As someone who played with iona before she was banned the most often overlooked part of her is that the effect dosen't say it ends if you no longer control iona so if you can flicker her a couple time's you can very quickly put a permanent lock on the game so that opponents can only cast colorless spells so mostly just shuts off all of their cards.
Griselbrand is the most painful card in history to look at. Its a 7/7 with the ability of paying 7 life to draw 7 cards. Why would you make its casting cost 8? Just commit to the theme and make it cost 7.
I was in testing, but they said its was just too strong to the environment at time and gameplay always has to come before aesthetics. It did little to dampen the power of this card out of standard though.
Sol Ring might be more powerful than any one Mox, but having more fast mana in your deck means you're more likely to get multiple fast mana spells in your opener.
The thing people miss with karakas is that it's free protection for your own commander and allows you to dodge commander tax, plus it's excellent with some ETB commanders
Cards don't have to go infinite to be broken and powerful. I don't understand why people always ask about the infinite combos. How many cards go infinite with rhystic study?
@@xFreSh999_ what gets me about the hullbreacher ban is that Sheldon constantly talks about cards that are breaking wheels, but never really thinks about wheels being broken themselves. Timetwister, Windfall, and Wheel Of Fortune are all restricted in vintage for good reason, and that reason isn't hullbreacher, or notion thief, or even narset parter of veils. Just ban the 3 problem wheels, all the rest are clearly substantially weaker and don't need a ban, then Sheldon can stop complaining about Dauthi Voidwalker breaking wheels.
@@HugHeist err no, hull breacher does something much more powerfull than those cards listed that you fail to realize, it ramps to heavens, card advantage is great but you need the mana to cast the cards in hand typically which is why hullbreacher is over the edge, simply put something like a narset planeswalker or notion thief plus a wheel is brutal yes but players can come back more easily from having no hand than having no hand and having to contest with someone who now has 20+ spare mana. Wheels themselves are also no really busted as are equal for all players until another factor is introduced but said other factor can be removed in response unlike hullbreacher who comes in as a response to the lack of concern over the wheel effect. While notion thief can do the same trick the distinction made by hullbreacher suddenly gaining a large amass of game tempo via the mana is what makes it much stronger and backbreaking ultimately. Hullbreacher also does what it does in response to more than just wheels being cast as well. The biggest factor is hullbreacher is so good is this mix of unpredictability and the fact that if it does go off then you are dealling with someone who suddenly has more than enough mana to just end the game with, that capability is much stronger compared to the drawpower of notion thief as deck power is increased as well because the decks will have more consistancy in already getting everything they would need without having to draw a bunch of cards due to being full of tutors and interchangable combo pieces. Frankly I am most surprised that dockside didn't go with hullbreacher for creating similar issues with earlygame extreme ramp.
@@sablesalt drawing cards let you draw mana. The 3 wheels i mentioned are restricted in vintage and banned in legacy, where hullbreacher is legal at 4. If it's symmetrical then why aren't they unbanned there? Could it possibly be because that effect is one of the top 5 most powerful effects printed? You keep comparing hullbreacher to notion thief but yiu fail to realize the world of difference between a 3 mana 1 color card and a 4 mana 2 color card. Nobody has ever notion thief and wheeled and lost. Ad nauseum and peer into the abyss see extremely wide play as 1 card win cons and naus usually draws about 20-30 cards, which thief wheel draws 28.
Watching this video shows the different mindsets of someone in a competitive format vs a casual one. Many people play for fun and the commander council acknowledges that. They make bans more for the good of the average player and rarely cater to the competitive ones. Plus with a singles format with 100 card decks you often don’t draw into the removal you need for these majorly oppressive cards
Remember that all infinite mana combos with two cards is a to card combo and not a three card combo since if the win con is your commander you always have access to.
What makes paradox engine so good is you can "storm off" with whatever pile of generically powerful cards is already in your deck and find a win, it's effectively a 1 card combo because there is enough draw and tutors in EDH to keep gas flowing and with any significant amount of mana rocks each of those spells is mana positive.
