MTG Salvation

Quote from MatthewB »

Honestly, Primeval Titan and Sylvan Primordial were never a problem for competitive or casual play. The fabled degeneration of the game state never happened to such a degree in casual pods. Competitive players didn't play the cards because they were too slow for the format. These bans, along with Prophet of Kruphix, were done to appease the semi-competitive crowd, which has historically had a problem controlling green value decks.

You were playing in the wrong pods then. I feel pretty confident in stating that for every one pod that had your experience with Prime Time, 2 or 3 pods had the opposite experience, casual or otherwise.

All three examples gave value upon ETB, and in the case of Prime and Prophix, shaped the game the longer it went on. If you didn't notice this, apparently you were on the verge of your win-con with them.

I've played in various levels of EDH games, and while the competitive to hyper-competitive levels did sniff derisively at Prophix/Prime/Sylvan, every level down groaned when they hit the table, even those who had the ability to take advantage(because they didn't get it first). It was evident to all how much of attention hogs these guys were, because they'd get it...every-frickin'-time!

I don't miss them for one simple reason; it's freed up two or three slots for my decks to use something else and better suited to the deck, as opposed to 'lol ramp/flash'.

Quote from Taleran »

The problem I have with the blanket way people talk about that card and the ban list in general is illustrated well right there.

You seem to have built in your head a conception about this boogeyman of a card that will only ever be in every single deck that plays five colors or in none them and are falling into the same traps about reality and not that you accuse others of.

Why isn't every white deck in Commander running Approach of the Second Sun if we are going to play on theoretical nonsense parameters of how people build magic decks.

Or the idea that a game ending at the resolution of an 8 mana spell is a negating effect on the rest of the game of magic to that point is an weird way of looking at a multiplayer game played in a social setting.

The problem with you using Approach of the Second Sun as an example is that it telegraphs itself(assuming we're using it by itself). If you're not using it by itself, guess what? It's not Coalition Victory anymore.

Approach, like Felidar Sovereign, Near-Death Experience, Helix Pinnacle and more, require work beyond 'doing what your normally do in an EDH game.' They require you to reach a state, and with Felidar and Near-Death, stay there for a bit. You EARN that win, just as certainly as the infect player gets someone to 10 poison counters.

The RC has summed it up pretty well as to why CV isn't coming off: "Do what you do in the course of an EDH game, and at some point, unless someone has an instant speed response, win."

Quote from Impossible »

Quote from LouCypher »

You, on the other hand, never managed to counter this.

God forbid someone gets enjoyment out of casting a sweet, thematic spell. It is literally the culmination of the Legacy being used to kill Yawgmoth and secure a Coalition Victory. The only way it could be sweeter is if it had the Vindicate art instead.

Just because YOU don't see the fun doesn't mean it isn't there.

Perhaps not, but the definition of 'fun' can only be stretched so far. I think in your case, it's beyond being stretched, to outright ripping.

Coalition Victory may have come out before the advent of EDH, but having seen what happened with OTHER cards that didn't get insta-banned like Worldfire(Prime Time, Griselbrand, Sylvan Primordial), I feel that the RC has made the right call, and (rightly so) called what would happen. It's not a 'boogeyman argument'...it is the very nature of people to utilize the big plays they can use. As games degenerated into control over Prime and Primo, so too would enough 5C decks devolve into racing to a CoVic win. It's the way people, by and large, are. Of course it's fun and thematic for the person pulling it off...but do you really think you'll get a round of "Good game, did NOT see that coming" at the end? Is the fun just supposed to be for the winner?

To turn the phrase back around, "Just because YOU don't see the rationale in keeping CoVic banned, doesn't mean it's not a legitimate concern."

In terms of triggers, the general rule at our LGS is, If it's a MAY trigger, you lost out. If it HAS to happen, we roll back and deal with it.

Most others are dealt with on a case-by-case basis, and we've had no real problems whatsoever thus far.

To help out in hasty matters, consider Hammer of Purphoros or Urabrask the Hidden as well. Adding Purphoros himself is also not a bad idea.

