It's interesting how people use availability as an argument against banning Sol Ring *and* as an argument against banning Gaea's Cradle, but for the exact opposite reason.
@@Necrotorium888 Power creep? Are you fucking kidding me right now? These cards are ancient MTG history. If anything fast mana has gotten power decayed over the years, not creeped. Sol Ring was printed in fucking BETA. Cradle is LITERALLY ON THE RESERVED LIST. Creatures have seen power creep over the years, insane power creep in fact, but if you take a look at MTG's history you'll see that Wizards had no idea what they were doing with fast mana like Sol Ring, Crypt, Cradle, Tolarian Academy, the Moxen, Lotus, and LED. Even LED which was considered a junk rare eventually got broken in half because fast mana is just that good. PS: there is literally no deckbuilding cost whatsoever to putting Crypt and Sol ring in every single deck you have besides "I don't want to crush my opponents horribly with too much consistency".
When talking about "dies to removal" its important to keep in mind that every color has access to cards that easily deal with creatures, that isn't true for artifacts and enchantments so having powerful static effects on creatures is intentional design, because wizards know that they can "die to removal"
@@qwormuli77 With the number of fight effects that exist these days, not really. It's worse, but you literally CAN'T remove enchantments with a mono red deck without playing bad cards like Meteor Golem.
@@MaximumImpactGames whenever i build red decks i always include liquimetal torque and liquimetal coating because it turns whatever i want into an artifact which red can easily destroy, its alwaya fun for political acts around the table asking if anyone has the artifact removal
@@MaximumImpactGames 99% of fight effects are utter crap, which is why I said what I said. But it still has them (plus beast within), which is more than what red can say about enchantments, or what black could have said about either enchantments or artifacts until a while ago. White just removes everything every which way it pleases and laughs on it's way to the bank.
Yeah, but then I have to run the removal! and quite frankly, I just want to stuff my deck with only cards that are good for me and not waste space on removal! It isn't fun when I have to interact!!!!!!!!!
Wizards has made decks with banned cards in it before and the solution they came up with was that you could play the banned card in that deck if you ran the deck completely unaltered.
I'm actually in favor of cards like Sol Ring and Arcane Signet remaining in the format since they are cheap and very powerful mana rocks that can kind of compensate for not having the budget/not willing to spend huge amounts for Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Jeweled Lotus and Ancient Tomb. I know you guys normally don't take budget into account, but I personally think budget is actually a very important factor in most playgroups.
i think if fierce guardianship was 2$ i don't think that would mean it's a fair card, and thats kind of where i put sol ring. sol ring is a lottery card thats like "i have a very low chance of having the best opening in the table by far" arcane signet is different though, its just another signet that comes out and can tap. it's definitely the best one, but it's not in its own league with sol ring
@Crunch Bar i agree that this is a casual format, for fun. but would you want a colorless land printed for 2$ that taps for 4 colorless mana? is that fun? it's subjective, but i personally think the less lottery cards the better. i don't think 8 tutors in every deck is fun, but i do think some semblance of consistent power is good in a deck - whether it be "dino stompy" or "extra turns storm" plus, you still have 12 other mana rocks in your deck lol losing sol ring doesn't suddenly make your deck 10x worse, and if it did, you probably didn't build a good deck
Arcane Signet is no issue. Its good but not overpowered. Sol Ring and other mana positive rocks are ban worthy and wouldn't leave anyone behind since no one would have access to them.
From what it was said, "Some people just like seeing people go off" it's highly arguable because you could also say "Some people just like stopping people from going off" because that's their fun, and who are you to say any of those is wrong in a game? The one who stops something powerful happening could actually be seen as the hero of the match if stops someone from casting their commander . It's all a matter of perspective, a complicated one at that tbh.
I think there are hundreds of alternatives to stopping someone from casting their egregious commander (including rule 0). The problem with THIS particular alternative is that it stops so much other essential things within the format, for ALL opponents, including ones that can help you with that arch enemy.
Nah bro it's against the spirit of the format when you stop me from powering out 4 lands a turn in gruul or stopping me from casting my pushed as fuck simic mythic
I agree that shutting down a players deck entirely isn't fun. At the same time, we encourage people to play how they want. I personally feel that when you build a deck, you understand that if you build a deck without targeted removal you will have a hard time answering threats right away. I don't feel like most of these are ban worthy, but I would argue that there should be a set of cards that is similar to the ban list, but rather than being banned players have to agree that they are good with facing decks with those listed cards, accepting the risk of a bad time.
I think that this is a better idea than having a strict ban list for the format, more like, hey these cards are unfun for most people you should ask your playgroup if they're ok playing against them. I think one of the reasons the RC is so hesitant to ban cards is because they don't want to tell people how they can and can't play, having something like this would be a way for them to be more proactive with unfun cards without telling people how to play.
i guess imo i don’t think sol ring should be banned. is it SUPER powerful?? absolutely. but that’s what’s kinda fun about it. in higher power pods where ppl r comboing off or ramping a ton, sol ring helps get an advantage and can help u do some crazy early turn plays. for me, part of the appeal of sol ring is that it is rlly powerful. i don’t think it goes against the spirit of the format at all, I actually think it encourages it. I know sol ring isn’t for everyone, but i personally like it :) have a great day y’all
The problem with sol ring is that it’s so incredibly ubiquitous it goes in 99.9% of decks an essentially makes 100 card decks into 99 card decks. Golos was banned because he was the best 5 color commander and the majority of 5 color decks used him. Golos was making the format stale by being in every pod. sol ring does the same thing. If sol ring was banned tomorrow and everyone had to find a new 100th card for their decks then deck diversity across the format would leap forward, and that would only be a good thing. Is sol ring ruining the format? No. Would the format be more interesting without it? Definitely. That being said the rules committee would never ban a card that comes in every single pre-con.
I have done the turn one land sol ring signet 2 times out of the few hundred games I've played at best. But most people complain like it happens every single game.
I love how "fixing" the format usually just devolves into people wanting to ban the good red and white cards because they're either stax pieces or it just is a way to ramp that isn't land based (dockside)
If Dockside weren't so expensive I wouldn't give as much of a fuck. As it is, the only person who has it in my playgroup is the person who bought the precon before people figured out it was good. How is it that one of red's staples can pretty much only be opened with a stack of 99 other useless cards? Lame af.
My playgroup decided to make a rule where if someone wins by an alternate win con that says "you win the game" we keep playing without that player to find out who gets second. It kinda creates a feel bad moment for the player that wins that way because they may as well have lost at that point for how it plays out. People eventually stopped playing alternate win cons, this was a direct response to thassa's oracle.
your playgroup is yours, but i feel like thats kinda wack of a rule. if i cast approach of the second sun twice, that's 14 mana lategame, and multiple turns inbetween the casts - the game should be over if it was that bad, y'all should've just banned thoracle for your group but to each their own
@@sunflowertheog one of our players was winning like 80% of the games with alternate win cons so we nerfed them across the board, it gets kinda infuriating losing to thoracle and the like on turn 4 eight games in a row. One day we just kept playing like he was the one who lost and it just kinda went that way from then on. Overall it's led to much more diversity in our games as he spends his time fiddling with jank combos instead of just playing that one overpowered combo. It's also inadvertently led to us having rule 0 conversations during the week and sharing our decklist with one another, not just so we're all on the same page/power level, but also so we can give each other advice on how to improve our decks and play styles.
Expanding on the first pick, as a mono-white player, my whole gameplan is to play police, slow people down, and force people to play "fair magic". If you can't deal with a 1/3 slowing you down, your deck needs some change
The thing is some commanders theme revolves around playing things not from hand. And also the whole commander format. I think magistrate is kinda lame but not a card to ban.
Outside of Commander, Magistrate is a completely fair, if actually underpowered card because it's mostly a Graveyard hate/From Exile hate. But in commander, it does that same thing while also fundamentally going against the idea of Commander. If Magistrate was errataed to specifically exclude casting from the Command Zone, then it would fine and still have a good spot in the format because it would work against Commander decks that cast from other places without kicking every other deck in the shin who did nothing wrong.
@@1996BlueMan Except that's not an answer to commanders, it just says, "You all aren't playing the Commander Format until this card leaves the field." Because it's doesn't stop powerful commanders, it stops all commanders regardless of if they are incredibly strong or Timmy's Ayula, Queen of the Bears. One needs a strong card to stop them, Ayula does not. It's a card that has the same issues as Iona, where it just blanket said, "You cannot play this." And if you deck didn't have an answer to it, then you lost and WotC dislikes cards that require specific answers to them.
My argument for keeping Sol Ring legal in the format is this: If the goal of Commander is the promotion of "Fun" magic, then Sol Ring is the #1 perpetrator for that. The goal of commander as a format is to follow the game-plan you've set out for the deck, whether it's super specific or generally vague in terms of card focus (An Ad Naus deck vs A Tribal deck), and the secondary goal of commander in relation to that is to achieve/fulfill your plan as fast as possible. How this applies to Sol Ring is that it is a ubiquitous card that only serves to speed up game plans, effectively allowing people to have more fun so things are faster. Therefore, it promotes fun in a form attainable to EVERY person playing the game, at a relatively cheap price, and in a way that does not profit off of the downfall of others (Such as why Drannith Magistrate is so controversial now). If ramping in a deck leads to a lack of fun, I believe that to be the fault of the deck and it's goal, not the fault of the pieces that help you get there, especially when it's something that everyone runs (Since that same level of fun is available for all players and they have the same chance of experiencing it). (Also personally, the "tradition" argument is completely overused and wrong :P)
I think that's a great point. I never had a problem with Sol Ring and I wasn't sure why until now. I'd like to add that the mana being colorless is usually a good enough drawback, since it's rare to be able to use the mana from a turn 1 sol ring that turn.
I think I disagree in the event that you get a sol ring turn 1, due to how quickly some decks can spiral out of control with certain cards or commanders when left unchecked, and at a speed where the player can easily get protection for that card since players cannot even play removal in time. I'd say that some of the most fun moments in commander are the twists and turns for who pulls out the biggest threat first, but moments like these are impossible if a player gets to an unreachable position due to a turn 1 sol ring, potentially even with artifact ramp in the mix too. If a player storms off like this it can lead to short unfun games.
Mass land destruction is frowned upon, but single land destruction is something I always go for. There are so many good lands; Cradle, Coffers, Sanctum, Field of the Dead etc.
Banning drannith over people actually using more removal, is letting people who dont want to build their deck correctly tellling us that do what we can put in our decks. The card is fine, we can not start banning cards because they are not fun that is a slippery slope.
You talk as if there is no way to avoid removal. I had games where i just couldn't remove that card with my Prosper Tomebound deck and sat there for 6 turn doing nothing until I conceded. It's not so hard to give a creature indestructible, shroud or simply counter a spell. Drannith with lightning greaves and it's GG for some decks. That card shuts down a way of playing completely and "just play removal" isn't a solution at all.
@@whostoblame1 it really is, but that aside sometime that is how a game goes. Keeping prosper off the field is a solid strategy and not a commander that is great to use as an example of how drannith isnt fair. Many of the same people hating on Drannith may have a similar opinion to prosper, i love him and play him. I run things like uba mask in prosper. So not totally different from Drannith strategy. Sometimes your not going to get to play your commander it happens. Now if it is every game in a night maybe grounds to complain, otherwise i could for example play blue control and counter your commander everytime you cast him, do we ban counter spells now? If dies to removal isn't an argument, resisting removal isn't either. My prosper deck can still function without prosper. Better with him on the field, but doesnt shut my deck down. I have plenty of interaction to wear them down and keep them from winning until i can play prosper again. We can not just look for bans to answer difficulties.
Not running removal is just stupid & if you purposely choose to do it then you deserve whatever happens for choosing to be unprepared to be honest. Trying to justify bad players being bad is lame
@@servalkorion686 dude thank you, tge argument in this video doesnt make sense, they can argue that we cant make player play more removal as that controls how they build their decks but they can call for a perfectly fair card to be banned controlling what goes in other people's decks? Players who do not play with interaction cant cry for others to changes their decks because they dont want to change their own. We are each respinsible for our own play experience based on how we build our own decks, we can not try to control what goes into other peoples decks to adjust our own play experience. Power level discussions are a different thing and should always be had by the table.
I understand Drannith Magistrate is a card that stops people from playing their commanders but I will continue to play it because I am not focusing on that idea but the fact that it can slow down other strategies like cascade, graveyard based decks and more.
Rather than ban the card I feel the rules committee should look into a new rule stating something like the command zone being immune to zone based casting restrictions.
Yeah it's mainly a card for me to stop reanimation and force people to play fair. Besides,everyone has access to using fair removal to get rid of him....now.....if he was a enchantment. I would probably say ditch him....because that just hoses the shit out of too many things for too many decks.
Doesn't matter that you are not focusing on that , people just can't cast their commanders with that guy on the battlefield. So you're like "i don't care if you can't play the game" you missed the point of commander for me
We should just make a Command Zone Rule: No card restricts your ability to cast your Commander from the Command Zone. Drannith can stay as is and it removes the unfun aspect from the card.
Sol Ring into a signet does indeed suck, but it never feels like a game ender to me either. Sometimes you gotta play from behind, and that is its own kind of fun, in my experience. What I like about its ubiquity in the game is that I've seen Sol Ring really help less experienced players or players with less money not only compete with others at the table, but also feel like there's less of a barrier of entry because that awesome thing in their opponent's deck is an awesome thing they can have too.
