It's worth noting that you can respond to Panoptic Mirror's upkeep trigger by imprinting the Time Warp, giving your opponents very little heads-up. This can pretty easily make the play pattern "Untap with Mirror, I win?" But yeah, infinite combos are nothing new in Commander. Tooth and Nail remaining legal makes about half of the banlist laughable.
Tooth and Nail is 9 mana to get off.....you won't be casting it turn 3-5... and it's easily disrupted since there is a lot of hate for creature based combos already.
Flash in a Felidar Sovereign before your turn, same situation. "Untap with Sovereign, I win?". If Panoptic Mirror is too toxic, then Felidar Sovereign is as just well, same as anything that can instantly win, like Thaumatic Scepter. You don't have an instant response to it? Too bad, you lose.
@@straikychan The reason FLASH HULK is disgusting is because it's literally a 2 mana combo, you don't have to pay for hulk, you're only paying for flash.
I love your deck techs, but honestly didn't think I had a need for another long form MTG podcast. After a few episodes, I can happily say that I was wrong. Keep em coming, Mitch! Thank you!
One of the other reasons Prophet of Kruphix is banned is that it is the engine, the enabler AND the protector. Most decks that ran it back in the day also ran ways to protect it. It was a highly resilient engine just on its own merit.
This is the first time I've vehemently disagreed with the reasoning on this channel. Shaman of the forgotten ways is so much worse than biorhythm that they're uncomparable. Should biorhythm be banned? Probably not, but saying it shouldn't be banned because shaman isn't banned is like saying ancestral recall shouldn't be banned because brainstorm isn't.
Good. It's amazing that you both disagree with him. That's why I love videos like this one. It opens up discussion on both sides of the board. Next time give your reasons for why you feel it's wrong. There are people who would be interested in your take as well as Mitch's.
@@childodoom I did give a reason why I disagreed in my original post. The comparison they are drawing is wrong. Like I said in my original post, I actually agree with their conclusion, but their line of reasoning is the issue.
Hard agree. Is balance banworthy? Maybe. Should Magus of the Balance be banned? No. Same as Shaman. You see it coming, it can't be done instantly, it costs a lot more mana.
I have a friend who in our 60-card decks plays Novablast Wyrm with Biorythm. This is something you can't do with Shaman of Forgotten ways since the wyrm will kill the shaman when it attacks. So he kills every other creature, casts his biorythym and wins the game since everyone is at 0 and he is at 1. This isn't the only thing you can do, though. You can Cyclonic Rift before your turn then biorythym on your turn to win the game. These kinds of interactions are what make the card feel unfair.
As someone with a Stax deck, I actually ask my friends if they mind me playing it. And when they're in a good mood about it they'll pick a deck they want to use against it. When they're not I'll go to any other deck. Communication is absolutely key in Commander.
Yeah we got a guy in one of the two play groups that I play in that he always tries to hide whenever he's playing a deck and what it does especially if it's a Stax deck. Actually got mad and walked away from a game because I told the new players at the table what is the deck was and what it was about to do and how to beat it LOL
Mitch's argument about communication, managing expectations and the social contract (at 23:00) as reasons for unbanning Braids could be extended to unbanning any card as long as the people you play with are fine with the decks you build. got a Paradox Engine in your deck? not a problem if no-one at the table is unhappy about it. edit: looks like I should've waited to the end of the episode before commenting. Eddie makes a good point, we probably don't live in a world where unbanning everything would be a good idea.
@@drakeconsumerofsoulsandche5761 I dunno, maybe some cedh players? I'm not saying it'll be easy to find people who want to play that kind of magic, but when you do, go nuts!
@@drakeconsumerofsoulsandche5761 I still have it in my Feather deck as a value piece (I'm using it to play my hand, not go infinite) and I have a conversation with the table first where I explicitly state that while it's one of the strongest cards in the deck, it's only there for value. I've yet to play a game with the deck where someone has a problem with it.
thats fair. i have a deck i am working on where my commander is actually not a legal card at all, but the group is okay with it because its a themed deck that is just there to mess around (grixis coin flip) my group is usually okay with using any card in existence, so long as it isn't a completely outlandish one (Shazarihad) or one that i would be abusing. IE i don't usually run Mana Crypt, but in the grixis coin flip deck mentioned above, i am using it in the place of the usual Sol Ring. in fairness, my group is very laid back, so long as you aren't using cards that are just unfun, or being "degenerate" as we call it, its fair. just if its outside the rules, check it first.
I think the real problem with Iona wasn’t the turn 9 Iona, but rather the turn 1 or 2 entomb/reanimate to lock someone out. I feel like that was a point that should have been addressed, which doesn’t really apply as much to stuff like biorhythm. Sure, infinite mana isn’t that hard, but tooth and nail can win for the cost of a Biorhythm, but you can’t entomb reanimate a biorhythm. Not that I advocate for Iona being banned, but I think that that’s the bigger reason.
As someone who used to play against her a lot before she got banned, she not only locks you out, but the people who can deal with her usually don't because she does not lock out their colours, so to them she is fine. So you just kinda sit there not getting to play the game, while nobody is close to winning so you still have to stay there in case she's disappear somehow
Also if someone plays Iona against you and your playing a G/x deck and they name X with Iona, unless you have beast within in hand or in the graveyard, you are 100% fucked since at least to my knowledge green can’t easily tutor it out of the deck.
I could understand the reason why people hated Iona, though i was never particularly bothered by it. I primarily ran 3 color commanders so eliminating all my outs to Iona were unlikely, though thats not to say i haven't been inconvenienced or shut out by it. But i think if the monored player is fine for playing blood moon, its just karmic justice for them to be Iona'd
Joel Dykman Except that’s just your non-basics. It’s not contamination, and you can just get another basic land into play, and now your non-basics essentially produce colorless, like a lot of mana rocks. Not nearly as destructive as literally being unable to cast even if you have mana. I still don’t think Iona is that bad to be banned, but it is a whole other level compared to Blood Moon.
Here we tried that and i stopped playing multiplayer altogether because the only two ways of play for me and my brother were either playing a degenerate combo deck that wins before anyone can do anything or playing a more interactive comboless deck where everyone would get rid of us before doing anything else
I agree on the coalition victory unban. While the conditions of coalition victory are rathe easy to meet as you just have to control your commander(the lands thing just happens because you pay Magic(It doesn't say basic land It says basic land type)). An 8 mana "win the game" Sorcery is fine though (see expropriate or tooth and nail)
That is indeed true. The problem is that those two should also be banned, cause u know, they wind the game on the spot almost always, and haven't got that multicolored tax or even requirements
Yes, you can play around Erayo, if the enemy plays no more counterspells... The weakness of counterspells in Commander is that you can't counter anything, Erayo filters through your opponents utility spells and let's you counter the big stuff, effectively making it possible to not let anyone play anything ever again, you can't play around Erayo if the Erayo player doesn't do anything but flip it, which is never the case.
One issue imo is that, while talking about commander bans, everyone tends to argument about a card's power level, when I don't think that that's really the issue. Is Iona broken? No, of course not. I think the only two cards that are on the banlist because of power level are P. Engine and Prophet. The rest ist there because they tend to create unfun experiences, especially in less competitive environments. I could talk about each card individually and what I think are the reasons they're banned, I just think argueing power level doesn't really matter in the discussion
Alot of the cards that were on the ban list were there because of exactly what you said. They just made the games un-fun. Iona as an example isn't that bad, but painters servant made her broken hence why painters servant was banned for a long time. Alot of the cards on the list were banned imo because they just made other cards broken, and without said banned card the other cards became less powerful and more managable in games.
Honestly I still hate that they got rid of P. Engine mostly cause it was already enough of a taboo at non comp tables to stop most players from using it, and they managed to kill dozens of comp strategies when there are hundreds of cards that cause more problems then P. Engine in casual that are perfectly fine
I know it sounds silly but a huge number of the cards on the banned list are there because of power level, look basically all the power nine on the banned list. Playing with a lotus and would be fun but it’s been decided that it’s too powerful.
Actually MOST of the banlist WAS because of power level Grislebrand, Emrakul, 8 of the power 9, Engine, Prophet. Iona was one of the ONLY bans based on being "unfun" and most of the old bans make ZERO sense now Grislebrand and Emrakul are no longer threats at an edh table compared to other cards in their colors
@@Sir-Darmek Yes, I know. I was talking about how creators like The Command Zone or, in this case, Mitch talk about cards not belonging on the banlist since they are not overpowered, not about the banlist itself.
my concern with biorhythm is that it makes instant speed board wipes go from powerful to potentially game ending. an evacuation turn 4-6 right before your turn would leave the board pretty clean followed up with a biorythem is going to kill someone.
I'm sorry, did you seriously just compare an eight mana "I probably win" sorcery to a creature with an ELEVEN mana activated ability that requires you to have eight power on board and it has to survive until your upkeep? And then follow it up with Sundering Titan? "It gets a bad rap" is the sort of thing I expect to hear from people who weren't playing when it was unbanned.
Yeah. For real. Same with Coalition Victory. It’s not hard to pull off. In a deck where you’re running CV, your commander probably automatically meets the color requirements (unless you’re playing Ramos or Morophon or something), and with fetchlands being so prominent, the basic land clause isn’t hard to meet either. The hardest part is the CMC itself, which again, isn’t that hard. The problem is, it’s “react now or I win out of nowhere, no questions asked.” Shaman isn’t banned because you have to either have a haste enabler (and 11 extra mana in addition to its casting cost) or wait a whole turn to use it. All this being said, I’m not sure if either should be banned or not because I’ve never played against them. They should really just start a trend of temporarily unbanning cards as a test to see if the format would suffer for it. If it does, back to the list. If it doesn’t, then cool, it opens up new wincons.
Totally agree, their statement is "is not bad because there are other ways to do the same thing" sounds kind of dumb coming from people that knows the game.
The difference between 8 and 11 mana in GREEN in COMMANDER isn't that significant, and if you don't have another 6 power worth of creatures in play there are probably better things you coukd do with that mana. Although your other points are good, and there are the "I have one creature but my opponents have 0" scenarios.
Detail you missed about Panoptic Mirror - yes you have to wait for your next upkeep after you play it, but you don't actually need to imprint before that - on your upkeep, the copy ability triggers despite having nothing imprinted, and you can respond to that by imprinting your time warp or whatever, then when the copy ability resolves you get your time warp. This means you don't actually have to telegraph what is going to be imprinted, you're only telegraphing that you might have something. And also for the time warp thing, that also means you only need the 5 mana to pull it off, not 10 to do it in one turn.
As someone that's spent embarassing amounts of $ across the years on reserved list cards I say... Absolutely‚ it's a fucking joke and in no way a service to the player base. Reprints are long overdue.
The only thing I want to be abolished from the reserve list is the dual lands. Other than that, the reserved list is fine the way it is, outside of the duals being in there.
Rofellos makes too much mana too fast. He accelerates you consistently and at a breakneck pace. Turn 3 vornclex, into turn four genesis wave X = whole deck, isnt fun or fair.
