So since we have no way to effectively determine how present PE is in casual metas, we have to flip the argument in a different light. Let's say that PoK was played less than PE (note that I believe most people agree it was more played).
If you are the RC, and there is this card that is becoming the focus of casual games, that is winning casual games with no extra effort, that fits into arguably the best represented type of deck (UGx with creatures)... you don't need a threshold to figure out if it is present enough. It was noticed. It was a hot topic. And they decided to ban it because it was too much value by itself and it was warping games around it.
You can say something similar about Leovold. Was it played a lot? Maybe. The issue was that everyone playing it was doing something broken, and it was not good for Commander for this reason. Even if it was 1% of decks, it didn't offer anything good. While Leovold did little by himself, being in the command zone pushed him over the line. He would be fine if Banned as a commander still existed... as a card in the 99.
PE has been on the RC's radar. It has issues with long turns, with showing up in some large indeterminate amount of games. It is hard to play PE in a fair way. It either does very little or it does way too much. That being said, it does nothing by itself, and it this distinguishing feature that will stop the RC from banning it.
It is not like Leovold, because it is not in the command zone. It is not like PoK because it doesn't do anything by itself (your argument has largely been to prove that it needs so little support that it effectively is broken by itself, which we have argued back and forth forever). Thus far, the RC has not banned a card like PE that needs other pieces to work. If they banned PE, they would have to consider Food Chain, Doomsday, Protean Hulk and many other cards that require little extra effort to break, and which pretty well exclusively get played to win the game on the spot.
I maintain that the RC will not be banning PE. Not because it is not as present as PoK was. Not because you can disrupt it more easily than PoK. Not because it is less centralizing than PoK. It will not get banned because it is just another combo card, and the RC is not interested in policing combo.
Now I think your most pressing argument for changing my mind about this is the one I bolded above. PH needs a deck with sac outlets and a combo. Doomsday needs specific support. FC needs a creature that it can make infinite mana with. PE needs dorks or rocks and cards to cast. Now, I will give you that typically, people have cards in hand and a commander to cast. It is not a way to make infinite mana, but it generates a lot of value in the same way as PoK. The difference is PoK needed lands or dorks. Everyone plays lands. It is a given. Lands are also the hardest permanents to destroy, and mass land destruction is barely played in casual settings.
PE relies on dorks or rocks to generate value. Creatures and artifacts are the two easiest permanents to destroy. So much so, that many people avoid dorks and mana rocks as they are often destroyed as collateral damage. Bolt the bird is not a think in commander. But wrath on turn 4 is something that happens very frequently.
I think this pushes PE into the same realm as Protean Hulk. If people want to combo with a card, and build their decks to combo off with that card, then they can do whatever they want, the RC doesn't care.
PE is not a good card that wins the game by itself. PE is a deck archetype like Flash Hulk. PoK was not a deck archetype. It was just good in every UGx deck. Every single one of them.
Regardless of how present it is, I do not think it will be banned. It will never be played in every deck. It will always be played and always hated, but it will never become so present it needs to be banned. That is not a thing. The RC just doesn't ban cards that are not present in any meta. Every card that is heavily played should be on the RC's radar. But heavy play cannot justify a banning.
So since we have no way to effectively determine how present PE is in casual metas, we have to flip the argument in a different light. Let's say that PoK was played less than PE (note that I believe most people agree it was more played).
If you are the RC, and there is this card that is becoming the focus of casual games, that is winning casual games with no extra effort, that fits into arguably the best represented type of deck (UGx with creatures)... you don't need a threshold to figure out if it is present enough. It was noticed. It was a hot topic. And they decided to ban it because it was too much value by itself and it was warping games around it.
You can say something similar about Leovold. Was it played a lot? Maybe. The issue was that everyone playing it was doing something broken, and it was not good for Commander for this reason. Even if it was 1% of decks, it didn't offer anything good. While Leovold did little by himself, being in the command zone pushed him over the line. He would be fine if Banned as a commander still existed... as a card in the 99.
PE has been on the RC's radar. It has issues with long turns, with showing up in some large indeterminate amount of games. It is hard to play PE in a fair way. It either does very little or it does way too much. That being said, it does nothing by itself, and it this distinguishing feature that will stop the RC from banning it.
It is not like Leovold, because it is not in the command zone. It is not like PoK because it doesn't do anything by itself (your argument has largely been to prove that it needs so little support that it effectively is broken by itself, which we have argued back and forth forever). Thus far, the RC has not banned a card like PE that needs other pieces to work. If they banned PE, they would have to consider Food Chain, Doomsday, Protean Hulk and many other cards that require little extra effort to break, and which pretty well exclusively get played to win the game on the spot.
I maintain that the RC will not be banning PE. Not because it is not as present as PoK was. Not because you can disrupt it more easily than PoK. Not because it is less centralizing than PoK. It will not get banned because it is just another combo card, and the RC is not interested in policing combo.
Now I think your most pressing argument for changing my mind about this is the one I bolded above. PH needs a deck with sac outlets and a combo. Doomsday needs specific support. FC needs a creature that it can make infinite mana with. PE needs dorks or rocks and cards to cast. Now, I will give you that typically, people have cards in hand and a commander to cast. It is not a way to make infinite mana, but it generates a lot of value in the same way as PoK. The difference is PoK needed lands or dorks. Everyone plays lands. It is a given. Lands are also the hardest permanents to destroy, and mass land destruction is barely played in casual settings.
PE relies on dorks or rocks to generate value. Creatures and artifacts are the two easiest permanents to destroy. So much so, that many people avoid dorks and mana rocks as they are often destroyed as collateral damage. Bolt the bird is not a think in commander. But wrath on turn 4 is something that happens very frequently.
I think this pushes PE into the same realm as Protean Hulk. If people want to combo with a card, and build their decks to combo off with that card, then they can do whatever they want, the RC doesn't care.
PE is not a good card that wins the game by itself. PE is a deck archetype like Flash Hulk. PoK was not a deck archetype. It was just good in every UGx deck. Every single one of them.
Regardless of how present it is, I do not think it will be banned. It will never be played in every deck. It will always be played and always hated, but it will never become so present it needs to be banned. That is not a thing. The RC just doesn't ban cards that are not present in any meta. Every card that is heavily played should be on the RC's radar. But heavy play cannot justify a banning.