It never feels like a game ender because it rarely is. Typically when a player slams a bunch of rocks down turn 1 they become archenemy immediately, and rarely ever win off of that advantage. Of the cards in the video, Sol ring is the most powerful, AND least likely to actually win you the game out of all of the cards on the list. People will be mad at you if you drop drannith magistrate turn 2, Dockside wins so many games on its own, same with Thoracle, Cradle wins you TONS of games the moment you drop it. Sol Ring is undoubtedly an absurdly strong card, but because it is available to everyone and creates lopsided games is precisely WHY I think it shouldn't be banned. It gives you a ton of resources and puts a target on your back, no doubt, but it doesn't lock your opponents out of playing the game, or ganging up on you, which they inevitably will do. Sol Ring is good for the format because it comes down early and dictates the flow of the game. I would much rather have a card like that than Expropriates or Dockside Extortionist.
The “dies to removal” argument is extremely valid. If you don’t run removal because of “self expression” then banning cards like drannith that slow people down ruins other peoples self expression. Creature removal is the most common in the format and a 1/3 is definitely killable if not counterable. Beat them down if not and force a trade Im also a firm believer that if your deck cant perform without the commander in play then its time to maybe reevaluate. If you’re win condition is your commander alone then what’s the difference between drannith and blowing up ur commander or countering it whenever you play it?
Say it louder for those in the back. You should have 2 or 3 more ways to win without your commander and if your deck only works if your commander is out there you need to rework that deck. This card is so weak and is a nothing card imo. If they were annoyed because it shuts down graveyard recursion which might be removing 1 player completely if that's what their deck does MAAAAYYYYBEEE but their argument is you cant play your commander... this wouldnt be in my top 250 cards to be banned.
Dockside could read: For each opponent with more lands than you, create a treasure token for each land they control - the # of lands you control. Let it punish actual ramp.
There are plenty of cards that are "fine" power level wise who are banned, but tbh if you run that card in our laygroup you will probably be finding another playgroup. Same as running a bunch of Armageddons, it's against the spirit of the format
Totally agree too. I only play it in my brago stax deck which is high power level. As long as you tell people you are playing a stax deck before you sit down and give them the option to say can you play another deck, I think drannith is fine. It’s all about communication.
Drannith Magistrate - Dies to everything, and hated by the RC. Dockside Extortionist - Gives player possible obscene ramp after resolution, perfectly okay with RC. Thassa's Oracle - Combos into "you win...RC: *silence* (Definitely does not need ban) Sol Ring - LOL Gaea;s Cradle - Obscene creature based ramp on a land, RC says nothing. Moral of the story: the Rules Committee are petulant children. If a card is a problem, play to overcome the card. Play removal. Play counters. Learn to have your deck say no.
The read I get from Dockside/Thassas being the top of the community at larges' banlist is that most people seem to playing in that (what I would define as) 5-8 power level where people are playing both for fun and for power, where cards like those are playable, accessible hopefully through proxies, and super super impactful and regularly win games on their own. Also I had no idea Dranith Magistrate existed before that poll and this videos points on that card and the results seems to line up with my idea, where it's too unfun and not powerful enough to play in that kind of environment.
I am incredibly intrigued by the Sol Ring conversation. I'm a relatively new commander player and I've seen Sol Ring often. It seems whoever plays the turn one Sol Ring becomes an immediate target, creating a different kind of game than might have been expected pregame. I find that to be fun. I get the argument to ban it, but I'd vote no.
Wait, don’t y’all do a whole video series on “creatures you need to kill on sight or you’re f***ed?” It seems a little weird to then turn around and say it’s some kind of cop-out to argue that people need to play more removal to deal with stuff like Drannith Magistrate. Surely part of the assessment of how problematic or unfun or overpowered a card is has to be “how hard is it for other players to interact with or deal with?” It’s not like you’re forcing people to play removal to deal with this one card… there are tons of cards that will take over the game if nobody’s playing removal.
The made up sorcery that removes all commanders is actually a better card than the magistrate. The sorcery required a counterspell at that exact moment or its effect lingers the rest of the game with no way to interact. The magistrate only has 1 power so it cant reasonably kill anyone, and must sit on the field for an entire commander game with multiple opponents. The sorcery NEEDS a blue player to stop it, which there could just be no blue players on table. The magistrate can be removed by any player regardless of colors(doom blade/fatal push, lightning bolt/chaos warp, swords to plowshares/path to exile, pognify/reality shift, & beast within).
My playgroup did a test where we tracked win % of first turn Sol ring. After 20 or so games, the player(s) with turn 1 sol ring plays had roughly a 50% win rate. In a 4 player game, a single card shouldn’t bolster a single players win rate that much imo granted this could just be how things played out in our group and it is a really low sample size so take this with a grain of salt but I was on the fence for banning sol ring prior to this and since we did the test I’m entirely on board with banning it
Yeahhh, every Commander battle I've seen, the guy with a turn 1 sol ring gets wrecked 1st. Unless TWO people get turn 1 sol rings. Then the two players without sol rings just breathe a heavy sigh & put up their best fights
If other colors had more sustainable ramp and not just one shot ramp spells like rituals, maybe I would agree that Sol Ring should be banned. It's a double edged sword cause other decks kinda need the ramp to even hope to keep up with green, but it is too good and all decks including green can and will use it. I like the idea of moving to color specific ramp. Like maybe if black had an artifact that cost one black and you tap it for two black and there is some draw back like life loss and/or discard, I'd be ok with that
I am tired of dealing with cascade, graveyard, and game changing commanders. I'm not even locking people out of the game. If this card gets banned, I'll show people not being able to play.
Dockside is seriously strong but not ban worthy. A card that denies or prevents game actions like Hullbreacher for example are banned. Dockside is entirely ramp, its doesn’t interfere with other players it simply reads what THEY chose to play, then ramps based off that. If you want Dockside banned it’s ether because you don’t own it or you don’t like other players ramping, which is cringe. Also it’s in red, give the card a break.
That one is just straight up a templating issue from before Commander was a thing. It should either be errata'd to work like similar, more recent cards ("X more than your starting life total") or banned, because it straight up doesn't fit the format (the Karakas reasoning for a ban).
When someone plays Sol ring turn 1 the game is 90% of the time still fun. Whenever someone plays Thassa at ANY turn, even if the game was fun it retroactively sucks all the fun I've had at that point since nothing that happened mattered.
The dockside debate reminds me of the channel fireball debate, as once there was a ready combo for two mana to go extreme it was banned. Treasure tokens in a multiplayer game after a few turns on a creature that can be revived or recast is nuts.
The thing is Dockside is board dependant. If you cast it turn 2 you are likley not getting much from it. Paradox engine just works after you cast it. Can go in any deck. Dockside can be abused quite well but it can be countered, exiled, and is just a 1/2.
I really don't think Dockside is worth the ban. By himlseft he does ramp, but only once. He gets you ahead but considering that if it's too early in the game, it could be a 3x1 as lots of other strong cards - as smothering tide, for example. Also, in the late game it's still very strong, but usually players will have more responses too. Mana Crypt/Vault and Chrome Mox are way more problematic according to my experience in my playgroup
Drannith Magistrate is the biggest nothing card ive ever seen argued to be banned. Its a 1/3 with no protection. At worst it will stop you from playing your commander 1 or 2 turns and if your deck cant run without your commander a few turns you need to rework your deck.
Who was that insane person telling people to not play Mana Rocks and Value Enchantments because Dockside exists!? Seriously... PS: I'd love a Thassa's Oracle ban solely to see what next broken thing the cEDH drones migrate to.
I think you folks have a weird perception of commander. “Play whatever cards you want” seems to have become functionally “I’m entitled to a game of solitaire”. If your deck relies on combat and your buddies ensnaring bridge shuts you down, then you have a choice…hope they don’t draw it or put one or two artifact removal spells in there. If your mono blue deck scoops to oubliette, maybe put some bounce in there. Running removal or not running removal requires some form of risk/reward assessment. If you don’t run removal, you risk the blowouts. When that risk is realized, you can be upset, you can complain, but ultimately you have to bear some responsibility for that decision. If you are saying I shouldn’t have to run targeted land destruction to deal with field of the dead despite losing to it several times, and they should change their deck instead of me changing mine…that’s just selfish and entitled.
My problem with the drannith magistrate argument is there are blanket other things that just might shut down your commander and telling people to play removal is now telling them how to play. Yeah it is, and it fine. If you decide not to solve the obvious problem with your deck you have to accept you will get got. I have decks that are all in on the commander sometimes i can't cast my commander or it get removed, countered etc. It is what it is.
The argument of, "It dies to removal" is not a legitimate argument, because you and the other players may not have removal in your hand on that turn or even in subsequent turns. It is a 99 card deck, let's say you have 5 targeted removal spells, 3 targeted damage spells and 1 board wipe, that's 9 cards out of 99, you start with 7 cards in hand and let's say Magistrate comes out turn 3, which is fairly early but also very impactful at that point in the game. You would have had gone through 10 cards once it comes to your turn Essentially this can all boil down to about a 10% chance that you have any one of your removal spells by that point, that's not great odds, and even with 3 players sure maybe you have one. But that ignores that removal is not guaranteed. It's far easier to protect cards that you give credit for it, since the Magistrate deck obviously runs White, which is fully capable of buffing defense and even just a single point puts Magistrate above what a Lightning bolt can do, it is capable of providing indestructible to their creatures but Magistrate is also part of two of the strongest tribes in the entire game, Human and Wizard. And this card will always be in a wizard deck because there are many very strong Wizard Commanders that will give you access to White and those decks are notoriously capable of countering, blinking or even taxing out any removal against this card to the point that it will stay on the field for a lot longer than it would otherwise. If this card was a Red/Black Elemental it would actually be an easier card to remove since those colors and tribe are not heavily associated with a plethora of cartds that could be used to protect it against cheap and common removal spells.
@@StevenTLawson theres ONE very strong wizard commander And shes grixis Its inalla Inalla is the only tribal commander in the entire game that is VERY good
@@V2ULTRAKill Okay so you're just going to lie and pretend commanders like Jodah and Sen Triplets don't exist then? When cards like Teferi exist are so good that splashing Blue just to lock out your opponents from using any cards on your turn. You might as well just admit you're biased as all hell and bow out before you make yourself look even more like an ass than before
@@StevenTLawson sen triplets is bad, like really bad, VERY good is viable at the top end, which only 3 tribal commanders are, Inalla, Edgar, and Kallia, 2 of these are just mardu razaketh tutor turbo decks, Inalla being the only one that PLAYS a tribal winline And yes both jodahs are mid as fuck and only function at power levels so low that Kenrith is considered "just ok." Its ok to be ignorant, but dont blame the person with more knowledge
i think there is a very large amount of cards that get called problematic that are legitimately just an indicator of someone not playing adequate interaction. it has nothing to do with telling people how to play the game and everything to do with being realistic about your expectation. in a four-player format, you have to be able to interact, and if you can't you should expect to win fewer games. it is just the nature of the format.
Mana tithe and tibalts trickery. That’s just one of each color I can think of. There’s plenty more. But when you choose to run those colors you are doing it knowing it’s not as easy to interact.
There are not plenty more lol. Black has literally one counterspell that can deal with Thoracle (Withering Boon). Green has zero. White has two (Mana Tithe, Lapse of Certainty). Mana tithe won't work if they pay 1 so it sucks against a 2 Mana card. Lapse will just put Thoracle back on top of their deck. Red has 3: Tibalts Trickery, Red Elemental Blast, and Pyroblast. That's 6 instant cards in all of Magic that aren't blue and can counter Thassa. 2 of which are terrible at doing so. "Plenty more" is so hilariously disingenuous.
It always feels weird when people talk about banning cards like drannith because it stops players from doing what they want to be doing, and in the next minute say "be sure to pack tons of removal in your deck so you can stop your opponents from doing what they want to be doing". Counterspell your commander = good Stopping you from casting your commander = bad
We've decided to ban Sol Ring in our playgroup. Game's (and DECKS) have been better for it. It was the only card that we played in every one of our decks, reason enough to ban it imo.
Thassa's Oracle isnt ban worthy its the pieces it combos with Tainted Pact and Demonic Consultation that are both tutors and combo pieces that need the ban, Thoracle is the most powerful empty library wincon but it's the ability to win with the trigger on the stack with no board state and a full library that breaks it.
I play a very strong token deck, and gaeas cradles has taped for 0 more times than it has tapped for 6+ in my experience. The only answer isnt just to remove the land, it is a set up card that requires the player already to be in a strong or winning position, and only helps that player end the game a little faster. Maybe my play groups just run more boardwipes than the usual? But then again i dont run any search for cradle the deck is more focused on token production.
If you ban drannith you might as well ban elesh norn or sheoldred because it gives people “the feel bads”. I’ve had way more oppressive things than drannith keep my commander off the field via -1/-1 counters or pinging damage or making me sacrifice 3 creatures every turn.
On this day: Dockside Extortionist was banned, Jeweled Lotus was banned, and Mana Crypt was banned. Nadu also got banned, but wasn't released when this video was released.
