MTG Salvation

Personally I only look at deck lists if

1.) They interest me personally,

2.) They're an archetype I care about.

or

3.) I'm looking for ideas and curious.

I don't really go fishing around the forums to give feedback on decks that I don't have much interest in. I think it would be disingenuous of me to offer feedback, really. You can look at most threads here on the forums and you'll find that it's the same handful of users interested in that particular deck, plus some that come and go. My Ayli thread is certainly that way; DementedKirby's Sidisi thread the same, etc. That's kind of the culture here.

There's nothing wrong with your decks or Commanders, I just really scrolled past because those Commanders aren't my cup of tea Though, hoping for compliments on a deck or kudos for playing obscure cards probably shouldn't be a priority. That seems... hrmmm...

Anyway, I do still prefer the low volume here compared to the various Facebook groups, or Reddit subs as others have mentioned above. Quality of discussion and topics still feel above the grade of social media and other places discussion has centered around, now. I enjoy that a lot of the deck ideas and construction I find here when it's something that piques my interest ends up having some off-the-wall stuff or original ideas that isn't semi-competitive players regurgitating the same staples/suggestions/"tier list" and asking you why you aren't playing X instead of Y, every time (

While the focus has been on gameplay, how many people would be impacted for necessary bans, and so on, something that also needs to be considered is how the secondary market would react. Wizards doesn't have the luxury of caring about the secondary market, but it's a consideration we can have. With that said, let me build a case here:

-Most Planeswalkers are one-time iterations based on the story/setting; no reason to reprint them again and they won't be.
-Only a small handful of competitive staples (JTMS, LOTV, Karn, occasional Lorwyn 5) see reprints, and not even regularly.
-Planeswalkers have been Mythic rarity post-Lorwyn, making their supply much lower compared to other cards.
-The supply would not meet the demand, making a rule change for PWers ripe for market manipulation/buyouts.
-Even less commonly used Planeswalkers settle around $5-10 over time, unless they're just really really bad (but - may be amazing as an on-demand cast from the Command Zone).
-The speculator response to a rule change would lead to a great many PWers landing in the $20-50 range.
-Speculators are safe on flipping these/cornering the market, because PWers are very, very rarely reprinted, low supply, existing greater casual demand, pre-CMDR PW change if it happened.
-Because they are safe speculation, they can sit on these without the market budging much. They would not settle very far from where they land.
-Not only would speculators jump on this, but with a mass amount of people buying into PWers, the supply and market would strain.
-A whole section of the market would become quickly out of reach for casual people, PWer collectors and Commander players alike.
-One argument I've seen is that PWers are the face of the game and should be available (it's a shallow argument not worth considering tbh)
-This wave would put most PWers out of reach of kitchen table players and newer players getting into the game. Commander has become HUGE and WILL have that kind of impact.
-If you have any doubt about any of this, look at The Command Zone and SaffronOlive Effect, Protean Hulk when it was unbanned (before the M25 reprint), etc.
-This isn't fair to kitchen table players or the rest of the game.

All of this is a secondary effect of allowing PWers and it's guaranteed. This is before considering how many cards have to end up being banned over time that people are already playing. Superfriends is a popular archetype that uses a specific subset of cards that could easily have a case for being banned, and we'd probably at least see a few more bans post-change announcement as we see exactly what ripples this will cause. All of this is theorycraft. But the result? Potentially more bans in the format than we've seen in the last 8 years, just so people can play Planeswalkers, and the waves through the secondary market putting a good chunk out of them out of reach or at least a stretch away from the accessibility needed with such a change.

Mana Severance removes Lands from the equation so you never have to worry about them coming up top. While it doesn't outright win you the game, in an Esper or Dimir deck you can most likely find ways to offset the life loss and just keep casting to win without Aetherflux Reservoir or Sense's Divining Top.

Quote from Incanur »

I'm most excited about Flux Channeler & Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge for the Silas Renn, Seeker Adept & Reyhan, Last of the Abzan deck I'm building.

Emergence Zone is also generally awesome! A few of my decks will want that.

Edit: OMFG Bolas's Citadel! Build your Yawgmoth's Bargain with Sensei's Divining Top.

