MTG Salvation

Oh look, here's the assembly line for Divine Visitation...

Good to know, ElliotS. I guess that changed since the last time I looked.

I did something similar, only on the opposite end(I was the tempter). A guy had been able to hit me with a Voltron deck a few times, and when I tempted, he tutored up a Rogue's Passage, which prompted me to tutor up Ghost Quarter for an answer from one of the other temptees. I was willing to take the mana hit to prevent an unblockable beatdown...

Quote from Taleran »

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Also it has become what people are used to and I find MtG to be a slow turning stick to the course kind of product generally.

Given how long it took to get rid of mana burn specifically, you have a point. On the flip side, the same point shows what you are likely silently acknowledging...anything is possible in the future.

Quote from JWK »

One of the game's original big bombs, it's kind of outclassed these days but still playable, especially these days when there are so many ways to turn sacrificing creatures into an advantage. I considered running him while coming up with the original list for my Meren deck, but the high ends of my mana curves are usually competitive, so he just didn't make the cut. If I ever get around to doing demon tribal, he'll be there.

We must share the same thought, 'cause he IS in my wife's demon tribal, lol.

I usually ran this guy exclusively with Breeding Pit back in the day. Look forward to seeing my wife drop him at our LGS meta and the accompanying, "What's this guy do?". Having a bunch of old cards, I live for moments like that.

Quote from Impossible »

Quote from Onering »

The threat of an out of nowhere victory with limited telegraphing and a narrow range of answers that must be deployed in an extremely short window makes the best strategy simply not letting the 5 color deck play with their commander. The ever present threat and the line of play it necessitates is the undesirable game state.

I don't particularly want to derail this thread, but this is just nonsense. There are dozens of cards that can win the game with no warning as long as you are in the correct colors. Do you also think the correct answer to a G/x player is to kill them before they can generate 9 mana for a Tooth and Nail?

Generally speaking? Yes. That, or keep them from having a ton of mana dorks(or weenies in general) on the field. That's been my experience, and probably a number of others, so much so that you better believe I give every G/x player the hairy eyeball at 6 mana, let alone 9.

Quote from Kangodo »

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Nope.. The goal of the increased life total was to make sure Commander is a bit slower. Not to make sure people have 1 mana 6/6 creatures.

Your slippery slope is a fallacy.

So either additional rules to deal with this or just outright ban them. I don't really care either way.

1. The increased life total => slower games was A goal, not THE goal. Being able to make big, splashy plays is another goal. But that's not the singular case either; if that were, infect cards would be one of the first ones banned. Those seem to be noticeably missing from the ban list, yes?

2. It's not a fallacy; if you start adding additional rules to one thing, you will need to continue on with everything else, because of the prevailing, perpetual argument of "Why not this? It's close enough.". Either you lay a line down now and stick with it, or you find your original good intentions paving a road to...well, you know where.

3. Are you backpedaling, or moving the goalposts? Either you want additional rules, or you don't care if it's additional rules or banning. Though I guess it's a moot point, because as has been stated more than enough times, SA is not the majority game-wrecking threat people think it is to really require either.

Quote from Taleran »

I just don't see a difference between the numbers and just telling people what kinds of decks you play.

Like Casual - Casual/Competitive - Competitive is basically what you are describing and there is no need for numbers to describe those to someone.

Very much incorrect, sir. Casual, competitive, and everything in between can mean something different to each person. Paring it down to numbers can give a better sense of perspective. I'll grant that even the numbers game can have different levels of meaning as well, but there's less chance of an outright misunderstanding due to personal definition.

Quote from FunkyDragon »

So, your proposal would allow me to crew a vehicle with Experiment Kraj, Higure, and Thriving Turtle to make the vehicle an Ooze Mutant Ninja Turtle (plus human)? ...

*facepalm* You know you're a 90s kid when the first thing to pop into your head is "Oozy Mutant Ninja Turtles"...and yes, you're singing it to THAT theme song.

Sorry for the tangent I blame FunkyDragon.

I'm going to try to address your latest post, and then I'm out, because you seem quite set in your ways.

To start, a simple statement: while Sylvan Primordial, Primeval Titan and Prophet of Kruphix were legal, the general consensus was that you HAD to run those cards if you had their colors. It didn't matter what the rest of your deck's gameplan was; you wanted Prime, Sylvan and Prophix in your deck. Even if you only cast them once, your value was gained in that very instant.

Second: While I find it VERY difficult to believe you have never had a pod/game centralize around these three, you are likely to find yourself in the minority. I can only speak for my own honesty(for whatever that's worth), but you will likely find MANY more people talking about the terrible trio dominating a game's focus, primarily because they're just that good. I've seen a number of times where any of the three were passed around the table like a communal hookah, because everyone wanted the value, and no one wanted anyone else to run away with the game. Have you seen a Prime Time with 3 different Mind Controls on it? I have.

