My braids opinion as somebody who plays stax a lot and loves the card: it doesn’t make sense in the command zone at casual tables because it amplifies existing variance when played turn 2-4. The opponent who ramped into a treasure creator or token generator will be a-okay, whereas the opponent who kept a worse hand and/or was after the braids player in turn order will have a rough time
Yeah, agreed. Way back in the day my group allowed her to be commander. It was less less that the Braids player shut down the entire table, and more that it would put someone (sometimes 2 people) massively behind the other person at the table who through turn order or there specifics of their deck, was basically unaffected by Braids. Made the Braids player a big target, 1-2 people miserable, and gave anyone who did a lot of cheap permanents/tokens a near free win. Just felt blegh.
Not saying you’re lying I’m just baffled that you actually do, in my entire time playing commander I have never seen a thassa’s oracle win, or even an attempted thassa’s oracle win
@@aaronmiller1009 I've seen it once at a casual night and once in a 1v1 waiting for a event. The casual night was more natural, the game was long and it just ended it out and we went to the next one. I didn't mind bc they kept me from playing niv mizzet and the game was a solid hour. the second time he just tutored and ramped from turn 1, played the combo turn 3, the only things that were obviously proxies were the lions eye diamond and the ancient tomb. They were sharpie on flashcards. You could say the second game wasn't casual, but the rules 0 conversation was just a "do you mind proxies" and I said, "as long as your whole deck isn't, sure". So I guess that is my fault but I know it's common so I didn't think much of it. Id say most people in town play 5-8's so I really didn't expect anything that crazy. "If I had a nickel for every time, I'd have two, which isn't a lot, but it's weird it's happened twice."
I see it at casual tables, but never seen a win with it as they usually put it in there because they know its good in cEDH, but dint have a real way to make it work.@aaronmiller1009
I feel like last episode I was more in line with Trinket about EDH being fun, but this ep I was more in line with Elk that cards like Hullbreacher and Paradox Engine are going to end up in enough casual decks that they should stay banned. Love the podcast! You make a great pair!
Having played commander during the "Banned as Commander" era, it just wasn't a problem and I don't see the issue with it. The concept really isn't complicated and if you can wrap your head around commander as is, then "banned as commander" isn't going to be the tipping point.
I remember a lot of people theorizing that the "too complex" thing was an excuse, and that they really did away with the "banned as commander" list because it would have been too difficult to implement in MTGO
21:43 I literally just saw hullbreacher in a bumbleflower deck bc the player was new to the game. Not to mention I see dockside in my casual games enough that there’s no way in my mind playeys wouldn’t jam this in every deck it synergies with.
Before iona was banned I had a mono black gisa deck my father had a mono white nahiri angels deck Iona became such a problem that I switched out about 20 cards in the deck to devoid spells and artifacts that can remove avacyn and iona. I've even played games where it was copied more than once and now three colors are shut off. It was just horrible to play against.
One of the reasons I've heard for fastbond in CEDH is to give green some oomph which it sorely needs. The other thing is most CEDH lists try to run as few lands as possible, where as that would incentivize running a lot which could be interesting to see and lend to another strategy that isn't really seen often at that power level.
I think you, Trinket Mage are a bit too idealistic about what casual players will put in their decks. Sure, there are people who self police, but as elk said, I have seen Thoracle combo at casual tabels. And sure, a lot of them will be receptive to what we tell them, but it's still a process. I believe Fastbond should probably remain banned, in addition to being better Exploration it just combos super easily with any landfall effects.
Two days ago I played against a yuriko deck that claimed to be super casual. Someone hit em with an impulse theft effect and they flipped a thoracle. People have zero fucking self-control.
Fr, my lgs has open play on a Thursday and it's full of cedh combo decks, high power casual ur dragon/miirym/voja decks and so every casual player stopped going
SUPER idealistic to the point of being flat out dumb 😂 Casuals will bemoan Dockside and Sol Ring but jam it in every game. I've sat at tables with 3 decks in the Top 10 most played commanders and heard them complain about the homogenization of the format. The same community that claims they hate generic value also built 20,000 Golos decks. Don't get me started on the hilariously contrived explanations I heard for adding Hullbreacher into people's decks (before the ban). This community generally can't self regulate. Signed, someone who got blown out tonight by Turn 1 Crypt + Rhystic, T2 Smothering Tithe in a "Janky Bant Bird Tribal" deck helmed by Derevi (I was playing a partner deck with 5 companions).
Question for the Question Zone: If you're tweaking your decks over time, where do you both personally draw the line in the sand for when the deck needs to be torn down to bare bones and started anew? A "Ship of Theseus" type question for your MTG brews. Btw, love the content! I found both your channels recently and have binged it all. Thank you much for your infectious take on the game :)
I'm kind of late to the party, but "The Weekly Reflection" or simply "The reflection" could work for the questions segment. Thanks for the great podcast!
I feel like a ban list should only be reserved for cards that totally break the game at all levels of play, but as a flipside to that, I personally think it would be really cool to see a site like EDHREC take specific cards (like commander/combo/wincon/fast mana cards) and rate their power level in relation to each other, so more casual players and Timmys can look at a card and get a better grasp on how powerful a card actually is before they try to acquire it or shortly after and make rule 0 conversations much easier to have with less confusion on what is what power level a deck could possibly be (and it hopefully would help deter pub stompers from showing up to casual commander night with a just below cedh level deck.)
I think Distraction Makers explained the RC's guidelines quite well in one of their videos. they call it "signposting ban". They are not asking you to don't play a specific card, they what you to read WHY they band the card and don't play the cards that will create similar experience.
Of course, no one does that. And I say that as someone who's read a lot of the reasons. And reading back through some of them to make this post, I'd argue that they're inconsistent with current ban decisions. Take two of the cards discussed in this episode, Fastbond and Paradox Engine: "Fastbond often catapults its controller ahead by producing huge amounts of mana and landfall triggers...[Paradox Engine's] play patterns often involve long, drown-out turns of tapping and untapping permanents, drawing cards, and generally monopolizing the chess clock of the game." Afaict, these are both also true of Nadu, but they're taking a wait-and-see approach. And that's just the most recent example.
Jennifer and Madeline went out for lunch. Both order iced tea to drink. Jennifer had an appointment later, so she finished her drink quickly, and finished two more in the time that it took Madeline to finish just one. Soon after, Madeline dropped dead, but Jennifer was unharmed. The police ruled it a murder, and found that both the drinks were poisoned. How did Jennifer survive? (You asked for riddles in the comments)
18:13 wtf. Fast bond with any landfall commander or commander that just refills your hand is kinda nuts no? Or that lets you play lands from the grave. With bounce lands this kinda gets nuts too. Tatyova, aesi. Flubs especially would go kinda nuts here. Even without those you’d still be super far ahead of the table and since there’s a softban on mld’s it’d be near impossible to set them behind with a good draw engine or commander that draws. Or even more simply just cast the one ring and chill for the next few turns with tons more mana than your opponents.
The discussion of companion got me thinking, are there any other Magic mechanics/keywords/cards that either of you LOOOOVE the flavor/the idea behind it, but hate the gameplay implementation? And vice versa
My problem with Iona was the 'targeted' nature of her effect. Sure there are a bunch of ways to lock players out, but the other examples you two provided don't do what Iona does. Iona *specifically* prevents one mono-colored player from playing the game. We don't need more effects like that when multicolored decks already have so many advantages.