Or just cast Mana Severance

I can't wait to run Bolas's Citadel with Mana Severance in Commander

I think Simic and Temur tend to be the best at this. Maelstorm Wanderer, Ezuri, Claw of Progress, Animar, Soul of Elements, Toothy/Pir and others remain pretty powerful and can go far without much work.

Rakdos, Lord of Riots is actually really fun no matter the budget and can be effective.

Selvala, Explorer Returned can get out of control easily without being too optimized. My build started as a budget deck, ended up this weird Elf-Ball/Selesnya Goodstuff hybrid. But when you're generating 5-7 mana on Turn 3 every game and playing in colors with good removal, recovery and ramp options it's just really easy to add fun stuff and go nuts.

Quote from Dunharrow »

Narset is not something that is problematic at casual tables - no extra turns, no extra combats.

There's a double standard in how you're viewing Commanders here to make your case. How does one assume that Narset at casual tables is not extra turns and no extra combats? That this isn't how Narset is played at casual tables? Who says a Commander with her power and protection in colors that easily grant Haste isn't problematic in some metas? And then, why is Vannifar not treated with the same benefit of the doubt? A Commander who has no protection, requires somewhat of a board state and help to go off? Why can we assume that at the same table, the Narset player is more fair than the Vannifar player? Why do we assume they're trying to do a pod chain to win as soon as she hits the table? That's a pretty big inconsistency in that argument.

I'm not going to build any different than I already do because of this. The idea seems a bit silly and knee-jerk. So I dig for a "favorable" hand then toss away 3-4 cards by the time I get there? And do what? Run out of fuel faster than my opponents because I went down to 4 cards trying to sculpt a hand and be behind for most of the game? If I'm playing a deck that can abuse this rule and let me surge ahead after tossing back several cards to find X and Y out of my deck, then the mulligan change wasn't going to matter anyway.

In a super competitive meta or "cEDH" this may be a concern, but that's not how the vast majority of people play this format. If anything, I welcome this mulligan rule because ultimately it allows people a bit more consistency in the opening game, which means less people get left in the dust because they may be able to hit lands/rocks that gives them their colors, at a price. Which each mulligan you still have to choose between how much land, mana rocks, removal, and early game presence you want. That noose becomes tighter the more you try to mulligan this way. You also know that the cards you toss back won't be coming back any time soon without shuffling.

FYI, We still use Partial Paris at one of the stores I play at because there's an agreed power level that we hover around to keep the game fun but interesting. My other store does Vancouver because it's more cutthroat and combo players would be able to dig for combo pieces with partials. However, I'm not really worried about the London because again, everyone gets to do the same mulligan. Everyone only gets to keep X cards. Explosive starts are possible. Turn 1 Sol Ring doesn't do much if you don't have much left in your hand to do with it.

Quote from Dunharrow »

So, Vannifar should definitely be banned. Even if you aren't trying to combo off, it is too efficient in the command zone.


I just watched Commander Clash (MTG Goldfish) where a wizard-tribal Vannifar deck was running the whole show. No untap effects.
Unless people choose not to play her, she will eat a quick ban.

Anyone played against Vannifar yet?

I have, and the deck fell apart without Vannifar. Much like many decks centered so specifically on the Commander, when players wise up to it, the problem solves itself. I'd rather play against Vannifar than Narset, Enlightened Master or several other decks that are harder to deal with.

As an aside, to be frank: The bar by which one can measure the Commander Clash players compared to other players one may play with is pretty dang low. In other words, Vannifar dominating is less to do with Vannifar, and more to do with the people who play on Commander Clash. There is no reason to ban her. At all. And these people are very poor examples to go by.

Quote from Pokken »

Quote from Dunharrow »

Thanks for the summary.

Regarding undesirable game states - I am not sure that durdling forever without winning is an undesirable game state. Stopping people from being able to play is undesirable. In that sense, Winter Orb seems like a bigger offender, but is still tolerable.
I played PE in standard. If you know what you are doing, even without infinite combos, you should be able to end the game. But, in EDH, it is so easy to go infinite I would have a very serious conversation with people in your meta who are just wasting time.