This is an incredible write-up. Not many points to argue here. Complete and well put.
I don’t mean this to take away anything you’ve said, because it’s all accurate. But... most of these points are highlighted in the Prophet of Kruphix ban announcement I posted on the last page. You broke it down a few more levels, though, making it very clear and concise. So, again, that wasn’t a shot trying to take away what you said.
There is, in fact, precedence for cards like these. As you said, the RC doesn’t care about combos, or the potential to combo. Otherwise, Palinchron would have been banned long ago, as that’s its sole reason for existence. And with PE, the line between lackluster and broken is incredibly thin, with not much in between, deck construction does matter. Whereas a card like Prophet just generates a ton of value by existing, making it good in every UG deck.
I’d really not like to muddy the waters further, but since EDHrec data has been brought up, I’m curios to see if it would be able to find out how much a card like Bribery was played when PoK was legal, vs. now. I don’t play Bribery anymore. It may end up in a rough draft, but it’s become a card that quickly has found itself on the chopping block. However, back in the day, I played it because cards like PoK, PrimeTime, Sylvan Primordial, etc. existed. Even with the unbanning of Protean Hulk, I still haven’t considered it much, unless I just want to run it.
Once upon a time, I had a game with 6 players who exchanged control of the same PrimeTime, without the owner ever having it on his battlefield. Bribery from 1 player, dies, Animate Dead from another, dies and so on and so forth. That’s how centralizing cards like those can be.
Saying the RC doesn't care about combos is fairly, well, incorrect. It's literally in two of the banlist criteria.
Problematic Casual Omnipresence. Some cards are so powerful that they become must-includes in decks that can run them and have a strongly negative impact on the games in which they appear, even when not built to optimize their effect. This does not include cards which are part of a specific two-card combination — there are too many of those available in the format to usefully preclude — but may include cards which have numerous combinations with other commonly-played cards.
* Creates Undesirable Game States. Losing is not an undesirable game state. However, a game in which one or more players, playing comparable casual decks, have minimal participation in the game is something which players should be steered away from. Warning signs include massive overall resource imbalance, early-game cards that lock players out, and cards with limited function other than to win the game out of nowhere.
The RC doesn't care to police two card combos but they do care to police things that combo with all kinds of other things. Which is the sweet spot for me that PE combos with practically every other artifact played in EDH and 20+ commanders with tap abilities many of which are very popular.
(1) (your argument has largely been to prove that it needs so little support that it effectively is broken by itself, which we have argued back and forth forever)
Now I think your most pressing argument for changing my mind about this is the one I bolded above. PH needs a deck with sac outlets and a combo. Doomsday needs specific support. FC needs a creature that it can make infinite mana with. PE needs dorks or rocks and cards to cast. Now, I will give you that typically, people have cards in hand and a commander to cast. It is not a way to make infinite mana, but it generates a lot of value in the same way as PoK. The difference is PoK needed lands or dorks. Everyone plays lands. It is a given. Lands are also the hardest permanents to destroy, and mass land destruction is barely played in casual settings.
PE relies on dorks or rocks to generate value. Creatures and artifacts are the two easiest permanents to destroy. So much so, that many people avoid dorks and mana rocks as they are often destroyed as collateral damage. Bolt the bird is not a think in commander. But wrath on turn 4 is something that happens very frequently.
(2) I think this pushes PE into the same realm as Protean Hulk. If people want to combo with a card, and build their decks to combo off with that card, then they can do whatever they want, the RC doesn't care.
PE is not a good card that wins the game by itself. PE is a deck archetype like Flash Hulk. PoK was not a deck archetype. It was just good in every UGx deck. Every single one of them.
Regardless of how present it is, I do not think it will be banned. It will never be played in every deck. It will always be played and always hated, but it will never become so present it needs to be banned. That is not a thing. The RC just doesn't ban cards that are not present in any meta. Every card that is heavily played should be on the RC's radar. But heavy play cannot justify a banning.
1) I will reiterate that I never said that it needs "so little support it is broken in itself" or any such thing. (I believe my statement was to the effect of - "People overstate how much support it requires.") But I do think it is:
a) strong in three fairly strong deck styles (that have some overlap) - commanders with tap abilities, mana dorks, and artifacts. Artifacts in particular have gotten so many new commanders in the last few years I think everyone owns an artifact deck just about, and it's usually right to play PE in those decks even if you aren't doing it.
It's possible in a meta with slower grindier games you don't see a ton of dorks/rocks but they are extremely strong and popular in my circles, as are a variety of tap commanders.
b) prone to create combos with a large number of other cards, often by accident
(2) I think Protean Hulk is a reasonable comparison to paradox engine, because they both have some similar characteristics - being weaker in casual decks than say, Prophet of Kruphix. However, I think the comparison is flawed in that Paradox Engine is significantly more powerful in medium and even medium-high power decks.
(edit to rephrase my thoughts on hulk) Simply put I think Hulk requires more work to set up and requires a ton of focused, specific and often bad cards depending on what colors you're in. That's just my opinion but I would be happy to unpack that.
A review of their prevalence is a pretty good start; Hulk sees a LOT less play, despite being an extremely strong CEDH option. Hulk is really trash in non-CEDH. I have seen it exactly once since it was unbanned and it did nothing (I swords'd it cos the guy dropped it without an outlet).
If people are sick of reading about stuff just stop taking part. You have 100% control over what you read. Simic Ascendancy isn't going to get banned just because you didn't tell someone to shut up on the internet.
Saying the RC doesn't care about combos is fairly, well, incorrect. It's literally in two of the banlist criteria.
Problematic Casual Omnipresence. Some cards are so powerful that they become must-includes in decks that can run them and have a strongly negative impact on the games in which they appear, even when not built to optimize their effect. This does not include cards which are part of a specific two-card combination — there are too many of those available in the format to usefully preclude — but may include cards which have numerous combinations with other commonly-played cards.
* Creates Undesirable Game States. Losing is not an undesirable game state. However, a game in which one or more players, playing comparable casual decks, have minimal participation in the game is something which players should be steered away from. Warning signs include massive overall resource imbalance, early-game cards that lock players out, and cards with limited function other than to win the game out of nowhere.
The RC doesn't care to police two card combos but they do care to police things that combo with all kinds of other things. Which is the sweet spot for me that PE combos with practically every other artifact played in EDH and 20+ commanders with tap abilities many of which are very popular.