- Coalition victory: Well it is not as different when you meet a 1 trick combo deck so i guess it's fine. - Panoptic mirror: I guess it is still banned not just unlimited turns but also because you can do with it way more things, it's too flexible for its own good for commander but as you say is manageable. - Biorhythm: Same like Coalition but i guess that they put it there with coalition because they didn't want too many instant victory cards available for people, plus it is easier to cast and set than Coalition... also the shaman doesn't see to much play is because it is a creature and that makes him WAY more manageable than a sorcery. - Sundering Titan: I had a lot of bad experiences with that guy to know that unbanning that is a bad idea, he is too easy to abuse. "But it breaks your lands too" no it say it destroys basic lands, that doesn't mean that you have to play basic lands. - Rofellos: I guess if you had not played against Rofellos, you don't know to know that he can get pretty insane really fast. In the past he was just banned as commander which was the biggest problem, as one of the 99 it is fine. But then they changed the banning on the format for commander... i still question that decision. - Braids: As much as i love her, I completely understand why she is banned. I actually played her as a support card on my Ghave deck and she is insane on the early game and as a commander... sweet momma was top tier, especially on a resurrection deck with cannon fodder, like Bitterblossom faeries, and easy to resurrect stuff like Reassembling Skeletons, Bloodghast and Nether traitor. - Prophet: Don't even consider that one, like the the Titan, that bitch is way better that she looks... goddam i still remember the days when she was legal... everyone played her and every one abused of her way too much. - Erayo: She was banned as commander in the past but like Rofellos they just banned her completely, but yeah she is manageable... and yeah, fuck Gaddock Teeg he is objectively worst. - Emrakul: Errr... no. I have had enough games against Kozilek Commanders to know that 15 colorless it's NOTHING and she has way too much self protection to be deal when she is casted and when she is in play, even Ulamog it's easier to deal with. - Ionia: I guess she was banned not because it say "fuck you mono deck" but because it usually crippled most of the board if most players got the color chosen... and the mono deck. I agree that Void Winnower its as big as a pain in the ass and its easier to cast but Iona has that little problem called Kalia which makes her way easier to put in play. Also "It cost nine mana" tell that to any resurrection deck and the Kozilek deck. So from them i would say that Erayo is the most unbannable, she requires way more set up and she can be an easy target before she flips. Panoptic mirror could be a second but i dare to say that it is way more easy to abuse of it than Erayo. Coalition Victory would be my third option, its harder to cast and it requires you to have basics and on a penta deck that sometimes can be a problem. Rofellos would be 4th if the old Commander banlist was still available, no no as commander but ok as part of the deck.
For coalition: good ramp, prismatic omen or shocklands, Transguild Courier for faster creature, and in a good deck you can easily win turn 3 or 4 with that
Erayo as the first player can fuck over every other player's ramp which then puts you at a huge advantage. You essentially get two extra turns since no other player can likely do anything. It is honestly a lot less unbannable than you are describing.
@@xChikyx In a good deck you can easily win turn 3-4 period. This is an exceedingly cumbersome spell if you are trying to win quickly. Furthermore it goes back to the argument that you should be upfront with what your deck is trying to do if it's typically considered "fast" or "unfun".
I agree with passion about banning iona, i mean it depends on the playgroup mostly, everybody who disagrees with the banning, haven't gotten locked with their mono color deck. "Oh someone is gonna save you" no if the point is to win, you abuse that fact and kill the mono color player 🤷🏻♂️ i hate iona. Also coallition victory comeback! I need you for my weatherlight crew deck 😂
@@TealVelvet if the point is to win you may want to play interaction. If you are in mono green or red or something and therefore can't stop an iona from landing at 9 mana, you should maybe have another deck to play when someone wants to play iona or optimize your deck to be able to focus your opponent to death before they can cast it.
Seems like the rules committee ban list is only modified to "stabilize" cedh. Edited as I watch : I've never considered the argument " you can counter it " an argument. As powerful cards aren't usually cast into open mana or without counterspell back up. A lot of these arguments seem to follow the template " Yeah, this is powerful. But.... come on . "
Sure, there’s counter and removal. I don’t think it’s sufficient to say “but someone could protect it!” as a reason that something powerful should be banned. I think I generally agree if it warps the format and destroys any reason to play other decks, then it should be looked at. It’s just unfortunate that it’s hard to re-define text since this is a paper game but being built with digital designers and with 25 years of cards to pull from, you’re bound to find things that can be abused. This is also why I generally enjoy Modern vs Legacy to stay away from things like Power 9.
I had Panoptic Mirror in a deck from before it was banned. Played that deck recently with strangers, forgetting to remove it, and no one batted an eye. It simply got removed and we continued with the game. I just now found out it was banned.
Erayo is banned because arcane laboratory exists, which makes it so you can only play one spell/turn. only gruul colors are remotely equipped for that, and even then, its a struggle. i can think of 3 or 4 cards offhand that would excel in a situation like that : Carnage Tyrant, Mistcutter Hydra, Chandra, Awakened Inferno are all unable to be countered.
Personally, I'd much rather powerful cards get un-banned, like paradox engine, tolarian academy, or prophet of kruphix, rather than cards like coalition victory or braids. Decks like that are just inherently less fun to play against, even though they may not win as often because they are less powerful. I'd much rather play against someone with a paradox engine on their field than someone who is sitting at the table setting up a coalition victory and barely interacting with the rest of the game. I agree with the rules committee in that the ban list should contain cards mostly that aren't fun to play against (or even with?), which is why I was hoping to see a bit more of the more powerful cards "un-banned" (like paradox engine, prophet of kruphix, etc.) since cards like those can really only be played in commander. My un-banned card: Balance. I personally take a bit of a different stance in what I think the social contract should contain. Currently, most players hate on land destruction, but get no hate for ramping into 8-9 lands on turn 4. I think balance is actually a more fair card than armageddon because it doesn't hurt the players that are behind, it just evens out the board state. It can also be used as a board wipe as well, or wipe someone's hand if they drew say, 15-20 cards and have a reliquary tower. Again, it's still fair, because they get to keep the best cards out of those 15-20, but don't get to keep the excess and just win the game off of it.
Prophet of Kruphix does the same amount of work as Seedborn Muse. Both untap permanents you control of other players untap step, but prophet gives creatures flash, while muse untaps everything. They are the same CMC and both have similar power and toughness. But Prophet is banned, and Muse is not. Because i guess Flash is to strong.
@@steinschlange1457 Prophet does more work. To get what it does you need multiple cards to create that kind of board state nowadays. If all Prophet did was give Flash, it wouldn't be that bad. But as it is, it allows decks to suddenly be playing not only on their turn but everyone else's as well. It's not the most flashy of abilities but such an advantage is undeniable. Honestly, Prophet is game-warping. The moment it would come down, you either killed it or it's owner would outpace the table for an almost guaranteed win. I know that from first hand experience both with and against it.
Any time your commander would change zones you could instead put it in the command zone. So you can send her to the graveyard, then you can shuffle your graveyard into your library and put her into the command zone
The rules committee are vilified for other reasons, like how painters servant spiked dramatically right before being unbanned, but I’m sure that’s a coincidence
I love how most of the arguments are pretty well thought outside of Emrakul, where it was basically “but she’s so cool!” I 100% agree with that sentiment.
Shaman of the Forgotten Ways vs Biorhythm... 1) Shaman needs to get around an entire turn cycle to win the game 2) Shaman in susceptible to creature removal 3) Shaman's ability costs 11 mana (not 8) These are the reason Shaman is fine, but Biorhythm isn't. They seem very similar on the cover, but in reality they aren't that comparable.
I feel like Grisselbrand can go into the 99 without being a problem. I’d unban that or Gifts Ungiven. Or I’m severely miss understanding the repercussions of unbanning Gifts. Correct me if I’m wrong.
The fact that you want Sundering Titan and Prohpet of Kruphix Unbanned makes me question anything you say in this video. Those cards are ludicrously powerful and only a maniac wants them in the game again
As much as people complain about the banlist, it's impressive that the EDH banlist is as *small* as it is. If you leave out the 'Conspiracy' cards, 'Ante' cards, the Power Nine, and the dexterity cards (Chaos Orb, Falling Star) then there are only around 30 banned cards out of Magic's entire catalog of cards.
Is it unique? Y/N Is it spammable? Y/N Does it need enablers? Y/N Does it work entirely by itself? Y/N Are there ways around it? Y/N Let peer pressure determine play style & group metas. The beauty of EDH is that it's MULTIPLAYER; very few cards can't be dealt with by 3 other players. The ban list should be an ABSOLUTE last resort, though it is definitely necessary for only a few cards. MTG wasn't created with commander in mind, commander was created with MTG in mind, so there are bound to be some cards that should be banned, but not many. You should be able to know ALL banned cards off the top of your head, and those that are banned should be totally obvious. I would recommend letting the players openly vote each year, or every couple years to determine what the ban list looks like. The rules comity would then enact those as 'banned' and also be able to emergency ban a card if it comes out before the annual vote. There are better ways to determine the ban list if we can work together as players to make it. Great video and great work Mitch, Eddy, and Rules Comity :)
Something they didn't mention is that Wastes is a basic land type, so Coalition Victory requires you to have a wastes, and Sundering Titan destroys up to 6 basic lands.
Prophet of Kruphix is way too good and will never be unbanned, it is a seed born muse with a leyline of anticipation fused together. I’m honestly surprised that it was ever made into a card.
Hard disagree on Prophet of Kruphix. While most of the others have situational decks that they fit into that you can quickly recognize as something you would want to avoid or bring your own oppressive deck to the table to combat them with, Prophet of Kruphix fits into SO much and dominates SO MANY games that it becomes very difficult to navigate around in terms of negotiating with others what is fair or what you'd want to play against. You see someone with a Braids commander and you go "no thanks," or you find out someone is trying to win with Coalition Victory and you just don't play against that again, but Prophet weasels its way into every single deck with the colors and just provides massive value. While more powerful cards do exist that are still legal, very few are such obviously flexible auto-includes that begin warping every deck they can be put into. It just has too much gravity.
6:18 Just imagine all the fun that could be had with a blue/green/white deck revolving around Nyxbloom Ancient, Argothian Elder, Paradox Haze, Paradox Engine, Time Warp, Time Stop, Timetwister, Shahrazad, Panoptic Mirror and Copy Artifact.
Prophet of Kruphix was one of my favorite cards in commander before it was banned. I had wanted what was essentially Vedalken Orrery on a creature for the longest time and Yeva while fine in mono green is too restrictive for multicolor. I didn't even care that much about it having the Seedborn Muse like effect.
Its honestly barely stronger than seedborn muse if at all. Creatures/lands vs all permanents is a huge difference. Flash on it is only mildly relevant. If people have a problem with it. Run proper removal for your local meta and interact correctly.
The problem is something like momir vig or any effect that can generate card advantage so in the end either you respond or your opponent will have a massive amount of creatures attacking everyone
Forced to unban one card? I mean, probably Prophet of Kruphix but you guys said that one already, so I'll find another. Griselbrand. It's definitely good. It draws a lot of cards. However, Necropotence isn't banned, and Griselbrand is a more restrictive Necropotence on legs. Griselbrand is a 7/7 Legendary Creature - Demon, for 4BBBB. He has Flying, Lifelink, and "Pay 7 life: Draw seven cards." Some things to note: He's more easily removed than Necropotence. It's still 1 life for 1 card, but you can only do that in batches of 7, so you can't do the Necropotence thing of tanking your life down to 1 and just drawing all the cards. Gotta be in batches of 7. It's 8 mana compared to Necro's 3. Griselbrand can be your commander, so you can get him out reliably. This is probably the biggest reason he's banned. However, being in mono-black means he doesn't have that much ramp to help you cast him (unless you get K'rrick out I suppose), and he doesn't really have any protection from removal. He won't stay out for long, and if you just dump your life into cards in response to him being removed, someone will dome you with a Bolt or something since you opened yourself up to it. He's one of those cards that is balanced by there being 3 other players at the table.
