Complexity - For this card to be good you really need to get it and 2+ artifacts in play by turns 2-3. Even at that point its mostly a colored mana
Ancient Tomb. What we like to really think about as the completely nuts situations for this card is when you can put 3+ artifacts into play on turns 1-2 with it but at which point we are talking about 4 or more VERY specific cards in an opening hand. Sure you could load a deck full of every 0 mana artifact that exists to try to do this but lets be honest you will get a lot of bad starts with that kind of deck. If you want to talk about the most competative combo decks using every fast mana in existence then this is also outside of the scope of the banned list. The complexity to having broken mana fast with this card plus something to dump it into to use is very complex and unlikely to happen fast enough that its a problem.
This is a gross misunderstanding of how Tolarian Academy is enabled, and ties into the oft used comparison to Gaea's Cradle.
Most of the enablers for Academy produce mana, and do so the turn they enter the battlefield. More, the early enablers often produce more mana than they cost. This creates an escalating effect that is not really seen anywhere else. That artifacts tend to be more resilient than creatures is another minor benefit.
Realistically, in any deck where Academy can be considered better than Island, it being capable of producing two mana on turn 2, and three mana on turn 3 is the minimum expectation of any game it shows up, and the cards that allow it to produce that mana themselves produce as much.
Realistically, it is more than doubling the rate you produce mana early game, in a deck that is already ramping.
It (and Channel) are kind of the definition of 'Produces too much mana to quickly'.
Convince the Rules Community to finally ban Mana Crypt and Sol Ring, and I am willing to entertain an argument for Academy being unbanned, but strongly suspect even then that it is still far to strong.
were banned, I could definitely see Tolarian Academy being OK.
But I'm not sure that's good for the format as it kinda centralizes artifact ramp decks in blue pretty hard. And mana rocks are really the only thing keeping green decks honest today.
So...... I still think a lot of you are really over estimating a lot of potential Tolarian Academy starts. For kicks I looked at the number of mana stones that could propel an academy start to have a good start (that are legal to play) and I came up with the following:
2 Mana
Lots..... I won't bother listing them all lol.
I think to be completely fair with what is good and reasonable. The two hand discard / exile moxen and the mana crypt are the generally solid of the one mana artifacts. Lotus Petal is fairly solid as well for decks with good draw / fast wincons but beyond that I think its a bit of a stretch to broadly say the others really apply. That means we are looking at 4 zero mana stones. Sol Ring + Mana Vault are both good so that brings us to 6 mana stones in the 0-1 mana range.
Obviously I am not counting any of the utility artifacts in this just looking at mana producing stones but this still brings me to 6 cards that would enable this card, produce mana, and make for a strong opener. The number of other 0-1 mana artifacts you would want to run will depend a lot on the deck but I also think its relevant to this discussion to point out that there really aren't that many good mana stones and its a bit unreasonable to say that you are going to all of the time draw a bunch of those mana stones + a specific card like Tolarian Academy + a card to dump the mana to.
If I am omitting cards please let me know. I did what I could to point out the likely considerations. Its true that there are a lot of good options at 2+ mana that I didn't bother to list but I also think that to some degree when you look at casting 2 mana artifacts and having a land like this in play means that you are talking about drawing one of these six cards I mentioned primarily and chaining into those cards otherwise we are talking about this being a lot slower than a lot of people seem to think this is.
I am also not delving into the argument that running an artifact heavy build with Chrome Mox is probably at least a little questionable.
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Its like you think a blue ancient tomb that doesnt hurt you isn’t already the best land in the game.
I think that blue ancient tomb is like..... an optimal scenario. I think its potentially like a maze of ith with no activated ability half the time is my argument.
In all reality I think its actual use would be somewhere in between the two. Its very easy to look at the best case scenario and say ohhhhh man this will break magic. I just think far too many are looking at the best case scenario rather than what the average expected experience will be. You won't always have it in your opening hand and when you do have it in your opening hand what does the rest of your hand look like. This is a card that requires a lot of specific things to line up for it to work.
My point is more along the lines of please do some sample hands of what it takes to be good and then ask yourself how often you can make that happen. This is a blue card identity card with a very specific build and needs a mana dump which also tends to make it sort of specific in what commanders want to use it.
I just think that its more specific than a lot of people are giving it credit for. I probably could come up with at least 5 commanders that it would be amazing for but I don't think its the type of card that is like..... insert it into every blue deck and win the game because its there. Most of the decks that it would even be good in are already probably doing something horribly gross that the current banned list isn't geared to stop anyways.
I think you're missing a lot of cards, at the very least enlightened tutor, top and voltaic key and the baubles at 0 that suddenly become pretty playable. Also expedition map, which finds academy but also finds deserted temple for academy and becomes free with academy.
I think you're correct that you need to be playing 30 or so artifacts for it to be especially busted, but I think you're underestimating how many decks would want to do that to take advantage of academy.
Literally everyone I know has at least one artifact themed deck and one guy has like 4.
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My estimate just from running the previous math is that the odds of drawing an opener that makes it +2 mana on turn 2 is very high in a moderately tuned deck.