I've never felt like Sol Ring ruined a game for me. I've seen turn 1 Land into Sol Ring into Signet but it never felt like it outright stopped a game from being playable. But then again, my play group doesn't do cEDH or play decks intentionally to . Sol Ring is so versatile that it can be both harmful and harmless depending hon how seriously you're personally taking your games. For me, I don't mind the fact that my opponent Sol Ring'd his way into Gin-Gitaxias. I'm more upset that he's actually running Gin-Gitaxias in the first place. Sol Ring didn't ruin my game. Not having a hand did... Sol Ring sped up the process, but banning Sol Ring doesn't save me from my actual enemy... My opponent's audacity to make me rely on topdecking removal or forcing me to run blue so I have access to counterspells 😐 ANYHOW, that's how most of my Sol Ring experiences go. The ring itself usually doesn't ruin my games. Half the time, people who play it flub land draws and the ring only keeps them on curve instead of pushing them forward. It's what people play with that mana that can ruin games but since my pod started discussing what types of stuff we don't like to see and and since jumping people also exists, Sol Ring has never felt like the villain to me. It's just another ramp card (that we can blow up if need be). If it ever gets out of control, it's because someone's leaning into it way too hard and our group can fix that 😏
As a newer player I find it interesting how divisive Sol Ring is mainly because I have seen more games with players playing the card and whiffing the rest of the game. Even in my own experience, I have played a turn 1 or 2 Sol Ring, then just kept drawing in to lands or other cards not useful in the moment. It seems more like a card that is scary in the vacuum of an opening hand, since drawing in to it late doesn't seem to help as much. As for the others... Magistrate seems to show how much players want to discourage hatebears in general, which seems odd if we are fine with control as a play style. Dockside has the potential to be far more problematic than Sol Ring by virtue of it being a recurrable creature. Thassa's Oracle just seems to be unfun in general. It seems to encourage deck building in a way that has a player making as few contributions to the game as possible because the deck is centered around resolving the win con ASAP. Gaia's Cradle doesn't need to exist in Commander. We already have Growing Rights, & green has more than enough ways to generate mana without it. Also, proxying isn't a good solution for any of these cards. For my own LGS, we only allow proxies if a person owns the original. As such, it would be moot to proxy a card you don't own & most of us do not want to spend hundreds or thousands on a single card to proxy in all of our decks.
no offense meant with this, but i have played plenty of games with friends where they get "the god" opening hand of sol ring + signet, and when someone has 5 mana on turn 2 they can do some pretty crazy shit if you didn't get a good opening hand - especially if they're control. this has lead to tons of games where one person gets the god hand and 3v1 we can't keep up, and we all run 3+ boardwipes and 10+ sources of removal. the banning of sol ring would be based on potential of what you can do on turn 2 if you get lucky also i think people should just be able to proxy whatever they want, i disagree with "must own at least one copy" because it still insinuates "you don't have a large enough wallet to play at this table" if my friend is brand new and wants to play with us, i want them to build a deck thats fun and capable and not worry about a random staple being 40$ p.s. the card quality has gone down so much and proxy quality has gone up so much that i guarantee you could fool an lgs table that a proxy is real and that a real card is a proxy lmao, there's nothing sacred about having a REAL colossal dreadmaw. its just cardboard you're using to have fun with your friends
@@andros1486 Most of us already play budget. We have a healthy mix of cEDH & casual players. The only players I see proxy are those that have been playing since the 90s and managed to keep their collections. Besides that, I am the kind of person by default that would rather let a person play what they want rather than tell them to stop playing a card just because I don't like it.
@@V2ULTRAKill I don't agree, since I understand people have a preference and it is not my place to say what someone is or is not OK with. I will agree to disagree.
If you scoop whenever someone goes land, sol, signet that's not sol ring that's the issue. That's you being a child because "someone else is going to win" "life isn't fair and I don't like how variance and diversity work unless we're all playing the same varied and diverse trash" if your argument for sol ring ban is 1 card shouldn't give you 2 cards worth of value then you just don't like how tcgs function in general
Also, just because something was done in the past doesn't make it bad either. It's not an argument from "tradition." It's an argument that it was always doing the same thing. And that's correct. What has changed between then and now that has made sol ring banworthy? More people playing it? Seems like a bad reason. It gives too much advantage? If you think it's on the same level as any of the other mana producing cards on the list then you need to get your eyes checked.
Magistrate keeps casting cards from graveyard for free, casting cards from exile for free, casting cards from libraries. I think it’s needed to keep decks that can get out of hand just from playing one card. I think it should be okay but rules should allow you to play your commander.
thing with sol ring is that if you pop it out t1 then usually you are the target you spend a lot of your resources trying to keep your lead while 3 people beat down on you and when you beat down to not being the threat anymore you dont have anything to build back up to. like my decks have a lot of high power in them but i play them horribly inefficient and more for fun but since i got the money to have things like crypt and a bunch of big bolas walkers that can be game ending i will jsut constantly become the biggest threat even hto i cant win with it until like 4 turns from now and then the guy who is behind all game just pulls out the free win cause he has more to do then anyone else. its such a weird thing for it to either be banned or not and i play tockside and what not as well and the other cards besides the 5 that were here are the free spells when you have your commander out, i run them in every deck and i even think they need to be banned along with rhystic study and smothering tithe.
My argument on sol ring, is why sol ring? why not any other of those explosive mana rocks (mana vault, mana crypt, etc.) Sol ring is good, but there's a reason those other ones are about 100$.
Personally I almost feel that Drannith Magistrate starts to fall under Rule 0... it shuts down Commanders, graveyard cast decks, top card of library cast decks, Adventure decks, impulse decks. I kinda feel it doesn't need to be banned because the only reason to put this in your deck is to be an absolute dick. The main issue with Dockside Extortionist is it's so expensive... It's a bit more of an "I have money so I win." card because of how hard it is to get.
Powerful cards will always be expensive. Dockside was even in a precon. The reason it is expensive is because it is a game-altering card that can slot easily into any red deck. Dockside is one of my top "Let's Ban It" cards in the format
You should also consider the balancing involved for a multiplayer game (also threat assessment). e.g. If you play a Dranith Magistrate, chances are there's removal/wipe/someone that can deal with it. Unfun, yes, but it doesn't give out so much advantage that there won't be a chance to beat that player using it. For Sol Ring, I think it can still be balanced out by proper threat assessment. It doesn't win outright, so there's a chance for the table to gang up on the Sol Ring player.
I think "dies to removal" is overused but still a valid statement on a card's power. The creature Narset is pretty universally disliked because of its effect but Yennet can do pretty much the exact same play pattern and even has evasion to avoid trading on a block, but the fact that Narset is hexproof makes a lot of difference. Not everything "dies to removal". Some of the most frustrating cards are frustrating because of their ability to protect themselves.
Let's just ban Everything: No counter spells No infinites No removal Errata all creatures to 1/1s with no abilities Ban all lands that produce blue mana And then we can all sit at Weenie Hut Jr.s' and play a fair game. All jokes aside this is a self policed format. If you don't like certain cards and combos just say "I'm not playing against that" and either ask the person to switch decks or switch pods.
Cards like Drannith Magistrate are important because they help people learn an important thing about deckbuilding: add spot removal to your commander deck. I can't tell you how many times I've played in a pod with half the table not having any answers to anything that was going on in the game. Please at least try to interact a little bit with your opponents, it helps a lot. Also I realize that you basically stated that my argument is "garbage", but it is what it is - just my IRL experience. (And I only play this card in a mono white commander deck to begin with)
dranith is the fairest and easiest card to interact with, therefore based on Rules Commite’s previous work I expect them to ban it, then unban some red card card that exiles everything.
I played in a commander league at an LGS for a while that had an optional extended ban list, one of which was Sol Ring. The main argument was that just because everyone can have access to it, not everyone does, and those who do get WAY ahead. Honestly, I didn’t miss it at all. Each game seemed much more fun, unique, and adequately paced. Also on the list was Thoracle and Dockside, as well as some high dollar cards like Gaea’s Cradle and “I win” cards. I’m not saying it was a better format with the extended bans because there were people who really loved the high power, regular bans commander too. But it definitely suited my preferences of fun over winning.
Dranith Magistrate doesn't bother me too much, although I would say I only expect to see it at a higher power level where effects that are more good than fun are par for the coarse. Usually rule 0 conversation involves saying if you play Stax pieces and Dranith Magistrate is definitely a stax piece.
It is hypocritical to say commander is a format of expression and that we shouldn’t tell others how to play the game when you are doing just that. Building your deck is expressive and I have decks light on removal. When I play them I CANNOT complain about something that happens BECAUSE I BUILT A DECK WITH NO removal. All of your problems with these cards are easily solved with rule zero conversations (aside from online games.) This is why edh is a casual format, you can have convos about the decks in your group and certain cards. But just like you tell us not to give you “it dies to removal” bs, don’t tell me the no one can tell anyone how to play the game and then tell me how to play the game. One friend got a turn 2 sire of insanity in his rakdos lord of riots deck with a one in a million hand, we scooped and moved on and laughed about how absurd it was. I have a stax and 2 Storm decks I almost never play because I would rather the whole table have fun more often, but don’t be a hypocrite and say I can’t have my occasional fun with my Kenrith stax deck that is a 1v3 until I am dead or someone else is a problem. I cannot reconcile the rules committee’s insistence on the importance of rule zero with a ban list. One says, it’s a casual format and deal with any problems or make changes with your group at your own discretion. The other states, this is not a casual format, we will tell you what you can and cannot do, follow our rules. Please make up your mind, is this a casual format where you can express yourself how you wish and have rule zero talks with friends? Or is this a sweaty format with a list of unacceptable cards and ways to play the game, and you can’t rule zero and tell a friend not to play cedh against a bunch of janky fun decks.
my argument against sol ring being banned is simply that anytime someone actually runs the data like game knights or scg commander vs or commander clash in their data episodes it actually doesnt unbalance things half as much people say it does and its such a cool thing to see a new player do a turn 1 ring and turn 2 4 cmc commander
In their data, it either shows that there IS a distinct advantage to that luck of the draw. OR, a feel bad against that play that happen to have that luck of the draw. Either way, not a feel good for the balance of a typical game.
I don't remember the game knights episode very well, so feel free to correct me. While the data they talked about was interesting I don't feel it is representative. The prior probability of winning is only 25% and in combination with the small sample size of games with early sol ring, proving the effect of the sol ring is incredibly hard. In addition there is also the side effect that sol ring can turn the player into the arch enemy which can balance out the statistic. I think the more relevant figure is that 85% of decks run the card. This means that players have the choice of playing with 98 cards or falling behind before drawing. And then it is up to variance whether three players on the table fall behind on turn one. I understand the appeal of the crazy turns it enables but for me it is just to onsided.
@@sammelm5357 "In addition there is also the side effect that sol ring can turn the player into the arch enemy which can balance out the statistic." And the key with that stat is that it shows a 'balance', but not how swingy that balance is within each game. How feel bad is it that games either go drastically in one player's direction, or one direction against that player? I think the defenders of Sol Ring will latch onto any 'balanced' stat they find, but ignore the actual result within the game (like you said).
About Drannith Magistrate, the worst part is than Juriko jumps this (Ragavan, I imagine others), because you can put it on play by abilities and not casting it.
Here is where I’m at with these cards. Drannith: A strong card for sure. IMO the strongest Stax piece in the format. I don’t think it’s ban worthy. Creature removal is the most common and I’ve you play you have probably pissed of 3 other people in the pod. Essentially it puts a target on your head. Now there is also threat assessment where you have to determine if there is another player threatening a win. Drannith potentially can also be a helping piece so you can further your board state. Dockside: Another strong card that I don’t think is ban worthy. Reason being you need an outlet and it makes you reconsider if you should ramp out into oblivion with artifacts in a pod with red. Thoracle: Not bannable at all, rule 0 exists. Just have the conversation before hand. If you are gonna play thoracle you are probably playing cedh where there is so much interaction that format. I personally don’t believe that thoracle should be played else where other than cedh. Sol ring: I can see the appeal of a sol ring ban. I am indifferent with banning this card. Though I will say if you want to ban sol ring ban all mana positive rocks. Personally I prefer a the faster format but I can see why people want a slower format. Gaeas cradle: I think this card is ban worthy. This card is strong a little to strong. Hard to interact with and if you play this card you are going to have a higher ratio of creatures. It’s free and will net you more mana than a rock. When a card nets you potentially Infinite mana for free that is this hard to interact with its is ban worthy. If it was opponents it would be a different story you don’t have to play into it, but you can turn this card online yourself, not to mention that it is repeatable every turn Unlike dockside. I hold these opinions from playing a lot of cedh, a lot of high power games, but not so much in the lower powers though I would like to know others opinions on the matter.
Hi, as a fellow cEDH player, I love Drannith and stax existing as a foil in the format even though we don't play it. I think there's a different mentality in cEDH where these strategies are simply expected obstacles for faster decks to play through. Dockside is interesting - clearly busted but has a surprising amount of play to the card. Even though there's a high chance you might lose to it, it also gives outs for other players to interact with things like phantasmal image, sakashima, mnemonic betrayal etc. As weird as it sounds, I don't think it's nearly as bad as something like Flash Hulk. Thoracle, Sol Ring and Cradle are all fine in cEDH I think. The player who drops fast mana will be at the top of the threat assessment and will often need to resolve their game winner through 1-3 pieces of countermagic. I actually think Cradle is probably the weakest of the three as green midrange creature strategies are more vulnerable and on average 1-2 turns slower than meta decks like blue farm or rog-silas.