These are two good arguments.
However, for the first one - there are many cards that win out of nowhere and do nothing else. But you know this.
For the second one - the only cards I see that match this criteria are Time Vault and maybe Panoptic Mirror. I would say that Time Vault's power level is so high that PE cannot be in the same conversation. Mirror, on the other hand, is a card people have often argued for unbanning. It is banned because it combos with time walks. Two card combos should not be a concern, in my opinion. Maybe the repetitive play is also an issue - easy to keep a wrath on it.
However, I will acknowledge that this is a very real reason to consider PE for banning. Does it combo too easily and with too much? I think that is debatable. I think it is more on the Food Chain end of the spectrum. It combos with some specific generals very well, but less well than Food Chain with Prossh. It does crazy things with mana rocks, but doesn't combo out unless you have more dedicated cards to make the combo work.
Good points, and we can discuss further, but ultimately I think PE is not close enough to the 'combo with everything' condition. It is closer than Food chain, but it is a long way to Time Vault.
(1) (your argument has largely been to prove that it needs so little support that it effectively is broken by itself, which we have argued back and forth forever)
Now I think your most pressing argument for changing my mind about this is the one I bolded above. PH needs a deck with sac outlets and a combo. Doomsday needs specific support. FC needs a creature that it can make infinite mana with. PE needs dorks or rocks and cards to cast. Now, I will give you that typically, people have cards in hand and a commander to cast. It is not a way to make infinite mana, but it generates a lot of value in the same way as PoK. The difference is PoK needed lands or dorks. Everyone plays lands. It is a given. Lands are also the hardest permanents to destroy, and mass land destruction is barely played in casual settings.
PE relies on dorks or rocks to generate value. Creatures and artifacts are the two easiest permanents to destroy. So much so, that many people avoid dorks and mana rocks as they are often destroyed as collateral damage. Bolt the bird is not a think in commander. But wrath on turn 4 is something that happens very frequently.
(2) I think this pushes PE into the same realm as Protean Hulk. If people want to combo with a card, and build their decks to combo off with that card, then they can do whatever they want, the RC doesn't care.
PE is not a good card that wins the game by itself. PE is a deck archetype like Flash Hulk. PoK was not a deck archetype. It was just good in every UGx deck. Every single one of them.
Regardless of how present it is, I do not think it will be banned. It will never be played in every deck. It will always be played and always hated, but it will never become so present it needs to be banned. That is not a thing. The RC just doesn't ban cards that are not present in any meta. Every card that is heavily played should be on the RC's radar. But heavy play cannot justify a banning.
1) I will reiterate that I never said that it needs "so little support it is broken in itself" or any such thing. (I believe my statement was to the effect of - "People overstate how much support it requires.") But I do think it is:
a) strong in three fairly strong deck styles (that have some overlap) - commanders with tap abilities, mana dorks, and artifacts. Artifacts in particular have gotten so many new commanders in the last few years I think everyone owns an artifact deck just about, and it's usually right to play PE in those decks even if you aren't doing it.
It's possible in a meta with slower grindier games you don't see a ton of dorks/rocks but they are extremely strong and popular in my circles, as are a variety of tap commanders.
b) prone to create combos with a large number of other cards, often by accident
(2) I think Protean Hulk is a reasonable comparison to paradox engine, because they both have some similar characteristics - being weaker in casual decks than say, Prophet of Kruphix. However, I think the comparison is flawed in that Paradox Engine is significantly more powerful in medium and even medium-high power decks.
(edit to rephrase my thoughts on hulk) Simply put I think Hulk requires more work to set up and requires a ton of focused, specific and often bad cards depending on what colors you're in. That's just my opinion but I would be happy to unpack that.
A review of their prevalence is a pretty good start; Hulk sees a LOT less play, despite being an extremely strong CEDH option. Hulk is really trash in non-CEDH. I have seen it exactly once since it was unbanned and it did nothing (I swords'd it cos the guy dropped it without an outlet).
PH is a card that was unbanned. Sure, the deck restrictions may be less so for PE, but it operates in a similar space of being a broken card that the RC is unlikely to want to police.
That being said, if tomorrow they banned PE, I would expect them to say that it combos too easily with too many things. It is not a wrong justification. It is just not one they have used sine the format was made and I am not convinced PE meets this condition to the point of banning.
PH, T&N and PE operate in this space of being cards that win out of nowhere in a million different ways. I am not sure which of the 3 is the most banworthy, but I do think that if any of them were banned it would be due to a re-evaluation of how they want to apply the banning criteria.
I did think a lot about the banlist and which cards might 'combo with everything' even if they also have other criteria (e.g. too much mana too quickly, problematic omnipresence for other reasons, interacts poorly with the format, perceived barrier to entry, resource imbalance, etc.)
Admittedly a lot of that is using a fairly broad definition of combo and many times the "combos with everything" might be low on the list of reasons something *could* be banned.
Category-wise:
* RN creates a ton of infinite combos in addition to being degenerate. Infinite time warps, infinite mana with various ETB creatures that make mana, etc. etc.
* Gris and Bargain let you draw your deck fairly easily and are primarily used as combo engines
* Academy and Lotus both create infinite mana in a bunch of ways though academy is a bit narrower
* Time walk enables a crapload of infinite turn combos
* Leovold combos with all kinds of wheel effects - it's not infinite but it's functionally no different
* Tinker allows comboing extremely early in a bunch of ways but also starts combos itself (by sacc'ing things with LTB or ETG effects into things that combo with them)
(Upheaval could go on the list too if you wanted to loosen the combo terms even more, and Upheaval is quite interesting since it does a lot of the same bull***** Paradox Engine does by turning "play a bunch of mana rocks' Into a strategy)
Now, most of those cards I don't think are on there because of comboing, but I am sure it's a factor.
Time Walk is mostly perceived barrier to entry, but if it was a 15 dollar card not on the reserve list it would still be broken beyond belief because of how cheap it makes infinite turn combos (of about 50 different types).
PE doesn't combo with everything. It combos with a critical mass of a certain type of thing plus a steady stream of cards. It requires, at the moment, a fairly steep deckbuilding requirement to be useful, but easily becomes broken when those conditions are met.