I basically play only the necrobloom and fastbond would 100% be the best card in the deck. Dumping lands from your hand is something burgeoning and exploration does equally well, but fastbond is such a strong combo engine that it will break casual tables if played. That said, I do think it could be tested in high power to cedh. I hope it would self restrict to those power levels, part of that being the price. I would like the RC to experiment more with "testing periods" were they would unban a card for 1-2 months, gather a lot of data on gameplay with that specific card and then either ban it again or unban it completely.
Strongly disagree with paradox, we had a few players that always played it... its no fun experience that it untaps EVERYTHING with an opt. It was played in artifacts,cherios, charms, etc. It is incredibly frustrating to play around. Swing at them? Oh.. opt gave them blockers. They always got countermana..saw it in talrand. Alot. It is extra turns for free and no ppl would not play it only in dedicated decks.
I just don't see the point in discussing individual cards on the banlist, due to the nature of signpost bans. If we were discussing categories of cards then it would be a different story
I'd rather them discuss how to avoid pubstomping or red flag cards that currently exist in the format. Make rule 0 work better rather than tread the same waters
@@thetrinketmage true.. you can't trust people to be less than egregious though.. and you can't trust the wotc of today to simply keep 30 years of cards balanced.. ban lists would likely fix many of the imbalance issues. This game is accruing more infinite combos more crap every set and pretty soon the edh we have all known and loved will just be dead because a handful of dorks really like cedh BUT ALSO dont want it to be separate lol its a weird have their cake and eat it too complex endorsed by a minority group
@troybone6849 real cedh players are keeping it clear from casual. In my opinion it's the high power casual players who pubstomp that are the issue. Running all the best everything and either miirym-ing or combo-ing out
@@thetrinketmage giving more avenues for play people don't like seems counterintuitive to the RC goals though right? As you said, no other stax commander does the force sac effect, so that's probably why Braids is the exception
@@seanedgar164 i can agree with this. When I first started playing I couldn't tell the difference between a high powered casual pub stomper and an actual cedh player though lol their decks look and play very similarly. Solid point, thanks for your perspective.
@seanedgar164 yes I understand your point but I do think you're mixing up your formats and what I was saying. In cedh a format where people are running 24-30 lands I don't feel like fast bond is a problem. No one runs cultivate, kodamas reach, skyshroud claim. I have never once seen the RG omnath cast or even put into a deck list for cEDH. Yes you could theoretically churn through your deck. But like I said the 2 land focused decks that would become better are tatyova turns and gitrog. In EDH I think this effect is too strong.
Great talk! Re companion: I love it. I started re-playing the game around ikoria and learned what commander was shortly after and now i try to make as many companions edh decks as possible I love it. I agree that it was a design mistake, I also agree they shouldnt be a 101st card and thus I don't do that in my decks. In my decks, they're always my 100th card.
I totally agree with iona being a weak card and weak commander but personally I think its good that it is banned because people dont need **less** of a reason to play mono color decks as is. I think just the idea of getting iona would dissuade people even if nobody would ever pay iona in reality. I dont think its worth bringing her back in exchange for adding a thorn in the side of all 3 mono color players
2:30, yeah, but the goal is so that people playing casual and that the people trying to optimize their decks are playing roughly similar power level decks. Basically, it's so that the gap between the best decks by powerlevel and the decks most casual people find fun to play is much smaller so there is less of a need to negotiate rule 0 conversations. 3:00 I think this is a misunderstanding. Assuming infinite money (big assumption), casual players aren't playing cedh cause it is too high power, they aren't playing it cause they don't find it fun. So, if baneslayer angel was the best creature, casual decks wouldn't really play hill giant cause baneslayer angel is more fun to most people than hill giant. They avoid cedh cards cause they lead to unfun gameplay (for them), not cause it is high power. The high power is only incidental to the reason they avoid those cards. The real problem is that rule 0 is an unserious idea for a game to work. It works if you are with a group of friends that play together continuously, but if you already have a group of friends, you don't need the concept of rule 0, you can just do the change you all want. In fact, bans only really make for cedh people because casual players can just rule 0 away a ban
The other rule 0 issue is that pubstompers and high power casual players or scummy people aren't gonna represent their decks honestly. The number of games at my lgs where I've tried to properly guage them and I get secret stomped is HIGH. I agree with you about the hill giant concept, people don't play cedh because that meta (which I think cedh really is) isn't what people enjoy. If Baneslayer was the best thing you could do in the game; cedh players would be running casual decks with auto-picks
Fastbond + bounceland + any landfall or amulet can be pretty crazy. Additionally, using the card fairly it's pretty annoying bc when resolving, you play your lands, and your opponents can't respond yet unless you play a land with a trigger. but the problem is that it can be used so unfairly in so many ways and can be similar to Nadu with super long combo turns that may or may not win the game. Also reserve list. Lowkey down to unban to see more green landfall decks in the cedh meta but that's not very relevant in the grand scheme.
I play Lutri in the 99 of my new Bria, Riptide Rogue deck. I appreciate that is technically 'more complex', but there is no reason he shouldn't just be 'banned as companion' rather than from the format entirely. He's what, a +1/+0 Dualcaster Mage with hybrid U/R mana at that point, so like, power crept but hardly. I get he can just be rule zeroed in, that's what I do after all, but I shouldn't really have to. One rule for one of 28,000 cards is fine, especially when explaining it is as simple as 'oh it's just banned as companion', end of.
I recently made a casual Be'lakor Gyruda deck and sometimes the restrictions are fun for companions but every single companion is worth building around, there is only 1 you can't as it messed with deck size. If you had to cut a card from your deck and start with 1 fewer cards in your hand at the start of the game or it reduces the maximum hand size by 1 until you grab it it would still be worth it every single time. Commander has "the 8th card" problem sometimes but this is a 9th that you had to specifically build around to use it and the build around also makes it so it can be used at its most efficient. Its a hard call on keeping it the way it is or removing companion all together.
3/3 elk has so many great takes. As someone who plays with a playgroup, community and randoms, Elk understands the struggles of giving players full access to nonsense.
Question Zone Hall of Echoes as the name Do you think ending the game is toxic? I love armageddon and combos because someone has the decency to end me rather than Nadu, Paradox Engine, Prophet of Kruphix where they will win eventually after spinning their wheels for 4 turn cycles and 2 hours
Built a winter group hug deck where every card has to give my opponent something and it’s been pretty fun. Even with people have a max hand of 2-3, he still sticks around. People like the draw and me giving them other free stuff. He’s a cooler seizan
Fast bond in gitrog with a fetch and a crucible effect can draw your entire deck and act like an ad naus but far more life total efficient. Id love to play it but i can understand why im not allowed to
Bruh. If fastbond is unbanned then Flubs would probably become the strongest lands commander. (I would love it in my Gitrog deck though). Also; I nekusar would deal no damage with hullbreacher on the field since the opponents would not actually be drawing the cards. Still wouldn't wanna see it unbanned though.
This is exactly correct. Really "Casual" Commander is the outlier. They need Rule 0 to exist. "Competitive" EDH is EDH. Same rules set, same card pool. It would be like inventing "Competitive Legacy" format and having "Legacy" at the same time.