Blood Moon or Magus of the Moon can also keep people off-balance, but they might be too much of a danger to you. In that case, consider Blood Sun; sure, that will also hurt some of your lands, but not critically so. Still, it's something to be aware of.

I'm not sure how many were in the red wedge, but you would also be well served to look back in the Zendikar block(the original Zendikar/Worldwake/Rise of the Eldrazi): the Rebound mechanic is worth visiting. While the damage may not be that great on those spells, getting them cast for free the next turn plays right into your gameplan.

No Viscera Seer? No Havengul Vampire? Those should be auto-includes, friend(one for sac and deck manipulation, the other due to insane counter ramp). Also, with all this card draw, unless you intend to be very careful, I would recommend utilizing something like Reliquary Tower or Thought Vessel to avoid getting backlash from your own Necropotence.

I would also suggest that Edgar Markov works best with cheap vampires. Dropping bombs isn't bad, but if you need bodies, and you can only draw up bombs that take up most of your mana, you can find yourself in a bad spot. To that end, my suggestions for cuts are:
- Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet is too slow. Assuming he even survives a round to take his shot, all it takes is one intervention of regeneration or indestructability to ruin your plan and his use.
- Butcher of Malakir, I feel, is overkill since you have pact and dictate in this deck. But I can see the value of making people think twice about attacking into chump blocks too.
- Guul Draz Assassin, like most other levelers, are FAR too slow to justify, even as cannon or sac fodder the turn they ETB. Pitch him.
- Necropolis Regent is dangerous in how much you must commit to B. You can have enough mana to cast her but for one more black...I would eyeball her for pitching.
- Vizkopa Guildmage can be easily replaced by Basilisk Collar. Granted, the collar can only be placed on one creature at a time, but with its 2 for 1 package, wouldn't that be enough? Plus, Vault of the Archangel does the same effect for all your dudes...
- Tymna the Weaver is on the list only because I think there are enough vampires that you might want to go straight tribal(a few deviations...Athreos is too good to discount, for example). She may provide good card draw, but you're playing black too...card draw should rarely be an issue.
- Cover of Darkness is nice, but the menace effect you'll get from Iroas will often be enough, especially with your deathtouchers. YMMV depending on your playgroup, though.
- Crypt of Agadeem should also be on your watch list, given your concerns about Vampire Nocturnus(valid concern, btw); perhaps even moreso, as it relies on a full graveyard of black critters.

To answer your maybeboard questions:

Anguished Unmaking is a great choice. The life loss would be negligibla(especially in a lifegain deck), and exiling is always worthwhile. Consider TIE fighters as well. EDIT: Utter End would help in the instant category if you prefer.

The only comparison to Mana Echoes that I can think of is Braid of Fire, but I don't know if you need other colors as well or not. Ah,
I forgot; Phyrexian Altar may be another option(if you can afford it).

Consider Sulfurous Springs before Talisman of Indulgence, or even Boros Signet.

Can't argue with the cauldron.

I would prefer to use Living Death over Rise of the Dark Realms, personally. While the obvious alpha strike is euphoric, played right(i.e., with a sac outlet of your own), Living Death is a one-sided boardwipe. Creatures may not be a concern, but it feels just as euphoric to have the only (threatening) creatures on the board either.

Harvester of Souls would work well with just single use sac effects, given that you will be popping tokens or saccing. Cauldron would just make him more bonkers(that's not to say it wouldn't be a good plan for it). Wraths are where you see some serious value, though.

I've pointed out the concerns about Nocturnus and Agadeem earlier...most people say this(a deck run by Edgar, Licia, or Mathas) is not the deck for him, and I tend to agree. I would say that Iroas should provide the evasion you need for SOMETHING to get through.

The exterminator would not be an easy critter to fit in; you either play him early by ramping into him(thus swinging for counters before your opponents have a defense up), or you play him late with a huge counter engine so he only needs one or two swings(maybe none). If you do use him, he should always have Blade of the Bloodchief on, which leads into the next point(out of order, I know)...