Sundering titan would be brutal in any azorius ETB deck. turn 7 : cyclonic rift. turn 8, drop sundering titan. Panharmonicon trigger. now your blowing up up to 10 lands and have a 7/10. and if a deck is running these, odds are it will have a lot of untyped lands to slip past the land type restriction.
I think having a banlist is good as giving a general idea to how to play the game. EDH is inherently a casual format, and not all of us know the over 18k cards that exist in Magic, even less all the infinite interactions. IHMO is nice to have someone telling you "this shit is super crazy, not recommendable to play" but at the end of the day, your playgroup will do whatever they want, banning or unbanning certain cards according to their rules or styles. Also, Moxes should stay banned. The ramp they provide is amazing and absolutely 0 drawbacks. You are forced to play them in the sense that your deck without them will be strictly worse. OFC that you can not play them and still have a functional deck, but the boost they provide is considerable. On the other hand, Tabernacle is a really amazing card... if you build around it. According to EDHrec only 847 decks use it. If every card was free, how many of us would use it? How many people would use the moxes? It's a great card, but it's not an auto include as a Mox.
Fall San completely agree, I think Sol Ring falls with the moxes, if there is no reason not to play them ever it restricts deck building. Also If everyone has to run Sol Ring then whoever draws it has a huge mana advantage
The term stax originated in vintage as a way to beat the current metagame. The name of the deck was "The Four Thousand Dollar Solution" or $T4KS, which later got shortened to stax. Basically, a playset of mishra's workshops, and then cards like tanglewire and smokestacks.
Iona banned is the best ban ever. i died on turn 2 because of Iona ( more than once ). Turn 1 pass the turn, discard Iona. i drop a land, pass turn, turn 2, drop a swamp, cast reanimate......i lost on turn 3 or 4 because of Iona. goddamn Kaalia MULTIPLE TIMES. when you spend more time shuffling your deck and draw your cards than play the game because of 1 card. yeah BANNED!! Void Winnower is NOWHERE near as problematic than Iona. i cast it last weekend, it died as soon it hit the table with a good old fashion Murder...Iona slows down the game for usually 90% of the players at the table. shut down decks and half decks. Void Winnower does not have protection for dying! easy to kill
I believe that the archetype stacks originates with the vintage deck known originally as The $4000 Solution, which was built to beat Miracle Grow decks way back in the day. Typing out the name of the deck took a long time, so it was shortened to an acronym, and the order of the "T" and the "$" were flipped for aesthetic purposes, creating the acronym $T4kS (which is why the archetype is pronounced as "stacks" and not "stack", since, while the deck played the card Smokestack, the name is not based off of the card itself).
I don't think that you considered how coalition victory says "each basic land type" the type simply means that if u have fetch lands they can get u the game on curve with its cost because volcanic island for example counts as island aswell as mountain (aswell as ravnica lands) i love the show and i was just wondering if you did consider this.
My playgroup decided to do that secret Santa thing just last week! I brought it up to them and they thought it was a really cool idea. It’s nice seeing that other people do it too
@@SaltySargTTV I didn't say I was okay with playing against her 100% of the time, all I said was I didn't think she should be banned. Do I think she's a problematic card? Yes. Do I think she's problematic enough to be banned? No. It all depends on your meta and the scenario you mentioned is unlikely to happen reliably. If someone used Iona against someone else and I had the ability to stop it I would and even if I couldn't I would start focusing on the Iona player because they're getting what they want and I'm not. They would have to promise they could take out the other player that turn as well as choose a color that's not mine to get me not to interrupt their plan and even then I would still go after them after because they showed that they are a threat. They could very well blink it and target me next. Iona should be treated exactly like one should treat Edric and be taken out as soon as possible. Also I don't exclusively play mono color decks I just appreciate the simplicity of building them compared to multi color decks.
Here's the problem she ruins games, shes a problem card. She can be cheated out such as with khalia and with alta nest tender. Shes not fun to play nor play against. Fix that by taking her out of the format and people enjoy it better. It's all fun and games til you make multiple copies of her and the legend rule somehow doesnt apply so I just say fuck it and make it so my opponent cant play any color. It's possible and that's why she can stay banned it's not simply her it's what people could do with her.
Iona, Shield of Emeria can also target everyone else at the table not just one person. My first experience with this card was when it first came out and one of my friends played it. When he played it, it just shutdown everyone else including myself because we all had spells with the color they chose. After about 3 to 4 turns of no one being able to cast anything but Iona's caster, we all agreed that the card's effect was Overpowered, and so we changed the effect to 'Iona gains protection from the chosen color.'
I get what you guys say about counterspells, here's my take as some one who does play blue from time to time but not my first choice. If I'm playing any deck, and lose to a horde of creatures, I can swap 2 or 3 cards to have better responses to them. Same thing for enchantments, (rakdos used to have no defense, but there are some now for destroying a permanent), I can put in a few more cards to help strengthen that weakness. But, if someone is playing blue control...there virtually nothing any other color can do. Black is the only color that might be able to keep up with the cards drawn, but that doesn't help against the denial aspect blue presents. So the only thing the other decks can do is to go back to the drawing board and add blue. Lots of people might say, 'learn to time your spells better'. Well, after 35ish lands, 10 ramp, 10 draw, 5ish board wipes and another 5-8 removal..that's 30ish cards for your deck idea. In a 10 turn game you see a bare minimum of 17 cards and let's assume an average of an additional card on each turn, so 27 cards. Not even 1/3 of a deck. Statistically speaking, that means you won't see 20 cards of your theme. Blue will see a much higher percentage of its cards and running anywhere from 10 (fewest number in a deck I've played against that I'm aware of) to 18 counter spells. So, to me, the blue control deck breaks the social contract in exactly the same way that land destruction does. In either case I'm sitting there while my opponent does stuff.
Couple things you missed about Erayo that make her a little more powerful than you think she is: 1. You can play her as the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd spell in the turn, and the 4th spell cast will still flip her. The count does not start once she enters the battlefield. She can "see" how many spells were cast this turn similar to how Aetherflux Reservoir can. 2. She doesn't only count spells YOU cast, it's spells your opponent's cast, too. Playing her as a creature with a grip of counterspells and other stack interaction and waiting for your opponents to try and interact is just as effective a method to get her to flip (also just wastes more of your opponents' resources) as casting all the spells yourself. However I do agree that Erayo's Essence isn't game ending and really needs to come down on a relatively empty board, otherwise your opponents will just attack you until you die. Also because of the way she works as described above, your opponent's can actually foil the flip the turn she comes down by casting spells while she's on the stack. For example if you cast Sol Ring (1), Mana Crypt (2), Erayo (3), and then and opponent decides to Brainstorm while Erayo is on the stack, the Spells This Turn Count = 4, and the next spell you cast after Erayo resolves will be the 5th spell, and she can ONLY flip on the 4th spell being cast. So you need to wait until the next turn at least to try and flip her.
The one card I'd un-ban would be Shahrazad, solely for how funny it would be to see the mechanic at work in Commander...and making games *even longer*.
I use thopter assembly and time sieve to get infinite turns. Time sieve costs 2 and needs to sacrifice 5 artifacts to take an extra turn. Thopter assembly costs 6, and at the beginning of the turn if there's no other thopter then you return thopter assembly to your hand and create 5 thopter tokens. You play the assembly, sac the 5 tokens and go off.
Is it me or does Mitch's phone really just seem like the most Mitch kinda phone, it's a budget phone and doesn't do as much as the newest Iphone but really gets the job done.
Before the ban of Iona, I had put together a deck that managed to cast her, helm of the host her, then populate the non-legendary copy of her thrice. Locking down all 5 colours within a turn or two. This only happened once out of the seven games I played with it. It was a case of the table laughing, congratulating me then we shuffled up for another game.
This is exactly the reason why I'm not for unbanning that one. If everyone who played Erayo promised to not play Arcane Laboratory then I wouldn't even consider it for the ban list.
I think a big idea behind the ban list is setting an expectation when building a deck. if you build a deck around a card or move to a new area with your deck only for the new playgroup to say "we don't like that card round these parts" that really sucks because you invested money and time into that. Opposed to maybe having a slightly larger ban list and having players ask "Hey can I play this card?" and they can lay out conditions for playing it or simply agree, for example, if people are worried about mirror + Time warp, they can just set the condition to not do infinite turns, effectively unbanning it from your group.
Another point to add to the Sundering Titan discussion: it can't blow up nonbasic lands! The only way to destroy a nonbasic land with ST is by adding a basic land type to it. BUT. the only usable card (non-meme/non-bad) that does that without rendering useless the nonbasic land (in that case ST becomes useless) is Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. So, that's only ONE nonbasic land gone each ETB or DIE of ST. Nonbasics are the most useful lands you want to blow up, usually.
I would accept it even if we got a new version that was 2WW to cast. That’s a very strong effect, certainly more than Slaughter the Strong or Citywide Bust.
The banning of Prophet of Kruphix to this day is still the one that bothered me the most. It never made sense to me why it was banned. Sure it has incredibly powerful abilities on a creature that isn't legendary but it almost always dies to removal. It never wins games on its own and the advantages it does offer are available on other cards as well. Looking at you Seedborn Muse.
Hmm ordering this list would be tough... 1+2: Chaos Orb and Falling Star (that ain't Magic) 3: Shahrazad (PLEASE NO) 4: Channel 5: ??? Time Walk? Time Vault? Tinker? Honestly I feel like all of those cards are even more broken than the rest of the Power 9.
I played against an Erayo deck twice and have to say that even though I agreed at the beginning I just regretted it when the friend playing it also played Arcane Laboratory. It literally made him playing the game alone while we had to watch him for ages ending it. I was really happy with the ban of Iona because it just shuts down mono colored decks which is never good for the meta in my opinion. But for most other cards I share your opinion.
I don't understand this argument. Why would 3 people sit and watch themselves die if they are all hard locked. Were you digging for an uncounterable spell? Did you have a board state worth trying to swing it out while he drew interaction? Karn lattice is legal in the format and can go into literally any deck. I have no problem scooping to a lock as a win condition.
He composed this deck so we wanted to see his win condition which took a lot of time. The lock itself is not enough for me because if he wouldn't be capable of draining our lives it would've been a draw.
@@DamonXWind why bring it to the table if your deck is just meant to make people concede? Just for a win? I understand wanting to win dont get my wrong but to have 3 people watch just you play just to have them concede doesn't sound satisfying to me but to each their own I guess
@@jamespooh2 I generally play those kinds of decks against decks with similar power, plans, and/or a lot of interaction. It's the interaction wars and timing of executing your plan that makes cEDH exciting for me. However, if I sit down with strangers or my friends prefer to play a different power level, I have decks that accommodate that. A turn 2 win against a starter deck or jank pile isn't what I'm looking for. I only suggest the conceding plan as an expedience. In fact, when I only had a couple decks, and one of them was an infinite combo deck, I would generally display my combo and concede before resolving it if the game was in early turns.
@@DamonXWind, and this is exactly what I meant. At the beginning the opposing player seemed to not even know his winning combo. So I insisted on at least seeing it or calling it a draw.