If you already have Tolarian academy in your hand, and the requirements are 1 0 / 1 cmc accelerant plus another 2 CMC or less artifact, we can assume:
* There are 7 0 or 1 cmc accelerants that will qualify
* there are 15 x <2 drop artifacts in your deck
Your chances of seeing an ancient tomb floor on turn 2 are:
49.8% of having an accelerant * 78% chance of having a <2 drop artifact == ~37.4%
This also does not take into account the simple combination of any 2 x 1 cmc artifacts and a land, which is also more common (lots of 1 cmc artifacts we would want to play, e.g. top/map/relic/spellbomb/etc.) I would expect that to be about another 30%., but I don't feel like making assumptions for that
So more than likely we're looking at close to 70% in a pretty good deck.
The odds of an explosive turn 3 become much higher, as the hand requirements are much lower, probably close to 60-70% chance of +3 mana on turn 3 in an even pretty good deck - probably even more if you tap TA to deploy more rocks.
My gut feeling is that even pretty tuned decks will out-generate Metalworker or Paradox Engine with a higher degree of consistency.
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TL;DR I think that it's true that TA requires a good deal of support (>= 30 artifacts for casual use, imho). I argued for this in another thread. unfortunately this "support" is one of the most popular deck building themes and there are many variations. TA's presence in the meta would also drive out non-blue artifact decks which would be a net loss IMHO.
Except you're ignoring the slew of cmc 1 artifacts that are out there that are playable. Having Tolaria Academy Tap for 2-3 mana on turn three is super easy even if you aren't building around it.
T1 sensei's, t2 signet and you're already at Ancient Tomb Level for T3 and probably around 5 mana total...having casted only one ramp card. Theres also at least a handfull of non-rock cmc 0 artifacts that see some play, depending on the deck, and others with X that could be casted earlier to enable Tolaria, such as Astral Cornucopia and Everflowing Chalice.
A blue Ancient Tomb is more like the generally default setting, not the optimal scenario. Optimal scenario is much, much worse.
The major distinction between TA and ancient tomb is you can go t1 ancient tomb signet, but TA is slower if you don't have accelerants already and can be straight up dead with some hands.
I do think that on the balance 'painless ancient tomb' is probably the average mode in a good focused deck but it definitely has a lower floor and a higher ceiling.
In an unfocused deck with say, 15-20 artifacts, it's going to be noticeably worse than ancient tomb. So there is that.
Well, having played type 2 when this was legal, along with mind over matter, stroke of genius, this deck was commonly a turn 1 kill. Even in EDH, i think there are enough redundant untap effects, 0 mana artefacts, and x-draw spells that you could mull till you find academy, and then wipe the table pretty quickly.
That being said, if the banlist is supposed to be fostering/introducing newer players from a public scene (i.e. in conventions, shops, whatever), then this should probably stay banned. I don't see it's utility offsetting the potential abuse (and subsequently scaring new players off).
Tolarian Academy is busted, look at competitive builds and see how many artifacts are being played, if you had Academy available, that # would increase exponentially. Blue is not supposed to be about Mana Acceleration.
I think people are not arguing from the perspective of competitive builds (again I am in agreement it is too good, but what impact it has on CEDH is largely irrelevant; otherwise vampiric tutor would be banned long since)
I think people are not arguing from the perspective of competitive builds (again I am in agreement it is too good, but what impact it has on CEDH is largely irrelevant; otherwise vampiric tutor would be banned long since)
I don't think it is a competitive mindset to say "hey this land gives me blue mana for running artifacts? I need ramp anyway so let me add more mana rocks."
Well, having played type 2 when this was legal, along with mind over matter, stroke of genius, this deck was commonly a turn 1 kill.
I hated Pre-Banning Tempest Block-5th Ed-Urza's Saga Standard. When the best sideboarding strategy was for players to board in 4 Tolarian Academy (even if they weren't blue) to try and prevent you from playing your Academy (old Legendary rules), then you know something was wrong. And hell, Raze became a thing when you were on the play.... so stupid.
Anyway, I would love to see Tolarian Academy unbanned for a few months just to see how it affects games (and let other players see it in action). I think that people will quickly realize that it is so much better than Gaea's Cradle and Serra's Sanctum that it's not funny. In the end, it should be banned for just being ridiculous.
On a side note, I remember thinking that when Odyssey came out that Cabal Coffers was seemingly the missing black entry into this cycle. It's too bad we never got a red version (maybe based on Sorceries and/or Instants in the graveyard). Red always gets shafted in the uncompleted cycle (Enlightened Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Worldly Tutor, and.... Gamble???)
I think that blue ancient tomb is like..... an optimal scenario. I think its potentially like a maze of ith with no activated ability half the time is my argument.
It's really not. In my Lavinia deck, most games I've got at least 1 cmc 1 or less artifact in my opening hand, and I've had multiple games where I do something like cast Lavinia and Rhystic Study on Turn 1.
I think that blue ancient tomb is like..... an optimal scenario. I think its potentially like a maze of ith with no activated ability half the time is my argument.
We are rather specifically looking at the average expected scenario, in a non-competative deck.
The optimal scenario is casting Time Spiral on turn 1. You know, the reason it was banned in Type 2 ('Standard').
This would be a rare occurrence in Commander, but not so rare it wouldn't happen.
It is trivially easy to play Tolarian Academy on turn 2, and have it tap for UU.
Turn 1: Darksteel Citadel, Voltaic Key.
Turn 2: Tolarian Academy, tap for UU. At least, that is what would have happened, except I used the Citadel to cast a Candelabra of Tawnos first.
I hated Pre-Banning Tempest Block-5th Ed-Urza's Saga Standard. When the best sideboarding strategy was for players to board in 4 Tolarian Academy (even if they weren't blue) to try and prevent you from playing your Academy (old Legendary rules), then you know something was wrong.