Blade of the Bloodchief can't get enough 'yes'. You ABSOLUTELY want to play it in a deck that focuses on vampires. End of that point.

Serra Ascendant is too busted, IMO. You either run away with the game and paint a huge target on yourself for the rest of the night, or it doesn't show up soon enough to make a difference. Without tutors, I wouldn't justify it.

Zulaport Cutthroat loses out to Falkenrath Noble if you want to combo with Blood Artist and other pieces in your deck.

Reconnaissance can be good if you use it on creatures that only need the attack trigger, not necessarily the damage(Edgar is one such example). It may be worth looking at if someone focuses on blocking and killing the right creatures.

Divinity of Pride doesn't add anything, as you say, though more lifelink isn't wrong, and having a better chance of it ETBing as a 8/8 isn't bad. Still, I can't find a place for it in my Markov deck either, so you're probably right to just toss it aside.

Hope that wall of text provided some help!

Muldrotha, the Gravetide could be interesting as a superfriends commander. Ult the planeswalker with Doubling Season and the like, cast it back, ult it again...my God, that's scary as ****.

Welcome to the party, CasualCalamity1! Glad to have you.

Banding.

Hear me out: first off, EVERYONE will ask "What does that do?" So, you'll be explaining it a lot. Secondly, chances are you're gonna explain it wrong(because you forget something). So you gotta go back and double-check yourself, and 90% of the time, explain it AGAIN, correctly.

My pod has a bunch of old farts that like using old cards to show it off...but God help us, when cards with banding come out...

Beyond that, I would say Annihilator as well. I try to run Sigarda or Tajuru Preserver in every deck I can just in case...nothing like watching your board get wiped clean every opponent's attack phase. :\

1. So, nerfing mana types = fun. I just checked Gatherer, and got up to 30 different cards CMC 4 or less that can target or mass remove artifacts(mind you, this is on the first page). While yes, I'm sure there are MANY more cards that remove creatures, limiting where the mana comes from to prevent 'explosive plays' does not have the effect you virtually assert. Last night at FNM(free casual night), a guy whooped me with not one, but TWO explosive hands that had NO 'broken mana'. All that will change is that the plays will come from different areas.
2. That figure (99% of people online) only sounds impressive if A)it's true, and B)if you have the same amount of people playing Commander on MTGO that you had before this banlist shenanigan started. If the figures have dropped, 99% of 5000 sounds a lot less impressive if you lost 6000 people beforehand.
3.

Listen when it's all said and done 99% of the people online are loving the games without these cards. Its a better format. We are play testing it for you. We have the most knowledge now about the pros and cons of these cards. No virtual opinions please.

Clearly Wizards of the Coast couldn't care less about these cards being a "staple" as they are quick to remove them when given the opportunity, so just evolve people.

...Really? That's all I'm going to say to those statements.

Because legalities matter so much in a casual game of EDH at every LGS.

Look, I get that every table is different, but apparently some background is needed here, which sums up to one thing: priority means d*** at our casual games. General plays go as follows: "I cast X." Now, at that point, they will either ask for responses, or someone will call out "Response...I play Y." I have seen other plays go EXACTLY the same way I was intending to go with my Reforge, and no one raised a stink about it...because, you know, it's EDH, and not a tournament.

I'm sorry for your experiences, but I am not that player. Please don't make me out to be. And that's the end of this side discussion.

"Hello, is this Blightsteel Colossus? Message from the new set, it says 'Get f***ed'."

"What's big, heavy, and available"

Me on Tinder

So, what are the reasons to make planeswalkers legal? Other than for flavour. Are there any walkers that people want to build around without just trying to force the ultimate?

Daretti, Scrap Savant was interesting because his first two abilities could be built around. I would argue that almost all planeswalkers than can be played as commanders have sub-par ultimates and are really focused on the first two abilities.

So how many other planeswalkers would be interesting to build around?

I like playing planeswalkers in the 99, and I would not be a fan of having to ban a bunch of cards to enable very few new decks. So, please tell me what cards would be interesting new decks.

Quote from illakunsaa »

Ashiok isn't fun? Stax often leads to fun and interesting gameplay.