Really good points. I would also love to see battle of wits in commander. Especially with the secret lair version. If companions were able to warp the rules somehow. Maybe one day we will have a way to break the card limit rule similar to how some cards break the singleton rule.
What is your favorite non-commander format and why? You should definitely keep the question zone, just add some twilight zone music to the segment intro 😂
I absolutely loved the podcast! What cards do you think should be banned that aren't on the banlist? (Rograkh, Rystic study, TOR, etc). "Arcane Answers" could be a cool question segment name, tho now it looks terrible. Maybe "Mystic Mysteries" or "Wizard Wonderings" or "Trinket's Thinkets" or smth. Also a super dumb one could be "mystic thoughtforge", just some ideas.
and 2 more things about iona, 1) what kind of monster plays iona in a deck agaisnt a brand new player who is also playing a MONO colored deck 2) if someone is playing a deck against or with iona, it should be made clear so during rule 0, and before the game starts then anyone playing a mono colored deck should swap decks, or the iona player should swap its not that hard to not get absolutely shut down by iona as long as the card is made known, and if someone does not make that known then how different is that when someone brings a combo deck that pops off turns 4-6 without disclosing so unban iona, she does not deserve to be banned at all
10:37 can’t you just bitterblossom, then just play braids with any ritual or ramp? It’s not that hard to make her not have to sacrifice their own lands. Sol ring, fast mana, rituals, lands that tap for two like ancient tomb, not to mention she’s in the command zone and of course the new “black market connections” can keep this going for a good while and if you don’t have removal or tokens you’re set behind and now need to deal with her with at least a card down or land down. I think it’s a little too easy in the command zone.
Yeah Trinket Mage said "she's the only force sacrifice legend, it would be grat to have her" - maybe that's why dude, coz she's distinctly different to the rest and not in a positive way lol
Having played with iona was legal she dosnt die as easy as you think. Playing mostly mono color decks then I'd get hit with it and be out of the game for 6+ turns because she is in white the color of protection
I stopped playing MTG competitively about 5 years ago because I got shitty with WOTC. I now play Blood Bowl competitively. In that game, every tournament has their own rules pack with different banlists. I FULLY support this for cEDH tournaments. Every organiser should totally use their own ban list, point system or rules. Shake the format up!
It's essentially rule zero. If you are having a tournament, you get to set the rules. Hell, if you are having FNM Commander, I say you get to set your own rules. That is what Rule Zero is for.
I feel like a seperate banlist for cEDH makes perfect sense for tournament settings since I think competitive formats need bans for diversity or else eventually it just becomes the one best deck winning everything. I do enjoy that you two don't agree on everything and honestly would love maybe even a 3rd member with a different viewpoint too just for more points where you get to see who agrees with who and why I feel like it makes me understand more why you think what you think.
I’m not sure where this derision for competitive comes from. Nearly every cEDH player I know plays casual and enjoys it and even have a fairly laissez-faire attitude toward winning/losing.
Iona has been banned for so long that I forgot it was. It's been there since before we really had much of any option to have potential removal. Longer even then spine of Ish Sah.
What if companion was like choose a background. You can add it to your command zone as a second commander if you follow the restriction? Doesn't solve the Lutri problem but does solve the 101st card problem
What does it mean for dasein to be being-in-a-game? Is dasein as a being-in-a-game different from dasein as a being-in-the-world? Are we ontologically engaged with the game-world or is it just something ontic? Is the being-in-a-game within EDH in any way different for dasein compared to the being-in-a-game in other MtG formats? Is it also different compared to board games? You wanted your questions in the form of a riddle. I hope they are riddle-y enough. For my part I am suprised since these are interesting questions once you understand them.
Im the resident mono-color player in my pod - I own six mono color decks. And I have always thought Iona's banning is really weird. Its so gigantic that most players would not want to include it in their lists unless they were doing a giant Angel thing, and if the situation arose where it resolved I think at that point I kinda deserve it. If the gameplan is to cheat the thing out as fast as possible, it doesnt stop every other player in the pod even if it shuts me down. Its just a big goofy angel. Plus, Iona has great art.
This idea that CEDH players would go back to normal EDH if there was an Cedh RC is crazy. Does Elk think CEDH players just like to punch down or something? The RC only (briefly) came into existence after the normal EDH team said they weren't going to consider CEDH when making format decisions which is fine, but acting like there was no one interested in the format as a separate entity is just being factious.
The reason it doesn't work is because there's not enough support and every cedh channel I watch cares about playing edh. The majority just treat cedh as a meta within the format.
idk if you're doing more question zones but if yes than i wanted to ask if any of you ever built a deck becuse of a card/mechanic that inspired you too, like you saw a card (sunforager asa an example i built) and just wanted to build a deck around it and it's synergies. anyways keep it up and im really enjoying both the podcast and your seprate channels :D
Love your content. The EDH Rules Committee is a joke. Cards on the list were banned because that group decided "they aren't fun". That's it. Heck, they banned Golos because he was too popular. That's completely idiotic. Unban everything then re-ban based on the needs of cedh. Also, FREE LUTRI!!
I could see having tournament-specific ban lists. That said, I would definitely welcome a change to the rules committee, if not being done away with. I get people say "just rule 0", sure, that works with friend groups, but I'm sure a lot of LGS's just fall back on the ban list for sake of ease. My biggest issue with the RC is that they don't have any consistency to bans and I am convinced they just ban based on what they don't like. Emrakul was banned for being "one of the most common and least-interesting ways to win". Ok, well, what about Thassa's Oracle? Torment of Hailfire? Paradox Engine - "Its play patterns often involve long, drawn-out turns". Then why isn't Ad Nauseam banned? The one time I played against Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain, I could have taken a nap during each of their turns. Hell, if taking a long time is enough to ban something, just ban control decks in general. Half of the ones I've come across have only one win con, and it is you dying of either boredom or old age. That said, I'm definitely in favor of implementing a turn clock.
A turn clock sounds like a good solution at face value, but as someone with legit brain damage, please no. It entirely warps the nature of the game in several different ways and should definitely just be a rule 0 thing. It literally changes the fabric of MTG skill expression. Right now the most important skills in Magic are: deck building, deck piloting, threat assesment, etc. Implementing a turn clock would immediately shoot "thinking fast" into the top spot instead. It'd almost be like bringing dexterity cards back into the game, which hasn't been a part of fundamental skill expression since Chaos Orb...
Fastbonds mechanic certainly breaks the game. Exploration itself doubles the amount of growth that you are usually allowed to. And so do rituals. The fear of a t1 braids lies in the existence of dark ritual and their little siblings. I believe that Cedh would be much more interesting when everybody would be tied to (mostly) equal mana potential.
I went against paradox engine in an Arena Brawl Sisay Commander deck. On turn 5 with 2 health left, they prosceded to search up their entire deck play all their legendary permanents and hit me for 285 damage. Prardox Engine is not fun lol
Iona was banned because Painters Servant was unbanned at the same time. Those two together are brutal. Ban worthy? Nah it's just like any other A+B combo but that's the decision the RC decided to make.
My favorite deck is my big dumb monowhite angels, and I think and important thing to remember is Iona had to fall to bring back painter's servant, and painter's servant does more fun things than Iona. They were banned and unbanned in the same announcement and having a 1 card combo that prevents any spell from being cast seems way too oppressive to be around.