"If this card were unbanned I don't think it would see much play" 2 seconds later "Oh I'd totally auto include it in every single deck I have that it can go in"
As an Animar player, this list gave me a few reasons to chuckle. To be more precise, I play Animar Stompy, NOT Animar combo, and at least 3 cards on this list would make my deck beyond broken at any casual table. Sundering Titan would be "repeatable land destruction for 0 mana", Prophet of Kruphix I actually got to play in this deck before she was banned, and she won me approximately all the games I got to play her. When she gets you full land untaps and gives all your creatures flash when Animar has 5 or 6 counters ON EVERY UPKEEP, you can stomp the whole table ridiculously fast. The final offender is Emrakul. I've lost count of the times I've cast Kozilek (v1) or Void Winnower on turn 5 or 6 and at least one person at the table jokes "well, I'm glad Emrakul's banned". My Animar could hard-cast her on turn 6-ish on a good day, and this is a non-optimised deck. So when opponents are dropping Vorinclexes and Elesh Norns, Animar would be dropping a 15/15 flying, hard-to-kill annihilator 6 monstrosity THAT GIVES YOU AN EXTRA TURN. There is no coming back from that for most casual decks, and even the ones that could probably spent so many resources to get rid of her that you're probably going to win anyway. I also disagree with a couple of others on this list. Panoptic Mirror is far too abusable imo. As you demonstrated, any extra turn spell is "if I untap, I win", steal spells like Blatant Theivery are a free win if you don't deal with the Mirror as soon as it lands, and the fact that you can imprint multiple cards onto the mirror makes it far too versatile. Erayo is, as someone else pointed out, backbreaking for far too many decks (and far too easy to flip) to ever be unbanned (save maybe if they reintroduce the "Banned as Commander" thingy), Biorhythm cannot be unbanned as long as Cyclonic Rift exists ("at the end of your turn, I cast an Overloaded Cyclonic Rift. Untap, upkeep, draw, land, Biorhythm. GG") and Rofellos and Braids suffer from the same thing as Erayo - they're a huge problem as commanders, but they would be fine in the 99. I'm surprised Primeval Titan didn't come up, as it's honestly far less busted than some of the cards on this list. It's pretty damn powerful, don't get me wrong, but I don't think it's as bad as Sundering Titan or Erayo, for example. (I'm probably missing some deck that abused it harder than Scapeshift Valakut did in modern, in which case, feel free to ignore me and/or call me a ****tard)
Emrakul would be fantastic in my Yuriko deck, especially since I got Conspiracy and make her a ninja lol And Iona needs to be unbanned. White is horribly underpowered compared to the other colors
@@Yesnog05 i just have to get the perfect 7 card hand .... but hey it gives me infinite mana, creatures, and life..... and its not a joke.... just a super janky combo being powerful
Really dislike the discussion of Iona as if being cast was the most common way she hit the field. She has always been a reanimation target first and foremost. Iona also forced mono colored decks to auto-include Spine of Ish Sah or Scour from Existence to get out of it. She wasn't popular as a commander because she simply couldn't be reasonably run in Mono-white.
Stax comes from an old Vintage deck hinging on Sphere of Resistance and Tangle Wire. It was called "$T4KS", or The Four Thousand Dollar Solution, because the P9 cards in the deck meant no-proxy lists would cost in the neighborhood of $4000 at the time.
As someone that played prophet while it was legal and absolutely loves the card...I'm alright with it being banned. Making every other player's turn also your turn isn't the same as infinite turns, but it's arguably even more unfun to play against.
I have said this many times to people I've discussed the ban list with, and I'll say it here again. I am thoroughly convinced Rofellos is the *single best* commander in the entire game. He goes straight from turn 2 to turn 6 literally every single game. There are other commanders that have the theoretical potential to be more broken than him with the right draw to be sure, but that consistency that you can build your deck around the expectation of having a minimum of 6 mana on turn 3 e v e r y s i n g l e game will just make your deck insanely consistent. I personally would love to make a Rofellos deck, I've always wanted to, but if he were unbanned I think he'd just become not only the definitive mono green commander in basically all situations, but he'd just become one of the definitive commanders in general.
Something I use to determine if I'd like to see something off the banlist is "how many losses to this card would it take to tilt me?" If the answer is beneath 15, I'd say the card should stay banned.
I think they need to bring back the "banned as a commander, legal in the 99" rule. You talked about three creatures that used to be part of this group of cards in Braids, Erayo and Rofellos. I dont know if any one recalls, but a long time ago, the rules committee had a small list of legendary creatures that could be used in the 99, but not as a commander. After a few years with this rule in place, they decided to just straight up ban all the cards that were on this list. Kokusho was another creature on said list, and as we all know, he has no restrictions now. I think they could apply this rule to Brawl and other commander variants so you could use Oko in your deck, just not as your commander.
I think the issue with Iona is that 90% of the time she only hits one player, and is timed exclusively to lock that player out. Additionally there's a background rule in power levels for creatures in magic: "Unless it re-shuffles into your deck it costs 2 mana." In about the same frequency as someone is just stopped by Iona and scoops because they'll never play magic again that game, Iona is a turn 2-3 play with graveyard pitching, discarding as a cost, and one of the MANY reanimation effects, and getting stopped from playing from turn 3-5 basically means you lose the game. Additionally it's usually not enough of a benefit to your opponents to help you out of the lock (if anything I've seen the opposite, everyone at the table preserves the Iona because she ONLY hits one player, and who wants more opponents). Essentially it made playing mono-color decks impossible in a meta where more than one player had it, and it became an auto-include in every deck with BW or GW available (which can search her up extra early, and protect her easily). Rarely will a smart or capable player use Iona to hit more than one player, since if you lock out a player that others are worried about from the early game she just buys you immunity for a few turns until that locked out player dies, or someone can straight win the game (but you usually have a good advantage at that point). Essentially the banned list exists so that people can walk into a room of 100 people they never met, find a game, and enjoy the experience (because even with format banned lists if you're with your playgroup you can do whatever you want anyway). Iona says "never bring a mono-color deck, or you lose" in that situation, which isn't good for the format as a way to introduce people to magic/commander.
The three cards I'm voting to un-ban is Leovold, because they're more "impulse" card draw effects like what's on Syr Carah. Upheaval, because it's on the same power level as similar legal boardwipes like Jokulhaups. And Limited Resources, because it's not any harder to play around than Winter Orb and similar cards and my brother really wanted to include it in a deck and he doesn't want to have to ask the play group for a special exception.
I think the difference between Bio and Shaman is that there are so many conditions you gotta jump thru to activate ability.. 1 so you gotta pay the 3 to cast it 2 make sure you got 8 power on the board, 3 have a way to give it haste (otherwise you gotta wait another turn, which isn't impossible but it adds another condition), 4 and then tap for 11. If you don't have haste or the 14 mana on that turn, you gotta basically wait until your turn/upkeep in order to use the ability. You better believe that everyone at that table is gonna turn against you ASAP when shaman hits the board. Also seeing that it's a creature and not a sorcery/instant, makes it more likely to be removed, killed, bounced, etc before the ability goes off. In my mono green Deck, I have no way to deal with Biorythym when it's cast as for Sundering Titan, I think the biggest issue is the abuse... I've said it for years but BAN DEADEYE NAVIGATOR! It enables soo much yank and a good portion of the cards on the banlist, can be abused by Deadeye.
The Commander's Quarters: Ban Gaddock Teeg, it shuts many spells of some of my decks. Also The Commander's Quarters: Unban Iona, Shield of Emeria, it only shuts most of the spells of any given deck.
The problem with Rofollos is he's 6 mana on turn 3 every game, without playing any other ramp. The other commanders you mentioned have you jump through hoops to do more broken. Rofollos requires you play forests in your mono-green deck.
As much as I agree with MOST of the list, Iona should stay banned. I went against a guy who his first turn was draw, and discard Iona. Proceeded to play a swamp and reanimate her. He then tried to put helm of the host on her later
Hnnnng 50+ minutes of discussion of the commander format right as I start work. Bless you, Mitch.
It's worth noting that you can respond to Panoptic Mirror's upkeep trigger by imprinting the Time Warp, giving your opponents very little heads-up. This can pretty easily make the play pattern "Untap with Mirror, I win?"
But yeah, infinite combos are nothing new in Commander. Tooth and Nail remaining legal makes about half of the banlist laughable.
@@XCodes Yeah, no question. But that would be a substantially worse card, all around.
Tooth and nail is not worse than griselbrand to be fair
Tooth and Nail is 9 mana to get off.....you won't be casting it turn 3-5... and it's easily disrupted since there is a lot of hate for creature based combos already.
Flash in a Felidar Sovereign before your turn, same situation. "Untap with Sovereign, I win?".
If Panoptic Mirror is too toxic, then Felidar Sovereign is as just well, same as anything that can instantly win, like Thaumatic Scepter. You don't have an instant response to it? Too bad, you lose.
@@straikychan The reason FLASH HULK is disgusting is because it's literally a 2 mana combo, you don't have to pay for hulk, you're only paying for flash.
I love your deck techs, but honestly didn't think I had a need for another long form MTG podcast. After a few episodes, I can happily say that I was wrong. Keep em coming, Mitch! Thank you!
instaBlaster...
One of the other reasons Prophet of Kruphix is banned is that it is the engine, the enabler AND the protector.
Most decks that ran it back in the day also ran ways to protect it. It was a highly resilient engine just on its own merit.
This is the first time I've vehemently disagreed with the reasoning on this channel. Shaman of the forgotten ways is so much worse than biorhythm that they're uncomparable.
Should biorhythm be banned? Probably not, but saying it shouldn't be banned because shaman isn't banned is like saying ancestral recall shouldn't be banned because brainstorm isn't.
Same comparison between prophet of kruphix and seedborn muse. I would not unban any of the cards they chose.
Good. It's amazing that you both disagree with him. That's why I love videos like this one. It opens up discussion on both sides of the board. Next time give your reasons for why you feel it's wrong. There are people who would be interested in your take as well as Mitch's.
@@childodoom I did give a reason why I disagreed in my original post. The comparison they are drawing is wrong. Like I said in my original post, I actually agree with their conclusion, but their line of reasoning is the issue.
Hard agree. Is balance banworthy? Maybe. Should Magus of the Balance be banned? No.
Same as Shaman. You see it coming, it can't be done instantly, it costs a lot more mana.
I have a friend who in our 60-card decks plays Novablast Wyrm with Biorythm. This is something you can't do with Shaman of Forgotten ways since the wyrm will kill the shaman when it attacks. So he kills every other creature, casts his biorythym and wins the game since everyone is at 0 and he is at 1. This isn't the only thing you can do, though. You can Cyclonic Rift before your turn then biorythym on your turn to win the game. These kinds of interactions are what make the card feel unfair.
As someone with a Stax deck, I actually ask my friends if they mind me playing it. And when they're in a good mood about it they'll pick a deck they want to use against it. When they're not I'll go to any other deck. Communication is absolutely key in Commander.
who's your stax commander?
I have 3 stax dexks: Maralen, Derevi, and Breya ahah
@@xChikyx Grand Arbiter Augustine IV
@@KaozIcy oh, my augustin deck is control, just lots and lots of counterspells ahhaj
@@KaozIcy You monster! We have one in our playgroup, it's brutal and oppressive, and it's his favorite deck. FML.