...said no sane person, ever. I don't know how you play stax, but every game I've ever played against stax has been slow, miserable, grindy, and something we wanted to forget and never repeat again. Most people I know play Magic to play Magic. They don't play to not play.

Quote from Carthage »

I assume all newly printed commanders will no longer be legal at release, and instead evaluated for how "worthwhile" they are and what they can bring to the format.

That's not even attempting to be a logical debate.

Quote from Carthage »

Quote from ChazA4 »

Quote from Carthage »

Quote from toctheyounger77 »

If your deck is so narrow in it's focus that a single hate card shuts it down, it is probably teetering on the non-interactive itself.

Academically, there's a point there. But there's a difference between someone running Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor and a Razaketh, the Foulblooded shell, and someone who just wants to pop Evolving Wilds to colour fix. The former is shutting down a likely lethal combo deck, the latter is stopping a generally innocent interaction and stopping a deck from being able to interact with the game whatsoever.

Stopping fetch lands is not stopping the deck from interacting.

It certainly won't help the deck to interact if they're already color screwed. Not everyone has a bomb hand from the start, but they keep a so-so hand because they have a fetch land to get that color. Oops, Ashiok says **** that, so have fun 'interacting' until you get the color you need. It may not be the definition you're referencing, but I see what toc is getting at, and it's a valid point. There's also the strategy(such as it is), of just getting the shuffle...but again, Ashiok doesn't like that, so I hope you're confident in how your deck was shuffled to start, because you're not doing anything with it.

On a side point, everybody's kind of fixated on Ashiok(which is legit...I see trouble ahead if that got to be a commander), but now we have Narset 3.0, which is at LEAST Leo 0.5. If Leovold was banned because it was oppressive, how would Narset be any better(I will find it interesting to see if she stays legal even in the 99, personally)?

So in your hypothetical situation, the player kept a hand with a fetch to save themselves from color screw...but also didn't play it before ashiok hit the field?

Or!

Ashiok starts, gets dropped turn-2 off of our Favorite card, and you only have 2 fetches(which is a pretty good start, honestly). So, you’re not just Mana screwed, you’re also falling behind curve. On turn 2. Sweet.
I guess the bigger point being that it really puts the screws to 3-color+ decks, where ramping/tutoring isn’t necessarily there to combo, but to actually make your deck function. Yeah, F*** Me for wanting to fix my mana base to play my cards, amirite?

I can match your hypotheticals blow for blow, so how about we just acknowledge the fact that Ashiok prevents players from searching their libraries, which is a powerful ability in its own right, and drop the BS? Probably not, but we’ll try it out.

Ashiok was easy to reference because of the recent spoil and how powerful the ability is. Now you can put Narset 3.0 in there. And NuKarn, one sided null rod in the command zone.

Glasses of Urza


I would play this over Telepathy. I want to know things, I don't want to share that knowledge.

Attack his weak point for massive damage

Not too long ago, playing rakdos the defiler:

Me: doomsday, putting fervor, world at war, scourge of the throne, savage beating and abhorrent overlord. Go in with hellcarver demon, flopping my library into play and/cast for free, multiple attack steps plus double strike.
Then after the first extra combat step, and killing 2 of the 3 opponents left in the game, the last guy casts oblation on my dragon, making me draw into an empty library.

I’ve never been killed by oblation before!

I've gotten used to him stretching for whatever he can find to dismiss my arguments out of hand and insinuate that I have nothing but foul intentions. He does that whenever a point is made that he cannot easily refute. It's easier to pretend you are the smartest guy in the room when you don't concede that the people you disagree with can make valid points. I still respond to him because he does often make valid points, and while he's dismissive he doesn't straight up call people <snip> like some posters that are impossible to talk to.

In all fairness most of the contributors to this thread have got fired up once or twice, myself included. In other interactions with Taleran I've found them cogent and pretty well reasoned. I really don't like getting into attacking people's character, so I won't - I don't think there's scope for it here anyway. But yeah, the last couple of comments have been a little disappointing.