I don’t think it had to fall for painters servant to come back. That’s a 2 card creature combo that doesn’t win the game and folds to channel lands. Isn’t there a lot of better combos in the format? Also painter plus ugin lets you destroy all lands is that not about as strong?
@@thetrinketmage I would say it not winning the game isn't a point in it's favor, and turning off all game actions but activated abilities of specific cards doesn't seem fun for most tables. There's definitely better combos, but it's a 2 drop artifact creature with 0 opportunity cost to include in Iona decks that's miserable to play against. To be fair, at the time Painter's Servant had just been reprinted as a masterpiece is a big factor in the unbanning, and it might not hit many casual tables if it was unbanned now.
@@MalzOhman I think I just fundamentally disagree about one combo being less or more fun than another one. 2 cards lock the game our vs 2 cards (less mana investment) win the game is basically the same thing. If I want to 2 card win the game I can do so easily. Both are the same amounts of fun, if they resolve the combo I scoop and move on to the next game. There is realistically 0 difference
I love your videos but I gotta say your co-hosts takes on fastbond is so off the rails. Wheels and fastbond are such a small insignificant part of it like man that makes no sense. I have a so many land decks that would go NUTS WITH FASTBOND without a single wheel. I want fastbond unbanned don't get me wrong but the implications with like windgrace decks and fastbond is INSANE. Land sacrifice decks should not have access to fastbond it will lead to 2 hour non determinist turns that poor pilots won't understand how to execute (similar to "casual" Nadu)
The only Companion I've seen work was Zirda with Dynaheir as the commander. It ends up being a combo enabler with Basalt Monolith where much of the deck is ramp and draw to get to infinite mana to eventually hit a mana sink that does burn damage. I'd love to use Lutri as a commander or as another card in Otter tribal, but I can't without rule 0 which is annoying since companion fundamentally breaks the rules of commander deck construction with it being a 101st card, something sideboards and cards that pull from outside of the game are prohibited. Which is funny because Yorion is banned as Companion for the reason that you can't achieve its condition, they could have done the same for Lutri with the reason being that it's too easy to access as a Companion. Of course we'll never have a Rules Committee that'll do anything about this.
I run a Jeska/Falthis/Obosh partner companion deck that works quite well. Obosh is a great combo piece together with Jeska and can allow for some very early KOs. The problem is that Falthis enabling Jeska to deathtouch ping three creatures for 1 loyalty whenever I feel like it is just too toxic for my playgroup.
Hottake: since they dont allow stuff like wish effects and the learn/lesson mechanic, they should just remove companion from the format as well so we just get them as normal cards.
@@Shimatzu95 Not really a hot take, the whole reason Companion was exempted was because it was a new mechanic and RC wanted to prop up WotC's new set by allowing it into the format. Unfortunately 1/5 of the Companions were literally broken in the format for one reason or another so they should have banned the Companion Zone after the Companions went out of the print cycle.
As someone who has gone against many hullbreackers, it always gets missed in non-CEDH games, which normally gives the game away to whoever is in the lead. Overall I think it is fine but it only got annoying with the type of people who think they are quirky with wheels in the worst timing.
One of my friends played it in a non-wheels deck and we just had to sit there and take next to no game actions until someone found interaction. If we fed it, we would've lost
I don't really care what happens according to the ban list but, only two results make sense to me. 1, have no ban list at all. I say this because like all other cards, things can be countered, destroyed, and so on + the social aspect will probably correct any bad behavior because you want to play with your friends a lot, not one game with your OP deck and never again because no one wants to play with you. I play almost no powerful or expensive cards anymore for that reason. 2 Instead of signpost bans, ban the signpost card and all other cards legal that have a similar effect on the game within reason, shape the format how it was intended in the beginning. Regardless of my unhinged ideas, love the pod cast I have literally been counting down the days to see the next one. One question I would like to ask is, what do you think about tempo decks in edh? I have been messing with some decks that explore it to rather fine results but have you two fiddled with the archetype?
When I first started watching your vids, I was kinda meh. But seriously, your hot takes are awesome. If you were the one running this format, it would be a lot better. Keep up the podcast! I hate how we have to have people baby out aggressive interaction in rule 0. There are plenty of games where interaction is low. One of the amazing parts of magic is interaction is high and veried.
I would love for fastbond to be unbanned, just for the fact that it means lands decks have combo lines that end the game easy, and im not waiting for my opponent to do match and stumble through their turn trying to get lethal
If you want to build Lutri as a commander, then just rule 0 it. I think you'll be hard pressed to find anyone who genuinely has a problem with it in the 99 or command zone
My braids opinion as somebody who plays stax a lot and loves the card: it doesn’t make sense in the command zone at casual tables because it amplifies existing variance when played turn 2-4. The opponent who ramped into a treasure creator or token generator will be a-okay, whereas the opponent who kept a worse hand and/or was after the braids player in turn order will have a rough time
Yeah, agreed. Way back in the day my group allowed her to be commander. It was less less that the Braids player shut down the entire table, and more that it would put someone (sometimes 2 people) massively behind the other person at the table who through turn order or there specifics of their deck, was basically unaffected by Braids. Made the Braids player a big target, 1-2 people miserable, and gave anyone who did a lot of cheap permanents/tokens a near free win. Just felt blegh.
Snail, you and elk and tricket mage have been my 3 new most favorite youtubers to pop up in a long time. All 3 of you keep up the awesome work!
Is it worse than all the unbanned options currently?
"Fastbond is ok, just run mld!", who's gonna recover best from that? Probably the guy with fastbond
"you don't see thassa's in casual decks"
I wish I didn't see thassa's oracle at casual tables
😫
Not saying you’re lying I’m just baffled that you actually do, in my entire time playing commander I have never seen a thassa’s oracle win, or even an attempted thassa’s oracle win
@@aaronmiller1009 I've seen it once at a casual night and once in a 1v1 waiting for a event.
The casual night was more natural, the game was long and it just ended it out and we went to the next one. I didn't mind bc they kept me from playing niv mizzet and the game was a solid hour.
the second time he just tutored and ramped from turn 1, played the combo turn 3, the only things that were obviously proxies were the lions eye diamond and the ancient tomb. They were sharpie on flashcards.
You could say the second game wasn't casual, but the rules 0 conversation was just a "do you mind proxies" and I said, "as long as your whole deck isn't, sure". So I guess that is my fault but I know it's common so I didn't think much of it. Id say most people in town play 5-8's so I really didn't expect anything that crazy.
"If I had a nickel for every time, I'd have two, which isn't a lot, but it's weird it's happened twice."
I see it at casual tables, but never seen a win with it as they usually put it in there because they know its good in cEDH, but dint have a real way to make it work.@aaronmiller1009
I feel like last episode I was more in line with Trinket about EDH being fun, but this ep I was more in line with Elk that cards like Hullbreacher and Paradox Engine are going to end up in enough casual decks that they should stay banned.
Love the podcast! You make a great pair!
Having played commander during the "Banned as Commander" era, it just wasn't a problem and I don't see the issue with it. The concept really isn't complicated and if you can wrap your head around commander as is, then "banned as commander" isn't going to be the tipping point.
I agree and I didn't even play in that era. (I feel the same way about mana burn btw)
I remember a lot of people theorizing that the "too complex" thing was an excuse, and that they really did away with the "banned as commander" list because it would have been too difficult to implement in MTGO
Urza was the straw that broke Paradox Engine ban's back.