To add a bit of context for this, for those unfamiliar.
In 'Standard' at the time, there were two viable competitive decks. Blue, that used Academy, and mono Green, which did the above in addition to playing four Crop Rotation, whose primary purpose was to find those Academy's.
with 15 artifacts your odds of seeing >= 3 by turn 5 is only around 25%
with 20, 45%
There is also a non trivial chance you will see zero artficats (5-10% depending on number of artifacts) whereas ancient tomb is always 2 mana.
And this also assumes you will cast all of those artifacts. if stuff like wurmcoil engine or oblivion stone are in your hand yo may not want to run those out or may not be able to.
For this type of calculation, you need to use hypergeometric probability. Calculators for this are widely available online for ease of use.
With 15 artifacts, and a sample size of nine (9 - Academy, turn 2), you have a 35% chance of seeing two or more artifacts.
With 20 artifacts, and a sample size of eight (9 - Academy, turn 2), you have a 51% chance of seeing two or more artifacts.
This is discounting the other variables that would increase this likelihood (mulligan decisions, tutoring, draw, and selection effects, choice of Commander, etc).
Yes, Ancient Tomb is more consistent in such a deck, but does not produce colored mana, damages you when used, and does not scale as the game progresses. This is also using your example of a type of deck that it is questionable to play Academy in to begin with.
For a deck that actually wants Academy, ~15 artifacts is the expected concentration of CMC 0 & 1 cards, not the total artifact count. Many of those produce mana themselves, or otherwise enable mana producers, and so in turn allow CMC 2+ artifacts to be a significant consideration for turn 2 mana production.
Edit:
There is a 9.1% chance of drawing Academy by turn 2 (one in eleven games). This is again discounting the effects of mulligans, tutors, draw, etc. All of which increase that chance. In a deck that can appropriately use Academy, I expect it to see play by turn 2 roughly one out of six games.
There are too many variables to get an accurate calculation on the chance of it producing a given amount of mana, but a reasonable guess is 70% chance of it producing 2+ mana on turn 2, and a near guarantee of 3+ mana on turn 3. There is a not-insignificant chance of it producing that quantity of mana on turn 1.
When you consider the type of cards that enable it to produce that mana, and that the mana is U, opposed to C, it is going to define those games. Remember, an Academy tapping for UU on turn 2 generally means you have access to 10+ mana on turn 3.
with 15 artifacts your odds of seeing >= 3 by turn 5 is only around 25%
with 20, 45%
There is also a non trivial chance you will see zero artficats (5-10% depending on number of artifacts) whereas ancient tomb is always 2 mana.
And this also assumes you will cast all of those artifacts. if stuff like wurmcoil engine or oblivion stone are in your hand yo may not want to run those out or may not be able to.
Your analysis always leaves out card draw and selection, which is especially relevant in blue. If you are playing a blue deck that runs academy, and your only drawing the one card you get on your draw step, you probably have a lot of problems that game beyond not getting enough artifacts.
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For this type of calculation, you need to use hypergeometric probability. Calculators for this are widely available online for ease of use.
With 15 artifacts, and a sample size of nine (9 - Academy, turn 2), you have a 35% chance of seeing two or more artifacts.
With 20 artifacts, and a sample size of eight (9 - Academy, turn 2), you have a 51% chance of seeing two or more artifacts.
This is discounting the other variables that would increase this likelihood (mulligan decisions, tutoring, draw, and selection effects, choice of Commander, etc).
Yes, Ancient Tomb is more consistent in such a deck, but does not produce colored mana, damages you when used, and does not scale as the game progresses. This is also using your example of a type of deck that it is questionable to play Academy in to begin with.
For a deck that actually wants Academy, ~15 artifacts is the expected concentration of CMC 0 & 1 cards, not the total artifact count. Many of those produce mana themselves, or otherwise enable mana producers, and so in turn allow CMC 2+ artifacts to be a significant consideration for turn 2 mana production.
Edit:
There is a 9.1% chance of drawing Academy by turn 2 (one in eleven games). This is again discounting the effects of mulligans, tutors, draw, etc. All of which increase that chance. In a deck that can appropriately use Academy, I expect it to see play by turn 2 roughly one out of six games.
There are too many variables to get an accurate calculation on the chance of it producing a given amount of mana, but a reasonable guess is 70% chance of it producing 2+ mana on turn 2, and a near guarantee of 3+ mana on turn 3. There is a not-insignificant chance of it producing that quantity of mana on turn 1.
When you consider the type of cards that enable it to produce that mana, and that the mana is U, opposed to C, it is going to define those games. Remember, an Academy tapping for UU on turn 2 generally means you have access to 10+ mana on turn 3.
I used a hypergeometric calculator I just searched for >=3 instead of >=2 because to exceed ancient tomb you need to be at 3 not 2.
(my assumptions were: 12 card sample, 3+ successes, set of 99, 15 or 20 successes)
with 15 artifacts your odds of seeing >= 3 by turn 5 is only around 25%
with 20, 45%
There is also a non trivial chance you will see zero artficats (5-10% depending on number of artifacts) whereas ancient tomb is always 2 mana.
And this also assumes you will cast all of those artifacts. if stuff like wurmcoil engine or oblivion stone are in your hand yo may not want to run those out or may not be able to.
Your analysis always leaves out card draw and selection, which is especially relevant in blue. If you are playing a blue deck that runs academy, and your only drawing the one card you get on your draw step, you probably have a lot of problems that game beyond not getting enough artifacts.