You guys probably have such a similar opinion on cards like sol ring/mana crypt. If banned it may hurt the "spirit of the format" for some players but I think it would also help make games more consistent across the board both 1v1 or 3+ player games. It's my personal opinion and maybe even just a fact that the less "auto includes" in your deck the more slots you have for synergy and personal expression, on top of that it would help push the general mana curve of all commander decks closer to how it was when we called it edh, before people optimized their decks and had internet resources we have today. Resources like the Nitpicking Nerds or.... Moxfield for example. :) Idk about your group but whenever one of us cast a sol ring and mana crypt/signet on turn 1 the game very often turns into a sketchy 3v1 situation, it just doesn't feel great to me and it's not an uncommon scenario.
@@NitpickingNerds you could say the same thing about any non creature permanent. In fact, you could say the same thing about any non creature card. Chaos warp and beast within are just generically good cards, and im not saying you have to play them, but they will improve the game for the entire table if played
Lol imagine getting Sol Ring and Signet in your opening hand, excited to see your deck operate at a high level, and some guy scoops because he can't handle the innate variance of a card game.
If you don't utilize rule zero your complaints are less valid. People should be setting and managing expectations for the game(s) they are about to play
I don’t “want” anything banned. I want to be able to play whatever tf i want to play and i want the same for people I play against. If they want to tell us what’s allowed then they should make it so that people can only play with precons.
Here's the thing... don't complain that cards are op or stop you from winning the game when you don't build your deck to remove things that can stop you from winning the game... this is still a game where the objective is the play the game.. and if you don't build your deck properly do be able to do that very thing don't blame your opponents blame yourself... build your deck to do what it's supposed to do and play the game to that moments circumstances... it's that simple...
Also people mainly complain about cards that either keep them from winning or end the game as a whole as being unfun... I'd rather end a miserable game and shuffle up and try again vs playing 1 game that takes hours and hours and hours for someone to win 100 turns into the game... also there to an extent needs to be cards to slow things down because if not the format as a whole would be unfun and would be about just basically playing vintage... which who wants that?? Seriously... this discourse over some of these cards is ridiculous
With Drannith Magistrate, I like that it keeps things like impulse draw pr Bolas' Citadel under control. I wish it could be erattad for commander to allow for casting from the command zone as well as hand. The fact this came out in Ikoria, as a standard card, means it isn't quite optimized for the commander format, unfortunately.
Ok, with Drannith Magistrate, it is annoying. However, no good commander deck is built without some sort of spot removal. Multiply that by 3 opponents at the table all equally likely to kill a 1/3 on the spot. As a matter of fact, I also believe that a good deck should still be able to function without the commander. I have a Muldrotha deck that often times I don’t even need to play her to win. Your argument against “forcing people to play removal” is a form of meta adaptation. Sometimes a meta “forces” players to play cards they wouldn’t play normally.
Yet, now you are telling players how they should build their deck based on removing cards that make the format unfun to play (in words: not being able to play your commander in a game of COMMANDER).
@@ThaMobstarr I didn't tell anyone how to play. I mearly stated that if you don't have spot removal you have a shitty deck. Play your shitty deck all you want but you have no basis to complain about it. By you arguing that it should be banned, as I assume you are, you are the one actually telling what to play or rather not to play.
@@AugustAMcClung You appearently haven't watched the video. Beezy explicitly said that "well, it dies to removal" is not a good argument against banning a broken card because everything can be removed.
@@ThaMobstarr "because everything can be removed" is equally not a good argument. Creature removal is by far the most ubiquitous - every single color has many many options. It also does not have an immediate effect on the board in the sense that the turn needs to come back to you before you may or may not need to deal with it. If your commander is already in play, it does absolutely nothing. Try again.
"Land card that produces mana bad because I was talking to someone about a different land card that doesn't produce mana and they told me that there wasn't a way to counter what that land card does, and my whole world view was just changed." 1 ungabunga = 1 prayer
If anything should be banned it should be all tutors. That evens the playing field to a 1 in 100 chance unless you build to draw cards. Thanks for a list of cards to buy. 😈😁
People hating on Drannith is why I hate the culture surrounding EDH. Just because you play poorly does not mean you deserve to drag everyone else down to your level. By the time magistrate becomes a huge problem on the table several people have ignored mechanics integral to the game in lieu of "casual fun". Does your casual deck losing a lot piss you off? Great! Work on it and get better as was custom prior to the gutting of the MTG community. Protip: If losing while playing casually bothers you then you're not playing causally. You want to win, but you suck at the game. :)
I don’t think sol ring is that big of a problem. Later in a game a sol ring isn’t that big of a deal, it is only in the first 1 or 2 turns that sol ring is really problematic. I would say just change the rule so sol ring can’t be played before your third turn
No, you don't _think_ it's not a problem; you *know* it's not a problem because it isn't a problem! Don't let the vocal minority make you question your sense of fun!
@@moreplease394 you are correct, I don’t think it is a problem. To me extra turn cards, take your stuff cards, and free to cast cards are the biggest issues to play against
@@okashi6 What is your opinion on Volrath, the Shapestealer then? I have a whole deck built around just stealing/copying whatever is on the board. It really keeps the game fresh to me and if everything goes right, I have a cluster of three different kinds of board states or I can really just copy the best one at the table and try to go off? Extra turns are annoying really if it only becomes one person looping and nobody else can get a turn.
Drannith sounds miserable … but I’ve never seen it on the battlefield. Sometimes I feel like people complain about things they feel would imagine would suck to play against. And while I imagine it would be miserable it is just my imagination.
@@theonewhohasowotism4093 it stops you from literally playing 1 card in your deck... if you cant win without your commander you need to rework your deck. You should have multiple ways to win that isnt just your commander.
@guru khalsa I own a Drannith and have been receiving of one. It really depends. Drannith is a pain in the but not because of it stopping commanders from getting played from the commander zone. But because it stops things like cascade or flashback. Most of my pod's decks are built to work and even win without their commanders. It's a hatebear that's meant to cutoff resources and keep your opponents' gameplans from gathering steam too quickly. If you're deck doesn't really rely on casting stuff from the graveyard or exile, it's a nuisance and only if your commander gets removed and you really needed it. Now, pair Drannith with Knowledge Pool and you get misery...
@@VexylObby If people's deck are based entirely around the commander why shouldn't I be allowed to interact with that? If someone doesn't have interaction to deal with a threat to their strategy maybe they should go back to the workshop to deal with said threats.
@@pinjimin7696 Except it is EVERY deck's concern to play their commander at some point. It is the idea that each player chose that specific commander. And it is more than what the commander does too, be it for it's identity, synergy, art. Commander is a casual format where people just wanted to play as a specific commander character and the strategies that come with them. And of course, each deck SHOULD operate outside of the commander, but the commander should emphasize the deck's concept. The fact that the format is called "commander", and this one card says "you do not get to cast commanders" seems like asking for hate. The CORE mechanic of the format is shut down by a 2 drop. The card wasn't even designed for commander anyways. There are other alternatives to stopping greedy casting that do not shut out other players from helping you against arch enemies anyways. YES, there are other ways of "interacting" (arguably Drannith does not interact) with commanders. The whole "dies to removal" argument is not a very strong one either, and has not stopped other cards from being banned for their blatant ubiquity and prevalence.
For the argument of play more removal, the best counter argument is timing and reasoning. If they play magistrate turn 2, you can either spend your turn killing it or developing your board. By turn 3, do you want to spend your turn killing magistrate or drawing cards? What about playing mana rocks? A ramp spell or a kill spell? Moreso, by turn 3 you've seen 10 cards, of which at least 2 were lands probably. You are only at 70-80% chance to have seen removal. By turn 3 or 4, you might be out of luck cause no one else is willing to take the disadvantage in removing it or have drawn into an opportunity to remove it while still developing.
Def agree with the voting on dockside. Even in lower power pods dockside just allows the player to get ahead so much further in every resource. In lower pods board states and creatures are usually the determining factors of games and when dockside says you can just dump your hand full of those creatures you become ahead of everyone by a large margin. Also sol ring and mana crypt can get out.
I understand why people want to ban dockside but I honestly never see it getting abused usually I just see it used as a way of catching up, and in the few games were it is abused were all playing broken cards and it usually never resolves.
On the topic of gaea's cradle; where is this "taboo" against land destruction that is spoken of? Because I haven't experienced it. If someone plays a problematic land, like field of the dead, or nykthos, or cradle, or cabal coffers..... (or any one of many non-basics that can be problematic).... then you take your ghost quarter, or tectonic edge, demolition field, field of ruin (or maybe one of the more expensive options if you have access to them) You take your targeted land destruction & you do what needs to be done. I.e. you blow up their land. Nobody I've played with where this situation has arisen has taken umbrage at that land being blown up because they know better than anyone how powerful that card is & what it can do. There's no valid reason why a land cannot be a threat that needs to be answered & no valid reason why players should not feel free to run the targeted land removal necessary to deal with these threats. After all, the opportunity cost of playing a basic suite of targeted answers to lands is so low that the vast majority of decks can meet it without even the slightest trouble. I also groaned internally when I heard words to the effect of 'if it was cheaper then we'd definitely want to ban it' Price (or availability) of a card should never be a consideration when talking about whether it should be banned or not. Especially not in a format like commander, where the vast majority of play is unsanctioned & proxies are not exactly uncommon. Price is no barrier to the card being played since anyone whom can't afford it can simply proxy it.
Commander is the format where you can express yourself. I express myself by playing Drannith Magistrate and stopping you from playing your commander. So it's a perfect fit in the format.
@@dankgoku2377 lol I bet that would happen, but I only play with my friends. We have a high tolerance for disruption. No taboo against Armageddon and friends at our table.
Wizards: "The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a Sol Ring, is a good guy with a Sol Ring."
Made my day
Sound logic in both this argument and the one this phrase comes from.
Oh no
It's the great equalizer. Lol
If you ban sol Ring, criminals will still play it. Lol
Also, wotc and friends could still play them.
It's interesting how people use availability as an argument against banning Sol Ring *and* as an argument against banning Gaea's Cradle, but for the exact opposite reason.
@@Necrotorium888 for which one?
Ban both because both are busted cards that are way too swingy and enable degenerate gameplay. The price shouldn't factor into it.
Grrr stay away from my Gaea's Cradle... it may be the gold bordered version but it still gets the job done!
I think honestly that sol ring is just an iconic commander card and banning it hurts the spirit of the format
@@Necrotorium888 Power creep? Are you fucking kidding me right now? These cards are ancient MTG history. If anything fast mana has gotten power decayed over the years, not creeped. Sol Ring was printed in fucking BETA. Cradle is LITERALLY ON THE RESERVED LIST. Creatures have seen power creep over the years, insane power creep in fact, but if you take a look at MTG's history you'll see that Wizards had no idea what they were doing with fast mana like Sol Ring, Crypt, Cradle, Tolarian Academy, the Moxen, Lotus, and LED. Even LED which was considered a junk rare eventually got broken in half because fast mana is just that good.
PS: there is literally no deckbuilding cost whatsoever to putting Crypt and Sol ring in every single deck you have besides "I don't want to crush my opponents horribly with too much consistency".
When talking about "dies to removal" its important to keep in mind that every color has access to cards that easily deal with creatures, that isn't true for artifacts and enchantments so having powerful static effects on creatures is intentional design, because wizards know that they can "die to removal"
Well, green is kind of eff'd on that side, but as it still has some ways of removing/mitigating this, it's not catastrophic or anything.
@@qwormuli77 With the number of fight effects that exist these days, not really. It's worse, but you literally CAN'T remove enchantments with a mono red deck without playing bad cards like Meteor Golem.
@@MaximumImpactGames whenever i build red decks i always include liquimetal torque and liquimetal coating because it turns whatever i want into an artifact which red can easily destroy, its alwaya fun for political acts around the table asking if anyone has the artifact removal
@@MaximumImpactGames 99% of fight effects are utter crap, which is why I said what I said. But it still has them (plus beast within), which is more than what red can say about enchantments, or what black could have said about either enchantments or artifacts until a while ago. White just removes everything every which way it pleases and laughs on it's way to the bank.
Yeah, but then I have to run the removal! and quite frankly, I just want to stuff my deck with only cards that are good for me and not waste space on removal! It isn't fun when I have to interact!!!!!!!!!
Wizards has made decks with banned cards in it before and the solution they came up with was that you could play the banned card in that deck if you ran the deck completely unaltered.
I'm actually in favor of cards like Sol Ring and Arcane Signet remaining in the format since they are cheap and very powerful mana rocks that can kind of compensate for not having the budget/not willing to spend huge amounts for Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Jeweled Lotus and Ancient Tomb. I know you guys normally don't take budget into account, but I personally think budget is actually a very important factor in most playgroups.
Rock ramp is the singular reason why decks not splashing green are allowed to keep up vs land ramp
i think if fierce guardianship was 2$ i don't think that would mean it's a fair card, and thats kind of where i put sol ring. sol ring is a lottery card thats like "i have a very low chance of having the best opening in the table by far"
arcane signet is different though, its just another signet that comes out and can tap. it's definitely the best one, but it's not in its own league with sol ring
@Crunch Bar proxy it
@Crunch Bar i agree that this is a casual format, for fun. but would you want a colorless land printed for 2$ that taps for 4 colorless mana? is that fun?
it's subjective, but i personally think the less lottery cards the better. i don't think 8 tutors in every deck is fun, but i do think some semblance of consistent power is good in a deck - whether it be "dino stompy" or "extra turns storm"
plus, you still have 12 other mana rocks in your deck lol losing sol ring doesn't suddenly make your deck 10x worse, and if it did, you probably didn't build a good deck
Arcane Signet is no issue. Its good but not overpowered.