The issue is that as time goes on, more and more cards are printed that don't combo with but synergize with PE, and more commanders are printed for which PE is an auto include. It is the increasing number of worthwhile synergies that most concerns me, since as these cards get added to decks they increase the value of adding PE, which in turn increases PEs metagame presence. It is when decks start including PE because it is going to be a great value engine whenever they play it, even if they only cast a couple spells, that it becomes dangerous, both because it starts behaving more like Prophet and Primetime in being a source of low efforts overwhelming value, and because it will lead to more accidental combos where there will be decks that can't reliably combo with it but can do so when they get lucky (a deck with 5 rocks will not reliably hit enough to include PE for a combo, but if it's adding PE as a value engine it will have access to it when it does actually hit enough to do so). But let's not discount that more and more commanders are being printed that can combo with it. Food Chain gets a pass because it only combos with a couple commanders and is generally a cEDH card that doesn't see much casual play, but PE, while not strictly being a 2 card combo, effectively becomes "play a normal game then win when you play PE and your commander" like Urza and that new Robot Scout.
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Thus far, the RC has not banned a card like PE that needs other pieces to work. If they banned PE, they would have to consider Food Chain, Doomsday, Protean Hulk and many other cards that require little extra effort to break, and which pretty well exclusively get played to win the game on the spot.
Consider, maybe, but only in the sense that we consider everything. If PE were to be banned (and I have no comment on that one way or another), it would be because of the effect it was having on the casual community. Food Chain and Doomsday see almost zero play there, and Hulk is working out as we expected - occasional use as a value engine that's not all that problematic.
As evidenced from the past few years "Problematic Casual Omnipresence" is the banlist criteria we lean on most heavily. Paradox Engine doesn't necessarily end up in the same space in that bucket as the other cited cards do.
Thus far, the RC has not banned a card like PE that needs other pieces to work. If they banned PE, they would have to consider Food Chain, Doomsday, Protean Hulk and many other cards that require little extra effort to break, and which pretty well exclusively get played to win the game on the spot.
Consider, maybe, but only in the sense that we consider everything. If PE were to be banned (and I have no comment on that one way or another), it would be because of the effect it was having on the casual community. Food Chain and Doomsday see almost zero play there, and Hulk is working out as we expected - occasional use as a value engine that's not all that problematic.
As evidenced from the past few years "Problematic Casual Omnipresence" is the banlist criteria we lean on most heavily. Paradox Engine doesn't necessarily end up in the same space in that bucket as the other cited cards do.
By what metric do you say that PE hits the 'problematic casual omnipresence'? We have spent time trying to even come up with a way of evaluating this. Every meta is so different.
By what metric do you say that PE hits the 'problematic casual omnipresence'? We have spent time trying to even come up with a way of evaluating this. Every meta is so different.
I didn't say that (though when we collect data we do so from a bunch of different sources and try to get data about the big picture). I was not making a judgement one way or the other on Paradox Engine. I was merely pointing out that there wasn't necessarily a straight line from Paradox Engine to Doomsday, and it was possible for one to be an issue and not the other.
When I say "combos with everything" i hope that is contextually clear that is a metaphor. It combos with a large variety of board states and often non-determistically, as well as being a two card combo with more generals things than even food chain.
PE is by far the most casually present card on that list. Not even a close argument. It's far closer to Prophet of Kruphix in terms of casual use than it is to any of those cards.
If you add up the number of decks with Doomsday, hulk, and Foodchain it's not even 2/3rds of Paradox Engine, and the combined total prevalence in their colors is about the same (6%).
ANECDOTE ALERT ANECDOTE ALERT
I have personally seen more Paradox Engine in the last few years than all of those cards combined and I played a food chain deck for a while and played it in legacy and I am including the non-casual games of legacy (maybe 5 tournaments? I won with deathrite, griffin and ballista beats more than I won with foodchain)
By what metric do you say that PE hits the 'problematic casual omnipresence'? We have spent time trying to even come up with a way of evaluating this. Every meta is so different.
I didn't say that (though when we collect data we do so from a bunch of different sources and try to get data about the big picture). I was not making a judgement one way or the other on Paradox Engine. I was merely pointing out that there wasn't necessarily a straight line from Paradox Engine to Doomsday, and it was possible for one to be an issue and not the other.
I did not mean to imply that you made a judgement. I just want to know more about how you collect data.
And fair enough, PE is played a lot more casually than the other cards listed. I was trying to separate 'casual omnipresence', which we cannot measure, from the discussion, and to discuss PE based on other terms. I felt that it was similar to the other cards listed in the way that they are exclusively used to 'combo off', and that these other cards were not banworthy.
I can understand how any card can be considered for banning based on problematic casual omnipresence. It is just so hard to evaluate this. In this thread, we have people saying that they face PE all the time, and people saying that they rarely see PE. WE have people looking to EDHrec and combing through hundreds of decks.
It is just so impossible to evaluate because anything published online skews towards competitive play.
My guess is that this might be a spot where the CAG is fairly helpful. They experience a much wider variety of playgroups and talk to a lot more people. Might have more insight into that than EDHREC and dudes yellin on the internet.
PE doesn't combo with everything. It combos with a critical mass of a certain type of thing plus a steady stream of cards. It requires, at the moment, a fairly steep deckbuilding requirement to be useful, but easily becomes broken when those conditions are met.
That bold part one of the largest issues I would disagree with. Yes you need other things on board, but that critical mass is low, and cards that a lot of people generally play anyway. The rest of your post I agree with 100%, and hope it does not devolve into that.
If people are sick of reading about stuff just stop taking part. You have 100% control over what you read. Simic Ascendancy isn't going to get banned just because you didn't tell someone to shut up on the internet.
PE doesn't combo with everything. It combos with a critical mass of a certain type of thing plus a steady stream of cards. It requires, at the moment, a fairly steep deckbuilding requirement to be useful, but easily becomes broken when those conditions are met.
That bold part one of the largest issues I would disagree with. Yes you need other things on board, but that critical mass is low, and cards that a lot of people generally play anyway. The rest of your post I agree with 100%, and hope it does not devolve into that.