I often will include enlightened tutor or similar but figuring out how much likelihood drawing brainstorm impacts your likelihood is beyond me with a hypergeo calculator...an 8% chance you see +2 cards? If you play all the cantrips it probably adds a fairly low chance, maybe another 30% chance you see +2 cards?
So what I did was bake in card selection by assuming turn 5 (12 cards) when Musp quoted turn 3. So I did account for it albeit loosely.
I hated Pre-Banning Tempest Block-5th Ed-Urza's Saga Standard. When the best sideboarding strategy was for players to board in 4 Tolarian Academy (even if they weren't blue) to try and prevent you from playing your Academy (old Legendary rules), then you know something was wrong.
To add a bit of context for this, for those unfamiliar.
In 'Standard' at the time, there were two viable competitive decks. Blue, that used Academy, and mono Green, which did the above in addition to playing four Crop Rotation, whose primary purpose was to find those Academy's.
Yes, that was a thing as well, but what I was specifically referring to was people playing the first few weeks of Type II who played mono-red Sligh (Jackal Pup, Cursed Scroll, Fireblast, etc.) were trying to play Raze, and some Necro decks were literally playing zero blue cards and SB 4 Academies (along with 4 MD Wastelands) because everyone knew that Academy was going to be busted.
And for sake of completeness, the top Type II decks were Academy, mono-black Necro or Hatred, mono-red Sligh, White Weenie, Rec-Sur, mono-G or GR Elves (with the aforementioned Crop Rotation for Gaea's Cradle or SB Academy), Counter-Slivers, and mono-U "Draw-Go". The format was still "diverse" for a time, but people were figuring out quickly that Academy was just too good not to play. Thank goodness for the bannings 2 months into the Type II season (where both Tolarian Academy and Windfall got the axe).
with 15 artifacts your odds of seeing >= 3 by turn 5 is only around 25%
with 20, 45%
There is also a non trivial chance you will see zero artifacts (5-10% depending on number of artifacts) whereas ancient tomb is always 2 mana.
And this also assumes you will cast all of those artifacts. if stuff like wurmcoil engine or oblivion stone are in your hand yo may not want to run those out or may not be able to.
The issue with the number of artifacts is that once you prioritize Academy (with cards like Tolaria West, Expedition Map, Crop Rotation, etc.) you are further incentivized to run ALL the possible fast artifact mana plus ways to abuse it (Frantic Search, Time Spiral, and the lovely idiotic Palinchron). For the fast mana, that number is probably around 20-25, not including any other non-mana producing artifacts or artifact lands.
We are also talking about a very heavy handed presence of 0-1 mana artifacts with this which is where it would shine the most. I am not saying that the existence of academy wouldn't change how some would build decks but I know I don't have any decks that run 15+ 0-1 mana artifacts. The number of commanders who have natural synergy for that sort of tactic aren't super high.
I am not arguing that the ceiling of this card can't be high, but I also think that its average use won't be anywhere near the ceiling capability of it. I agree that a lot of people probably would test it in decks where it won't be as optimal as the numbers we are throwing arround here and I think in a lot of those cases academy could be fine. I think its really going to come down to a few select commanders who might be able to make the card nuts but I would already say that the banned list probably doesn't all that well take them into consideration anyways. Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain is a commander who comes to mind for me who might be really nutty for it.
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I think I should clarify my position which is not that I am pro-academy just that I can see the rationale for thinking it wouldn't be that busted in most casual applications.
There are deckbuilding consequences to running huge amounts of ramp and also to running artifact answers to things--getting blown out by cards like Shatterstorm for example.
My position is more that it's just too good in even fairly optimized decks to be allowed, than that it's so bad it'd even be a problem in casual decks - which I think is taking it too far. I suspect Gaea's Cradle is more of a problem in casual low power decks than Academy but at the medium power level Academy gets too strong.
I think I should clarify my position which is not that I am pro-academy just that I can see the rationale for thinking it wouldn't be that busted in most casual applications.
There are deckbuilding consequences to running huge amounts of ramp and also to running artifact answers to things--getting blown out by cards like Shatterstorm for example.
My position is more that it's just too good in even fairly optimized decks to be allowed, than that it's so bad it'd even be a problem in casual decks - which I think is taking it too far. I suspect Gaea's Cradle is more of a problem in casual low power decks than Academy but at the medium power level Academy gets too strong.
Some of my issue is that its been banned so long that the testing of this card in this format is mostly something I can only theorize on. I saw firsthand a lot of newer bans and what they did to the format and a lot of the old cards I can theorycraft more on. Academy is a little harder to theorize because I can see the potential for a high ceiling for it but I can also see a lot of potential for it to just be a decent card or even potentially a not so stellar one.
Yes, that was a thing as well, but what I was specifically referring to was people playing the first few weeks of Type II who played mono-red Sligh (Jackal Pup, Cursed Scroll, Fireblast, etc.) were trying to play Raze, and some Necro decks were literally playing zero blue cards and SB 4 Academies (along with 4 MD Wastelands) because everyone knew that Academy was going to be busted.
And for sake of completeness, the top Type II decks were Academy, mono-black Necro or Hatred, mono-red Sligh, White Weenie, Rec-Sur, mono-G or GR Elves (with the aforementioned Crop Rotation for Gaea's Cradle or SB Academy), Counter-Slivers, and mono-U "Draw-Go". The format was still "diverse" for a time, but people were figuring out quickly that Academy was just too good not to play. Thank goodness for the bannings 2 months into the Type II season (where both Tolarian Academy and Windfall got the axe).