Urza's still popular. Engine cannot be unbanned.
Wasn't Paradox Engine banned way before Urza was printed?
Edit: apparently not, my memory is just wrong.
21:43 I literally just saw hullbreacher in a bumbleflower deck bc the player was new to the game. Not to mention I see dockside in my casual games enough that there’s no way in my mind playeys wouldn’t jam this in every deck it synergies with.
Anything good that gets unbanned honestly, everyone will try them all
I forgot the CEDH RC ever existed by the end of the podcast lol, was reminded when I finished and looked at the title again. love the podcast
Before iona was banned I had a mono black gisa deck my father had a mono white nahiri angels deck
Iona became such a problem that I switched out about 20 cards in the deck to devoid spells and artifacts that can remove avacyn and iona. I've even played games where it was copied more than once and now three colors are shut off. It was just horrible to play against.
Fastbond will make any Tatyova/Land card draw deck play like Nadu and it’s “20 min not technically deterministic” win.
I honestly would have enjoyed some take on a real cedh ruleset to try and make more things viable in a 4-player competitive format
Maybe a future podcast will be about that!
One of the reasons I've heard for fastbond in CEDH is to give green some oomph which it sorely needs. The other thing is most CEDH lists try to run as few lands as possible, where as that would incentivize running a lot which could be interesting to see and lend to another strategy that isn't really seen often at that power level.
I think you, Trinket Mage are a bit too idealistic about what casual players will put in their decks. Sure, there are people who self police, but as elk said, I have seen Thoracle combo at casual tabels. And sure, a lot of them will be receptive to what we tell them, but it's still a process.
I believe Fastbond should probably remain banned, in addition to being better Exploration it just combos super easily with any landfall effects.
Two days ago I played against a yuriko deck that claimed to be super casual. Someone hit em with an impulse theft effect and they flipped a thoracle.
People have zero fucking self-control.
Fr, my lgs has open play on a Thursday and it's full of cedh combo decks, high power casual ur dragon/miirym/voja decks and so every casual player stopped going
SUPER idealistic to the point of being flat out dumb 😂
Casuals will bemoan Dockside and Sol Ring but jam it in every game. I've sat at tables with 3 decks in the Top 10 most played commanders and heard them complain about the homogenization of the format. The same community that claims they hate generic value also built 20,000 Golos decks. Don't get me started on the hilariously contrived explanations I heard for adding Hullbreacher into people's decks (before the ban).
This community generally can't self regulate.
Signed, someone who got blown out tonight by Turn 1 Crypt + Rhystic, T2 Smothering Tithe in a "Janky Bant Bird Tribal" deck helmed by Derevi (I was playing a partner deck with 5 companions).
Also with fastbond you can get a crucible effect and a strip mine style card and now you opponents have no lands in play
Question for the Question Zone: If you're tweaking your decks over time, where do you both personally draw the line in the sand for when the deck needs to be torn down to bare bones and started anew? A "Ship of Theseus" type question for your MTG brews.
Btw, love the content! I found both your channels recently and have binged it all. Thank you much for your infectious take on the game :)
I'm kind of late to the party, but "The Weekly Reflection" or simply "The reflection" could work for the questions segment. Thanks for the great podcast!
I feel like a ban list should only be reserved for cards that totally break the game at all levels of play, but as a flipside to that, I personally think it would be really cool to see a site like EDHREC take specific cards (like commander/combo/wincon/fast mana cards) and rate their power level in relation to each other, so more casual players and Timmys can look at a card and get a better grasp on how powerful a card actually is before they try to acquire it or shortly after and make rule 0 conversations much easier to have with less confusion on what is what power level a deck could possibly be (and it hopefully would help deter pub stompers from showing up to casual commander night with a just below cedh level deck.)
I think Distraction Makers explained the RC's guidelines quite well in one of their videos. they call it "signposting ban". They are not asking you to don't play a specific card, they what you to read WHY they band the card and don't play the cards that will create similar experience.
Of course, no one does that. And I say that as someone who's read a lot of the reasons. And reading back through some of them to make this post, I'd argue that they're inconsistent with current ban decisions. Take two of the cards discussed in this episode, Fastbond and Paradox Engine:
"Fastbond often catapults its controller ahead by producing huge amounts of mana and landfall triggers...[Paradox Engine's] play patterns often involve long, drown-out turns of tapping and untapping permanents, drawing cards, and generally monopolizing the chess clock of the game."
Afaict, these are both also true of Nadu, but they're taking a wait-and-see approach. And that's just the most recent example.
Jennifer and Madeline went out for lunch. Both order iced tea to drink. Jennifer had an appointment later, so she finished her drink quickly, and finished two more in the time that it took Madeline to finish just one. Soon after, Madeline dropped dead, but Jennifer was unharmed. The police ruled it a murder, and found that both the drinks were poisoned.
How did Jennifer survive?
(You asked for riddles in the comments)
The poison is in the ice.
She spent years building up resistance to iocane powder.
Jennifer is just built different
Next episode - Cards you'd add to the ban list?
18:13 wtf. Fast bond with any landfall commander or commander that just refills your hand is kinda nuts no? Or that lets you play lands from the grave. With bounce lands this kinda gets nuts too. Tatyova, aesi. Flubs especially would go kinda nuts here. Even without those you’d still be super far ahead of the table and since there’s a softban on mld’s it’d be near impossible to set them behind with a good draw engine or commander that draws. Or even more simply just cast the one ring and chill for the next few turns with tons more mana than your opponents.
Quite often I saw hullbreacher in response to someone else's wheel so even if you tried to make it not so unbearable it was awful.
It's so funny that when I heard "name a 1 mana enchantment you would actually play" the first 5 cards I thought of were green cards, not white cards
A 2 or 3 color deck can still get be neutered by iona easily
My Reaper King got shut off because my commander was stuck off the field. I had to wait for a removal spell to come through, which took forever
The discussion of companion got me thinking, are there any other Magic mechanics/keywords/cards that either of you LOOOOVE the flavor/the idea behind it, but hate the gameplay implementation? And vice versa
This is a great question!
@@thetrinketmage I am but a humble The Question Zone™️ enjoyer :D
This doesn’t feel like a Question Zone Segment. This is a podcast episode in the making.
My problem with Iona was the 'targeted' nature of her effect. Sure there are a bunch of ways to lock players out, but the other examples you two provided don't do what Iona does. Iona *specifically* prevents one mono-colored player from playing the game. We don't need more effects like that when multicolored decks already have so many advantages.
I basically play only the necrobloom and fastbond would 100% be the best card in the deck. Dumping lands from your hand is something burgeoning and exploration does equally well, but fastbond is such a strong combo engine that it will break casual tables if played.
That said, I do think it could be tested in high power to cedh. I hope it would self restrict to those power levels, part of that being the price. I would like the RC to experiment more with "testing periods" were they would unban a card for 1-2 months, gather a lot of data on gameplay with that specific card and then either ban it again or unban it completely.
Strongly disagree with paradox, we had a few players that always played it... its no fun experience that it untaps EVERYTHING with an opt. It was played in artifacts,cherios, charms, etc. It is incredibly frustrating to play around.
Swing at them? Oh.. opt gave them blockers.
