MTG Salvation

Excellent card. Probably won't make it into the older formats thanks to Toxic Deluge but Standard/Modern? I can certainly see it.

Quote from MRHblue »

This is such a cop out. There isn't some requirement that people play EDH to do anything. Its not part of a Pro tour or anything else they would need to do. People can choose to play or not, but they need to take some personal responsibility, either play with the rules provided or make their own.

And again, that is not an option for many players. The argument that "You should change things for yourselves" is the cop out, not the other way around. The "official" banlist for the format should never rely on house rules or community policing, because just as you said, if that's an option then anyone can do that for themselves, they don't need a RC to do it for them. The "official" banlist is there for people who cannot use house rules for whatever reason.

And indeed, people have the option to simply not play (and there are those that do) but at that point you're simply getting back to the original issue I have with them. They would rather have everyone quit (hypothetically) than change their vision. Again, sure that's "respectable" (if self-destructive) for an individual to say, it's not nearly as admirable for a governing body to say, in my opinion of course.

Quote from MRHblue »

The community was instrumental in getting Metalworker unbanned, and Prophet banned. Thats taking actual responsibility for your fun.

Instrumental you say? How so? I was around for both of those events and in neither case do I remember anything especially instrumental happening on the community end. Of course this is simply dragging things off onto tangents. There is no argument that the community isn't instrumental, the RC has literally said as much. Literally. The RC's "vision" is instrumental, the community is secondary. I'm honestly not sure why you're arguing that when they've said as such multiple times.

Quote from Fiveod »

Yeah that's kind of a weird thing for him to say and all, but for now their vision is working so who cares? If it stops working then we can reevaluate. No need to get our undies twisted up about hypotheticals.

And your evidence that their "vision" is working is what? And no "the format is growing" is not proof. You would need to somehow tie that growth to their "vision" which I doubt anyone has the ability to do. For all you or I know the format would grow without their "vision" and heck for all we know it's growing in spite of it. The fact that Wizards/various forums advertise the existence of the format almost assuredly has done more for the growth of the format than the "vision" has (just to give one example of a factor that affects growth). That said, I can't prove it hinders it either. All I know is that their "vision" is all that matters to them, so discussion is pointless unless your view aligns with theirs.

Quote from VashBismark »

Pretty inaccurate statement right there man. I would take some time to go through some of the threads in this subforum and see how often papafunk and Sheldon comment on some of the cards we discuss.

They do comment (on occasion anyhow). It's those comments and the position behind them that bother me. And when that position is "I would rather see the format die then change from my 'vision' even if hypothetically it could be proven that the vast majority want a change." they do have a pretty foolproof response (and one that cemented my disdain for them since then). It's not really worth talking to them anymore at that point. So mission accomplished?

I'm going to have to dig up that quote at some point but 1000 page threads suck to skim through.

Quote from MRHblue »

No, they don't bother to try pleasing everyone. Because they know its a fool's errand. Your position was they only care about their own group. That is demonstrably false.

It's not so much that they don't try to please everyone, it's that they don't try to please anyone (except those that agree with them). There is a difference. And no it's really not demonstrably false, they have banned/unbanned cards that the community wanted banned/unbanned (and of course not banned/unbanned other cards the community has been vocal about) but there is no way to demonstrate that this was in any way them going along with the community rather than them going along with their own interests/"vision" (and in fact their posts prove that their "vision" is what decides the format, community be damned, so if anything it's proven true).

Here is the quote (yay, search feature):

Quote from Sheldon »

Quote from atlas_hugged »

Hypothetical: if you ever felt that your vision was no longer desired by the majority of the players in the format, would you change the direction you're taking with the format?