The issue with the number of artifacts is that once you prioritize Academy (with cards like Tolaria West, Expedition Map, Crop Rotation, etc.) you are further incentivized to run ALL the possible fast artifact mana plus ways to abuse it (Frantic Search, Time Spiral, and the lovely idiotic Palinchron). For the fast mana, that number is probably around 20-25, not including any other non-mana producing artifacts or artifact lands.
Academy is a place best left to the annals of MTG history and not someplace to go while sitting at a Commander game.
What you are eluding to is a competitive ramp deck which is not really the focus of the banned list. There is a good portion of those you really only use as combo enabler ramp cards. I am only bothering to point this out because if the reason you can't allow Academy in is these busted ramp / combo decks then maybe a number of those need to go instead.
2-5 mana fair ramp cards are not a reason this card needs to be banned.
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What you are eluding to is a competitive ramp deck which is not really the focus of the banned list. There is a good portion of those you really only use as combo enabler ramp cards. I am only bothering to point this out because if the reason you can't allow Academy in is these busted ramp / combo decks then maybe a number of those need to go instead.
2-5 mana fair ramp cards are not a reason this card needs to be banned.
I really wasn't talking about combo decks even though I can see why you thought that given that I wasn't really explicit.
Pretty much any artifact themed deck can get nuts with the number of cheap artifacts you can run, and I was just trying to list the most commonly played mana artifacts as a starting point to refute that players who run Academy will only draw 3-4 artifacts in a game. You may not run Pentad Prism, Lotus Petal, or Lion's Eye Diamond in a Arcum Daggson or Sydri, Galvanic Genius, but you are going to run pretty much everything else I mentioned (and then some, like Signets, Talismen, and other in-theme, non-mana cheap artifacts like Myr Retriever, Ichor Wellspring, Etherium Sculptor, and other often-seen cards like Lightning Greaves, Sensei's Divining Top, and Phyrexian Metamorph). Once you go down the artifact synergy route, you can end up with a deck that has 42-44 artifacts.
My point is that once you add Academy to the mix, then you are incentivized to want to run other cheap artifacts even if you aren't combo-ing out. It doesn't have to be all the fast artifact mana that make Academy ridiculous; it is any deck that decides that artifacts are the theme and takes that synergy to an extreme (which is what EDH players do). Even if you don't plan on "abusing" it and using it "fairly", the card can produce a ton of mana with minimal effort by just using all the commonly played artifacts (including 15-20 mana artifacts).
So while I get that we don't ban cards due to cEDH, I don't think cEDH is the only environment that would have problems.
I really wasn't talking about combo decks even though I can see why you thought that given that I wasn't really explicit.
Pretty much any artifact themed deck can get nuts with the number of cheap artifacts you can run, and I was just trying to list the most commonly played mana artifacts as a starting point to refute that players who run Academy will only draw 3-4 artifacts in a game. You may not run Pentad Prism, Lotus Petal, or Lion's Eye Diamond in a Arcum Daggson or Sydri, Galvanic Genius, but you are going to run pretty much everything else I mentioned (and then some, like Signets, Talismen, and other in-theme, non-mana cheap artifacts like Myr Retriever, Ichor Wellspring, Etherium Sculptor, and other often-seen cards like Lightning Greaves, Sensei's Divining Top, and Phyrexian Metamorph). Once you go down the artifact synergy route, you can end up with a deck that has 42-44 artifacts.
My point is that once you add Academy to the mix, then you are incentivized to want to run other cheap artifacts even if you aren't combo-ing out. It doesn't have to be all the fast artifact mana that make Academy ridiculous; it is any deck that decides that artifacts are the theme and takes that synergy to an extreme (which is what EDH players do). Even if you don't plan on "abusing" it and using it "fairly", the card can produce a ton of mana with minimal effort by just using all the commonly played artifacts (including 15-20 mana artifacts).
So while I get that we don't ban cards due to cEDH, I don't think cEDH is the only environment that would have problems.
If the deck is not a busted combo deck I think there are a number of other issues still:
The more "fair" your deck is the more likely you will be playing against decks that destroy all artifacts. Unlike creatures, its a lot harder to play one card and get multiple bodies out of it. This means that academy has a much worse over time gameplan than cradle does. Its upside is entirely on the front end assuming you play fast into a fast wincon.
Complexity, I keep hearing people saying that its easy to play a whole heap of artifacts early + academy. What does that leave you with for a hand? What are you using all this mana for or with? If you design a deck to play an early academy and ramp up what it can do it kind of has an issue that it doesn't really have good synergy with X mana spells. I am just saying if you design the deck in a way where it can put its hand into play on turns 2/3 then yea, your hand will be in play but what are you doing then? This again..... kind of goes back to this being probably a combo enabler in a lot of cases.
We keep talking about how "busted" this card can be. I keep seeing situations where its like..... more situational sol ring starts that require specific hands and colors. I am not saying that Sol Ring is a fair card but its also not banned and it doesn't require you to build in any direction or way. This isn't me saying we need to ban Sol Ring but I am just saying, in light of that thought it makes this argument look a little different to me.