We've been round and round on this point but I'll try to succinctly restate my case, since I think it's important:
PE Has steep deckbuilding constraints but these constraints are largely obviated by these factors:
(1) A large variety of commanders support, and some demand, these same constraints (playing a large variety of tap effects, be they mana dorks or artifacts), and many of these are very popular commanders
(2) Both of the key strategies that would leverage Paradox Engine are common and powerful independent of the card
As a point of interest since cEDH has been brought up a few times in regards to Dox Engine, a tournament took place this weekend and here's some information from it.
Out of the 31 decks/players 9 played Dox Engine, almost one third.
However, there where around 22 unique strategies (I was a bit conservative, so maybe like 25 if you're more liberal). Out these 22 strategies, only 5 used Paradox Engine, so down to around 20~25%.
The decks that used it were:
Paradox Scepter Urza (4 decks)
Paradox Scepter Thrasios (2 decks)
Arcum Dagson (1 deck)
Breya (1 deck)
4c Rashmi / Curious control (1 deck)
All of them use it primarily as a wincon, either it's own after getting a critical mass of dorks/rocks, in combination with Isochron Scepter to just make infinite mana + cast any number of copies of a spell, or to create some sort of loop as in the case of Arcum. It's usually not just a value piece.
For some more information, the top 8 was composed of:
1-2) 2 The First Sliver Food Chain
3) Thrasios/Tymna Hulk
4) Thras/Vial Smasher Hulk
5-8) Tymna/Kraum Divergent Transformation
5-8) Maelstrom Wanderer (looks like Kiki Jiki lines were the focus)
5-8) Paradox Scepter Urza
5-8) Consultation Kess
So only one of the decks using Paradox Scepter, and they did not make it to top 4 (not sure what their final standing was, sorry).
Something I totally forgot was that staff of domination was banned for a couple years there.
That's probably the most comparable card to PE except it's *far* more widely played than PE and significantly easier to go off with, and does very similar stuff. So there is at least some precedent for a contemporary combo enabler being banned just for being an annoying combo enabler that sees lots of play (though it did subsequently get unbanned).
Something I totally forgot was that staff of domination was banned for a couple years there.
That's probably the most comparable card to PE except it's *far* more widely played than PE and significantly easier to go off with, and does very similar stuff. So there is at least some precedent for a contemporary combo enabler being banned just for being an annoying combo enabler that sees lots of play (though it did subsequently get unbanned).
Food for thought anyway.
I think I've seen Staff precisely zero times since it was unbanned. Which is interesting because I actually bought my copy when it was banned because I didn't realize it was banned and wanted it for a deck. And since being unbanned I've never thought of using it (and don't think it's ever been drafted in my cube either).
Banned because it wins seemingly out of nowhere. No other criteria mentioned.
While other cards also meet this criteria, it seems they leaned on the fact that it requires little deckbuilding focus to be effective.
I believe this is the first card to be banned because it wins seemingly out of nowhere since Coalition Victory. I do not know if this means other cards will start being more heavily considered for banning... but that seems like the logical conclusion.
Banned because it wins seemingly out of nowhere. No other criteria mentioned.
While other cards also meet this criteria, it seems they leaned on the fact that it requires little deckbuilding focus to be effective.
I believe this is the first card to be banned because it wins seemingly out of nowhere since Coalition Victory. I do not know if this means other cards will start being more heavily considered for banning... but that seems like the logical conclusion.
Certainly shocked, that’s for sure. There’s precedent now for similar cards gaining traction for potential bans. Tooth and Nail being the first card I think falls into a similar category.
Banned because it wins seemingly out of nowhere. No other criteria mentioned.
While other cards also meet this criteria, it seems they leaned on the fact that it requires little deckbuilding focus to be effective.
I believe this is the first card to be banned because it wins seemingly out of nowhere since Coalition Victory. I do not know if this means other cards will start being more heavily considered for banning... but that seems like the logical conclusion.
Certainly shocked, that’s for sure. There’s precedent now for similar cards gaining traction for potential bans. Tooth and Nail being the first card I think falls into a similar category.
You know that tooth and Nail can be sued to tutor anything else that isn't combo right? Tell me what does Paradox Engine offers other then straight up combo? Untaping a couple of mana rocks to add more mana? Woow.
Tough i think they could have explained more the reason why it was banned, but now people aginst the comitee will twist their words in this and used it as more ammuntion.
Banned because it wins seemingly out of nowhere. No other criteria mentioned.
While other cards also meet this criteria, it seems they leaned on the fact that it requires little deckbuilding focus to be effective.
I believe this is the first card to be banned because it wins seemingly out of nowhere since Coalition Victory. I do not know if this means other cards will start being more heavily considered for banning... but that seems like the logical conclusion.
Certainly shocked, that’s for sure. There’s precedent now for similar cards gaining traction for potential bans. Tooth and Nail being the first card I think falls into a similar category.
You know that tooth and Nail can be sued to tutor anything else that isn't combo right? Tell me what does Paradox Engine offers other then straight up combo? Untaping a couple of mana rocks to add more mana? Woow.
Tough i think they could have explained more the reason why it was banned, but now people aginst the comitee will twist their words in this and used it as more ammuntion.
Like you twisting my words?
I didn’t say “Now we should ban T&N”. I’m saying there’s a precedent for similar cards being banned(echo?). I mean, the reasoning was there wasn’t stringent deck building constraints with Paradox Engine(there is), but T&N sets you back 3 out of the 99 to do the same thing.
I’ll be the first to tell you T&N can be played fairly. But, with the current climate of EDH, T&N is just a fair game ender.
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If you are the RC, and there is this card that is becoming the focus of casual games, that is winning casual games with no extra effort, that fits into arguably the best represented type of deck (UGx with creatures)... you don't need a threshold to figure out if it is present enough. It was noticed. It was a hot topic. And they decided to ban it because it was too much value by itself and it was warping games around it.
You can say something similar about Leovold. Was it played a lot? Maybe. The issue was that everyone playing it was doing something broken, and it was not good for Commander for this reason. Even if it was 1% of decks, it didn't offer anything good. While Leovold did little by himself, being in the command zone pushed him over the line. He would be fine if Banned as a commander still existed... as a card in the 99.
PE has been on the RC's radar. It has issues with long turns, with showing up in some large indeterminate amount of games. It is hard to play PE in a fair way. It either does very little or it does way too much. That being said, it does nothing by itself, and it this distinguishing feature that will stop the RC from banning it.