They always got countermana..saw it in talrand. Alot.
It is extra turns for free and no ppl would not play it only in dedicated decks.
@@Searanaz the optimism to believe people would exercise restraint is kind of baffling when we already went through this once.
18:20 is the same backwards mentality that flash defenders used when flashhulk got banned
I just don't see the point in discussing individual cards on the banlist, due to the nature of signpost bans. If we were discussing categories of cards then it would be a different story
I'd rather them discuss how to avoid pubstomping or red flag cards that currently exist in the format. Make rule 0 work better rather than tread the same waters
"If I wanna pub stomp or staxx lock my opponents out of the game I can already do that" lol true colors showing
That’s not me saying I do this normally I’m just saying it can be done so that’s not an argument to lock things behind the banlist
@@thetrinketmage true.. you can't trust people to be less than egregious though.. and you can't trust the wotc of today to simply keep 30 years of cards balanced.. ban lists would likely fix many of the imbalance issues. This game is accruing more infinite combos more crap every set and pretty soon the edh we have all known and loved will just be dead because a handful of dorks really like cedh BUT ALSO dont want it to be separate lol its a weird have their cake and eat it too complex endorsed by a minority group
@troybone6849 real cedh players are keeping it clear from casual. In my opinion it's the high power casual players who pubstomp that are the issue. Running all the best everything and either miirym-ing or combo-ing out
@@thetrinketmage giving more avenues for play people don't like seems counterintuitive to the RC goals though right? As you said, no other stax commander does the force sac effect, so that's probably why Braids is the exception
@@seanedgar164 i can agree with this. When I first started playing I couldn't tell the difference between a high powered casual pub stomper and an actual cedh player though lol their decks look and play very similarly. Solid point, thanks for your perspective.
imo fast bond in cedh is perfectly fine. in edh not so much. i think the only 2 decks that really get buffed by this is Tatyova turns and gitrog
Any simic deck just goes off. If you can draw cards easily or landfall matters like RG Omnath, you churn through your deck
@seanedgar164 yes I understand your point but I do think you're mixing up your formats and what I was saying. In cedh a format where people are running 24-30 lands I don't feel like fast bond is a problem. No one runs cultivate, kodamas reach, skyshroud claim. I have never once seen the RG omnath cast or even put into a deck list for cEDH. Yes you could theoretically churn through your deck. But like I said the 2 land focused decks that would become better are tatyova turns and gitrog. In EDH I think this effect is too strong.
Great talk!
Re companion: I love it. I started re-playing the game around ikoria and learned what commander was shortly after and now i try to make as many companions edh decks as possible I love it. I agree that it was a design mistake, I also agree they shouldnt be a 101st card and thus I don't do that in my decks. In my decks, they're always my 100th card.
I totally agree with iona being a weak card and weak commander but personally I think its good that it is banned because people dont need **less** of a reason to play mono color decks as is. I think just the idea of getting iona would dissuade people even if nobody would ever pay iona in reality. I dont think its worth bringing her back in exchange for adding a thorn in the side of all 3 mono color players
Here’s your name suggestion in the form of a question. Would a better name for the question zone be “tap one blue to ponder”?
Very cute name for the question zone
2:30, yeah, but the goal is so that people playing casual and that the people trying to optimize their decks are playing roughly similar power level decks. Basically, it's so that the gap between the best decks by powerlevel and the decks most casual people find fun to play is much smaller so there is less of a need to negotiate rule 0 conversations.
3:00 I think this is a misunderstanding. Assuming infinite money (big assumption), casual players aren't playing cedh cause it is too high power, they aren't playing it cause they don't find it fun. So, if baneslayer angel was the best creature, casual decks wouldn't really play hill giant cause baneslayer angel is more fun to most people than hill giant. They avoid cedh cards cause they lead to unfun gameplay (for them), not cause it is high power. The high power is only incidental to the reason they avoid those cards.
The real problem is that rule 0 is an unserious idea for a game to work. It works if you are with a group of friends that play together continuously, but if you already have a group of friends, you don't need the concept of rule 0, you can just do the change you all want. In fact, bans only really make for cedh people because casual players can just rule 0 away a ban
The other rule 0 issue is that pubstompers and high power casual players or scummy people aren't gonna represent their decks honestly. The number of games at my lgs where I've tried to properly guage them and I get secret stomped is HIGH.
I agree with you about the hill giant concept, people don't play cedh because that meta (which I think cedh really is) isn't what people enjoy. If Baneslayer was the best thing you could do in the game; cedh players would be running casual decks with auto-picks
I realy think the concept of rule 0 should be flipped.
Ban way more cards and let those that want to play them try to rule 0 them in.
@@Shimatzu95 10000% agree
Fastbond + bounceland + any landfall or amulet can be pretty crazy.
Additionally, using the card fairly it's pretty annoying bc when resolving, you play your lands, and your opponents can't respond yet unless you play a land with a trigger. but the problem is that it can be used so unfairly in so many ways and can be similar to Nadu with super long combo turns that may or may not win the game. Also reserve list. Lowkey down to unban to see more green landfall decks in the cedh meta but that's not very relevant in the grand scheme.
Fastbond generates a trigger when you play a land, so it could be disenchanted with just the first extra land.
@@gabrielarchanjo6028 you're right, I was of other effects that let you play extra land drops like azusa, I forgot it pings a damage lmao.
I play Lutri in the 99 of my new Bria, Riptide Rogue deck. I appreciate that is technically 'more complex', but there is no reason he shouldn't just be 'banned as companion' rather than from the format entirely. He's what, a +1/+0 Dualcaster Mage with hybrid U/R mana at that point, so like, power crept but hardly. I get he can just be rule zeroed in, that's what I do after all, but I shouldn't really have to. One rule for one of 28,000 cards is fine, especially when explaining it is as simple as 'oh it's just banned as companion', end of.
I recently made a casual Be'lakor Gyruda deck and sometimes the restrictions are fun for companions but every single companion is worth building around, there is only 1 you can't as it messed with deck size. If you had to cut a card from your deck and start with 1 fewer cards in your hand at the start of the game or it reduces the maximum hand size by 1 until you grab it it would still be worth it every single time. Commander has "the 8th card" problem sometimes but this is a 9th that you had to specifically build around to use it and the build around also makes it so it can be used at its most efficient. Its a hard call on keeping it the way it is or removing companion all together.
3/3 elk has so many great takes. As someone who plays with a playgroup, community and randoms, Elk understands the struggles of giving players full access to nonsense.
Question Zone
Hall of Echoes as the name
Do you think ending the game is toxic?
I love armageddon and combos because someone has the decency to end me rather than Nadu, Paradox Engine, Prophet of Kruphix where they will win eventually after spinning their wheels for 4 turn cycles and 2 hours
"But this let's you go: Fast bond, land, land, two-mana ramp spell", isn't that just Sol Ring?
And here people are wondering why i would ban fast mana (including sol ring).
I like the podcast a lot. Not a lot of podcasts with two people riffing without hella edits will hold my attention like this.
Built a winter group hug deck where every card has to give my opponent something and it’s been pretty fun. Even with people have a max hand of 2-3, he still sticks around. People like the draw and me giving them other free stuff. He’s a cooler seizan
Fast bond in gitrog with a fetch and a crucible effect can draw your entire deck and act like an ad naus but far more life total efficient. Id love to play it but i can understand why im not allowed to
Bruh. If fastbond is unbanned then Flubs would probably become the strongest lands commander. (I would love it in my Gitrog deck though).
