Following Pokken and Onering I have never seen it being played in non cEDH decks in my current meta, the previous one, or the other lgs I’ve been to. I’m sure someone must jam it in a regular deck, but I highly doubt it’s problematic to a bannable extent, if problematic at all.
In that same podcast, or a similar one, most (i think all) of the CAG members there didnt think that PE was an issue cause it wasnt that strong or they didn’t really see it being played. They also had some other pretty hot takes, so we’ll see. The only thing I’ve heard reliably is that some relevant change is coming (ie not just to the document).
It also means you can’t fetch, shock, or city of brass/mana confluence into the mana to play it. It’s also much worse topdeck as at any point you’re more likely to have lost a single life than 30.
Banning for combos in EDH is pretty awkward. Due to the large padding of 40 life there are so many viable combos in regular EDH (as opposed to cEDH) that it would be crazy to even attempt it. You can ask 20 people what they think is degenerate and get a thousand different answers. Ie, I would personally be more bothered to see Earthcraft in a regular game than Food Chain, because turning all of your creatures into better Birds of Paradise to keep chaining casts > losing your creatures permanently for a quick boost in mana.
I would think just lowering the life would be enough to reign in the power of combos in your average EDH game. It could potentially push people into tighter, faster, and more efficient combos, but I would think that most of the people who would be interested in going in that direction are already interested in cEDH anyways.
The bad thing that someone mentioned in the other thread is that it would potentially make the 'ideal' battlecruiser style decks worse.
I honestly do not think that the RCs vision of EDH is something that can really hold up outside of groups of friends who can easily tailor the experience to their tastes, specially not if people are not willing to discuss what they expect of the game as they go into it.
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).
You should be able to filter by cards, ie shove in Mana Cryp and Mox Diamond in addition to the legendary and you should get more results in line with actual cEDH.
I have a Riku deck with flash, hulk, and food chain and it doesn’t do anything particularly degenerate beyond some raw value... because it’s not designed be degenerate.
Pretty sure setting up a combo that draws you 35 cards isn’t in the same league as card draws 35 just by coming into play. He might become a pretty good clone/steal/reanimate target, but at eight mana and not doing much alone I can’t imagine it being too prevalent. So for me the question is “is setting up a combo that just draws your deck worse for the format than other things out there?” and I feel it’s a pretty solid “no”. Enter the Infinite already does that for a few extra mana, and while sure you can cheat this out..you still need to also assemble the combo.
Yeah, with how fast that was the first post was pretty unnecessary. I'm sure people voiced their opinions at the RC the instant WotC put out the announcement, regardless of whether or not Sheldon claimed to be open to opinions.
Should be this
My money is on rules changes, maybe BaaC coming back.
Maybe some unbans.
Nothing too drastic in general.
I would think just lowering the life would be enough to reign in the power of combos in your average EDH game. It could potentially push people into tighter, faster, and more efficient combos, but I would think that most of the people who would be interested in going in that direction are already interested in cEDH anyways.
The bad thing that someone mentioned in the other thread is that it would potentially make the 'ideal' battlecruiser style decks worse.
I honestly do not think that the RCs vision of EDH is something that can really hold up outside of groups of friends who can easily tailor the experience to their tastes, specially not if people are not willing to discuss what they expect of the game as they go into 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).
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