I still think that in a lot of cases its not going to spin up with as much mana or as fast as a lot of people have been saying. You can cherry pick all day and say what about this hand or that but most decks don't build heavy on 0-1 mana artifacts. I used to play Kozilek, the Great Distortion with like literally almost every ramp stone in existence and while I could pick out hands where I could T1-T2 him I never experienced any game faster than T3. There were actually somewhat of a lot of ways in which I could have potentially gotten him T2 but even with all of that my average was something like T4-T5 with a good hand. I only bring this up because it was a deck where I was running almost every possible artifact ramp option out there so it feels a bit like this discussion.
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This is a gross misunderstanding of how Tolarian Academy is enabled, and ties into the oft used comparison to Gaea's Cradle.
Most of the enablers for Academy produce mana, and do so the turn they enter the battlefield. More, the early enablers often produce more mana than they cost. This creates an escalating effect that is not really seen anywhere else. That artifacts tend to be more resilient than creatures is another minor benefit.
Realistically, in any deck where Academy can be considered better than Island, it being capable of producing two mana on turn 2, and three mana on turn 3 is the minimum expectation of any game it shows up, and the cards that allow it to produce that mana themselves produce as much.
Realistically, it is more than doubling the rate you produce mana early game, in a deck that is already ramping.
It (and Channel) are kind of the definition of 'Produces too much mana to quickly'.
Convince the Rules Community to finally ban Mana Crypt and Sol Ring, and I am willing to entertain an argument for Academy being unbanned, but strongly suspect even then that it is still far to strong.
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If, say
were banned, I could definitely see Tolarian Academy being OK.
But I'm not sure that's good for the format as it kinda centralizes artifact ramp decks in blue pretty hard. And mana rocks are really the only thing keeping green decks honest today.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
0 Mana
1 Mana
2 Mana
Lots..... I won't bother listing them all lol.
I think to be completely fair with what is good and reasonable. The two hand discard / exile moxen and the mana crypt are the generally solid of the one mana artifacts. Lotus Petal is fairly solid as well for decks with good draw / fast wincons but beyond that I think its a bit of a stretch to broadly say the others really apply. That means we are looking at 4 zero mana stones. Sol Ring + Mana Vault are both good so that brings us to 6 mana stones in the 0-1 mana range.
Obviously I am not counting any of the utility artifacts in this just looking at mana producing stones but this still brings me to 6 cards that would enable this card, produce mana, and make for a strong opener. The number of other 0-1 mana artifacts you would want to run will depend a lot on the deck but I also think its relevant to this discussion to point out that there really aren't that many good mana stones and its a bit unreasonable to say that you are going to all of the time draw a bunch of those mana stones + a specific card like Tolarian Academy + a card to dump the mana to.
If I am omitting cards please let me know. I did what I could to point out the likely considerations. Its true that there are a lot of good options at 2+ mana that I didn't bother to list but I also think that to some degree when you look at casting 2 mana artifacts and having a land like this in play means that you are talking about drawing one of these six cards I mentioned primarily and chaining into those cards otherwise we are talking about this being a lot slower than a lot of people seem to think this is.
I am also not delving into the argument that running an artifact heavy build with Chrome Mox is probably at least a little questionable.
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I think that blue ancient tomb is like..... an optimal scenario. I think its potentially like a maze of ith with no activated ability half the time is my argument.
In all reality I think its actual use would be somewhere in between the two. Its very easy to look at the best case scenario and say ohhhhh man this will break magic. I just think far too many are looking at the best case scenario rather than what the average expected experience will be. You won't always have it in your opening hand and when you do have it in your opening hand what does the rest of your hand look like. This is a card that requires a lot of specific things to line up for it to work.
My point is more along the lines of please do some sample hands of what it takes to be good and then ask yourself how often you can make that happen. This is a blue card identity card with a very specific build and needs a mana dump which also tends to make it sort of specific in what commanders want to use it.
I just think that its more specific than a lot of people are giving it credit for. I probably could come up with at least 5 commanders that it would be amazing for but I don't think its the type of card that is like..... insert it into every blue deck and win the game because its there. Most of the decks that it would even be good in are already probably doing something horribly gross that the current banned list isn't geared to stop anyways.
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I think you're correct that you need to be playing 30 or so artifacts for it to be especially busted, but I think you're underestimating how many decks would want to do that to take advantage of academy.
Literally everyone I know has at least one artifact themed deck and one guy has like 4.
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My estimate just from running the previous math is that the odds of drawing an opener that makes it +2 mana on turn 2 is very high in a moderately tuned deck.
If you already have Tolarian academy in your hand, and the requirements are 1 0 / 1 cmc accelerant plus another 2 CMC or less artifact, we can assume:
* There are 7 0 or 1 cmc accelerants that will qualify
* there are 15 x <2 drop artifacts in your deck
Your chances of seeing an ancient tomb floor on turn 2 are:
49.8% of having an accelerant * 78% chance of having a <2 drop artifact == ~37.4%
This also does not take into account the simple combination of any 2 x 1 cmc artifacts and a land, which is also more common (lots of 1 cmc artifacts we would want to play, e.g. top/map/relic/spellbomb/etc.) I would expect that to be about another 30%., but I don't feel like making assumptions for that
So more than likely we're looking at close to 70% in a pretty good deck.
The odds of an explosive turn 3 become much higher, as the hand requirements are much lower, probably close to 60-70% chance of +3 mana on turn 3 in an even pretty good deck - probably even more if you tap TA to deploy more rocks.
My gut feeling is that even pretty tuned decks will out-generate Metalworker or Paradox Engine with a higher degree of consistency.
