cabal therapy was dumb As hell
Mana drain was designed to be a worse version of counterspell. When it was originally printed, there was a rule called mana burn around. What mana burn did was was deal damage to a player for each unused mana they had floating between phases. This would work as a restriction at the time as mostly only control decks wanted such a color dependant permission magic, and it would force the heavily reactive control decks to actually be proactive or face passive damage. Obviously, that changed when mana burn went away.
They should have errata'd the card to damage you if you didn't spend it all
To be fair... the prospect of mana burn didn't hurt the card AT ALL. Literally more people played mana drain back when mana burn was actually a thing than they do now, because back then there was less power creep. Mana Draining a 3cc spell and taking 1 damage because you couldn't spend it all was 100% still a blowout for you. Now we have a LOT of really good counter spells (force of negation, flusterstorm, whatever the "counter 1cc spells" one is, etc.
@@danlorett2184 true, I'm taking more in the hypothetical as to why it was printed in the first place. But I have no doubt that a counter with free mana attached would still be a no Brainer in most situations. Also, the card you forgot the name of is probably mental misstep. Or if you are looking at Phyrexia: All will be One spoiler season, Minor Misstep.
Memory jar seems like it would be pretty darn good in a dredge deck with at least 2 dark rituals, unless there's something I'm missing 🤔
What dredge deck are you running that would ever play it lmao.
Engagement
I don’t think you’d need to remove the Companion ability to make Lurus fair. Just make it so you can only cast one card from the graveyard on the turn you Cast Lurus would make it fair imo
Ham fisted, not handfisted
Deathrite is fine. There is so much cheap removal to get rid of it. It used to be OP and now its just P. It could be unbanned in legacy and modern.
Pretty much agree
I’d probably disagree for modern but for legacy absolutely.
su-PER-flu-us
I've always thought the biggest problem with Deathrite Shaman is its mana cost. Decks that do not play green should not have access to one drop mana dorks period, let alone the best one ever printed. I would argue that if Deathrite cost one green, there's a pretty good chance that it would still be unbanned in Legacy.
The main problem i see with it only being green is that it will still end up assisting one of the most powerful decks in the format, Delver. I think its unbanning will just see the return of RUG delver instead of just UR delver. I also feel like it would just see play in alot of decks and become too prominent and format affecting. Which is a shame because it is a fun card
*Sees these banned cards*
Me: *only plays commander* These are broken? *Confused look*
My best explanation is that commander is more clunky format by design.
First