Also; I nekusar would deal no damage with hullbreacher on the field since the opponents would not actually be drawing the cards. Still wouldn't wanna see it unbanned though.
This is exactly correct. Really "Casual" Commander is the outlier. They need Rule 0 to exist. "Competitive" EDH is EDH. Same rules set, same card pool. It would be like inventing "Competitive Legacy" format and having "Legacy" at the same time.
Really good points. I would also love to see battle of wits in commander. Especially with the secret lair version. If companions were able to warp the rules somehow. Maybe one day we will have a way to break the card limit rule similar to how some cards break the singleton rule.
Please please please keep calling it "The Question Zone"
What is your favorite non-commander format and why?
You should definitely keep the question zone, just add some twilight zone music to the segment intro 😂
For iona thre are a plethora of colorless exile removal or simply trasmogrifing wand.
I absolutely loved the podcast! What cards do you think should be banned that aren't on the banlist? (Rograkh, Rystic study, TOR, etc). "Arcane Answers" could be a cool question segment name, tho now it looks terrible. Maybe "Mystic Mysteries" or "Wizard Wonderings" or "Trinket's Thinkets" or smth. Also a super dumb one could be "mystic thoughtforge", just some ideas.
You guys great, keep going i love this podcast
and 2 more things about iona, 1) what kind of monster plays iona in a deck agaisnt a brand new player who is also playing a MONO colored deck
2) if someone is playing a deck against or with iona, it should be made clear so during rule 0, and before the game starts then anyone playing a mono colored deck should swap decks, or the iona player should swap
its not that hard to not get absolutely shut down by iona as long as the card is made known, and if someone does not make that known then how different is that when someone brings a combo deck that pops off turns 4-6 without disclosing so
unban iona, she does not deserve to be banned at all
10:37 can’t you just bitterblossom, then just play braids with any ritual or ramp? It’s not that hard to make her not have to sacrifice their own lands. Sol ring, fast mana, rituals, lands that tap for two like ancient tomb, not to mention she’s in the command zone and of course the new “black market connections” can keep this going for a good while and if you don’t have removal or tokens you’re set behind and now need to deal with her with at least a card down or land down. I think it’s a little too easy in the command zone.
Yeah Trinket Mage said "she's the only force sacrifice legend, it would be grat to have her" - maybe that's why dude, coz she's distinctly different to the rest and not in a positive way lol
1:00:46 I listened!
Having played with iona was legal she dosnt die as easy as you think. Playing mostly mono color decks then I'd get hit with it and be out of the game for 6+ turns because she is in white the color of protection
I stopped playing MTG competitively about 5 years ago because I got shitty with WOTC.
I now play Blood Bowl competitively. In that game, every tournament has their own rules pack with different banlists.
I FULLY support this for cEDH tournaments.
Every organiser should totally use their own ban list, point system or rules.
Shake the format up!
It's essentially rule zero. If you are having a tournament, you get to set the rules. Hell, if you are having FNM Commander, I say you get to set your own rules. That is what Rule Zero is for.
Loved the new romance section at the end
I feel like a seperate banlist for cEDH makes perfect sense for tournament settings since I think competitive formats need bans for diversity or else eventually it just becomes the one best deck winning everything.
I do enjoy that you two don't agree on everything and honestly would love maybe even a 3rd member with a different viewpoint too just for more points where you get to see who agrees with who and why I feel like it makes me understand more why you think what you think.
Fast bond wasteland plus cards that allow me too play lands from gravyard is s fun one
I’m not sure where this derision for competitive comes from. Nearly every cEDH player I know plays casual and enjoys it and even have a fairly laissez-faire attitude toward winning/losing.
Yeah people wanna play this format and sometimes play in an easy to understand and strong meta
Justice for Braids
Iona has been banned for so long that I forgot it was. It's been there since before we really had much of any option to have potential removal. Longer even then spine of Ish Sah.
What if companion was like choose a background. You can add it to your command zone as a second commander if you follow the restriction? Doesn't solve the Lutri problem but does solve the 101st card problem
What does it mean for dasein to be being-in-a-game? Is dasein as a being-in-a-game different from dasein as a being-in-the-world? Are we ontologically engaged with the game-world or is it just something ontic? Is the being-in-a-game within EDH in any way different for dasein compared to the being-in-a-game in other MtG formats? Is it also different compared to board games?
You wanted your questions in the form of a riddle. I hope they are riddle-y enough. For my part I am suprised since these are interesting questions once you understand them.
Imma need some time to break this one down
Banning wheels is the one thing i can get behind. They do break a lot of stuff and (almost) no casual likes to see them either.
I enjoyed this podcast =)
On Braids: You get that Tergrid is just as bad right? Like she was printed AFTER the RC went hands off.
Im the resident mono-color player in my pod - I own six mono color decks. And I have always thought Iona's banning is really weird. Its so gigantic that most players would not want to include it in their lists unless they were doing a giant Angel thing, and if the situation arose where it resolved I think at that point I kinda deserve it. If the gameplan is to cheat the thing out as fast as possible, it doesnt stop every other player in the pod even if it shuts me down. Its just a big goofy angel. Plus, Iona has great art.
This idea that CEDH players would go back to normal EDH if there was an Cedh RC is crazy. Does Elk think CEDH players just like to punch down or something? The RC only (briefly) came into existence after the normal EDH team said they weren't going to consider CEDH when making format decisions which is fine, but acting like there was no one interested in the format as a separate entity is just being factious.
The reason it doesn't work is because there's not enough support and every cedh channel I watch cares about playing edh. The majority just treat cedh as a meta within the format.
idk if you're doing more question zones but if yes than i wanted to ask if any of you ever built a deck becuse of a card/mechanic that inspired you too, like you saw a card (sunforager asa an example i built) and just wanted to build a deck around it and it's synergies. anyways keep it up and im really enjoying both the podcast and your seprate channels :D
Love your content. The EDH Rules Committee is a joke. Cards on the list were banned because that group decided "they aren't fun". That's it. Heck, they banned Golos because he was too popular. That's completely idiotic. Unban everything then re-ban based on the needs of cedh. Also, FREE LUTRI!!
46:51 It's a sol-sol-sol land.
I could see having tournament-specific ban lists. That said, I would definitely welcome a change to the rules committee, if not being done away with. I get people say "just rule 0", sure, that works with friend groups, but I'm sure a lot of LGS's just fall back on the ban list for sake of ease. My biggest issue with the RC is that they don't have any consistency to bans and I am convinced they just ban based on what they don't like. Emrakul was banned for being "one of the most common and least-interesting ways to win". Ok, well, what about Thassa's Oracle? Torment of Hailfire? Paradox Engine - "Its play patterns often involve long, drawn-out turns". Then why isn't Ad Nauseam banned? The one time I played against Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain, I could have taken a nap during each of their turns. Hell, if taking a long time is enough to ban something, just ban control decks in general. Half of the ones I've come across have only one win con, and it is you dying of either boredom or old age. That said, I'm definitely in favor of implementing a turn clock.
A turn clock sounds like a good solution at face value, but as someone with legit brain damage, please no. It entirely warps the nature of the game in several different ways and should definitely just be a rule 0 thing. It literally changes the fabric of MTG skill expression.