Honestly it is probably banned for the sins of Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, and friends. Typically what it looks like is vomit artifact mana into play (ex: workshop, mana crypt) -> cast paradox engine -> cast random cards generating mana until you find a tutor (most of the cards in your deck cantrip like a KCI deck, + brainstorm, ponder, git probe, preordain are all legal in commander), then whatever tutor you find can go fetch underworld breach / past in flames / yawgmoth's will / some other source of CA then recast the tutor fetching a wincon
Paradox Engine is not banned for being too powerful. It"s banned because it wasted so much time when casual players take a 20 minute turn, do nothing, then pass the turn.
Mono color commanders are EXTREMELY popular, but Iona can also almost completely shut down many 2 color decks as well. It just does not mesh well with the intent of the format, as well as the restrictions on color identity. It doesn't help that most Iona lists are built around stax and making everything unable to be cast for your opponents. As for Karakas you can target opponent's legendaries, aka their Commander. They'd never be able to keep their commander out since you can just force the commander to hand the moment it etbs Leovold wheels as a commander and is in the best 3 colors of commander
Cedh players are mixed on Hullbreacher. Due to the nature of cedh, cards are cards. While annoying and blow out inducing, it was nowhere near as bad as Flash.
Cards like Hullbreacher are largely gonna get banned on the spot because of Leovold. the Commander counsel let Leovold run ruckshod for a while to see if the format would balance itself and it didn't. Leovold decks would get their Lockout online with Teferi's puzzelbox and then the rest of the table would have to wait for the Leovold player to finish playing solitaire. Same reason Iona is banned. Cards that can almost single handedly tell an opponent that they can't play this game anymore generally get banned.
So, the thing about Iona (I love this card, btw) is that it can lock all your opponents out if you're a good deckbuilder. White flickers pretty well. Her ability is etb. If you have a few flicker cantrips in hand or on the battlefield, then you can just wait for each end step and name the next color in turn order. Each opponent could play artifacts and lands and use whatever they have left, but you could potentially give yourself multiple "additional turns" with consistent flickering of Iona.
@@Cerebrosum also if he sees this, the difference between being iona locked and being dead is: you still have to draw a card each turn, etc, you just physically can't...do anything to help your boardstate
Iona + flickerform = You don't get to play, you don't get to play .. and now you don't get to play.. then remark with 'Isn't magic fun!' and wonder why you don't have friends
The issue with Iona is that it severely punishes mono-color commanders for just existing. Reanimating this turn 1, declare that color, and now your 4-player pod is a 3-player pod on turn 1.
All the ban reasons. Iona: ban was mostly because of reanimate decks of W/B or W/B/R so stitch together/stands of night/nim deathmantle/victimize/animate dead/dread return/Recurring Nightmare/unburial rites/Kaalia/apprentice necromancer/doomed necromancer + any commander who raises 3 CMC creature (common in W/B or W/B/G commanders) creatures every turn. She would make mono unplayable, someone like Zur can just hunt for Re-occurring Nightmare back before it was banned, sac a creature get iona and this enchantment in hand. Hmmm possibly naming most likely blue as blue has the most annoying thing for reanimate which is put into hand? Karakas: yeah auto include in any white as it's non tap land so essentially a plains with a bonus effect. There is 3 common non-basic land removals which will turn their Karakas in a plain, crucible of world is a common card in EDH. I know I abuse it in white/blue with land tax+trade secrets for fast draw. Also bouncing your own commander with come into play w/o the commander cost. Hullbreacher -> Memory Jar/Puzzle Box/Wheel effects, with teferri's puzzle box can put people onto top deck the game while getting absurd mana. You would most likely find your combo and have in a 3 player game 21 mana. If your combo requires you to spend 21 mana of any color + 3-4 mana in lands and maybe 2-3 mana rocks. Leovold: Slows down the game, wheel effects, memory jar, teferi's puzzle box make it into top deck for a solution which again it's not an instant I win but it's more of a I'll just scoop instead of hoping for me to top deck artifact removal, that wont get countered. Library of Alexandria: Last time i check the price was 5,000$ that would again take a land slot in every deck, just like how sol ring/sensei divining