Majority? No. Overwhelming majority? Still pretty much no. I'll draw an analogy to a TV show, like maybe Arrested Development. From the beginning the show had a particular vision of the kind of comedy it was going to do. When the masses didn't like it, the producers continued with their vision, even if in the end, the ratings got so low they were cancelled. For them, the important part was the vision, not the popularity. It's kind of the same with us. We want to make the format accessible to a broad audience, but since there's no way that audience ever includes everyone, raw populism is just a path to destruction. We never want to a be a least common denominator thing (and unlike a TV show, don't need to worry about money). Our message the whole time is "this is the direction we're going, we hope you follow along," understanding that YMMV. If our vision leads to the death of the format as we know it (which we have pretty good evidence won't happen), then so be it. I'd rather die as myself than live as someone else.

Just supplying it since I referenced it a number of times. There are other more concise quotes but this is the most brazen one.

Quote from FeralNSFW »

The RC's attitude if you don't like it is to convince your playgroup to implement a house rule. The easy analogy here is open source software: if you don't like the canonical version, modify it yourself.

And this arguement falls flat on its face (even in a "casual" setting) when you play on MtGO, or in a neutral location like a card shop, and you don't get to change the rules. You're forced to use the "official" banlist/rules, like it or not. As such, I would very much prefer the banlist to be handled by people who actually care about people as a whole, rather than foisting the issues on others to handle for themselves. If they don't want to handle it then why should they be the ones allowed to?

Quote from Onering »

Counterpoint: The Modern Banlist.

I trust the RC more than WotC not to make egregious mistakes. And to admit them quickly and fix them when they do.

Counterpoint: The laughable list of cards that are not banned in Commander (of which Sol Ring is the obvious poster child). Compared to that the Modern Banlist is a masterpiece.

And no, the RC is not and has never been interested in changing nor admitting mistakes. They've outright said that they do not care what the majority of the community wants and would rather see the format die than change their philosophy (it's buried in one of the banlist discussion threads, forgive me if I don't dig it up to quote here). I can trust WotC to at least do the profitable thing, I can't trust RC to do anything but what they want to do.

Quote from darrenhabib »

I looked up the top 25 list and certainly is domination by ETB, but not exclusively, for example Magus of the Wheel, Viashino Heretic. If the case was that any creature that requires a full turn to get value because it give opponents an unreasonable amount of time to stop them, then these wouldn't make the list. I'm not saying that it doesn't make them weaker, it certainly does, but its doesn't automatically not make them a good card.

The top50 list is not universally competitive, especially when we're talking about red creature cards (Red is by far the worst color in EDH because it lacks good cards, which is why mono-red EDH usually leans heavily on artifacts). Neither of the cards you listed as examples are actually very good in a highly competitive sense and neither sees play in many decks so...

Quote from darrenhabib »

Limited selection? 1997 instants and counting...forever. Limited is not the word when talking about Kaho.

I would use it to describe her, yes. It's limited in two ways, 1) it's only instants in your deck (not from anywhere so those grandiose statements about how many instants there are in the game means diddly) and 2) once you've tutored you're limited to the cards you tutored for, meaning you can't modify your selections to account for changing conditions. You can say that applies to all tutors but Kaho needs to be played preemptively and the decision needs to be made at that point. Merchant Scroll can be played the same turn you need the card which is (one of the reasons) why it's leagues better than Kaho even with an more limited selection of searchable targets.

Quote from darrenhabib »

Limited activation. Yes, but I'm showing how if you are sequencing in special ways your turning her into other cards. She herself becomes redundant if you've managed get what you wanted.

And the hoops you need to jump through to get those cards put her well behind countless other tutors (even outside of black).

Quote from darrenhabib »

High mana cost? Would I like her to be 3 mana? Of course, but 4 is not unreasonable for the power level that she can bring. I would not say that she is overpriced. If you're just saying that in your 4 CMC slot in your decks you're looking at more effective cards? Will always depend on what your deck is trying to do.

Yes, four mana is frankly too much for her. Heck four mana is too much for Diabolic Tutor and it at least gets you any card you want right away. Even three mana tutors like Grim Tutor often fail to make the cut in competitive decks. By the time four mana hits you can't afford to waste a turn doing exactly nothing of impact, you need to either be advancing your win con or stopping another player from winning.