Right now the most important skills in Magic are: deck building, deck piloting, threat assesment, etc. Implementing a turn clock would immediately shoot "thinking fast" into the top spot instead. It'd almost be like bringing dexterity cards back into the game, which hasn't been a part of fundamental skill expression since Chaos Orb...
EDH RC is setup to allow fracturing of groups.
Fastbonds mechanic certainly breaks the game. Exploration itself doubles the amount of growth that you are usually allowed to. And so do rituals. The fear of a t1 braids lies in the existence of dark ritual and their little siblings. I believe that Cedh would be much more interesting when everybody would be tied to (mostly) equal mana potential.
Thoughts on the newest ban list from the edh rc?
Check out todays episode it will be out in about an hour
He kept saying explore and i was so confused until i realized he meant exploration.
jokes on you Trinket Mage... I WAS LISTENING THAT FAR INTO THE PODCAST. also, what is your opinion on building monolithic commander decks?
wait companions don't count to the 99? i built a lurrus companion deck and tought i should only use 98 cards in the 99
I went against paradox engine in an Arena Brawl Sisay Commander deck. On turn 5 with 2 health left, they prosceded to search up their entire deck play all their legendary permanents and hit me for 285 damage. Prardox Engine is not fun lol
Iona was banned because Painters Servant was unbanned at the same time. Those two together are brutal. Ban worthy? Nah it's just like any other A+B combo but that's the decision the RC decided to make.
i already love these vids
My favorite deck is my big dumb monowhite angels, and I think and important thing to remember is Iona had to fall to bring back painter's servant, and painter's servant does more fun things than Iona.
They were banned and unbanned in the same announcement and having a 1 card combo that prevents any spell from being cast seems way too oppressive to be around.
I don’t think it had to fall for painters servant to come back. That’s a 2 card creature combo that doesn’t win the game and folds to channel lands. Isn’t there a lot of better combos in the format? Also painter plus ugin lets you destroy all lands is that not about as strong?
@@thetrinketmage I would say it not winning the game isn't a point in it's favor, and turning off all game actions but activated abilities of specific cards doesn't seem fun for most tables.
There's definitely better combos, but it's a 2 drop artifact creature with 0 opportunity cost to include in Iona decks that's miserable to play against.
To be fair, at the time Painter's Servant had just been reprinted as a masterpiece is a big factor in the unbanning, and it might not hit many casual tables if it was unbanned now.
@@MalzOhman I think I just fundamentally disagree about one combo being less or more fun than another one. 2 cards lock the game our vs 2 cards (less mana investment) win the game is basically the same thing. If I want to 2 card win the game I can do so easily. Both are the same amounts of fun, if they resolve the combo I scoop and move on to the next game. There is realistically 0 difference
@@thetrinketmageI agree locking the game out ends the game. Scoop up and play again.
Wait isn't it episode 2?
yea I changed it thanks for noticing
I think you underestimate the urge players have to jam cards with the mildest synergy. I've seen way to many thoracles in casual games.
I love your videos but I gotta say your co-hosts takes on fastbond is so off the rails. Wheels and fastbond are such a small insignificant part of it like man that makes no sense. I have a so many land decks that would go NUTS WITH FASTBOND without a single wheel. I want fastbond unbanned don't get me wrong but the implications with like windgrace decks and fastbond is INSANE. Land sacrifice decks should not have access to fastbond it will lead to 2 hour non determinist turns that poor pilots won't understand how to execute (similar to "casual" Nadu)
Yeah, fastbond is insanely cracked. I don’t know how he thinks braids is too strong and fastbond is fine.
@@BlooMoon94 both can stay banned and plenty can join them 😂
The only Companion I've seen work was Zirda with Dynaheir as the commander. It ends up being a combo enabler with Basalt Monolith where much of the deck is ramp and draw to get to infinite mana to eventually hit a mana sink that does burn damage.
I'd love to use Lutri as a commander or as another card in Otter tribal, but I can't without rule 0 which is annoying since companion fundamentally breaks the rules of commander deck construction with it being a 101st card, something sideboards and cards that pull from outside of the game are prohibited. Which is funny because Yorion is banned as Companion for the reason that you can't achieve its condition, they could have done the same for Lutri with the reason being that it's too easy to access as a Companion.
Of course we'll never have a Rules Committee that'll do anything about this.
I run a Jeska/Falthis/Obosh partner companion deck that works quite well.
Obosh is a great combo piece together with Jeska and can allow for some very early KOs. The problem is that Falthis enabling Jeska to deathtouch ping three creatures for 1 loyalty whenever I feel like it is just too toxic for my playgroup.
Hottake: since they dont allow stuff like wish effects and the learn/lesson mechanic, they should just remove companion from the format as well so we just get them as normal cards.
@@Shimatzu95 Not really a hot take, the whole reason Companion was exempted was because it was a new mechanic and RC wanted to prop up WotC's new set by allowing it into the format. Unfortunately 1/5 of the Companions were literally broken in the format for one reason or another so they should have banned the Companion Zone after the Companions went out of the print cycle.
As someone who has gone against many hullbreackers, it always gets missed in non-CEDH games, which normally gives the game away to whoever is in the lead. Overall I think it is fine but it only got annoying with the type of people who think they are quirky with wheels in the worst timing.
One of my friends played it in a non-wheels deck and we just had to sit there and take next to no game actions until someone found interaction. If we fed it, we would've lost
I don't really care what happens according to the ban list but, only two results make sense to me. 1, have no ban list at all. I say this because like all other cards, things can be countered, destroyed, and so on + the social aspect will probably correct any bad behavior because you want to play with your friends a lot, not one game with your OP deck and never again because no one wants to play with you. I play almost no powerful or expensive cards anymore for that reason. 2 Instead of signpost bans, ban the signpost card and all other cards legal that have a similar effect on the game within reason, shape the format how it was intended in the beginning.
Regardless of my unhinged ideas, love the pod cast I have literally been counting down the days to see the next one. One question I would like to ask is, what do you think about tempo decks in edh? I have been messing with some decks that explore it to rather fine results but have you two fiddled with the archetype?
I want hard bans where needed and red flags on cards to address in rule 0 convos. Coz I don't wanna be pubstomped
@@seanedgar164 TLDR of my comment is, either make it the Wild west or the casual format that it was once. Either way I'm still playing lol.
fast bond + bolas citadel would be a based cedh combo
15:03 YEEEEAH BABY
When I first started watching your vids, I was kinda meh. But seriously, your hot takes are awesome. If you were the one running this format, it would be a lot better. Keep up the podcast!
I hate how we have to have people baby out aggressive interaction in rule 0. There are plenty of games where interaction is low. One of the amazing parts of magic is interaction is high and veried.
I would love for fastbond to be unbanned, just for the fact that it means lands decks have combo lines that end the game easy, and im not waiting for my opponent to do match and stumble through their turn trying to get lethal
Iona is so unfair and unbalanced it locks down a game for NINE MANA! Expropriate is cool tho
Fastbond + bounce land
Would it be possible to keep the question zone as is? It's cute n cringe, which is absolutely perfect
If you want to build Lutri as a commander, then just rule 0 it. I think you'll be hard pressed to find anyone who genuinely has a problem with it in the 99 or command zone
magic mirror on the wall...