Sol Ring and other mana positive rocks are ban worthy and wouldn't leave anyone behind since no one would have access to them.
I better not see Grave Titan on this list.
People sleeping on grave titan, but it’s actually more powerful than any of the other cards on this list
Grave Titan will have its own video. Lol
From what it was said, "Some people just like seeing people go off" it's highly arguable because you could also say "Some people just like stopping people from going off" because that's their fun, and who are you to say any of those is wrong in a game? The one who stops something powerful happening could actually be seen as the hero of the match if stops someone from casting their commander . It's all a matter of perspective, a complicated one at that tbh.
I think there are hundreds of alternatives to stopping someone from casting their egregious commander (including rule 0). The problem with THIS particular alternative is that it stops so much other essential things within the format, for ALL opponents, including ones that can help you with that arch enemy.
Nah bro it's against the spirit of the format when you stop me from powering out 4 lands a turn in gruul or stopping me from casting my pushed as fuck simic mythic
I agree that shutting down a players deck entirely isn't fun. At the same time, we encourage people to play how they want. I personally feel that when you build a deck, you understand that if you build a deck without targeted removal you will have a hard time answering threats right away. I don't feel like most of these are ban worthy, but I would argue that there should be a set of cards that is similar to the ban list, but rather than being banned players have to agree that they are good with facing decks with those listed cards, accepting the risk of a bad time.
I think that this is a better idea than having a strict ban list for the format, more like, hey these cards are unfun for most people you should ask your playgroup if they're ok playing against them.
I think one of the reasons the RC is so hesitant to ban cards is because they don't want to tell people how they can and can't play, having something like this would be a way for them to be more proactive with unfun cards without telling people how to play.
i guess imo i don’t think sol ring should be banned. is it SUPER powerful?? absolutely. but that’s what’s kinda fun about it. in higher power pods where ppl r comboing off or ramping a ton, sol ring helps get an advantage and can help u do some crazy early turn plays. for me, part of the appeal of sol ring is that it is rlly powerful. i don’t think it goes against the spirit of the format at all, I actually think it encourages it. I know sol ring isn’t for everyone, but i personally like it :) have a great day y’all
Well said ☺️
The problem with sol ring is that it’s so incredibly ubiquitous it goes in 99.9% of decks an essentially makes 100 card decks into 99 card decks. Golos was banned because he was the best 5 color commander and the majority of 5 color decks used him. Golos was making the format stale by being in every pod. sol ring does the same thing. If sol ring was banned tomorrow and everyone had to find a new 100th card for their decks then deck diversity across the format would leap forward, and that would only be a good thing. Is sol ring ruining the format? No. Would the format be more interesting without it? Definitely. That being said the rules committee would never ban a card that comes in every single pre-con.
I have done the turn one land sol ring signet 2 times out of the few hundred games I've played at best. But most people complain like it happens every single game.
I love how "fixing" the format usually just devolves into people wanting to ban the good red and white cards because they're either stax pieces or it just is a way to ramp that isn't land based (dockside)
If Dockside weren't so expensive I wouldn't give as much of a fuck. As it is, the only person who has it in my playgroup is the person who bought the precon before people figured out it was good. How is it that one of red's staples can pretty much only be opened with a stack of 99 other useless cards? Lame af.
Lol what a weak take
You mean how there is one card for each color except black?
@@Deny399 included mainly to be "fair". Community wide there's obvious favoritism
@@Michael-ne2bl not really, for me Thassa's oracle is worse than any of those.
Sol ring too...
All of those are valid for debate.
My playgroup decided to make a rule where if someone wins by an alternate win con that says "you win the game" we keep playing without that player to find out who gets second.
It kinda creates a feel bad moment for the player that wins that way because they may as well have lost at that point for how it plays out.
People eventually stopped playing alternate win cons, this was a direct response to thassa's oracle.
your playgroup is yours, but i feel like thats kinda wack of a rule. if i cast approach of the second sun twice, that's 14 mana lategame, and multiple turns inbetween the casts - the game should be over
if it was that bad, y'all should've just banned thoracle for your group
but to each their own
@@sunflowertheog one of our players was winning like 80% of the games with alternate win cons so we nerfed them across the board, it gets kinda infuriating losing to thoracle and the like on turn 4 eight games in a row.
One day we just kept playing like he was the one who lost and it just kinda went that way from then on.
Overall it's led to much more diversity in our games as he spends his time fiddling with jank combos instead of just playing that one overpowered combo.
It's also inadvertently led to us having rule 0 conversations during the week and sharing our decklist with one another, not just so we're all on the same page/power level, but also so we can give each other advice on how to improve our decks and play styles.
Counterpoint: One of my best games recently was Commander Keene managing to chump a ~300 power Serra Avatar lomg enough to win with Maze's End.
@@dapperghastmeowregard that's actually pretty awesome.
@@sunflowertheog I completely agree with you, but as an addendum, you also need to ban Lab Man and the Jace planeswalker that does the same thing.
Expanding on the first pick, as a mono-white player, my whole gameplan is to play police, slow people down, and force people to play "fair magic". If you can't deal with a 1/3 slowing you down, your deck needs some change
BuT I DoNt LiKe RuNnInG iNtErAcTiOn
The thing is some commanders theme revolves around playing things not from hand. And also the whole commander format. I think magistrate is kinda lame but not a card to ban.
Outside of Commander, Magistrate is a completely fair, if actually underpowered card because it's mostly a Graveyard hate/From Exile hate. But in commander, it does that same thing while also fundamentally going against the idea of Commander. If Magistrate was errataed to specifically exclude casting from the Command Zone, then it would fine and still have a good spot in the format because it would work against Commander decks that cast from other places without kicking every other deck in the shin who did nothing wrong.
@Arturo Belano it’s not to make games bad. Your commander is a threat. I played an answer
@@1996BlueMan Except that's not an answer to commanders, it just says, "You all aren't playing the Commander Format until this card leaves the field."
Because it's doesn't stop powerful commanders, it stops all commanders regardless of if they are incredibly strong or Timmy's Ayula, Queen of the Bears.
One needs a strong card to stop them, Ayula does not.
It's a card that has the same issues as Iona, where it just blanket said, "You cannot play this." And if you deck didn't have an answer to it, then you lost and WotC dislikes cards that require specific answers to them.
My argument for keeping Sol Ring legal in the format is this: If the goal of Commander is the promotion of "Fun" magic, then Sol Ring is the #1 perpetrator for that. The goal of commander as a format is to follow the game-plan you've set out for the deck, whether it's super specific or generally vague in terms of card focus (An Ad Naus deck vs A Tribal deck), and the secondary goal of commander in relation to that is to achieve/fulfill your plan as fast as possible. How this applies to Sol Ring is that it is a ubiquitous card that only serves to speed up game plans, effectively allowing people to have more fun so things are faster. Therefore, it promotes fun in a form attainable to EVERY person playing the game, at a relatively cheap price, and in a way that does not profit off of the downfall of others (Such as why Drannith Magistrate is so controversial now). If ramping in a deck leads to a lack of fun, I believe that to be the fault of the deck and it's goal, not the fault of the pieces that help you get there, especially when it's something that everyone runs (Since that same level of fun is available for all players and they have the same chance of experiencing it).
(Also personally, the "tradition" argument is completely overused and wrong :P)
I think that's a great point. I never had a problem with Sol Ring and I wasn't sure why until now. I'd like to add that the mana being colorless is usually a good enough drawback, since it's rare to be able to use the mana from a turn 1 sol ring that turn.
So If Sol Ring gave 5 colorless mana you would be ok with it because it achieves Commander's goal?
I think I disagree in the event that you get a sol ring turn 1, due to how quickly some decks can spiral out of control with certain cards or commanders when left unchecked, and at a speed where the player can easily get protection for that card since players cannot even play removal in time. I'd say that some of the most fun moments in commander are the twists and turns for who pulls out the biggest threat first, but moments like these are impossible if a player gets to an unreachable position due to a turn 1 sol ring, potentially even with artifact ramp in the mix too. If a player storms off like this it can lead to short unfun games.
@@nicholasjones7822 so gang up on them and kill em or shuffle up and play again.
Mass land destruction is frowned upon, but single land destruction is something I always go for. There are so many good lands; Cradle, Coffers, Sanctum, Field of the Dead etc.
*laughs in Obliterate because I have no friends*
I run Armageddon in my mono white stax deck. Love the salt it brings.
Banning drannith over people actually using more removal, is letting people who dont want to build their deck correctly tellling us that do what we can put in our decks. The card is fine, we can not start banning cards because they are not fun that is a slippery slope.
You talk as if there is no way to avoid removal. I had games where i just couldn't remove that card with my Prosper Tomebound deck and sat there for 6 turn doing nothing until I conceded.
It's not so hard to give a creature indestructible, shroud or simply counter a spell. Drannith with lightning greaves and it's GG for some decks.
That card shuts down a way of playing completely and "just play removal" isn't a solution at all.
@@whostoblame1 it really is, but that aside sometime that is how a game goes. Keeping prosper off the field is a solid strategy and not a commander that is great to use as an example of how drannith isnt fair. Many of the same people hating on Drannith may have a similar opinion to prosper, i love him and play him. I run things like uba mask in prosper. So not totally different from Drannith strategy. Sometimes your not going to get to play your commander it happens. Now if it is every game in a night maybe grounds to complain, otherwise i could for example play blue control and counter your commander everytime you cast him, do we ban counter spells now? If dies to removal isn't an argument, resisting removal isn't either. My prosper deck can still function without prosper. Better with him on the field, but doesnt shut my deck down. I have plenty of interaction to wear them down and keep them from winning until i can play prosper again. We can not just look for bans to answer difficulties.
Not running removal is just stupid & if you purposely choose to do it then you deserve whatever happens for choosing to be unprepared to be honest. Trying to justify bad players being bad is lame
@@servalkorion686 dude thank you, tge argument in this video doesnt make sense, they can argue that we cant make player play more removal as that controls how they build their decks but they can call for a perfectly fair card to be banned controlling what goes in other people's decks? Players who do not play with interaction cant cry for others to changes their decks because they dont want to change their own. We are each respinsible for our own play experience based on how we build our own decks, we can not try to control what goes into other peoples decks to adjust our own play experience. Power level discussions are a different thing and should always be had by the table.
Nah Drannith is an Anti-Fun card. Cards that stop people from playing are bad for the game.
I understand Drannith Magistrate is a card that stops people from playing their commanders but I will continue to play it because I am not focusing on that idea but the fact that it can slow down other strategies like cascade, graveyard based decks and more.
Love this card in my Myrkul deck.
Rather than ban the card I feel the rules committee should look into a new rule stating something like the command zone being immune to zone based casting restrictions.
Yeah it's mainly a card for me to stop reanimation and force people to play fair. Besides,everyone has access to using fair removal to get rid of him....now.....if he was a enchantment. I would probably say ditch him....because that just hoses the shit out of too many things for too many decks.
Doesn't matter that you are not focusing on that , people just can't cast their commanders with that guy on the battlefield. So you're like "i don't care if you can't play the game" you missed the point of commander for me
We should just make a Command Zone Rule: No card restricts your ability to cast your Commander from the Command Zone. Drannith can stay as is and it removes the unfun aspect from the card.
Sol Ring into a signet does indeed suck, but it never feels like a game ender to me either. Sometimes you gotta play from behind, and that is its own kind of fun, in my experience. What I like about its ubiquity in the game is that I've seen Sol Ring really help less experienced players or players with less money not only compete with others at the table, but also feel like there's less of a barrier of entry because that awesome thing in their opponent's deck is an awesome thing they can have too.
It never feels like a game ender because it rarely is. Typically when a player slams a bunch of rocks down turn 1 they become archenemy immediately, and rarely ever win off of that advantage.
Of the cards in the video, Sol ring is the most powerful, AND least likely to actually win you the game out of all of the cards on the list. People will be mad at you if you drop drannith magistrate turn 2, Dockside wins so many games on its own, same with Thoracle, Cradle wins you TONS of games the moment you drop it.
Sol Ring is undoubtedly an absurdly strong card, but because it is available to everyone and creates lopsided games is precisely WHY I think it shouldn't be banned. It gives you a ton of resources and puts a target on your back, no doubt, but it doesn't lock your opponents out of playing the game, or ganging up on you, which they inevitably will do. Sol Ring is good for the format because it comes down early and dictates the flow of the game. I would much rather have a card like that than Expropriates or Dockside Extortionist.
@@MaximumImpactGames I'm in favor of banning Sol Ring but you actually make some good points. Well done.
The other day I sol ringed into a signet into a birds , only other good start I had like that was in 1998 lol 😂
@@ericlasalle5470 Did you win?
@@MaximumImpactGames yea but I was just play testing a new deck with a buddy lol 😂
If magistrate simply said “players” instead of “your opponents” it would be an interesting card to build around and fine.
The “dies to removal” argument is extremely valid. If you don’t run removal because of “self expression” then banning cards like drannith that slow people down ruins other peoples self expression. Creature removal is the most common in the format and a 1/3 is definitely killable if not counterable. Beat them down if not and force a trade
Im also a firm believer that if your deck cant perform without the commander in play then its time to maybe reevaluate. If you’re win condition is your commander alone then what’s the difference between drannith and blowing up ur commander or countering it whenever you play it?