It is not like Leovold, because it is not in the command zone. It is not like PoK because it doesn't do anything by itself (your argument has largely been to prove that it needs so little support that it effectively is broken by itself, which we have argued back and forth forever). Thus far, the RC has not banned a card like PE that needs other pieces to work. If they banned PE, they would have to consider Food Chain, Doomsday, Protean Hulk and many other cards that require little extra effort to break, and which pretty well exclusively get played to win the game on the spot.
I maintain that the RC will not be banning PE. Not because it is not as present as PoK was. Not because you can disrupt it more easily than PoK. Not because it is less centralizing than PoK. It will not get banned because it is just another combo card, and the RC is not interested in policing combo.
Now I think your most pressing argument for changing my mind about this is the one I bolded above. PH needs a deck with sac outlets and a combo. Doomsday needs specific support. FC needs a creature that it can make infinite mana with. PE needs dorks or rocks and cards to cast. Now, I will give you that typically, people have cards in hand and a commander to cast. It is not a way to make infinite mana, but it generates a lot of value in the same way as PoK. The difference is PoK needed lands or dorks. Everyone plays lands. It is a given. Lands are also the hardest permanents to destroy, and mass land destruction is barely played in casual settings.
PE relies on dorks or rocks to generate value. Creatures and artifacts are the two easiest permanents to destroy. So much so, that many people avoid dorks and mana rocks as they are often destroyed as collateral damage. Bolt the bird is not a think in commander. But wrath on turn 4 is something that happens very frequently.
I think this pushes PE into the same realm as Protean Hulk. If people want to combo with a card, and build their decks to combo off with that card, then they can do whatever they want, the RC doesn't care.
PE is not a good card that wins the game by itself. PE is a deck archetype like Flash Hulk. PoK was not a deck archetype. It was just good in every UGx deck. Every single one of them.
Regardless of how present it is, I do not think it will be banned. It will never be played in every deck. It will always be played and always hated, but it will never become so present it needs to be banned. That is not a thing. The RC just doesn't ban cards that are not present in any meta. Every card that is heavily played should be on the RC's radar. But heavy play cannot justify a banning.
8.RG Green Devotion Ramp/Combo 9.UR Draw Triggers 10.WUR Group stalling 11.WUR Voltron Spellslinger 12.WB Sacrificial Shenanigans
13.BR Creatureless Panharmonicon 14.BR Pingers and Eldrazi 15.URG Untapped Cascading
16.Reyhan, last of the Abzan's WUBG +1/+1 Counter Craziness 17.WUBRG Dragons aka Why did I make this?
Building: The Gitrog Monster lands, Glissa the Traitor stax, Muldrotha, the Gravetide Planeswalker Combo, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa Clues, and Tribal Scarecrow Planeswalkers
This is an incredible write-up. Not many points to argue here. Complete and well put.
I don’t mean this to take away anything you’ve said, because it’s all accurate. But... most of these points are highlighted in the Prophet of Kruphix ban announcement I posted on the last page. You broke it down a few more levels, though, making it very clear and concise. So, again, that wasn’t a shot trying to take away what you said.
There is, in fact, precedence for cards like these. As you said, the RC doesn’t care about combos, or the potential to combo. Otherwise, Palinchron would have been banned long ago, as that’s its sole reason for existence. And with PE, the line between lackluster and broken is incredibly thin, with not much in between, deck construction does matter. Whereas a card like Prophet just generates a ton of value by existing, making it good in every UG deck.
I’d really not like to muddy the waters further, but since EDHrec data has been brought up, I’m curios to see if it would be able to find out how much a card like Bribery was played when PoK was legal, vs. now. I don’t play Bribery anymore. It may end up in a rough draft, but it’s become a card that quickly has found itself on the chopping block. However, back in the day, I played it because cards like PoK, PrimeTime, Sylvan Primordial, etc. existed. Even with the unbanning of Protean Hulk, I still haven’t considered it much, unless I just want to run it.
Once upon a time, I had a game with 6 players who exchanged control of the same PrimeTime, without the owner ever having it on his battlefield. Bribery from 1 player, dies, Animate Dead from another, dies and so on and so forth. That’s how centralizing cards like those can be.
The RC doesn't care to police two card combos but they do care to police things that combo with all kinds of other things. Which is the sweet spot for me that PE combos with practically every other artifact played in EDH and 20+ commanders with tap abilities many of which are very popular.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
1) I will reiterate that I never said that it needs "so little support it is broken in itself" or any such thing. (I believe my statement was to the effect of - "People overstate how much support it requires.") But I do think it is:
a) strong in three fairly strong deck styles (that have some overlap) - commanders with tap abilities, mana dorks, and artifacts. Artifacts in particular have gotten so many new commanders in the last few years I think everyone owns an artifact deck just about, and it's usually right to play PE in those decks even if you aren't doing it.
It's possible in a meta with slower grindier games you don't see a ton of dorks/rocks but they are extremely strong and popular in my circles, as are a variety of tap commanders.
b) prone to create combos with a large number of other cards, often by accident
(2) I think Protean Hulk is a reasonable comparison to paradox engine, because they both have some similar characteristics - being weaker in casual decks than say, Prophet of Kruphix. However, I think the comparison is flawed in that Paradox Engine is significantly more powerful in medium and even medium-high power decks.
(edit to rephrase my thoughts on hulk) Simply put I think Hulk requires more work to set up and requires a ton of focused, specific and often bad cards depending on what colors you're in. That's just my opinion but I would be happy to unpack that.
A review of their prevalence is a pretty good start; Hulk sees a LOT less play, despite being an extremely strong CEDH option. Hulk is really trash in non-CEDH. I have seen it exactly once since it was unbanned and it did nothing (I swords'd it cos the guy dropped it without an outlet).
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
PE gets brought up a lot.
These are two good arguments.
However, for the first one - there are many cards that win out of nowhere and do nothing else. But you know this.
For the second one - the only cards I see that match this criteria are Time Vault and maybe Panoptic Mirror. I would say that Time Vault's power level is so high that PE cannot be in the same conversation. Mirror, on the other hand, is a card people have often argued for unbanning. It is banned because it combos with time walks. Two card combos should not be a concern, in my opinion. Maybe the repetitive play is also an issue - easy to keep a wrath on it.