Yeah we got a guy in one of the two play groups that I play in that he always tries to hide whenever he's playing a deck and what it does especially if it's a Stax deck. Actually got mad and walked away from a game because I told the new players at the table what is the deck was and what it was about to do and how to beat it LOL
Imprint coalition victory onto panoptic mirror. Lol
No
Lol
Mitch's argument about communication, managing expectations and the social contract (at 23:00) as reasons for unbanning Braids could be extended to unbanning any card as long as the people you play with are fine with the decks you build.
got a Paradox Engine in your deck? not a problem if no-one at the table is unhappy about it.
edit: looks like I should've waited to the end of the episode before commenting. Eddie makes a good point, we probably don't live in a world where unbanning everything would be a good idea.
Find me someone happy with PE unbanned please
@@drakeconsumerofsoulsandche5761 I dunno, maybe some cedh players?
I'm not saying it'll be easy to find people who want to play that kind of magic, but when you do, go nuts!
@@drakeconsumerofsoulsandche5761 I still have it in my Feather deck as a value piece (I'm using it to play my hand, not go infinite) and I have a conversation with the table first where I explicitly state that while it's one of the strongest cards in the deck, it's only there for value. I've yet to play a game with the deck where someone has a problem with it.
@@FlockFlysatMidnite fair enough
thats fair. i have a deck i am working on where my commander is actually not a legal card at all, but the group is okay with it because its a themed deck that is just there to mess around (grixis coin flip)
my group is usually okay with using any card in existence, so long as it isn't a completely outlandish one (Shazarihad) or one that i would be abusing. IE i don't usually run Mana Crypt, but in the grixis coin flip deck mentioned above, i am using it in the place of the usual Sol Ring. in fairness, my group is very laid back, so long as you aren't using cards that are just unfun, or being "degenerate" as we call it, its fair. just if its outside the rules, check it first.
ERIC MENTIONED WAYFARERS BAUBLE BEFORE MITCH?
I think the real problem with Iona wasn’t the turn 9 Iona, but rather the turn 1 or 2 entomb/reanimate to lock someone out. I feel like that was a point that should have been addressed, which doesn’t really apply as much to stuff like biorhythm. Sure, infinite mana isn’t that hard, but tooth and nail can win for the cost of a Biorhythm, but you can’t entomb reanimate a biorhythm.
Not that I advocate for Iona being banned, but I think that that’s the bigger reason.
As someone who used to play against her a lot before she got banned, she not only locks you out, but the people who can deal with her usually don't because she does not lock out their colours, so to them she is fine.
So you just kinda sit there not getting to play the game, while nobody is close to winning so you still have to stay there in case she's disappear somehow
Also if someone plays Iona against you and your playing a G/x deck and they name X with Iona, unless you have beast within in hand or in the graveyard, you are 100% fucked since at least to my knowledge green can’t easily tutor it out of the deck.
I could understand the reason why people hated Iona, though i was never particularly bothered by it. I primarily ran 3 color commanders so eliminating all my outs to Iona were unlikely, though thats not to say i haven't been inconvenienced or shut out by it. But i think if the monored player is fine for playing blood moon, its just karmic justice for them to be Iona'd
Joel Dykman Except that’s just your non-basics. It’s not contamination, and you can just get another basic land into play, and now your non-basics essentially produce colorless, like a lot of mana rocks. Not nearly as destructive as literally being unable to cast even if you have mana.
I still don’t think Iona is that bad to be banned, but it is a whole other level compared to Blood Moon.
I hated being locked out on turn 2 or 3 by iona.
Most of the cards on the banlist are unfun not op after all Protean Hulk and 100 tutors are ok.
Talk with your playgroup if you don’t like tutors or flash/hulk see if other people are interested in building some lower power decks
@@DietrichMischke Agreed always good to have multiple decks of different power levels, after all this is about budget decks right?
Here we tried that and i stopped playing multiplayer altogether because the only two ways of play for me and my brother were either playing a degenerate combo deck that wins before anyone can do anything or playing a more interactive comboless deck where everyone would get rid of us before doing anything else
odioalospoopers if you liked playing multiplayer just build a mid power deck..
@@DietrichMischke that's the problem, in the local group is either combo before anyone can respond or being the target no matter what
What a great subway experience to enjoy the fastest growing magic channel on TH-cam right after finishing my last exam
I agree on the coalition victory unban. While the conditions of coalition victory are rathe easy to meet as you just have to control your commander(the lands thing just happens because you pay Magic(It doesn't say basic land It says basic land type)). An 8 mana "win the game" Sorcery is fine though (see expropriate or tooth and nail)
That is indeed true. The problem is that those two should also be banned, cause u know, they wind the game on the spot almost always, and haven't got that multicolored tax or even requirements
Prismatic omen and scrapbasket
Yes, you can play around Erayo, if the enemy plays no more counterspells...
The weakness of counterspells in Commander is that you can't counter anything, Erayo filters through your opponents utility spells and let's you counter the big stuff, effectively making it possible to not let anyone play anything ever again, you can't play around Erayo if the Erayo player doesn't do anything but flip it, which is never the case.
she'd be a fun addition to my augustin deck lol
im really surprised they didnt think about arcane laboratory combo, perfect lock
@@tendo339 i did tho hahaha
that's the first card that came to mind when they said it should be unbanned
Like I said, you can play around them, if the people using such cards draw then discards only.
One issue imo is that, while talking about commander bans, everyone tends to argument about a card's power level, when I don't think that that's really the issue. Is Iona broken? No, of course not. I think the only two cards that are on the banlist because of power level are P. Engine and Prophet. The rest ist there because they tend to create unfun experiences, especially in less competitive environments. I could talk about each card individually and what I think are the reasons they're banned, I just think argueing power level doesn't really matter in the discussion
Alot of the cards that were on the ban list were there because of exactly what you said. They just made the games un-fun. Iona as an example isn't that bad, but painters servant made her broken hence why painters servant was banned for a long time. Alot of the cards on the list were banned imo because they just made other cards broken, and without said banned card the other cards became less powerful and more managable in games.
Honestly I still hate that they got rid of P. Engine mostly cause it was already enough of a taboo at non comp tables to stop most players from using it, and they managed to kill dozens of comp strategies when there are hundreds of cards that cause more problems then P. Engine in casual that are perfectly fine
I know it sounds silly but a huge number of the cards on the banned list are there because of power level, look basically all the power nine on the banned list. Playing with a lotus and would be fun but it’s been decided that it’s too powerful.
Actually MOST of the banlist WAS because of power level
Grislebrand, Emrakul, 8 of the power 9, Engine, Prophet.
Iona was one of the ONLY bans based on being "unfun" and most of the old bans make ZERO sense now
Grislebrand and Emrakul are no longer threats at an edh table compared to other cards in their colors
@@Sir-Darmek
Yes, I know. I was talking about how creators like The Command Zone or, in this case, Mitch talk about cards not belonging on the banlist since they are not overpowered, not about the banlist itself.
The issue with Iona is that it is targeted feelbads. I think that is much worse than regular feelbads.
my concern with biorhythm is that it makes instant speed board wipes go from powerful to potentially game ending. an evacuation turn 4-6 right before your turn would leave the board pretty clean followed up with a biorythem is going to kill someone.
even an indestructible creature and sorcery speed removal can do the trick
I was literally sitting at work wondering when the next CQ podcast was coming out. Excited to give this a listen!
I'm sorry, did you seriously just compare an eight mana "I probably win" sorcery to a creature with an ELEVEN mana activated ability that requires you to have eight power on board and it has to survive until your upkeep?
And then follow it up with Sundering Titan? "It gets a bad rap" is the sort of thing I expect to hear from people who weren't playing when it was unbanned.
Yeah. For real. Same with Coalition Victory. It’s not hard to pull off. In a deck where you’re running CV, your commander probably automatically meets the color requirements (unless you’re playing Ramos or Morophon or something), and with fetchlands being so prominent, the basic land clause isn’t hard to meet either. The hardest part is the CMC itself, which again, isn’t that hard.
The problem is, it’s “react now or I win out of nowhere, no questions asked.” Shaman isn’t banned because you have to either have a haste enabler (and 11 extra mana in addition to its casting cost) or wait a whole turn to use it.
All this being said, I’m not sure if either should be banned or not because I’ve never played against them. They should really just start a trend of temporarily unbanning cards as a test to see if the format would suffer for it. If it does, back to the list. If it doesn’t, then cool, it opens up new wincons.
Totally agree, their statement is "is not bad because there are other ways to do the same thing" sounds kind of dumb coming from people that knows the game.
Slivers doesn’t need access to Coalition Victory lol
Sundering titan was perfectly fine
The difference between 8 and 11 mana in GREEN in COMMANDER isn't that significant, and if you don't have another 6 power worth of creatures in play there are probably better things you coukd do with that mana. Although your other points are good, and there are the "I have one creature but my opponents have 0" scenarios.
Detail you missed about Panoptic Mirror - yes you have to wait for your next upkeep after you play it, but you don't actually need to imprint before that - on your upkeep, the copy ability triggers despite having nothing imprinted, and you can respond to that by imprinting your time warp or whatever, then when the copy ability resolves you get your time warp. This means you don't actually have to telegraph what is going to be imprinted, you're only telegraphing that you might have something. And also for the time warp thing, that also means you only need the 5 mana to pull it off, not 10 to do it in one turn.
Forget about the ban list, let's *abolish the reserve list.*
Hard no
Yes. Agreed. Wizards gains no money from aftermarket sales of reserve list cards so let's make em accessible for people that arent rich!
@@chasegreen4594 In the meantime just proxy everything
As someone that's spent embarassing amounts of $ across the years on reserved list cards I say...
Absolutely‚ it's a fucking joke and in no way a service to the player base.
Reprints are long overdue.
The only thing I want to be abolished from the reserve list is the dual lands. Other than that, the reserved list is fine the way it is, outside of the duals being in there.
Rofellos is a relic of the banned as your commander list
Rofellos makes too much mana too fast. He accelerates you consistently and at a breakneck pace. Turn 3 vornclex, into turn four genesis wave X = whole deck, isnt fun or fair.
Rofellos is kinda busted when you have access to him on turn two. Every game.
Turn two 2 green, turn three 6 green is insane.
Arbeider Som Ment or even 7 green if you get a mana dork, which you can play like 6 of. turn 3 zenikar resurgent seems pretty good
Was gonna comment this as well. Same with Braids.
@@ZombiesEatingFish sounds like my Marwyn 😀
I really love this channel the most when it comes to commander point of views
- Coalition victory: Well it is not as different when you meet a 1 trick combo deck so i guess it's fine.
- Panoptic mirror: I guess it is still banned not just unlimited turns but also because you can do with it way more things, it's too flexible for its own good for commander but as you say is manageable.
- Biorhythm: Same like Coalition but i guess that they put it there with coalition because they didn't want too many instant victory cards available for people, plus it is easier to cast and set than Coalition... also the shaman doesn't see to much play is because it is a creature and that makes him WAY more manageable than a sorcery.
- Sundering Titan: I had a lot of bad experiences with that guy to know that unbanning that is a bad idea, he is too easy to abuse. "But it breaks your lands too" no it say it destroys basic lands, that doesn't mean that you have to play basic lands.
- Rofellos: I guess if you had not played against Rofellos, you don't know to know that he can get pretty insane really fast. In the past he was just banned as commander which was the biggest problem, as one of the 99 it is fine. But then they changed the banning on the format for commander... i still question that decision.
- Braids: As much as i love her, I completely understand why she is banned. I actually played her as a support card on my Ghave deck and she is insane on the early game and as a commander... sweet momma was top tier, especially on a resurrection deck with cannon fodder, like Bitterblossom faeries, and easy to resurrect stuff like Reassembling Skeletons, Bloodghast and Nether traitor.