Third: Your other points are not the one card engines that the three are. Mycosynth Lattice and Vandalblast hurts(thanks for the idea, btw), but Lattice hurts just as much with Karn 1.0 too. Deadeye Navigator is a degenerate engine, but you have to pay quite a bit more for its value(5UU for casting, then [mana]1U[/c] for each blink)...that adds up fast. Painter's Servant(nevermind its legality) and Iona, Shield of Emeria is pretty bad, but it opens up politics more often than not. And that's not even the worst engine of it...replace Iona with Grindstone.
The big thing with my third point is that none of those 'degenerate' cards that are more deserving of bans are auto-includes the way Prime/Sylvan/Prophix were. They require more work to utilize, and while they may get a lot of focus, they do not get NEAR the focus the terrible trio got. Truth be told, I can't remember the last time I've seen Mike/Trike(Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Triskelion, in case you were unfamiliar}, Deadeye or even Mycosynth. Iona's a rare example of being held in check by the social contract aspect of EDH: at least, I think so. I have never, in my eight years of playing EDH, seen her drop once. Whether that speaks to overall community disgust, or to the integrity of my pods, I leave to others to judge.

In the end, it comes down to your own words:

Quote from Demonologo Uriel »

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I guess that depends on the meta

Your meta is one experience, mine is quite another, Buffsam's is yet another. There are bound to be inconsistencies. But overall, those bans were right and justified, despite the fact that I was out money getting them for my decks before the bans hit. The overall experience from the community has apparently been that those three hog all the attention as soon as they drop. My experience has been that they do, yours has not. The council has spoken, and we must abide.

Out of curiousity, have you and your playgroup ever TRIED playing with those cards nowadays(I noted that you said you were playing before the bans)? House rule them back in sometime, and see what happens. I will commend your playgroup's restraint if they do not steal the show, but I do not believe most people would be as self-controlled.

I just added Spark Double and Sarkhan the Masterless to my deck today.

First game with them I end up having Sarkhan the Masterless turning himself into a dragon and then copying him with Sakashima the Impostor. Then next turn I somehow still have both Sarkhan and Sakashima so I throw down a Spark Double. Like, there's something profoundly amazing about the wurms and leviathans deck declaring attacks, counting your field, and then shouting "OKAY. NO." and swinging at another player.

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

I encourage playgroups who want to test this to do so, and this thread is at least a well thought out starting point. Arguing about it is beating a dead horse, and I strongly doubt that OPs experiment is going to uncover anything the RC or CAG won't, but it CAN help give some extra perspective, and it CAN help hammer out the best practices for playgroups who want to take advantage of rule 0 to allow PW commanders (that is, what steps should be taken to make the change work the best that it can).

I'm personally not sold on the lower life total as necessary. It seems more like a personal preference tacked on. I'll concede that it's definitely easier to win when you are looking at 40 less life to chip away at, but I don't think it will help much when your opponents are using pillow fort, boardwipe after boardwipe, or stax and tax as if it's working it's probably stopping you from closing out 30 life as 40. If I play aggro, I'm much more concerned with a guy threatening to combo or set up a way to lock out creatures from hitting them than I am about the guy gaining 100 life (or I was before Aetherflux made me look askance at anyone sitting at 50+).

I am not sure why rule 13 is a huge issue.

A lot of cards are legal in commander decks that don't have any function. Paliano, the High City is Commander legal but last time I checked I do not draft my Commander deck (even though Commander draft sounds interesting). Don'T put cards in your deck which are bad in the format. It is as simple as that.

Quote from Impossible »

And this continues to be the worst possible option. If you don't want people to use wishes, simply ban them. Having a dozen or so cards legal but with literally no functional game text is just bonkers. Who exactly is this rule for? Isn't this the literal exact reason ya'll made Rule 0 for in the first place?

Between new Karn and Mastermind's Acquisition, Wizards has shown they're open to printing more effects of this type into the game, so increasing the banlist every time one of these gets printed on day 1 is a far less elegant way than simply denying the function full stop.

Quote from JqlGirl »

Source: http://mtgcommander.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=19104

The other major discussion, driven by War of the Spark, was regarding planeswalkers as commanders. We will not be changing the definition of what can be a commander to allow all planeswalkers into the command zone. The RC and CAG were also unanimous on this point.

Finally. Let this point of contention die a death.

Quote from ChazA4 »

OOF! Did they scoop, or did they have enough other permanents to battle on?

They had no permanents left, but were a good sport about it and kept playing. They pivoted into more of a king-maker role than one where they tried to win.

As a player that absolutely loves Planeswalkers and once heavily wanted to use them as Commander (and I have played since the format's inception) - I can honestly say that I have never gotten bored with finding legendary creatures to use.

In fact, even the Planeswalkers that they introduced specifically to fit into the Command Zone, are walkers I have never actually used as Commanders.

WOTC is on the right track, print Planeswalkers here and there that sidestep the RC's ability to dictate that PWs cannot be Commanders. The simple fact of the matter is that the vast majority of Planeswalkers don't enrich what you can or cannot do in the format already. Sure, flavor wins are nice. We all love flavor wins. But flavor wins don't actually equate to necessity.

Legalizing Planeswalkers as Commanders means you are now opening up the format to more bans on certain cards in an already oversized banned list.

I think people forget that you really have to pick and choose your battles, and if not having access ti PWs as Commanders turns you off of the format, then so be it. Go play Brawl. You are literally arguing that not having them legal as Commanders is of detriment to a format that continues to grow anyways...

Stifled a Worldgorger Dragon 2nd ability. A classic feel-bad for your opponent that never gets old.