However, I will acknowledge that this is a very real reason to consider PE for banning. Does it combo too easily and with too much? I think that is debatable. I think it is more on the Food Chain end of the spectrum. It combos with some specific generals very well, but less well than Food Chain with Prossh. It does crazy things with mana rocks, but doesn't combo out unless you have more dedicated cards to make the combo work.
Good points, and we can discuss further, but ultimately I think PE is not close enough to the 'combo with everything' condition. It is closer than Food chain, but it is a long way to Time Vault.
PH is a card that was unbanned. Sure, the deck restrictions may be less so for PE, but it operates in a similar space of being a broken card that the RC is unlikely to want to police.
That being said, if tomorrow they banned PE, I would expect them to say that it combos too easily with too many things. It is not a wrong justification. It is just not one they have used sine the format was made and I am not convinced PE meets this condition to the point of banning.
PH, T&N and PE operate in this space of being cards that win out of nowhere in a million different ways. I am not sure which of the 3 is the most banworthy, but I do think that if any of them were banned it would be due to a re-evaluation of how they want to apply the banning criteria.
8.RG Green Devotion Ramp/Combo 9.UR Draw Triggers 10.WUR Group stalling 11.WUR Voltron Spellslinger 12.WB Sacrificial Shenanigans
13.BR Creatureless Panharmonicon 14.BR Pingers and Eldrazi 15.URG Untapped Cascading
16.Reyhan, last of the Abzan's WUBG +1/+1 Counter Craziness 17.WUBRG Dragons aka Why did I make this?
Building: The Gitrog Monster lands, Glissa the Traitor stax, Muldrotha, the Gravetide Planeswalker Combo, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa Clues, and Tribal Scarecrow Planeswalkers
I did think a lot about the banlist and which cards might 'combo with everything' even if they also have other criteria (e.g. too much mana too quickly, problematic omnipresence for other reasons, interacts poorly with the format, perceived barrier to entry, resource imbalance, etc.)
Here was my list of "combos with everything"
Recurring Nightmare, Panoptic Mirror, Time Walk, Time Vault, Tinker, Tolarian Academy, Yawgmoth's Bargain, Leovold, Emissary of Trest, Griselbrand, Black Lotus
Admittedly a lot of that is using a fairly broad definition of combo and many times the "combos with everything" might be low on the list of reasons something *could* be banned.
Category-wise:
* RN creates a ton of infinite combos in addition to being degenerate. Infinite time warps, infinite mana with various ETB creatures that make mana, etc. etc.
* Gris and Bargain let you draw your deck fairly easily and are primarily used as combo engines
* Academy and Lotus both create infinite mana in a bunch of ways though academy is a bit narrower
* Time walk enables a crapload of infinite turn combos
* Leovold combos with all kinds of wheel effects - it's not infinite but it's functionally no different
* Tinker allows comboing extremely early in a bunch of ways but also starts combos itself (by sacc'ing things with LTB or ETG effects into things that combo with them)
(Upheaval could go on the list too if you wanted to loosen the combo terms even more, and Upheaval is quite interesting since it does a lot of the same bull***** Paradox Engine does by turning "play a bunch of mana rocks' Into a strategy)
Now, most of those cards I don't think are on there because of comboing, but I am sure it's a factor.
Time Walk is mostly perceived barrier to entry, but if it was a 15 dollar card not on the reserve list it would still be broken beyond belief because of how cheap it makes infinite turn combos (of about 50 different types).
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
The issue is that as time goes on, more and more cards are printed that don't combo with but synergize with PE, and more commanders are printed for which PE is an auto include. It is the increasing number of worthwhile synergies that most concerns me, since as these cards get added to decks they increase the value of adding PE, which in turn increases PEs metagame presence. It is when decks start including PE because it is going to be a great value engine whenever they play it, even if they only cast a couple spells, that it becomes dangerous, both because it starts behaving more like Prophet and Primetime in being a source of low efforts overwhelming value, and because it will lead to more accidental combos where there will be decks that can't reliably combo with it but can do so when they get lucky (a deck with 5 rocks will not reliably hit enough to include PE for a combo, but if it's adding PE as a value engine it will have access to it when it does actually hit enough to do so). But let's not discount that more and more commanders are being printed that can combo with it. Food Chain gets a pass because it only combos with a couple commanders and is generally a cEDH card that doesn't see much casual play, but PE, while not strictly being a 2 card combo, effectively becomes "play a normal game then win when you play PE and your commander" like Urza and that new Robot Scout.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Consider, maybe, but only in the sense that we consider everything. If PE were to be banned (and I have no comment on that one way or another), it would be because of the effect it was having on the casual community. Food Chain and Doomsday see almost zero play there, and Hulk is working out as we expected - occasional use as a value engine that's not all that problematic.
As evidenced from the past few years "Problematic Casual Omnipresence" is the banlist criteria we lean on most heavily. Paradox Engine doesn't necessarily end up in the same space in that bucket as the other cited cards do.
By what metric do you say that PE hits the 'problematic casual omnipresence'? We have spent time trying to even come up with a way of evaluating this. Every meta is so different.
8.RG Green Devotion Ramp/Combo 9.UR Draw Triggers 10.WUR Group stalling 11.WUR Voltron Spellslinger 12.WB Sacrificial Shenanigans
13.BR Creatureless Panharmonicon 14.BR Pingers and Eldrazi 15.URG Untapped Cascading
16.Reyhan, last of the Abzan's WUBG +1/+1 Counter Craziness 17.WUBRG Dragons aka Why did I make this?
Building: The Gitrog Monster lands, Glissa the Traitor stax, Muldrotha, the Gravetide Planeswalker Combo, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa Clues, and Tribal Scarecrow Planeswalkers
I didn't say that (though when we collect data we do so from a bunch of different sources and try to get data about the big picture). I was not making a judgement one way or the other on Paradox Engine. I was merely pointing out that there wasn't necessarily a straight line from Paradox Engine to Doomsday, and it was possible for one to be an issue and not the other.
re: Doomsday, Protean Hulk, Food Chain and Paradox Engine
PE is by far the most casually present card on that list. Not even a close argument. It's far closer to Prophet of Kruphix in terms of casual use than it is to any of those cards.
If you add up the number of decks with Doomsday, hulk, and Foodchain it's not even 2/3rds of Paradox Engine, and the combined total prevalence in their colors is about the same (6%).