- Prophet: Don't even consider that one, like the the Titan, that bitch is way better that she looks... goddam i still remember the days when she was legal... everyone played her and every one abused of her way too much.
- Erayo: She was banned as commander in the past but like Rofellos they just banned her completely, but yeah she is manageable... and yeah, fuck Gaddock Teeg he is objectively worst.
- Emrakul: Errr... no. I have had enough games against Kozilek Commanders to know that 15 colorless it's NOTHING and she has way too much self protection to be deal when she is casted and when she is in play, even Ulamog it's easier to deal with.
- Ionia: I guess she was banned not because it say "fuck you mono deck" but because it usually crippled most of the board if most players got the color chosen... and the mono deck. I agree that Void Winnower its as big as a pain in the ass and its easier to cast but Iona has that little problem called Kalia which makes her way easier to put in play. Also "It cost nine mana" tell that to any resurrection deck and the Kozilek deck.
So from them i would say that Erayo is the most unbannable, she requires way more set up and she can be an easy target before she flips. Panoptic mirror could be a second but i dare to say that it is way more easy to abuse of it than Erayo. Coalition Victory would be my third option, its harder to cast and it requires you to have basics and on a penta deck that sometimes can be a problem.
Rofellos would be 4th if the old Commander banlist was still available, no no as commander but ok as part of the deck.
For coalition: good ramp, prismatic omen or shocklands, Transguild Courier for faster creature, and in a good deck you can easily win turn 3 or 4 with that
Erayo as the first player can fuck over every other player's ramp which then puts you at a huge advantage. You essentially get two extra turns since no other player can likely do anything. It is honestly a lot less unbannable than you are describing.
@@xChikyx In a good deck you can easily win turn 3-4 period. This is an exceedingly cumbersome spell if you are trying to win quickly. Furthermore it goes back to the argument that you should be upfront with what your deck is trying to do if it's typically considered "fast" or "unfun".
I agree with passion about banning iona, i mean it depends on the playgroup mostly, everybody who disagrees with the banning, haven't gotten locked with their mono color deck. "Oh someone is gonna save you" no if the point is to win, you abuse that fact and kill the mono color player 🤷🏻♂️ i hate iona.
Also coallition victory comeback! I need you for my weatherlight crew deck 😂
@@TealVelvet if the point is to win you may want to play interaction. If you are in mono green or red or something and therefore can't stop an iona from landing at 9 mana, you should maybe have another deck to play when someone wants to play iona or optimize your deck to be able to focus your opponent to death before they can cast it.
Seems like the rules committee ban list is only modified to "stabilize" cedh.
Edited as I watch : I've never considered the argument " you can counter it " an argument. As powerful cards aren't usually cast into open mana or without counterspell back up.
A lot of these arguments seem to follow the template " Yeah, this is powerful. But.... come on . "
Sure, there’s counter and removal. I don’t think it’s sufficient to say “but someone could protect it!” as a reason that something powerful should be banned. I think I generally agree if it warps the format and destroys any reason to play other decks, then it should be looked at. It’s just unfortunate that it’s hard to re-define text since this is a paper game but being built with digital designers and with 25 years of cards to pull from, you’re bound to find things that can be abused. This is also why I generally enjoy Modern vs Legacy to stay away from things like Power 9.
35:35 that's because in lore Emrakul *allowed* herself to be trapped so she wouldn't die eventually.
I have to say, Eddie is one of the best voices in the commander community. He's very articulate and has a lot of good points on a variety of topics.
36:27 Hello from 2020. "Why not Emrakul?" really is the campaign for 2020.
Obviously the ban on Paradox Engine needs to be reversed because you can't call cards "Paradox Engine" good in commander anymore.
I had Panoptic Mirror in a deck from before it was banned. Played that deck recently with strangers, forgetting to remove it, and no one batted an eye. It simply got removed and we continued with the game. I just now found out it was banned.
>sees prophet of kruphix
*Sliver overlord wants to know your location*
Erayo is banned because arcane laboratory exists, which makes it so you can only play one spell/turn. only gruul colors are remotely equipped for that, and even then, its a struggle. i can think of 3 or 4 cards offhand that would excel in a situation like that : Carnage Tyrant, Mistcutter Hydra, Chandra, Awakened Inferno are all unable to be countered.
Personally, I'd much rather powerful cards get un-banned, like paradox engine, tolarian academy, or prophet of kruphix, rather than cards like coalition victory or braids. Decks like that are just inherently less fun to play against, even though they may not win as often because they are less powerful. I'd much rather play against someone with a paradox engine on their field than someone who is sitting at the table setting up a coalition victory and barely interacting with the rest of the game.
I agree with the rules committee in that the ban list should contain cards mostly that aren't fun to play against (or even with?), which is why I was hoping to see a bit more of the more powerful cards "un-banned" (like paradox engine, prophet of kruphix, etc.) since cards like those can really only be played in commander.
My un-banned card: Balance.
I personally take a bit of a different stance in what I think the social contract should contain. Currently, most players hate on land destruction, but get no hate for ramping into 8-9 lands on turn 4. I think balance is actually a more fair card than armageddon because it doesn't hurt the players that are behind, it just evens out the board state. It can also be used as a board wipe as well, or wipe someone's hand if they drew say, 15-20 cards and have a reliquary tower. Again, it's still fair, because they get to keep the best cards out of those 15-20, but don't get to keep the excess and just win the game off of it.
Prophet of Kruphix does the same amount of work as Seedborn Muse. Both untap permanents you control of other players untap step, but prophet gives creatures flash, while muse untaps everything. They are the same CMC and both have similar power and toughness. But Prophet is banned, and Muse is not. Because i guess Flash is to strong.
Balance is an alright choice for me i could see where its necessary at times even
@@steinschlange1457 Prophet does more work. To get what it does you need multiple cards to create that kind of board state nowadays. If all Prophet did was give Flash, it wouldn't be that bad. But as it is, it allows decks to suddenly be playing not only on their turn but everyone else's as well. It's not the most flashy of abilities but such an advantage is undeniable.
Honestly, Prophet is game-warping. The moment it would come down, you either killed it or it's owner would outpace the table for an almost guaranteed win. I know that from first hand experience both with and against it.
@@TresBS1 I also have Firsthand Experience with both Muse and Prophet, on both sides. You are wrong. Muse is flat better.
Unban balance! White needs it bad
Any time your commander would change zones you could instead put it in the command zone. So you can send her to the graveyard, then you can shuffle your graveyard into your library and put her into the command zone
The rules committee are vilified for other reasons, like how painters servant spiked dramatically right before being unbanned, but I’m sure that’s a coincidence
Nami sue and paradox engune dropped right before ban
I love how most of the arguments are pretty well thought outside of Emrakul, where it was basically “but she’s so cool!”
I 100% agree with that sentiment.
Shaman of the Forgotten Ways vs Biorhythm...
1) Shaman needs to get around an entire turn cycle to win the game
2) Shaman in susceptible to creature removal
3) Shaman's ability costs 11 mana (not 8)
These are the reason Shaman is fine, but Biorhythm isn't. They seem very similar on the cover, but in reality they aren't that comparable.
I feel like Grisselbrand can go into the 99 without being a problem. I’d unban that or Gifts Ungiven. Or I’m severely miss understanding the repercussions of unbanning Gifts. Correct me if I’m wrong.
The fact that you want Sundering Titan and Prohpet of Kruphix Unbanned makes me question anything you say in this video. Those cards are ludicrously powerful and only a maniac wants them in the game again
It isn't exactly like they had a large pool of cards to unban in the first place lol
flash using sundering titan and reanimation it plus flicker=hell of commander for my friends.
As much as people complain about the banlist, it's impressive that the EDH banlist is as *small* as it is. If you leave out the 'Conspiracy' cards, 'Ante' cards, the Power Nine, and the dexterity cards (Chaos Orb, Falling Star) then there are only around 30 banned cards out of Magic's entire catalog of cards.
I think they went out and said that if the banlist would reach triple digits, the format would just be dead.
"If you ignore half the ban list it's smaller" is what I just read. Thanks for that lmao.
Is it unique? Y/N
Is it spammable? Y/N
Does it need enablers? Y/N
Does it work entirely by itself? Y/N
Are there ways around it? Y/N
Let peer pressure determine play style & group metas. The beauty of EDH is that it's MULTIPLAYER; very few cards can't be dealt with by 3 other players. The ban list should be an ABSOLUTE last resort, though it is definitely necessary for only a few cards. MTG wasn't created with commander in mind, commander was created with MTG in mind, so there are bound to be some cards that should be banned, but not many. You should be able to know ALL banned cards off the top of your head, and those that are banned should be totally obvious. I would recommend letting the players openly vote each year, or every couple years to determine what the ban list looks like. The rules comity would then enact those as 'banned' and also be able to emergency ban a card if it comes out before the annual vote. There are better ways to determine the ban list if we can work together as players to make it. Great video and great work Mitch, Eddy, and Rules Comity :)
The fact that Paradox Engine isn't on this list is a real shame.
as a Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain player, I can tell you with full certainty that it earned its ban and it was lucky to last as long as it did.
Something they didn't mention is that Wastes is a basic land type, so Coalition Victory requires you to have a wastes, and Sundering Titan destroys up to 6 basic lands.
Prophet of Kruphix is way too good and will never be unbanned, it is a seed born muse with a leyline of anticipation fused together. I’m honestly surprised that it was ever made into a card.
It's so good that almost any simic deck will probably end up playing it. The whole package is terrifyingly efficient
Hard disagree on Prophet of Kruphix. While most of the others have situational decks that they fit into that you can quickly recognize as something you would want to avoid or bring your own oppressive deck to the table to combat them with, Prophet of Kruphix fits into SO much and dominates SO MANY games that it becomes very difficult to navigate around in terms of negotiating with others what is fair or what you'd want to play against. You see someone with a Braids commander and you go "no thanks," or you find out someone is trying to win with Coalition Victory and you just don't play against that again, but Prophet weasels its way into every single deck with the colors and just provides massive value. While more powerful cards do exist that are still legal, very few are such obviously flexible auto-includes that begin warping every deck they can be put into. It just has too much gravity.
I would love to see every Un set be legal in Commander.
If they make un-sets legal in a format i stop playing said format immediately
@@odioalospoopers bye ig
@@odioalospoopers Because getting killed by a combo turn 2-3 is more fun than a goofy set of cards.
The un cards just cause a lot of rules and ruling problems
I believe SOME of the un cards should be legal. Example is crow storm
6:18 Just imagine all the fun that could be had with a blue/green/white deck revolving around Nyxbloom Ancient, Argothian Elder, Paradox Haze, Paradox Engine, Time Warp, Time Stop, Timetwister, Shahrazad, Panoptic Mirror and Copy Artifact.
Prophet of Kruphix was one of my favorite cards in commander before it was banned. I had wanted what was essentially Vedalken Orrery on a creature for the longest time and Yeva while fine in mono green is too restrictive for multicolor. I didn't even care that much about it having the Seedborn Muse like effect.
Its honestly barely stronger than seedborn muse if at all. Creatures/lands vs all permanents is a huge difference. Flash on it is only mildly relevant.
If people have a problem with it. Run proper removal for your local meta and interact correctly.
The problem is something like momir vig or any effect that can generate card advantage so in the end either you respond or your opponent will have a massive amount of creatures attacking everyone
Have you seen Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and Alchemist Refuge?