I find it strange that your meta has so much PE. It is a spikey meta? I used to play at a LGS for prizes, and though I have not played there in over 2 years, I would presume that people all have 1-2 PE decks with them every night. I would call that meta a 90% meta.
cEDH plays a lot of PE, but I do not think cEDH should be considered.

I have two metas of reference, one in Phoenix and one in Erie. The Phoenix one had a lot of 75% players who have been emboldened to pick up PE since it has dodged banning so much.

It figured in every other game there approximately. One night I remember had 4 of 5 games i played end with PE via combo or durdle.

In Erie I have not played enough to have a great sample but I have seen 3 PE decks in 3 nights out at the shop. So I figure it is probably common.

I feel like strong combo wincons that appeal to popular deck types but also are encouraging to durdly lines are bad. But may be just me.

I also think the more casual the deck the more prone to flaming out. So as casuals play it more it'll likely get worse rather than better.

And the longer it's legal the worse it'll get.

But that's just my take ofc. A buddy of mine who still plays in Phoenix said he's seeing it more and more but third hand anecdote is what it is

For what it's worth, I play at 3 different stores in the greater Houston area and Paradox Engine is not all that common. At two of my stores, I'm the only one who plays it (I only play it in Jhoira, because she's basically a Storm deck), and at the third store one or two other people play it. They're not easy to find around here, and the price is getting more prohibitive by the month. I'd say the meta at two of these stores is 75% at most (I really hate this metric but since everyone insists...), and between 75-90% at the third store. Having discussed the banlist and joked amongst a lot of them about the vocal minorities people online and the silly stuff people want banned/unbanned, most stated they feel it's too niche to just jam in most decks, and requires a fragile board state to try to build to abuse it. Someone once stated it pretty well: It's like Ashnod's Altar, because both are dead on an empty board; both enable you to go infinite with 2 or 3 other cards; except Paradox Engine is actually less ubiquitous than Ashnod's Altar because people jam ETB/Death triggers and Creature-centric strategies in Commander more than anything. Yes, the two are actually comparable, which doesn't so much show how powerful Ashnod's Altar is as much as that how Paradox Engine doesn't need the torches and pitchforks.

All talk in this thread seems odd coming off the heels of GP New Jersey, which sold out and had so many people that that they had to move the Judge tables and take down the featured match area to accommodate the amount of players that were there. Format and location has a big impact on these things.

Quote from Pokken »

Dack counterpoint that actually considers the point of view instead of saying "that's silly" --

Dack Fayden is a very powerful walker in EDH that sees a good amount of play already, and would surely be a popular commander (given his powerful and popular color combo). Dack would initially likely pose a tough challenge to artifact themed decks, but artifact decks are uniquely positioned to combat planeswalkers and Dack in particular.

There are many effects that shut walkers off in mono brown:

• Phyrexian Revoker
  
• Pithing Needle
  
• Sorcerous Spyglass
  

Just to name a few. Further, Dack's color combination will struggle to deal with these cards as while red has a good deal of artifact removal, artifact decks already have to contend with this and are designed to deal with it.

The deckbuilding consequences of playing a couple pithing needle effects should be considered, but artifact themed decks very commonly play these cards already and so if they come loaded for answers to Dack that are easily tutorable and recurrable it seems unlikely they would actually promote nongames.

While it's possible slower to adapt or more casual metas may be impacted, this is fundamentally fairly similar to how deckbuilders have to react to new powerful commanders in general -- e.g. Gitrog and Muldrotha and Meren over successive years spawned an increase in graveyard hate to be required, even in casual circles.

There's some risk of some feelbads there, but overall I think the potential for fun in playing a deck based off a popular, flavorful commander would be worth the risk.

Gotta stop this arguing with myself, because now I wanna build a Dack deck

I'm interjecting here and I apologize, but on this particular note:

Something else about Dack is how easy it is to get him out on Turn 2 and steal another player's Sol Ring or Mana Crypt, etc early in the game and give yourself a huge advantage. Even if Dack dies before your next turn, you're likely up another 2 mana after casting him - you effectively have a Fabricate in your Command Zone for most of the common early game mana rocks. Sure it's not common for an Artifact deck to take off with a lot of mana, but adding the consistency of often having the ability to not only steal more mana for yourself, but putting an opponent even further behind by doing so, seems way too powerful for 3 mana.