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TL;DR I think that it's true that TA requires a good deal of support (>= 30 artifacts for casual use, imho). I argued for this in another thread. unfortunately this "support" is one of the most popular deck building themes and there are many variations. TA's presence in the meta would also drive out non-blue artifact decks which would be a net loss IMHO.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
T1 sensei's, t2 signet and you're already at Ancient Tomb Level for T3 and probably around 5 mana total...having casted only one ramp card. Theres also at least a handfull of non-rock cmc 0 artifacts that see some play, depending on the deck, and others with X that could be casted earlier to enable Tolaria, such as Astral Cornucopia and Everflowing Chalice.
A blue Ancient Tomb is more like the generally default setting, not the optimal scenario. Optimal scenario is much, much worse.
I do think that on the balance 'painless ancient tomb' is probably the average mode in a good focused deck but it definitely has a lower floor and a higher ceiling.
In an unfocused deck with say, 15-20 artifacts, it's going to be noticeably worse than ancient tomb. So there is that.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
That being said, if the banlist is supposed to be fostering/introducing newer players from a public scene (i.e. in conventions, shops, whatever), then this should probably stay banned. I don't see it's utility offsetting the potential abuse (and subsequently scaring new players off).
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I don't think it is a competitive mindset to say "hey this land gives me blue mana for running artifacts? I need ramp anyway so let me add more mana rocks."
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I hated Pre-Banning Tempest Block-5th Ed-Urza's Saga Standard. When the best sideboarding strategy was for players to board in 4 Tolarian Academy (even if they weren't blue) to try and prevent you from playing your Academy (old Legendary rules), then you know something was wrong. And hell, Raze became a thing when you were on the play.... so stupid.
Anyway, I would love to see Tolarian Academy unbanned for a few months just to see how it affects games (and let other players see it in action). I think that people will quickly realize that it is so much better than Gaea's Cradle and Serra's Sanctum that it's not funny. In the end, it should be banned for just being ridiculous.
On a side note, I remember thinking that when Odyssey came out that Cabal Coffers was seemingly the missing black entry into this cycle. It's too bad we never got a red version (maybe based on Sorceries and/or Instants in the graveyard). Red always gets shafted in the uncompleted cycle (Enlightened Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Worldly Tutor, and.... Gamble???)
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We are rather specifically looking at the average expected scenario, in a non-competative deck.
The optimal scenario is casting Time Spiral on turn 1. You know, the reason it was banned in Type 2 ('Standard').
This would be a rare occurrence in Commander, but not so rare it wouldn't happen.
It is trivially easy to play Tolarian Academy on turn 2, and have it tap for UU.
Turn 1: Darksteel Citadel, Voltaic Key.
Turn 2: Tolarian Academy, tap for UU. At least, that is what would have happened, except I used the Citadel to cast a Candelabra of Tawnos first.
In that scenario, it is worse than Ancient Tomb on average turn 1, roughly equal on turn 2, and better for the rest of the game.
To add a bit of context for this, for those unfamiliar.
In 'Standard' at the time, there were two viable competitive decks. Blue, that used Academy, and mono Green, which did the above in addition to playing four Crop Rotation, whose primary purpose was to find those Academy's.
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with 15 artifacts your odds of seeing >= 3 by turn 5 is only around 25%
with 20, 45%
There is also a non trivial chance you will see zero artficats (5-10% depending on number of artifacts) whereas ancient tomb is always 2 mana.
And this also assumes you will cast all of those artifacts. if stuff like wurmcoil engine or oblivion stone are in your hand yo may not want to run those out or may not be able to.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
With 15 artifacts, and a sample size of nine (9 - Academy, turn 2), you have a 35% chance of seeing two or more artifacts.
With 20 artifacts, and a sample size of eight (9 - Academy, turn 2), you have a 51% chance of seeing two or more artifacts.
This is discounting the other variables that would increase this likelihood (mulligan decisions, tutoring, draw, and selection effects, choice of Commander, etc).
Yes, Ancient Tomb is more consistent in such a deck, but does not produce colored mana, damages you when used, and does not scale as the game progresses. This is also using your example of a type of deck that it is questionable to play Academy in to begin with.
For a deck that actually wants Academy, ~15 artifacts is the expected concentration of CMC 0 & 1 cards, not the total artifact count. Many of those produce mana themselves, or otherwise enable mana producers, and so in turn allow CMC 2+ artifacts to be a significant consideration for turn 2 mana production.
Edit:
There is a 9.1% chance of drawing Academy by turn 2 (one in eleven games). This is again discounting the effects of mulligans, tutors, draw, etc. All of which increase that chance. In a deck that can appropriately use Academy, I expect it to see play by turn 2 roughly one out of six games.
There are too many variables to get an accurate calculation on the chance of it producing a given amount of mana, but a reasonable guess is 70% chance of it producing 2+ mana on turn 2, and a near guarantee of 3+ mana on turn 3. There is a not-insignificant chance of it producing that quantity of mana on turn 1.
When you consider the type of cards that enable it to produce that mana, and that the mana is U, opposed to C, it is going to define those games. Remember, an Academy tapping for UU on turn 2 generally means you have access to 10+ mana on turn 3.
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Your analysis always leaves out card draw and selection, which is especially relevant in blue. If you are playing a blue deck that runs academy, and your only drawing the one card you get on your draw step, you probably have a lot of problems that game beyond not getting enough artifacts.