Quote from darrenhabib »

Excessive mana cost to activate? 1-3 mana normally (can be colorless), is the sort of activation costs you're looking at. This is certainly not excessive.

Uh, yeah it is. The best tutors have no cost at all (or they give a cost break). With Kaho you're gating key cards behind a clunky wall of activation requirements and you don't even get a cost break for doing so. Why is Arcum Dagsson fairly good when he has many of the same issues as Kaho? One of the reasons is because he cheats mana costs like a mad man. He lets you trade 0~2 mana artifact tokens (usually) for 6+ mana game winning artifacts. If he had to actually pay for the cards (like Kaho does) he would be almost as weak as she is (and even then he would still be better... Which is saying something).

I am being a bit hard on her though. In EDH Tutors of any kind are naturally good. So even though I hardly think Kaho ranks anywhere close to the best non-black tutor, she is still a tutor and that means she's better than many other potential cards that could be put in the deck. Good enough to break into that 100 card threshold? Eh...

Quote from darrenhabib »

The argument almost becomes that because she is such a powerful card that she must be answered before you get to use her. This is a hallmark for any great card. She certainly joins those ranks.

No the hallmark of a good EDH card (and to a certain degree Magic in general) is that it does whatever it does without allowing your opponent to respond (counterspells being one of the obvious exceptions). This is why ETB effects (or ones you can pay mana for immediately) rule and tap or attack triggers need to be game winning to see play. The more time the card gives your opponents to answer it the worse the card becomes... Which is why Kaho isn't a good card. She gives your opponents an unreasonably long time to stop her before she does anything of value at all. The fact that she has even more limits on her on top of her already weak showing (limited selection, limited activation, high mana cost, excessive mana cost to activate) just further sinks her already dubious ship.

Pretty crazy. This will definitely see play, maybe in many formats.

Pairing them by guild color, because.

1. Orzhov. Knocked it out of the park, these Commanders are beautiful. Both do new things for the color combination that this color combination wants.
2. Golgari. While it feels like more of the same, who even plays Golgari right now anyway? There's Jarad, and then... Skullbriar? Sapling? Savra? I've never seen anything but a Jarad at a table in these colors. I think people will build around and play both of these Commanders as they both have very obvious uses. Meren is like a two color (and easily obtainable) Adun Oakenshield, and Mazirek opens up a sacrifice-based deck that likes going wide, very aristocrats-ey... while Savra players probably claim she already did what these two do, ultimately I think they're a lot fresher than people give them credit for.
3. Izzet. 100% of the hate these Commanders get is because neither of them have "artifact" printed on them. Really, I don't think we can surprised to get spellslinger Commanders for a guild whose only thing is slinging spells. And they're both really neat effects to have in the Command Zone, as we've never had the option for a cost-reducer (unless anyone was playing GAAIV slinger?) or Mindmoil at the helm before. Unfortunately, the lists will probably be similar to existing lists but the effects are so strong that I think they'll replace the Commanders people are using right now. I'll just keep playing Nin as an artifact Commander and enjoy the new toys.
4. Simic. While I'll give Wiz props for not making "ramp and draw cards!" Commanders for Simic, overall I think that's what people largely want to be doing in U/G. So, the best thing I can say about them is that the don't make the best two-color combination better (not exactly a selling point). I think Kaseto isn't very good and Snake tribal wasn't a thing I ever heard anyone clamoring for, and Ezuri is fine and I'm sure there are folks who will like him, putting Simic above...
5. Boros. Kalemne is... not bad, big dudes boros hasn't really been a thing before, so I guess there's that. Nobody likes that angel whose name I won't even bother to scroll up to learn. I don't think I have to explain why people are disappointed by these. I guess I'll have to wait to build a Boros deck, which I was actually looking forward to...