Say it louder for those in the back. You should have 2 or 3 more ways to win without your commander and if your deck only works if your commander is out there you need to rework that deck. This card is so weak and is a nothing card imo. If they were annoyed because it shuts down graveyard recursion which might be removing 1 player completely if that's what their deck does MAAAAYYYYBEEE but their argument is you cant play your commander... this wouldnt be in my top 250 cards to be banned.
Dockside could read: For each opponent with more lands than you, create a treasure token for each land they control - the # of lands you control. Let it punish actual ramp.
That would be a white card
how is that any different?
treasures should just make colorless mana
Drannith magistrate is fine, hatebears are balanced. They're creatures, if you can't interact with them, something is wrong with your deck.
I agree with there.
came here to say this
There are plenty of cards that are "fine" power level wise who are banned, but tbh if you run that card in our laygroup you will probably be finding another playgroup. Same as running a bunch of Armageddons, it's against the spirit of the format
Totally agree too. I only play it in my brago stax deck which is high power level. As long as you tell people you are playing a stax deck before you sit down and give them the option to say can you play another deck, I think drannith is fine. It’s all about communication.
@@austinblankenship7631 You'd hate me as an Avacyn player
Drannith Magistrate - Dies to everything, and hated by the RC.
Dockside Extortionist - Gives player possible obscene ramp after resolution, perfectly okay with RC.
Thassa's Oracle - Combos into "you win...RC: *silence* (Definitely does not need ban)
Sol Ring - LOL
Gaea;s Cradle - Obscene creature based ramp on a land, RC says nothing.
Moral of the story: the Rules Committee are petulant children. If a card is a problem, play to overcome the card. Play removal. Play counters. Learn to have your deck say no.
Sol ring adds a possibility that 1 or 2 players goes ahead early in the game to create a 1v3 scenario that is a different play experience.
But I'd say it's in a good way.
The read I get from Dockside/Thassas being the top of the community at larges' banlist is that most people seem to playing in that (what I would define as) 5-8 power level where people are playing both for fun and for power, where cards like those are playable, accessible hopefully through proxies, and super super impactful and regularly win games on their own. Also I had no idea Dranith Magistrate existed before that poll and this videos points on that card and the results seems to line up with my idea, where it's too unfun and not powerful enough to play in that kind of environment.
I am incredibly intrigued by the Sol Ring conversation. I'm a relatively new commander player and I've seen Sol Ring often. It seems whoever plays the turn one Sol Ring becomes an immediate target, creating a different kind of game than might have been expected pregame. I find that to be fun. I get the argument to ban it, but I'd vote no.
Wait, don’t y’all do a whole video series on “creatures you need to kill on sight or you’re f***ed?” It seems a little weird to then turn around and say it’s some kind of cop-out to argue that people need to play more removal to deal with stuff like Drannith Magistrate. Surely part of the assessment of how problematic or unfun or overpowered a card is has to be “how hard is it for other players to interact with or deal with?” It’s not like you’re forcing people to play removal to deal with this one card… there are tons of cards that will take over the game if nobody’s playing removal.
This only reinforces my love of Drannith and hatred of Thoracle
The made up sorcery that removes all commanders is actually a better card than the magistrate. The sorcery required a counterspell at that exact moment or its effect lingers the rest of the game with no way to interact.
The magistrate only has 1 power so it cant reasonably kill anyone, and must sit on the field for an entire commander game with multiple opponents.
The sorcery NEEDS a blue player to stop it, which there could just be no blue players on table. The magistrate can be removed by any player regardless of colors(doom blade/fatal push, lightning bolt/chaos warp, swords to plowshares/path to exile, pognify/reality shift, & beast within).
My playgroup did a test where we tracked win % of first turn Sol ring. After 20 or so games, the player(s) with turn 1 sol ring plays had roughly a 50% win rate. In a 4 player game, a single card shouldn’t bolster a single players win rate that much imo granted this could just be how things played out in our group and it is a really low sample size so take this with a grain of salt but I was on the fence for banning sol ring prior to this and since we did the test I’m entirely on board with banning it
Tests I've seen have actually had the opposite effect, since it makes you a target. 1v1? Busted. 1v3? Kinda, but in a predictable way.
Yeahhh, every Commander battle I've seen, the guy with a turn 1 sol ring gets wrecked 1st. Unless TWO people get turn 1 sol rings. Then the two players without sol rings just breathe a heavy sigh & put up their best fights
If other colors had more sustainable ramp and not just one shot ramp spells like rituals, maybe I would agree that Sol Ring should be banned. It's a double edged sword cause other decks kinda need the ramp to even hope to keep up with green, but it is too good and all decks including green can and will use it. I like the idea of moving to color specific ramp. Like maybe if black had an artifact that cost one black and you tap it for two black and there is some draw back like life loss and/or discard, I'd be ok with that
I am tired of dealing with cascade, graveyard, and game changing commanders. I'm not even locking people out of the game. If this card gets banned, I'll show people not being able to play.
20:23 Ban Sol Ring but keep Mana Crypt because we can gate keep new players with ridiculous 2nd hand market values?
Dockside is seriously strong but not ban worthy. A card that denies or prevents game actions like Hullbreacher for example are banned. Dockside is entirely ramp, its doesn’t interfere with other players it simply reads what THEY chose to play, then ramps based off that. If you want Dockside banned it’s ether because you don’t own it or you don’t like other players ramping, which is cringe. Also it’s in red, give the card a break.
Serra Ascendent... 6/6 flying lifelink for 1 mana is pretty busted, especially when someone drops it turn 1
That one is just straight up a templating issue from before Commander was a thing. It should either be errata'd to work like similar, more recent cards ("X more than your starting life total") or banned, because it straight up doesn't fit the format (the Karakas reasoning for a ban).
@@ospero7681 I couldn't agree more
4:04 "commander is without a doubt the format of self expression" YES!
Drannith Magistrate can be a good answer to help with people who play extremely abusive commanders.
Exactly! I have one in my Alela deck simply for answering my pod's notorious Najeela and Urza decks.
@@peefspaagdar7684sounds like you need a new pod
When someone plays Sol ring turn 1 the game is 90% of the time still fun.
Whenever someone plays Thassa at ANY turn, even if the game was fun it retroactively sucks all the fun I've had at that point since nothing that happened mattered.
The dockside debate reminds me of the channel fireball debate, as once there was a ready combo for two mana to go extreme it was banned. Treasure tokens in a multiplayer game after a few turns on a creature that can be revived or recast is nuts.
The thing is Dockside is board dependant. If you cast it turn 2 you are likley not getting much from it. Paradox engine just works after you cast it. Can go in any deck. Dockside can be abused quite well but it can be countered, exiled, and is just a 1/2.
I really don't think Dockside is worth the ban. By himlseft he does ramp, but only once. He gets you ahead but considering that if it's too early in the game, it could be a 3x1 as lots of other strong cards - as smothering tide, for example. Also, in the late game it's still very strong, but usually players will have more responses too. Mana Crypt/Vault and Chrome Mox are way more problematic according to my experience in my playgroup
Drannith Magistrate is the biggest nothing card ive ever seen argued to be banned. Its a 1/3 with no protection. At worst it will stop you from playing your commander 1 or 2 turns and if your deck cant run without your commander a few turns you need to rework your deck.
Who was that insane person telling people to not play Mana Rocks and Value Enchantments because Dockside exists!?
Seriously...
PS: I'd love a Thassa's Oracle ban solely to see what next broken thing the cEDH drones migrate to.
I think you folks have a weird perception of commander. “Play whatever cards you want” seems to have become functionally “I’m entitled to a game of solitaire”.
If your deck relies on combat and your buddies ensnaring bridge shuts you down, then you have a choice…hope they don’t draw it or put one or two artifact removal spells in there.
If your mono blue deck scoops to oubliette, maybe put some bounce in there.
Running removal or not running removal requires some form of risk/reward assessment. If you don’t run removal, you risk the blowouts. When that risk is realized, you can be upset, you can complain, but ultimately you have to bear some responsibility for that decision. If you are saying I shouldn’t have to run targeted land destruction to deal with field of the dead despite losing to it several times, and they should change their deck instead of me changing mine…that’s just selfish and entitled.
Just ban them at you table if you don't like them or don't feel like having answers in your deck.
My problem with the drannith magistrate argument is there are blanket other things that just might shut down your commander and telling people to play removal is now telling them how to play. Yeah it is, and it fine. If you decide not to solve the obvious problem with your deck you have to accept you will get got. I have decks that are all in on the commander sometimes i can't cast my commander or it get removed, countered etc. It is what it is.
The argument of, "It dies to removal" is not a legitimate argument, because you and the other players may not have removal in your hand on that turn or even in subsequent turns. It is a 99 card deck, let's say you have 5 targeted removal spells, 3 targeted damage spells and 1 board wipe, that's 9 cards out of 99, you start with 7 cards in hand and let's say Magistrate comes out turn 3, which is fairly early but also very impactful at that point in the game. You would have had gone through 10 cards once it comes to your turn
Essentially this can all boil down to about a 10% chance that you have any one of your removal spells by that point, that's not great odds, and even with 3 players sure maybe you have one. But that ignores that removal is not guaranteed.
It's far easier to protect cards that you give credit for it, since the Magistrate deck obviously runs White, which is fully capable of buffing defense and even just a single point puts Magistrate above what a Lightning bolt can do, it is capable of providing indestructible to their creatures but Magistrate is also part of two of the strongest tribes in the entire game, Human and Wizard. And this card will always be in a wizard deck because there are many very strong Wizard Commanders that will give you access to White and those decks are notoriously capable of countering, blinking or even taxing out any removal against this card to the point that it will stay on the field for a lot longer than it would otherwise.
If this card was a Red/Black Elemental it would actually be an easier card to remove since those colors and tribe are not heavily associated with a plethora of cartds that could be used to protect it against cheap and common removal spells.
@@StevenTLawson theres ONE very strong wizard commander
And shes grixis
Its inalla
Inalla is the only tribal commander in the entire game that is VERY good
@@V2ULTRAKill Okay so you're just going to lie and pretend commanders like Jodah and Sen Triplets don't exist then? When cards like Teferi exist are so good that splashing Blue just to lock out your opponents from using any cards on your turn.
You might as well just admit you're biased as all hell and bow out before you make yourself look even more like an ass than before
@@StevenTLawson sen triplets is bad, like really bad, VERY good is viable at the top end, which only 3 tribal commanders are, Inalla, Edgar, and Kallia, 2 of these are just mardu razaketh tutor turbo decks, Inalla being the only one that PLAYS a tribal winline
And yes both jodahs are mid as fuck and only function at power levels so low that Kenrith is considered "just ok." Its ok to be ignorant, but dont blame the person with more knowledge
@@StevenTLawson Run more interaction, my guy
i think there is a very large amount of cards that get called problematic that are legitimately just an indicator of someone not playing adequate interaction. it has nothing to do with telling people how to play the game and everything to do with being realistic about your expectation. in a four-player format, you have to be able to interact, and if you can't you should expect to win fewer games. it is just the nature of the format.
Thats the risk one runs while playing some mono decks, and people just don't understand that when they build the decks.
Well it’s not easy to interact with etb triggers
What’s your plan to deal with Thoracle or Dockside in White/Red?
Mana tithe and tibalts trickery. That’s just one of each color I can think of. There’s plenty more. But when you choose to run those colors you are doing it knowing it’s not as easy to interact.
There are not plenty more lol. Black has literally one counterspell that can deal with Thoracle (Withering Boon). Green has zero. White has two (Mana Tithe, Lapse of Certainty). Mana tithe won't work if they pay 1 so it sucks against a 2 Mana card. Lapse will just put Thoracle back on top of their deck. Red has 3: Tibalts Trickery, Red Elemental Blast, and Pyroblast.
That's 6 instant cards in all of Magic that aren't blue and can counter Thassa. 2 of which are terrible at doing so. "Plenty more" is so hilariously disingenuous.
How about forcing a person to draw on the stack
It always feels weird when people talk about banning cards like drannith because it stops players from doing what they want to be doing, and in the next minute say "be sure to pack tons of removal in your deck so you can stop your opponents from doing what they want to be doing".
Counterspell your commander = good
Stopping you from casting your commander = bad
The format is healthy and doesn't need any bans.
This... In fact I'm heavily in favor of unbans
@@ginov.7039 In what world is the new elish norn ban worthy lmao
@@ginov.7039 I swear magic players have the weirdest opinions sometimes
We've decided to ban Sol Ring in our playgroup. Game's (and DECKS) have been better for it. It was the only card that we played in every one of our decks, reason enough to ban it imo.
Thassa's Oracle isnt ban worthy its the pieces it combos with Tainted Pact and Demonic Consultation that are both tutors and combo pieces that need the ban, Thoracle is the most powerful empty library wincon but it's the ability to win with the trigger on the stack with no board state and a full library that breaks it.
There’s to many cards like tainted pact, so you’d have to ban 10 cards just to not ban Thassa Oracle.
Thoughtlash, Leveler, Hermit Druid, etc…
@@entertainmentinc9735 peer, divining witch, nauseam even
Like others said: it makes more sense to ban one card than like 10.
@@Frank.potion doomsday
Seriously 80% of the time oracle wins off a doomsday without needing to draw more after
I play a very strong token deck, and gaeas cradles has taped for 0 more times than it has tapped for 6+ in my experience. The only answer isnt just to remove the land, it is a set up card that requires the player already to be in a strong or winning position, and only helps that player end the game a little faster.