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I used a hypergeometric calculator I just searched for >=3 instead of >=2 because to exceed ancient tomb you need to be at 3 not 2.
(my assumptions were: 12 card sample, 3+ successes, set of 99, 15 or 20 successes)
I often will include enlightened tutor or similar but figuring out how much likelihood drawing brainstorm impacts your likelihood is beyond me with a hypergeo calculator...an 8% chance you see +2 cards? If you play all the cantrips it probably adds a fairly low chance, maybe another 30% chance you see +2 cards?
So what I did was bake in card selection by assuming turn 5 (12 cards) when Musp quoted turn 3. So I did account for it albeit loosely.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Yes, that was a thing as well, but what I was specifically referring to was people playing the first few weeks of Type II who played mono-red Sligh (Jackal Pup, Cursed Scroll, Fireblast, etc.) were trying to play Raze, and some Necro decks were literally playing zero blue cards and SB 4 Academies (along with 4 MD Wastelands) because everyone knew that Academy was going to be busted.
And for sake of completeness, the top Type II decks were Academy, mono-black Necro or Hatred, mono-red Sligh, White Weenie, Rec-Sur, mono-G or GR Elves (with the aforementioned Crop Rotation for Gaea's Cradle or SB Academy), Counter-Slivers, and mono-U "Draw-Go". The format was still "diverse" for a time, but people were figuring out quickly that Academy was just too good not to play. Thank goodness for the bannings 2 months into the Type II season (where both Tolarian Academy and Windfall got the axe).
The issue with the number of artifacts is that once you prioritize Academy (with cards like Tolaria West, Expedition Map, Crop Rotation, etc.) you are further incentivized to run ALL the possible fast artifact mana plus ways to abuse it (Frantic Search, Time Spiral, and the lovely idiotic Palinchron). For the fast mana, that number is probably around 20-25, not including any other non-mana producing artifacts or artifact lands.
0 Mox Diamond
0 Chrome Mox
0 Mox Opal
0 Lion's Eye Diamond
0 Mana Crypt
0 Everflowing Chalice
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Voltaic Key
2 Grim Monolith
2 Pentad Prism
2 Fellwar Stone
2 Mind Stone
2 Thought Vessel
3 Basalt Monolith
3 Metalworker
3 Worn Powerstone
3 Coalition Relic
4 Thran Dynamo
4 Sisay's Ring
4 Ur-Golem's Eye
4 Hedron Archive
5 Gilded Lotus
5 Paradox Engine
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I am not arguing that the ceiling of this card can't be high, but I also think that its average use won't be anywhere near the ceiling capability of it. I agree that a lot of people probably would test it in decks where it won't be as optimal as the numbers we are throwing arround here and I think in a lot of those cases academy could be fine. I think its really going to come down to a few select commanders who might be able to make the card nuts but I would already say that the banned list probably doesn't all that well take them into consideration anyways. Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain is a commander who comes to mind for me who might be really nutty for it.
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There are deckbuilding consequences to running huge amounts of ramp and also to running artifact answers to things--getting blown out by cards like Shatterstorm for example.
My position is more that it's just too good in even fairly optimized decks to be allowed, than that it's so bad it'd even be a problem in casual decks - which I think is taking it too far. I suspect Gaea's Cradle is more of a problem in casual low power decks than Academy but at the medium power level Academy gets too strong.
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Some of my issue is that its been banned so long that the testing of this card in this format is mostly something I can only theorize on. I saw firsthand a lot of newer bans and what they did to the format and a lot of the old cards I can theorycraft more on. Academy is a little harder to theorize because I can see the potential for a high ceiling for it but I can also see a lot of potential for it to just be a decent card or even potentially a not so stellar one.
What you are eluding to is a competitive ramp deck which is not really the focus of the banned list. There is a good portion of those you really only use as combo enabler ramp cards. I am only bothering to point this out because if the reason you can't allow Academy in is these busted ramp / combo decks then maybe a number of those need to go instead.
2-5 mana fair ramp cards are not a reason this card needs to be banned.
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I really wasn't talking about combo decks even though I can see why you thought that given that I wasn't really explicit.
Pretty much any artifact themed deck can get nuts with the number of cheap artifacts you can run, and I was just trying to list the most commonly played mana artifacts as a starting point to refute that players who run Academy will only draw 3-4 artifacts in a game. You may not run Pentad Prism, Lotus Petal, or Lion's Eye Diamond in a Arcum Daggson or Sydri, Galvanic Genius, but you are going to run pretty much everything else I mentioned (and then some, like Signets, Talismen, and other in-theme, non-mana cheap artifacts like Myr Retriever, Ichor Wellspring, Etherium Sculptor, and other often-seen cards like Lightning Greaves, Sensei's Divining Top, and Phyrexian Metamorph). Once you go down the artifact synergy route, you can end up with a deck that has 42-44 artifacts.
My point is that once you add Academy to the mix, then you are incentivized to want to run other cheap artifacts even if you aren't combo-ing out. It doesn't have to be all the fast artifact mana that make Academy ridiculous; it is any deck that decides that artifacts are the theme and takes that synergy to an extreme (which is what EDH players do). Even if you don't plan on "abusing" it and using it "fairly", the card can produce a ton of mana with minimal effort by just using all the commonly played artifacts (including 15-20 mana artifacts).
So while I get that we don't ban cards due to cEDH, I don't think cEDH is the only environment that would have problems.
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Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
If the deck is not a busted combo deck I think there are a number of other issues still:
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