Moving forward I think it's important for us to remember to attack arguments, not the people making them. Also, there's no value to be gained by misrepresenting someone's argument to prove your own point.


Removed offensive language - cryo

Quote from Taleran »

Quote from Onering »

Quote from Carthage »

With the addition of all these new static effect planeswalkers I continue to be sad that they are not legal commanders.

The most iconic story figures in the game and you cannot build a deck around them legally in the most popular casual format.

I mean, there is another format where you can do that, and I was told repeatedly when it launched that it was going to be better than commander in part because you could run planeswalkers, and because it lacked the busted fast mana and tutors, but it seems that format isn't very popular for some reason.

Judging from this poll (and every time I see this discussed elsewhere) allowing planes walkers as commanders is pretty unpopular, so it doesn't follow that they should be allowed as commanders in the most popular casual format. I'd also question them being the most iconic characters. Certainly some of them are, but there are also plenty of legendary creatures that are just as iconic, and plenty of planeswalkers that elicit a "who?" from most players.

It seems a strange thing to lay the failings of Brawl (that are many and vast as far as people I have talked to about it) solely at the feet of the thing you happen to be arguing should not happen in Commander.

It sure seems strange that you never seem to be able to read my entire post, as if you did you'd have noticed that I didn't do that at all. Unless of course you are just intentionally mischacterizing my post so you can dismiss it out of hand.

For anyone else with reading comprehension issues, intentional or otherwise, I pointed out that planeswalkers as commanders, as well as the lack of the auto include fast Mana cards and tutors, were touted as features of Brawl that should make it popular, and yet despite that Brawl failed. These are generally the top three complaints about commander you see online, that there's too much fast Mana that is too good, that the tutors are too good, and that you can't use any Planeswalker as your commander. All three of these complaints are addressed by brawl, so it follows that if these were really that important then brawl shouldn't be the failure that it is. You could argue that some or all of these contributed to brawl being unpopular, or you could argue that these were insufficient to overcome the limited card pool and rotating nature of the format.

Either way, it doesn't bode well for the argument that Carthage was making, that commander, as the most popular casual format, should logically allow planeswalkers as commanders, as they are, he argues, the most popular characters in magic. I attacked that argument on three fronts, first that planeswalkers generally aren't any more popular than legendary creatures generally, second that a commander like format that touts the availability of planeswalkers as a feature has proven unpopular which shows that it doesn't follow that allowing planeswalkers as commanders is something that would increase the draw of a format, and third that it's pretty clear that a lot more people are against pw commanders than for them, so it does seem that allowing all pws as commanders is more likely to be a liability than a benefit.

Brawl of course had no choice but to allow all walkers as there just aren't enough legendary creatures to sustain the format without them (and even with then it's close, and that's bouyed by legend and PW heavy sets like Dominaria and the three Ravnica sets). Personally, i think if pw commanders were actually a major draw then brawl would have done better, as pw commanders are the most tangible additive feature the format has that edh doesn't. If it had real value, the people who really want that feature would have done more to help the format to succeed. They didn't, and the only takeaway I can get from that is that, at best, pw commanders are not something that makes a format better, even for the people who most want that. This isn't even taking into account anyone who was turned off on brawl BECAUSE of pws, which is certainly non zero but since I don't have anyway of knowing how significant it is I'm not even considering it in my argument.

But the big, and I thought obvious, point in comparing edh to brawl centers on what Carthage said, that edh is by far the most popular casual format. He's complaining about the status quo, not allowing pws as commanders, in the most popular casual format, without considering that a big reason that it IS the most popular format is the decision making ability of the RC, who created the format and maintained it. Wizards promoting it helped it grows as did creating precons, but as we can see they promoted brawl more heavily and held brawl events and brawl failed, so promotion doesn't mean much without a good product, and in this case that good product are the rules that underpin the format. I don't agree with everything the RC does, but I recognize that, even with their mistakes, theyve done a phenomenal job, and the success of the format is proof, especially when even wizards can't generate the same amount of success with the formats they create or the tweaks they try to make to edh (see mtgo edh fiasco from a couple years back).