Forced to unban one card? I mean, probably Prophet of Kruphix but you guys said that one already, so I'll find another.
Griselbrand. It's definitely good. It draws a lot of cards. However, Necropotence isn't banned, and Griselbrand is a more restrictive Necropotence on legs.
Griselbrand is a 7/7 Legendary Creature - Demon, for 4BBBB.
He has Flying, Lifelink, and "Pay 7 life: Draw seven cards."
Some things to note:
He's more easily removed than Necropotence.
It's still 1 life for 1 card, but you can only do that in batches of 7, so you can't do the Necropotence thing of tanking your life down to 1 and just drawing all the cards. Gotta be in batches of 7.
It's 8 mana compared to Necro's 3.
Griselbrand can be your commander, so you can get him out reliably. This is probably the biggest reason he's banned. However, being in mono-black means he doesn't have that much ramp to help you cast him (unless you get K'rrick out I suppose), and he doesn't really have any protection from removal. He won't stay out for long, and if you just dump your life into cards in response to him being removed, someone will dome you with a Bolt or something since you opened yourself up to it. He's one of those cards that is balanced by there being 3 other players at the table.
If you have K'rick just run Vilis, he draws cards in batches of 4 on his own and can remove creatures as well
Free my boy Grislebrand!!
Preach the good word brother!!!
no
Hell yeah
Give it back to me, it was so fun to play!
just let a man draw 35 cards in a turn minimum
Sundering titan would be brutal in any azorius ETB deck. turn 7 : cyclonic rift. turn 8, drop sundering titan. Panharmonicon trigger. now your blowing up up to 10 lands and have a 7/10. and if a deck is running these, odds are it will have a lot of untyped lands to slip past the land type restriction.
Just bring back the "banned as commander" EZ!
Mitch always felt like Wilson from Home Improvement before seeing this podcast. He still feels that way sometimes behind the microphone lol.
I think having a banlist is good as giving a general idea to how to play the game. EDH is inherently a casual format, and not all of us know the over 18k cards that exist in Magic, even less all the infinite interactions. IHMO is nice to have someone telling you "this shit is super crazy, not recommendable to play" but at the end of the day, your playgroup will do whatever they want, banning or unbanning certain cards according to their rules or styles.
Also, Moxes should stay banned. The ramp they provide is amazing and absolutely 0 drawbacks. You are forced to play them in the sense that your deck without them will be strictly worse. OFC that you can not play them and still have a functional deck, but the boost they provide is considerable. On the other hand, Tabernacle is a really amazing card... if you build around it. According to EDHrec only 847 decks use it. If every card was free, how many of us would use it? How many people would use the moxes? It's a great card, but it's not an auto include as a Mox.
Fall San completely agree, I think Sol Ring falls with the moxes, if there is no reason not to play them ever it restricts deck building. Also If everyone has to run Sol Ring then whoever draws it has a huge mana advantage
Agree completely
The term stax originated in vintage as a way to beat the current metagame. The name of the deck was "The Four Thousand Dollar Solution" or $T4KS, which later got shortened to stax. Basically, a playset of mishra's workshops, and then cards like tanglewire and smokestacks.
Iona banned is the best ban ever. i died on turn 2 because of Iona ( more than once ). Turn 1 pass the turn, discard Iona. i drop a land, pass turn, turn 2, drop a swamp, cast reanimate......i lost on turn 3 or 4 because of Iona. goddamn Kaalia MULTIPLE TIMES. when you spend more time shuffling your deck and draw your cards than play the game because of 1 card. yeah BANNED!! Void Winnower is NOWHERE near as problematic than Iona. i cast it last weekend, it died as soon it hit the table with a good old fashion Murder...Iona slows down the game for usually 90% of the players at the table. shut down decks and half decks. Void Winnower does not have protection for dying! easy to kill
immortally insane she is even worse when someone plays a panharmonic con as well
You guys must both be timmies if iona gives you that many problems
I believe that the archetype stacks originates with the vintage deck known originally as The $4000 Solution, which was built to beat Miracle Grow decks way back in the day. Typing out the name of the deck took a long time, so it was shortened to an acronym, and the order of the "T" and the "$" were flipped for aesthetic purposes, creating the acronym $T4kS (which is why the archetype is pronounced as "stacks" and not "stack", since, while the deck played the card Smokestack, the name is not based off of the card itself).
I don't think that you considered how coalition victory says "each basic land type" the type simply means that if u have fetch lands they can get u the game on curve with its cost because volcanic island for example counts as island aswell as mountain (aswell as ravnica lands) i love the show and i was just wondering if you did consider this.
My playgroup decided to do that secret Santa thing just last week! I brought it up to them and they thought it was a really cool idea. It’s nice seeing that other people do it too
I'm a player that's a fan of running mono colored commander decks and I don't think Iona should have been banned.
So your a fan of scooping got ya...
Turn 1. Discard iona
Turn 2. Reanimate iona
Scoop because your okay with her
@@SaltySargTTV I didn't say I was okay with playing against her 100% of the time, all I said was I didn't think she should be banned. Do I think she's a problematic card? Yes. Do I think she's problematic enough to be banned? No. It all depends on your meta and the scenario you mentioned is unlikely to happen reliably. If someone used Iona against someone else and I had the ability to stop it I would and even if I couldn't I would start focusing on the Iona player because they're getting what they want and I'm not. They would have to promise they could take out the other player that turn as well as choose a color that's not mine to get me not to interrupt their plan and even then I would still go after them after because they showed that they are a threat. They could very well blink it and target me next. Iona should be treated exactly like one should treat Edric and be taken out as soon as possible. Also I don't exclusively play mono color decks I just appreciate the simplicity of building them compared to multi color decks.
Here's the problem she ruins games, shes a problem card. She can be cheated out such as with khalia and with alta nest tender. Shes not fun to play nor play against. Fix that by taking her out of the format and people enjoy it better. It's all fun and games til you make multiple copies of her and the legend rule somehow doesnt apply so I just say fuck it and make it so my opponent cant play any color. It's possible and that's why she can stay banned it's not simply her it's what people could do with her.
Iona, Shield of Emeria can also target everyone else at the table not just one person. My first experience with this card was when it first came out and one of my friends played it. When he played it, it just shutdown everyone else including myself because we all had spells with the color they chose. After about 3 to 4 turns of no one being able to cast anything but Iona's caster, we all agreed that the card's effect was Overpowered, and so we changed the effect to 'Iona gains protection from the chosen color.'
Great work. Suggestion: increase the voice volume especially the one of the co-host.
I get what you guys say about counterspells, here's my take as some one who does play blue from time to time but not my first choice.
If I'm playing any deck, and lose to a horde of creatures, I can swap 2 or 3 cards to have better responses to them.
Same thing for enchantments, (rakdos used to have no defense, but there are some now for destroying a permanent), I can put in a few more cards to help strengthen that weakness.
But, if someone is playing blue control...there virtually nothing any other color can do. Black is the only color that might be able to keep up with the cards drawn, but that doesn't help against the denial aspect blue presents. So the only thing the other decks can do is to go back to the drawing board and add blue.
Lots of people might say, 'learn to time your spells better'. Well, after 35ish lands, 10 ramp, 10 draw, 5ish board wipes and another 5-8 removal..that's 30ish cards for your deck idea. In a 10 turn game you see a bare minimum of 17 cards and let's assume an average of an additional card on each turn, so 27 cards. Not even 1/3 of a deck. Statistically speaking, that means you won't see 20 cards of your theme. Blue will see a much higher percentage of its cards and running anywhere from 10 (fewest number in a deck I've played against that I'm aware of) to 18 counter spells.
So, to me, the blue control deck breaks the social contract in exactly the same way that land destruction does. In either case I'm sitting there while my opponent does stuff.
He actually used my suggestion!!!! This is so epic
Couple things you missed about Erayo that make her a little more powerful than you think she is:
1. You can play her as the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd spell in the turn, and the 4th spell cast will still flip her. The count does not start once she enters the battlefield. She can "see" how many spells were cast this turn similar to how Aetherflux Reservoir can.
2. She doesn't only count spells YOU cast, it's spells your opponent's cast, too. Playing her as a creature with a grip of counterspells and other stack interaction and waiting for your opponents to try and interact is just as effective a method to get her to flip (also just wastes more of your opponents' resources) as casting all the spells yourself.
However I do agree that Erayo's Essence isn't game ending and really needs to come down on a relatively empty board, otherwise your opponents will just attack you until you die. Also because of the way she works as described above, your opponent's can actually foil the flip the turn she comes down by casting spells while she's on the stack. For example if you cast Sol Ring (1), Mana Crypt (2), Erayo (3), and then and opponent decides to Brainstorm while Erayo is on the stack, the Spells This Turn Count = 4, and the next spell you cast after Erayo resolves will be the 5th spell, and she can ONLY flip on the 4th spell being cast. So you need to wait until the next turn at least to try and flip her.
The one card I'd un-ban would be Shahrazad, solely for how funny it would be to see the mechanic at work in Commander...and making games *even longer*.
Hive mind + eye of the storm + shahrazad = complete insanity.
I use thopter assembly and time sieve to get infinite turns. Time sieve costs 2 and needs to sacrifice 5 artifacts to take an extra turn. Thopter assembly costs 6, and at the beginning of the turn if there's no other thopter then you return thopter assembly to your hand and create 5 thopter tokens. You play the assembly, sac the 5 tokens and go off.
Is it me or does Mitch's phone really just seem like the most Mitch kinda phone, it's a budget phone and doesn't do as much as the newest Iphone but really gets the job done.
Ofc mitch would have the mitchiest of phones. He is the command quaters after all!
Before the ban of Iona, I had put together a deck that managed to cast her, helm of the host her, then populate the non-legendary copy of her thrice. Locking down all 5 colours within a turn or two. This only happened once out of the seven games I played with it. It was a case of the table laughing, congratulating me then we shuffled up for another game.
Another counter argument for unbanning Erayo: Arcane Laboratory.
This is exactly the reason why I'm not for unbanning that one. If everyone who played Erayo promised to not play Arcane Laboratory then I wouldn't even consider it for the ban list.
I think a big idea behind the ban list is setting an expectation when building a deck. if you build a deck around a card or move to a new area with your deck only for the new playgroup to say "we don't like that card round these parts" that really sucks because you invested money and time into that. Opposed to maybe having a slightly larger ban list and having players ask "Hey can I play this card?" and they can lay out conditions for playing it or simply agree, for example, if people are worried about mirror + Time warp, they can just set the condition to not do infinite turns, effectively unbanning it from your group.
the fact that you KNEW some of these cards were a stretch to unban speaks to how good the list actually is.
Another point to add to the Sundering Titan discussion: it can't blow up nonbasic lands! The only way to destroy a nonbasic land with ST is by adding a basic land type to it. BUT. the only usable card (non-meme/non-bad) that does that without rendering useless the nonbasic land (in that case ST becomes useless) is Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. So, that's only ONE nonbasic land gone each ETB or DIE of ST.
Nonbasics are the most useful lands you want to blow up, usually.
How can Wizards hear our voice on unbanning cards....?
White needs Balance
I would accept it even if we got a new version that was 2WW to cast. That’s a very strong effect, certainly more than Slaughter the Strong or Citywide Bust.