Maybe my play groups just run more boardwipes than the usual? But then again i dont run any search for cradle the deck is more focused on token production.
If you ban drannith you might as well ban elesh norn or sheoldred because it gives people “the feel bads”. I’ve had way more oppressive things than drannith keep my commander off the field via -1/-1 counters or pinging damage or making me sacrifice 3 creatures every turn.
yea drannith is really one of the lightest and easiest stax pieces to get around and/or remove.
On this day: Dockside Extortionist was banned, Jeweled Lotus was banned, and Mana Crypt was banned. Nadu also got banned, but wasn't released when this video was released.
I've never felt like Sol Ring ruined a game for me. I've seen turn 1 Land into Sol Ring into Signet but it never felt like it outright stopped a game from being playable. But then again, my play group doesn't do cEDH or play decks intentionally to . Sol Ring is so versatile that it can be both harmful and harmless depending hon how seriously you're personally taking your games.
For me, I don't mind the fact that my opponent Sol Ring'd his way into Gin-Gitaxias. I'm more upset that he's actually running Gin-Gitaxias in the first place. Sol Ring didn't ruin my game. Not having a hand did... Sol Ring sped up the process, but banning Sol Ring doesn't save me from my actual enemy... My opponent's audacity to make me rely on topdecking removal or forcing me to run blue so I have access to counterspells 😐
ANYHOW, that's how most of my Sol Ring experiences go. The ring itself usually doesn't ruin my games. Half the time, people who play it flub land draws and the ring only keeps them on curve instead of pushing them forward. It's what people play with that mana that can ruin games but since my pod started discussing what types of stuff we don't like to see and and since jumping people also exists, Sol Ring has never felt like the villain to me. It's just another ramp card (that we can blow up if need be). If it ever gets out of control, it's because someone's leaning into it way too hard and our group can fix that 😏
No, No, No, No, and lastly No
In fact lets unban like half the ban list that should never have been banned in the first place
As a newer player I find it interesting how divisive Sol Ring is mainly because I have seen more games with players playing the card and whiffing the rest of the game. Even in my own experience, I have played a turn 1 or 2 Sol Ring, then just kept drawing in to lands or other cards not useful in the moment. It seems more like a card that is scary in the vacuum of an opening hand, since drawing in to it late doesn't seem to help as much.
As for the others...
Magistrate seems to show how much players want to discourage hatebears in general, which seems odd if we are fine with control as a play style.
Dockside has the potential to be far more problematic than Sol Ring by virtue of it being a recurrable creature.
Thassa's Oracle just seems to be unfun in general. It seems to encourage deck building in a way that has a player making as few contributions to the game as possible because the deck is centered around resolving the win con ASAP.
Gaia's Cradle doesn't need to exist in Commander. We already have Growing Rights, & green has more than enough ways to generate mana without it.
Also, proxying isn't a good solution for any of these cards. For my own LGS, we only allow proxies if a person owns the original. As such, it would be moot to proxy a card you don't own & most of us do not want to spend hundreds or thousands on a single card to proxy in all of our decks.
Then blame the lgs not the format
no offense meant with this, but i have played plenty of games with friends where they get "the god" opening hand of sol ring + signet, and when someone has 5 mana on turn 2 they can do some pretty crazy shit if you didn't get a good opening hand - especially if they're control. this has lead to tons of games where one person gets the god hand and 3v1 we can't keep up, and we all run 3+ boardwipes and 10+ sources of removal. the banning of sol ring would be based on potential of what you can do on turn 2 if you get lucky
also i think people should just be able to proxy whatever they want, i disagree with "must own at least one copy" because it still insinuates "you don't have a large enough wallet to play at this table"
if my friend is brand new and wants to play with us, i want them to build a deck thats fun and capable and not worry about a random staple being 40$
p.s. the card quality has gone down so much and proxy quality has gone up so much that i guarantee you could fool an lgs table that a proxy is real and that a real card is a proxy lmao, there's nothing sacred about having a REAL colossal dreadmaw. its just cardboard you're using to have fun with your friends
I encourage you to find a small group within your LGS that allows proxies period, it's healthier for your wallets that way
@@andros1486 Most of us already play budget. We have a healthy mix of cEDH & casual players. The only players I see proxy are those that have been playing since the 90s and managed to keep their collections.
Besides that, I am the kind of person by default that would rather let a person play what they want rather than tell them to stop playing a card just because I don't like it.
@@V2ULTRAKill I don't agree, since I understand people have a preference and it is not my place to say what someone is or is not OK with.
I will agree to disagree.
If you scoop whenever someone goes land, sol, signet that's not sol ring that's the issue. That's you being a child because "someone else is going to win" "life isn't fair and I don't like how variance and diversity work unless we're all playing the same varied and diverse trash" if your argument for sol ring ban is 1 card shouldn't give you 2 cards worth of value then you just don't like how tcgs function in general
Also, just because something was done in the past doesn't make it bad either. It's not an argument from "tradition." It's an argument that it was always doing the same thing. And that's correct. What has changed between then and now that has made sol ring banworthy? More people playing it? Seems like a bad reason. It gives too much advantage? If you think it's on the same level as any of the other mana producing cards on the list then you need to get your eyes checked.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone asking for a Drannith ban
It was all over Twitter for a few weeks mostly
How do you guys structure those ads in? Is it like improv, a "of the moment" type of thing? Or do you time them ?
Magistrate keeps casting cards from graveyard for free, casting cards from exile for free, casting cards from libraries. I think it’s needed to keep decks that can get out of hand just from playing one card.
I think it should be okay but rules should allow you to play your commander.
I would also say that is is best to build your deck so it functions with out your commander.
@@justinhoudeshell4031 magistrate only effects opponents not your own.
Yes but if your deck works with out your commander it is a problem to play against.
thing with sol ring is that if you pop it out t1 then usually you are the target you spend a lot of your resources trying to keep your lead while 3 people beat down on you and when you beat down to not being the threat anymore you dont have anything to build back up to. like my decks have a lot of high power in them but i play them horribly inefficient and more for fun but since i got the money to have things like crypt and a bunch of big bolas walkers that can be game ending i will jsut constantly become the biggest threat even hto i cant win with it until like 4 turns from now and then the guy who is behind all game just pulls out the free win cause he has more to do then anyone else. its such a weird thing for it to either be banned or not and i play tockside and what not as well and the other cards besides the 5 that were here are the free spells when you have your commander out, i run them in every deck and i even think they need to be banned along with rhystic study and smothering tithe.
My argument on sol ring, is why sol ring? why not any other of those explosive mana rocks (mana vault, mana crypt, etc.) Sol ring is good, but there's a reason those other ones are about 100$.
It's because those don't have enough reprints and solring was printed into the dirt.
My argument for the ban of Sol Ring is that it is the first card you put in every single deck.
That's one less card for every deck
Personally I almost feel that Drannith Magistrate starts to fall under Rule 0... it shuts down Commanders, graveyard cast decks, top card of library cast decks, Adventure decks, impulse decks. I kinda feel it doesn't need to be banned because the only reason to put this in your deck is to be an absolute dick.
The main issue with Dockside Extortionist is it's so expensive... It's a bit more of an "I have money so I win." card because of how hard it is to get.
Powerful cards will always be expensive.
Dockside was even in a precon. The reason it is expensive is because it is a game-altering card that can slot easily into any red deck.
Dockside is one of my top "Let's Ban It" cards in the format
You should also consider the balancing involved for a multiplayer game (also threat assessment).
e.g. If you play a Dranith Magistrate, chances are there's removal/wipe/someone that can deal with it. Unfun, yes, but it doesn't give out so much advantage that there won't be a chance to beat that player using it.
For Sol Ring, I think it can still be balanced out by proper threat assessment. It doesn't win outright, so there's a chance for the table to gang up on the Sol Ring player.
its way beyond a chance. if sol ring or dockside is played the game immediately becomes 3v1. it should anyway
Let’s just ban every 1 power 2 drop, that gets rid of magistrate, extortionist, and thoracle
I think "dies to removal" is overused but still a valid statement on a card's power. The creature Narset is pretty universally disliked because of its effect but Yennet can do pretty much the exact same play pattern and even has evasion to avoid trading on a block, but the fact that Narset is hexproof makes a lot of difference. Not everything "dies to removal". Some of the most frustrating cards are frustrating because of their ability to protect themselves.
Let's just ban Everything:
No counter spells
No infinites
No removal
Errata all creatures to 1/1s with no abilities
Ban all lands that produce blue mana
And then we can all sit at Weenie Hut Jr.s' and play a fair game.
All jokes aside this is a self policed format. If you don't like certain cards and combos just say "I'm not playing against that" and either ask the person to switch decks or switch pods.
If something creates a power imbalance in the game it has become a 3v1. Nothing is actually broken people just don't look at it in the right context.
Cards like Drannith Magistrate are important because they help people learn an important thing about deckbuilding: add spot removal to your commander deck.
I can't tell you how many times I've played in a pod with half the table not having any answers to anything that was going on in the game. Please at least try to interact a little bit with your opponents, it helps a lot.
Also I realize that you basically stated that my argument is "garbage", but it is what it is - just my IRL experience. (And I only play this card in a mono white commander deck to begin with)
dranith is the fairest and easiest card to interact with, therefore based on Rules Commite’s previous work I expect them to ban it, then unban some red card card that exiles everything.
You really going to cry about Worldfire?
I played in a commander league at an LGS for a while that had an optional extended ban list, one of which was Sol Ring. The main argument was that just because everyone can have access to it, not everyone does, and those who do get WAY ahead.
Honestly, I didn’t miss it at all. Each game seemed much more fun, unique, and adequately paced. Also on the list was Thoracle and Dockside, as well as some high dollar cards like Gaea’s Cradle and “I win” cards.
I’m not saying it was a better format with the extended bans because there were people who really loved the high power, regular bans commander too. But it definitely suited my preferences of fun over winning.
Dranith Magistrate doesn't bother me too much, although I would say I only expect to see it at a higher power level where effects that are more good than fun are par for the coarse. Usually rule 0 conversation involves saying if you play Stax pieces and Dranith Magistrate is definitely a stax piece.
Play absolutely any stax piece in a deck that you want to play dranthih included but don’t play a stax deck.
It is hypocritical to say commander is a format of expression and that we shouldn’t tell others how to play the game when you are doing just that. Building your deck is expressive and I have decks light on removal. When I play them I CANNOT complain about something that happens BECAUSE I BUILT A DECK WITH NO removal.
All of your problems with these cards are easily solved with rule zero conversations (aside from online games.) This is why edh is a casual format, you can have convos about the decks in your group and certain cards. But just like you tell us not to give you “it dies to removal” bs, don’t tell me the no one can tell anyone how to play the game and then tell me how to play the game.
One friend got a turn 2 sire of insanity in his rakdos lord of riots deck with a one in a million hand, we scooped and moved on and laughed about how absurd it was. I have a stax and 2 Storm decks I almost never play because I would rather the whole table have fun more often, but don’t be a hypocrite and say I can’t have my occasional fun with my Kenrith stax deck that is a 1v3 until I am dead or someone else is a problem.
I cannot reconcile the rules committee’s insistence on the importance of rule zero with a ban list. One says, it’s a casual format and deal with any problems or make changes with your group at your own discretion. The other states, this is not a casual format, we will tell you what you can and cannot do, follow our rules.
Please make up your mind, is this a casual format where you can express yourself how you wish and have rule zero talks with friends? Or is this a sweaty format with a list of unacceptable cards and ways to play the game, and you can’t rule zero and tell a friend not to play cedh against a bunch of janky fun decks.
my argument against sol ring being banned is simply that anytime someone actually runs the data like game knights or scg commander vs or commander clash in their data episodes it actually doesnt unbalance things half as much people say it does and its such a cool thing to see a new player do a turn 1 ring and turn 2 4 cmc commander
In their data, it either shows that there IS a distinct advantage to that luck of the draw. OR, a feel bad against that play that happen to have that luck of the draw. Either way, not a feel good for the balance of a typical game.
I don't remember the game knights episode very well, so feel free to correct me. While the data they talked about was interesting I don't feel it is representative. The prior probability of winning is only 25% and in combination with the small sample size of games with early sol ring, proving the effect of the sol ring is incredibly hard. In addition there is also the side effect that sol ring can turn the player into the arch enemy which can balance out the statistic.
I think the more relevant figure is that 85% of decks run the card. This means that players have the choice of playing with 98 cards or falling behind before drawing. And then it is up to variance whether three players on the table fall behind on turn one.
I understand the appeal of the crazy turns it enables but for me it is just to onsided.
@@sammelm5357 "In addition there is also the side effect that sol ring can turn the player into the arch enemy which can balance out the statistic."
And the key with that stat is that it shows a 'balance', but not how swingy that balance is within each game. How feel bad is it that games either go drastically in one player's direction, or one direction against that player?
I think the defenders of Sol Ring will latch onto any 'balanced' stat they find, but ignore the actual result within the game (like you said).
My only argument for not banning Sol Ring is it is format defining like fetch lands in Modern.
About Drannith Magistrate, the worst part is than Juriko jumps this (Ragavan, I imagine others), because you can put it on play by abilities and not casting it.
Here is where I’m at with these cards.
Drannith: A strong card for sure. IMO the strongest Stax piece in the format. I don’t think it’s ban worthy. Creature removal is the most common and I’ve you play you have probably pissed of 3 other people in the pod. Essentially it puts a target on your head. Now there is also threat assessment where you have to determine if there is another player threatening a win. Drannith potentially can also be a helping piece so you can further your board state.