But these kind of things are why I'm personally not a fan of Planeswalkers as Commanders. This kind of scenario can allow one player to run away with the game early on. I'm definitely not a fan of the idea of seeing Liliana of the Veil in the Command Zone or her out on Turn 1 or 2 for similar but different reasons to my concern with the example of Dack, above. Many of the better low CC Planeswalkers create too much of an advantage early on, and the difference between using them immediately versus normal Creature-based Commanders where you have to set them up to have Haste is a really large advantage.

On the argument that because newer cards cap the P/T increase to your board that it shows how insane Craterhoof is: If we banned every card that is undeniably superior in power to an evolving modern design paradigm, we'd be left with Brawl. And Brawl is dead.

I mean, I see myself having an easier time casting Approach of the Second Sun twice or plopping down Paradox Engine and winning on the spot than winning with this. You have to assume that permanent-based alternate wincons are even going to stay on the battlefield and not be removed before they trigger after meeting their conditions on your next upkeep, and that all of your opponents at the table are just going to ignore it or be completely unaware of the state of the game and how close you are to winning with it. You have to assume you're going to draw into or find Simic Ascendancy in colors that don't tutor for Enchantments unless you're running it in Bant or Atraxa, and outside of some bizarre off-the-wall build, there aren't really any Bant decks I see forcing this.

Thing is, even when you find it, you have to have a certain board presence with enablers intact in a small niche of decks. Outside of fringe cases this will most of the time be winning in the mid to late game at a point where ending the game is fine and the table should have a keen eye on everyone's board states for combos and other shenanigans to appear. The easiest way to win with it is obviously Ezuri, Claw of Progress, but frankly if you're getting to a point where you can win off of this then the Ezuri player was probably going to win another way somehow soon, because Ezuri was left on the table for too long or that player was just left to run amok. If you're playing against the one deck that can really abuse this, you should probably already be aware of cards that can win out of nowhere with Ezuri on the board and non-significant number of Experience counters accumulated. A better way to put it is to just say that I haven't heard anyone demand Sage of Hours be banned, and it's easier to tutor up with Ezuri and win with, being that it doesn't require you to wait for your next upkeep and takes significantly less build up. Why don't people ask for it to be banned? Because like Simic Ascendancy, Sage of Hours is as effective as it is in a very, very small niche and already demands two colors, cornering it into the decks we know will play it and it narrows the scope of concern for that reason alone.

For the interaction between Doubling Season and Simic Ascendancy, it works about as well as any other counter-based card with Doubling Season and is no surprise. If you manage to make infinite mana to pump into it, that's not even an argument for why it should be banned because at that point you could win any other number of ways and no one is complaining about Helix Pinnacle.

The fact that you have to find Simic Ascendancy, put it on the battlefield, protect it, play enough Proliferate or other effects to build the counters up and have it survive with those 20 counters until your next upkeep is telling that it needs enough work put into it that it is fine and not worthy of talk about being banned. The biggest danger is Ezuri and Atraxa, which if your group is leaving Ezuri, Claw of Progress or Atraxa, Praetors' Voice on the battlefield long enough for this to be a danger when it comes down, your group needs to have a talk about threat assessment and removal in those decks. Even if non-Ezuri/Atraxa decks in Simmic start running more Proliferate effects to help achieve this, that means they're sacrificing other ways that their decks could run better to force this, because very few Proliferate effects are worth it outside of dedicated decks. But, with the prerequisite of playing Simic, I don't expect that to happen much.

I've mostly focused on discussing Ezuri and Atraxa here, because the fact that you're cornered into playing Simic to even play this very much narrows the decks it will see play in, and these two are the most likely and any other appearances are going to be, again, extremely fringe cases. Frankly, Prime Speaker Vannifar and and having Birthing Pod Chains right out of the Command Zone worries me more than this, and that's not saying much because of how fragile Vannifar is.

Quote from Hodor the Brave »

So red gets a 7cmc enchantment that has the potential to literally do nothing for multiple turns. And black gets this. Seems fair.

Jokes aside, as an edh player I love this card. "that many" makes it so easy to add counters.

Just continuing Red's long history of expensive, useless Enchantments like Haphazard Bombardment But yes, this is a very sweet design!