The banning of Prophet of Kruphix to this day is still the one that bothered me the most. It never made sense to me why it was banned. Sure it has incredibly powerful abilities on a creature that isn't legendary but it almost always dies to removal. It never wins games on its own and the advantages it does offer are available on other cards as well. Looking at you Seedborn Muse.
Is the next one going to be "10 cards that should stay on the banlist"?
Hmm ordering this list would be tough...
1+2: Chaos Orb and Falling Star (that ain't Magic)
3: Shahrazad (PLEASE NO)
4: Channel
5: ??? Time Walk? Time Vault? Tinker?
Honestly I feel like all of those cards are even more broken than the rest of the Power 9.
I played against an Erayo deck twice and have to say that even though I agreed at the beginning I just regretted it when the friend playing it also played Arcane Laboratory. It literally made him playing the game alone while we had to watch him for ages ending it.
I was really happy with the ban of Iona because it just shuts down mono colored decks which is never good for the meta in my opinion.
But for most other cards I share your opinion.
I don't understand this argument. Why would 3 people sit and watch themselves die if they are all hard locked. Were you digging for an uncounterable spell? Did you have a board state worth trying to swing it out while he drew interaction?
Karn lattice is legal in the format and can go into literally any deck. I have no problem scooping to a lock as a win condition.
He composed this deck so we wanted to see his win condition which took a lot of time. The lock itself is not enough for me because if he wouldn't be capable of draining our lives it would've been a draw.
@@DamonXWind why bring it to the table if your deck is just meant to make people concede? Just for a win? I understand wanting to win dont get my wrong but to have 3 people watch just you play just to have them concede doesn't sound satisfying to me but to each their own I guess
@@jamespooh2 I generally play those kinds of decks against decks with similar power, plans, and/or a lot of interaction. It's the interaction wars and timing of executing your plan that makes cEDH exciting for me.
However, if I sit down with strangers or my friends prefer to play a different power level, I have decks that accommodate that. A turn 2 win against a starter deck or jank pile isn't what I'm looking for.
I only suggest the conceding plan as an expedience. In fact, when I only had a couple decks, and one of them was an infinite combo deck, I would generally display my combo and concede before resolving it if the game was in early turns.
@@DamonXWind, and this is exactly what I meant. At the beginning the opposing player seemed to not even know his winning combo. So I insisted on at least seeing it or calling it a draw.
"If this card were unbanned I don't think it would see much play" 2 seconds later "Oh I'd totally auto include it in every single deck I have that it can go in"
As an Animar player, this list gave me a few reasons to chuckle. To be more precise, I play Animar Stompy, NOT Animar combo, and at least 3 cards on this list would make my deck beyond broken at any casual table. Sundering Titan would be "repeatable land destruction for 0 mana", Prophet of Kruphix I actually got to play in this deck before she was banned, and she won me approximately all the games I got to play her. When she gets you full land untaps and gives all your creatures flash when Animar has 5 or 6 counters ON EVERY UPKEEP, you can stomp the whole table ridiculously fast.
The final offender is Emrakul. I've lost count of the times I've cast Kozilek (v1) or Void Winnower on turn 5 or 6 and at least one person at the table jokes "well, I'm glad Emrakul's banned". My Animar could hard-cast her on turn 6-ish on a good day, and this is a non-optimised deck. So when opponents are dropping Vorinclexes and Elesh Norns, Animar would be dropping a 15/15 flying, hard-to-kill annihilator 6 monstrosity THAT GIVES YOU AN EXTRA TURN. There is no coming back from that for most casual decks, and even the ones that could probably spent so many resources to get rid of her that you're probably going to win anyway.
I also disagree with a couple of others on this list.
Panoptic Mirror is far too abusable imo. As you demonstrated, any extra turn spell is "if I untap, I win", steal spells like Blatant Theivery are a free win if you don't deal with the Mirror as soon as it lands, and the fact that you can imprint multiple cards onto the mirror makes it far too versatile.
Erayo is, as someone else pointed out, backbreaking for far too many decks (and far too easy to flip) to ever be unbanned (save maybe if they reintroduce the "Banned as Commander" thingy), Biorhythm cannot be unbanned as long as Cyclonic Rift exists ("at the end of your turn, I cast an Overloaded Cyclonic Rift. Untap, upkeep, draw, land, Biorhythm. GG") and Rofellos and Braids suffer from the same thing as Erayo - they're a huge problem as commanders, but they would be fine in the 99.
I'm surprised Primeval Titan didn't come up, as it's honestly far less busted than some of the cards on this list. It's pretty damn powerful, don't get me wrong, but I don't think it's as bad as Sundering Titan or Erayo, for example. (I'm probably missing some deck that abused it harder than Scapeshift Valakut did in modern, in which case, feel free to ignore me and/or call me a ****tard)
Emrakul would be fantastic in my Yuriko deck, especially since I got Conspiracy and make her a ninja lol
And Iona needs to be unbanned. White is horribly underpowered compared to the other colors
Yes unban iona so my turn 1 infinite white mana engine can get her out.... (yes i actually have that in a deck... no i wont share my secrets)
@@siliciaveerah9327 lol turn 1 infinite white mana? Funny joke
@@Yesnog05 i just have to get the perfect 7 card hand .... but hey it gives me infinite mana, creatures, and life..... and its not a joke.... just a super janky combo being powerful
@@siliciaveerah9327 7 cards out of 100. Right. Nice joke
@@Yesnog05 like i said janky
I love your pod casts, they really bring the conversation to everyone to have!
Really dislike the discussion of Iona as if being cast was the most common way she hit the field. She has always been a reanimation target first and foremost. Iona also forced mono colored decks to auto-include Spine of Ish Sah or Scour from Existence to get out of it. She wasn't popular as a commander because she simply couldn't be reasonably run in Mono-white.
Lol. If your table cant deal with an iona thats pretty sad
The ban list is pretty harsh. I'm an eldrazi fan. And emrakul is one of my favorite. So why not restrict it, and make only available as a 99.
Man, some of the logic is this video...
Stax comes from an old Vintage deck hinging on Sphere of Resistance and Tangle Wire. It was called "$T4KS", or The Four Thousand Dollar Solution, because the P9 cards in the deck meant no-proxy lists would cost in the neighborhood of $4000 at the time.
I really wish Prophet would be unbanned...
As someone that played prophet while it was legal and absolutely loves the card...I'm alright with it being banned. Making every other player's turn also your turn isn't the same as infinite turns, but it's arguably even more unfun to play against.
I saw muse after prophet was banned and i'm like, i dont need blue anymore? Nice!
I have said this many times to people I've discussed the ban list with, and I'll say it here again. I am thoroughly convinced Rofellos is the *single best* commander in the entire game. He goes straight from turn 2 to turn 6 literally every single game. There are other commanders that have the theoretical potential to be more broken than him with the right draw to be sure, but that consistency that you can build your deck around the expectation of having a minimum of 6 mana on turn 3 e v e r y s i n g l e game will just make your deck insanely consistent. I personally would love to make a Rofellos deck, I've always wanted to, but if he were unbanned I think he'd just become not only the definitive mono green commander in basically all situations, but he'd just become one of the definitive commanders in general.
I'd unban primeval titan and sylvan primordial so I could slot them into my Yarok EDH deck :q
Prime Time coming through
Primetime uber alles
Something I use to determine if I'd like to see something off the banlist is "how many losses to this card would it take to tilt me?" If the answer is beneath 15, I'd say the card should stay banned.
Emrakul should be legal as a commander.
I think they need to bring back the "banned as a commander, legal in the 99" rule. You talked about three creatures that used to be part of this group of cards in Braids, Erayo and Rofellos. I dont know if any one recalls, but a long time ago, the rules committee had a small list of legendary creatures that could be used in the 99, but not as a commander. After a few years with this rule in place, they decided to just straight up ban all the cards that were on this list. Kokusho was another creature on said list, and as we all know, he has no restrictions now. I think they could apply this rule to Brawl and other commander variants so you could use Oko in your deck, just not as your commander.
I'd ban every card with "Teferi" in the title.
Teferi's Drake is perfectly fine.
@@Krajcik1964 Sacrifices must be done.
I think the issue with Iona is that 90% of the time she only hits one player, and is timed exclusively to lock that player out. Additionally there's a background rule in power levels for creatures in magic: "Unless it re-shuffles into your deck it costs 2 mana." In about the same frequency as someone is just stopped by Iona and scoops because they'll never play magic again that game, Iona is a turn 2-3 play with graveyard pitching, discarding as a cost, and one of the MANY reanimation effects, and getting stopped from playing from turn 3-5 basically means you lose the game. Additionally it's usually not enough of a benefit to your opponents to help you out of the lock (if anything I've seen the opposite, everyone at the table preserves the Iona because she ONLY hits one player, and who wants more opponents). Essentially it made playing mono-color decks impossible in a meta where more than one player had it, and it became an auto-include in every deck with BW or GW available (which can search her up extra early, and protect her easily). Rarely will a smart or capable player use Iona to hit more than one player, since if you lock out a player that others are worried about from the early game she just buys you immunity for a few turns until that locked out player dies, or someone can straight win the game (but you usually have a good advantage at that point). Essentially the banned list exists so that people can walk into a room of 100 people they never met, find a game, and enjoy the experience (because even with format banned lists if you're with your playgroup you can do whatever you want anyway). Iona says "never bring a mono-color deck, or you lose" in that situation, which isn't good for the format as a way to introduce people to magic/commander.
The three cards I'm voting to un-ban is Leovold, because they're more "impulse" card draw effects like what's on Syr Carah. Upheaval, because it's on the same power level as similar legal boardwipes like Jokulhaups. And Limited Resources, because it's not any harder to play around than Winter Orb and similar cards and my brother really wanted to include it in a deck and he doesn't want to have to ask the play group for a special exception.
I think the difference between Bio and Shaman is that there are so many conditions you gotta jump thru to activate ability..
1 so you gotta pay the 3 to cast it
2 make sure you got 8 power on the board,
3 have a way to give it haste (otherwise you gotta wait another turn, which isn't impossible but it adds another condition),
4 and then tap for 11. If you don't have haste or the 14 mana on that turn, you gotta basically wait until your turn/upkeep in order to use the ability.
You better believe that everyone at that table is gonna turn against you ASAP when shaman hits the board. Also seeing that it's a creature and not a sorcery/instant, makes it more likely to be removed, killed, bounced, etc before the ability goes off. In my mono green Deck, I have no way to deal with Biorythym when it's cast
as for Sundering Titan, I think the biggest issue is the abuse... I've said it for years but BAN DEADEYE NAVIGATOR! It enables soo much yank and a good portion of the cards on the banlist, can be abused by Deadeye.
The Commander's Quarters: Ban Gaddock Teeg, it shuts many spells of some of my decks.
Also The Commander's Quarters: Unban Iona, Shield of Emeria, it only shuts most of the spells of any given deck.
The problem with Rofollos is he's 6 mana on turn 3 every game, without playing any other ramp. The other commanders you mentioned have you jump through hoops to do more broken. Rofollos requires you play forests in your mono-green deck.
As much as I agree with MOST of the list, Iona should stay banned. I went against a guy who his first turn was draw, and discard Iona. Proceeded to play a swamp and reanimate her.
He then tried to put helm of the host on her later
That's the nuts draw, no?
@@Ratchetfan321 Counters exist, other 2 card combo's that can kill you this quickly exist.
Imagine not being able to deal with an iona. Lmao
Why counter Coalition Victory when you can Commandeer it? (Assuming you meet the prereqs obv)