Dockside: Another strong card that I don’t think is ban worthy. Reason being you need an outlet and it makes you reconsider if you should ramp out into oblivion with artifacts in a pod with red.
Thoracle: Not bannable at all, rule 0 exists. Just have the conversation before hand. If you are gonna play thoracle you are probably playing cedh where there is so much interaction that format. I personally don’t believe that thoracle should be played else where other than cedh.
Sol ring: I can see the appeal of a sol ring ban. I am indifferent with banning this card. Though I will say if you want to ban sol ring ban all mana positive rocks. Personally I prefer a the faster format but I can see why people want a slower format.
Gaeas cradle: I think this card is ban worthy. This card is strong a little to strong. Hard to interact with and if you play this card you are going to have a higher ratio of creatures. It’s free and will net you more mana than a rock. When a card nets you potentially Infinite mana for free that is this hard to interact with its is ban worthy. If it was opponents it would be a different story you don’t have to play into it, but you can turn this card online yourself, not to mention that it is repeatable every turn Unlike dockside.
I hold these opinions from playing a lot of cedh, a lot of high power games, but not so much in the lower powers though I would like to know others opinions on the matter.
Hi, as a fellow cEDH player, I love Drannith and stax existing as a foil in the format even though we don't play it. I think there's a different mentality in cEDH where these strategies are simply expected obstacles for faster decks to play through.
Dockside is interesting - clearly busted but has a surprising amount of play to the card. Even though there's a high chance you might lose to it, it also gives outs for other players to interact with things like phantasmal image, sakashima, mnemonic betrayal etc. As weird as it sounds, I don't think it's nearly as bad as something like Flash Hulk.
Thoracle, Sol Ring and Cradle are all fine in cEDH I think. The player who drops fast mana will be at the top of the threat assessment and will often need to resolve their game winner through 1-3 pieces of countermagic. I actually think Cradle is probably the weakest of the three as green midrange creature strategies are more vulnerable and on average 1-2 turns slower than meta decks like blue farm or rog-silas.
You guys probably have such a similar opinion on cards like sol ring/mana crypt. If banned it may hurt the "spirit of the format" for some players but I think it would also help make games more consistent across the board both 1v1 or 3+ player games. It's my personal opinion and maybe even just a fact that the less "auto includes" in your deck the more slots you have for synergy and personal expression, on top of that it would help push the general mana curve of all commander decks closer to how it was when we called it edh, before people optimized their decks and had internet resources we have today. Resources like the Nitpicking Nerds or.... Moxfield for example. :) Idk about your group but whenever one of us cast a sol ring and mana crypt/signet on turn 1 the game very often turns into a sketchy 3v1 situation, it just doesn't feel great to me and it's not an uncommon scenario.
Agreed 100%.
23:45 beast within and chaos warp are “narrow answers”?
There's a narrow selection of cards that answer Field or any land
@@NitpickingNerds you could say the same thing about any non creature permanent. In fact, you could say the same thing about any non creature card.
Chaos warp and beast within are just generically good cards, and im not saying you have to play them, but they will improve the game for the entire table if played
Lol imagine getting Sol Ring and Signet in your opening hand, excited to see your deck operate at a high level, and some guy scoops because he can't handle the innate variance of a card game.
If you don't utilize rule zero your complaints are less valid.
People should be setting and managing expectations for the game(s) they are about to play
Dockside may be a combo piece that gets you infinite mana, but it doesn't matter if you don't have anything to sink that mana into.
this a notbing burger of a comment
@@pneu_8365 what do you mean?
I don’t “want” anything banned. I want to be able to play whatever tf i want to play and i want the same for people I play against. If they want to tell us what’s allowed then they should make it so that people can only play with precons.
Here's the thing... don't complain that cards are op or stop you from winning the game when you don't build your deck to remove things that can stop you from winning the game... this is still a game where the objective is the play the game.. and if you don't build your deck properly do be able to do that very thing don't blame your opponents blame yourself... build your deck to do what it's supposed to do and play the game to that moments circumstances... it's that simple...
Also people mainly complain about cards that either keep them from winning or end the game as a whole as being unfun... I'd rather end a miserable game and shuffle up and try again vs playing 1 game that takes hours and hours and hours for someone to win 100 turns into the game... also there to an extent needs to be cards to slow things down because if not the format as a whole would be unfun and would be about just basically playing vintage... which who wants that?? Seriously... this discourse over some of these cards is ridiculous
With Drannith Magistrate, I like that it keeps things like impulse draw pr Bolas' Citadel under control. I wish it could be erattad for commander to allow for casting from the command zone as well as hand. The fact this came out in Ikoria, as a standard card, means it isn't quite optimized for the commander format, unfortunately.
Exactly. AND there are alternatives that solve the problems excluding commanders anyways!
17:57 you Will killed the game if banned sol Ring because Imagine if Pokémon get rid of Pikachu
Ok, with Drannith Magistrate, it is annoying. However, no good commander deck is built without some sort of spot removal. Multiply that by 3 opponents at the table all equally likely to kill a 1/3 on the spot. As a matter of fact, I also believe that a good deck should still be able to function without the commander. I have a Muldrotha deck that often times I don’t even need to play her to win. Your argument against “forcing people to play removal” is a form of meta adaptation. Sometimes a meta “forces” players to play cards they wouldn’t play normally.
Yet, now you are telling players how they should build their deck based on removing cards that make the format unfun to play (in words: not being able to play your commander in a game of COMMANDER).
@@ThaMobstarr I didn't tell anyone how to play. I mearly stated that if you don't have spot removal you have a shitty deck. Play your shitty deck all you want but you have no basis to complain about it. By you arguing that it should be banned, as I assume you are, you are the one actually telling what to play or rather not to play.
@@AugustAMcClung You appearently haven't watched the video. Beezy explicitly said that "well, it dies to removal" is not a good argument against banning a broken card because everything can be removed.
@@ThaMobstarr "because everything can be removed" is equally not a good argument. Creature removal is by far the most ubiquitous - every single color has many many options. It also does not have an immediate effect on the board in the sense that the turn needs to come back to you before you may or may not need to deal with it. If your commander is already in play, it does absolutely nothing. Try again.
"Land card that produces mana bad because I was talking to someone about a different land card that doesn't produce mana and they told me that there wasn't a way to counter what that land card does, and my whole world view was just changed." 1 ungabunga = 1 prayer
If anything should be banned it should be all tutors. That evens the playing field to a 1 in 100 chance unless you build to draw cards.
Thanks for a list of cards to buy. 😈😁
People hating on Drannith is why I hate the culture surrounding EDH. Just because you play poorly does not mean you deserve to drag everyone else down to your level. By the time magistrate becomes a huge problem on the table several people have ignored mechanics integral to the game in lieu of "casual fun". Does your casual deck losing a lot piss you off? Great! Work on it and get better as was custom prior to the gutting of the MTG community.
Protip: If losing while playing casually bothers you then you're not playing causally. You want to win, but you suck at the game. :)
No amber!!! 🥺 First!!!
I don’t think sol ring is that big of a problem. Later in a game a sol ring isn’t that big of a deal, it is only in the first 1 or 2 turns that sol ring is really problematic. I would say just change the rule so sol ring can’t be played before your third turn
No, you don't _think_ it's not a problem; you *know* it's not a problem because it isn't a problem! Don't let the vocal minority make you question your sense of fun!
@@moreplease394 you are correct, I don’t think it is a problem. To me extra turn cards, take your stuff cards, and free to cast cards are the biggest issues to play against
@@okashi6 What is your opinion on Volrath, the Shapestealer then? I have a whole deck built around just stealing/copying whatever is on the board. It really keeps the game fresh to me and if everything goes right, I have a cluster of three different kinds of board states or I can really just copy the best one at the table and try to go off? Extra turns are annoying really if it only becomes one person looping and nobody else can get a turn.
Drannith sounds miserable … but I’ve never seen it on the battlefield. Sometimes I feel like people complain about things they feel would imagine would suck to play against. And while I imagine it would be miserable it is just my imagination.
It's utterly miserable to play against.
@@theonewhohasowotism4093 it stops you from literally playing 1 card in your deck... if you cant win without your commander you need to rework your deck. You should have multiple ways to win that isnt just your commander.
@@mikephillips1043 agreed and still sounds miserable.
@guru khalsa I own a Drannith and have been receiving of one. It really depends. Drannith is a pain in the but not because of it stopping commanders from getting played from the commander zone. But because it stops things like cascade or flashback. Most of my pod's decks are built to work and even win without their commanders. It's a hatebear that's meant to cutoff resources and keep your opponents' gameplans from gathering steam too quickly.
If you're deck doesn't really rely on casting stuff from the graveyard or exile, it's a nuisance and only if your commander gets removed and you really needed it. Now, pair Drannith with Knowledge Pool and you get misery...
It's extremely common in cEDH but also extremely easy to play around via control, or removal spells/interaction.
Tolarian Academy is banned due to 0 and 1 drops in format being played in every meta deck
I think Drannith is fine to keep around. A way to win is punish people that play to greedy, Drannith is a perfect card for that.
I think there are alternatives that do not punish the person behind. And Drannith is less about greed and more about ability to play a commander.
@@VexylObby If people's deck are based entirely around the commander why shouldn't I be allowed to interact with that? If someone doesn't have interaction to deal with a threat to their strategy maybe they should go back to the workshop to deal with said threats.
@@pinjimin7696 Except it is EVERY deck's concern to play their commander at some point. It is the idea that each player chose that specific commander. And it is more than what the commander does too, be it for it's identity, synergy, art. Commander is a casual format where people just wanted to play as a specific commander character and the strategies that come with them.
And of course, each deck SHOULD operate outside of the commander, but the commander should emphasize the deck's concept. The fact that the format is called "commander", and this one card says "you do not get to cast commanders" seems like asking for hate. The CORE mechanic of the format is shut down by a 2 drop. The card wasn't even designed for commander anyways.
There are other alternatives to stopping greedy casting that do not shut out other players from helping you against arch enemies anyways. YES, there are other ways of "interacting" (arguably Drannith does not interact) with commanders.
The whole "dies to removal" argument is not a very strong one either, and has not stopped other cards from being banned for their blatant ubiquity and prevalence.
For the argument of play more removal, the best counter argument is timing and reasoning. If they play magistrate turn 2, you can either spend your turn killing it or developing your board. By turn 3, do you want to spend your turn killing magistrate or drawing cards? What about playing mana rocks? A ramp spell or a kill spell? Moreso, by turn 3 you've seen 10 cards, of which at least 2 were lands probably. You are only at 70-80% chance to have seen removal. By turn 3 or 4, you might be out of luck cause no one else is willing to take the disadvantage in removing it or have drawn into an opportunity to remove it while still developing.
I don't want any of these to be banned.
Def agree with the voting on dockside. Even in lower power pods dockside just allows the player to get ahead so much further in every resource. In lower pods board states and creatures are usually the determining factors of games and when dockside says you can just dump your hand full of those creatures you become ahead of everyone by a large margin. Also sol ring and mana crypt can get out.
More often than not i see it used to catch up than it is to get ahead. Don't overextend without the means to counter it if you're facing red
I understand why people want to ban dockside but I honestly never see it getting abused usually I just see it used as a way of catching up, and in the few games were it is abused were all playing broken cards and it usually never resolves.
I think you’ve won me over on banning sol ring/mana crypt argument 🙌
On the topic of gaea's cradle; where is this "taboo" against land destruction that is spoken of? Because I haven't experienced it.
If someone plays a problematic land, like field of the dead, or nykthos, or cradle, or cabal coffers..... (or any one of many non-basics that can be problematic).... then you take your ghost quarter, or tectonic edge, demolition field, field of ruin (or maybe one of the more expensive options if you have access to them)
You take your targeted land destruction & you do what needs to be done. I.e. you blow up their land. Nobody I've played with where this situation has arisen has taken umbrage at that land being blown up because they know better than anyone how powerful that card is & what it can do.
There's no valid reason why a land cannot be a threat that needs to be answered & no valid reason why players should not feel free to run the targeted land removal necessary to deal with these threats. After all, the opportunity cost of playing a basic suite of targeted answers to lands is so low that the vast majority of decks can meet it without even the slightest trouble.
I also groaned internally when I heard words to the effect of 'if it was cheaper then we'd definitely want to ban it'
Price (or availability) of a card should never be a consideration when talking about whether it should be banned or not. Especially not in a format like commander, where the vast majority of play is unsanctioned & proxies are not exactly uncommon. Price is no barrier to the card being played since anyone whom can't afford it can simply proxy it.
Commander is the format where you can express yourself.
I express myself by playing Drannith Magistrate and stopping you from playing your commander.
So it's a perfect fit in the format.
Folks like you at my LGS sit around and wonder why no one likes to play with them.
I am going to express my self by not playing with you
@@dankgoku2377 lol I bet that would happen, but I only play with my friends. We have a high tolerance for disruption. No taboo against Armageddon and friends at our table.
@@ginov.7039 The fact that your response had more than one presumptuous jab at them, doesn't bode well for your play style that you seem defensive of.
@@Toey- Yo man, there's a lot of brothers out there
Flaking and perpetrating but scared to kick reality
What are your thoughts on the new Elish Norn ? Ban worthy or not ?
Thoracle I consider to be a rule zero kinda card.
Sol ring I definitely want out.
The rest I could go either way on.