ANECDOTE ALERT ANECDOTE ALERT
I have personally seen more Paradox Engine in the last few years than all of those cards combined and I played a food chain deck for a while and played it in legacy and I am including the non-casual games of legacy (maybe 5 tournaments? I won with deathrite, griffin and ballista beats more than I won with foodchain)
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I did not mean to imply that you made a judgement. I just want to know more about how you collect data.
And fair enough, PE is played a lot more casually than the other cards listed. I was trying to separate 'casual omnipresence', which we cannot measure, from the discussion, and to discuss PE based on other terms. I felt that it was similar to the other cards listed in the way that they are exclusively used to 'combo off', and that these other cards were not banworthy.
I can understand how any card can be considered for banning based on problematic casual omnipresence. It is just so hard to evaluate this. In this thread, we have people saying that they face PE all the time, and people saying that they rarely see PE. WE have people looking to EDHrec and combing through hundreds of decks.
It is just so impossible to evaluate because anything published online skews towards competitive play.
8.RG Green Devotion Ramp/Combo 9.UR Draw Triggers 10.WUR Group stalling 11.WUR Voltron Spellslinger 12.WB Sacrificial Shenanigans
13.BR Creatureless Panharmonicon 14.BR Pingers and Eldrazi 15.URG Untapped Cascading
16.Reyhan, last of the Abzan's WUBG +1/+1 Counter Craziness 17.WUBRG Dragons aka Why did I make this?
Building: The Gitrog Monster lands, Glissa the Traitor stax, Muldrotha, the Gravetide Planeswalker Combo, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa Clues, and Tribal Scarecrow Planeswalkers
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
That bold part one of the largest issues I would disagree with. Yes you need other things on board, but that critical mass is low, and cards that a lot of people generally play anyway. The rest of your post I agree with 100%, and hope it does not devolve into that.
We've been round and round on this point but I'll try to succinctly restate my case, since I think it's important:
PE Has steep deckbuilding constraints but these constraints are largely obviated by these factors:
(1) A large variety of commanders support, and some demand, these same constraints (playing a large variety of tap effects, be they mana dorks or artifacts), and many of these are very popular commanders
(2) Both of the key strategies that would leverage Paradox Engine are common and powerful independent of the card
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Out of the 31 decks/players 9 played Dox Engine, almost one third.
However, there where around 22 unique strategies (I was a bit conservative, so maybe like 25 if you're more liberal). Out these 22 strategies, only 5 used Paradox Engine, so down to around 20~25%.
The decks that used it were:
Paradox Scepter Urza (4 decks)
Paradox Scepter Thrasios (2 decks)
Arcum Dagson (1 deck)
Breya (1 deck)
4c Rashmi / Curious control (1 deck)
All of them use it primarily as a wincon, either it's own after getting a critical mass of dorks/rocks, in combination with Isochron Scepter to just make infinite mana + cast any number of copies of a spell, or to create some sort of loop as in the case of Arcum. It's usually not just a value piece.
For some more information, the top 8 was composed of:
1-2) 2 The First Sliver Food Chain
3) Thrasios/Tymna Hulk
4) Thras/Vial Smasher Hulk
5-8) Tymna/Kraum Divergent Transformation
5-8) Maelstrom Wanderer (looks like Kiki Jiki lines were the focus)
5-8) Paradox Scepter Urza
5-8) Consultation Kess
So only one of the decks using Paradox Scepter, and they did not make it to top 4 (not sure what their final standing was, sorry).
Clarification edit: the tournament was played in 4-man pods as much as possible and with the EDH rules as defined by the RC, ie nothing was modified in deckbuilding or rules.
More edits: the decklists jic anyone wants them: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11UByAJD6LCuV5tsZ56eDzY0iAPjHwH6d5KCxY6cl4n8/edit#gid=0
Something I totally forgot was that staff of domination was banned for a couple years there.
That's probably the most comparable card to PE except it's *far* more widely played than PE and significantly easier to go off with, and does very similar stuff. So there is at least some precedent for a contemporary combo enabler being banned just for being an annoying combo enabler that sees lots of play (though it did subsequently get unbanned).
Food for thought anyway.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I think I've seen Staff precisely zero times since it was unbanned. Which is interesting because I actually bought my copy when it was banned because I didn't realize it was banned and wanted it for a deck. And since being unbanned I've never thought of using it (and don't think it's ever been drafted in my cube either).
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It still sees a bit of play in tap commanders like selvalas, kydele, yisan, arcum, etc.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Banned because it wins seemingly out of nowhere. No other criteria mentioned.
While other cards also meet this criteria, it seems they leaned on the fact that it requires little deckbuilding focus to be effective.
I believe this is the first card to be banned because it wins seemingly out of nowhere since Coalition Victory. I do not know if this means other cards will start being more heavily considered for banning... but that seems like the logical conclusion.
8.RG Green Devotion Ramp/Combo 9.UR Draw Triggers 10.WUR Group stalling 11.WUR Voltron Spellslinger 12.WB Sacrificial Shenanigans
13.BR Creatureless Panharmonicon 14.BR Pingers and Eldrazi 15.URG Untapped Cascading
16.Reyhan, last of the Abzan's WUBG +1/+1 Counter Craziness 17.WUBRG Dragons aka Why did I make this?
Building: The Gitrog Monster lands, Glissa the Traitor stax, Muldrotha, the Gravetide Planeswalker Combo, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa Clues, and Tribal Scarecrow Planeswalkers
Certainly shocked, that’s for sure. There’s precedent now for similar cards gaining traction for potential bans. Tooth and Nail being the first card I think falls into a similar category.
You know that tooth and Nail can be sued to tutor anything else that isn't combo right? Tell me what does Paradox Engine offers other then straight up combo? Untaping a couple of mana rocks to add more mana? Woow.
Tough i think they could have explained more the reason why it was banned, but now people aginst the comitee will twist their words in this and used it as more ammuntion.
Like you twisting my words?
I didn’t say “Now we should ban T&N”. I’m saying there’s a precedent for similar cards being banned(echo?). I mean, the reasoning was there wasn’t stringent deck building constraints with Paradox Engine(there is), but T&N sets you back 3 out of the 99 to do the same thing.
I’ll be the first to tell you T&N can be played fairly. But, with the current climate of EDH, T&N is just a fair game ender.