top/mana crypt/mana vault is in most decks increasing 200$, this would make it 5,000$ or we would just need a vintage proxy rule for it. The issue with it is if you have no good turn 1 drops, this will allow you to draw an extra card, drop a land and play a single spell every turn til you have something worth while. HEAVILY combo's with white which has land tax effects like land tax or weathered wayfarer which can quickly fill up your hand with lands. Wheel effects that put you to 8, teferri's puzzle box again you're always at 8. If you have an untap effect you can trigger it multiple time so you can have this net you multiple cards cause you can activate it at 7, but if you put all the draw effects at the end for essentially paying 1 colorless mana on average you will most likely draw 3-4 making it an ancestral recall. If you never get it's effect in a game it's still a fast land that makes colorless. Limited resources, is generally playing land ramp, put it gaddock teeg so most your expensive spells cant even be ramped too. Generally in a table of 4 if you have 2 lands + search for a land spells. If you dont play green, you're going to be stuck at 2 mana and gaddock teeg will lock out of your 4 mana or higher spells. But again they'd prob be playing green/white with creature and artifact removal. Lutri: It was banned because companion was you could essentially have it on the side board of all your decks that can run R/B you would have to play against them knowing they had a 3 cmc fork in hand. Mox: I think it's an Library of alexandria where it's a price + rarity thing. I'd honestly be fine with all the 1 fast mana removal and just allow players to proxy this since it is a casual format. Vintage allows for proxies, why not commander? The big thing Panoptic Mirror: It's an infinite turn combo but it doesn't END just there, it combos TOO well in most artifact decks. T1, land, sol ring mana crypt, unwinding clock T2, Land, Pan mirror, demonic tutor, put mana vault into play T2 P2, search shimmer myr, play it T2 P3, search metal worker, play it T2 P4, search staff of dominion, play, it win? It's biggest issue unlike ice cream scepter where it's only good for what mana drain, counter spell, dramatic reversal, fork. so 4 cards in an entire deck. Mirror takes any spell and goes crazy with it in any artifact deck. It has to be return to dust, which is the most common exile artifact, and with artifact re-animation being something 3 colors can do graveyard->battlefield and green can also bring back to hand, and fast mana being so strong, For one artifact slot it makes all your sorcey and instants repeatable. Target artifact removal isn't that used that much unless you're green/red, you might run 2-3 but that's a low chance, It usually comes out from a more expensive form with a body to be reanimated (acid slime) or AOE. But again you would have to also deal with their academy ruins, goblin welder,master transmuter,arcuum dagson,etc the turn right after destroying it bringing it back for 0-2 mana with a new spell. They will cast every turn with unwinding clock, twice, and thrice extra with voltaic key + mana key. Paradox Engine: To many artifact commanders can cheat this into play and abuse it. Arcum Dagson goes infinite with sol ring/mana crypt/mana vault + 2 lands + cheap artifact creatures (most the creatures in it are 0-2 cmc.) If you get 2 fast rocks in hand and a 0 cost you can turn 2 this combo. Turn 2 or 3 combo that literally requires you to have 1 fast rock in hand to turn 3 it, or turn 2 with sol and crypt/sol/vault with 2 of these in hand, 2 islands, and 2 any of his artifact creatures in hands that are CMC 2 (so 40% of the deck). Play 1 artifact creature, sac it with dagson to find paradox engine. Play artifact creature with your 2 lands and untap everything Play a artifact creature from hand 2 cmc or less, Sac it with dagson for Citanul flute, use the flute to search X for 0 Play the 0 cost artifact creature, turn it into another mana rock that provides 2 mana flute for 2, get myr retriever sacing it getting another mana rock getting you to 6 every time you cast a spell search for 3, getting junk diver. play myr retriever Return myr retriever to hand. Sac for aether resevoir Go infinite with myr retriever/junkdiver to play 50 spells gaining 50 more life and nuke someone for 50. Issue is a lot of them aren't "broken" imo maybe outside of paradox and panoptic mirror, you wont win the game if this drops but put the game to a slow crawl or way to expensive and would be a staple in every deck. It might work in MTGO with vintage masters, but unbanning Mox and Library would make competitive decks all rise by absurd price values. Hullbreacher/leovold just slows down the game for everyone BUT them. Lutri is honestly I could see unbanned now with the needing to pay 3 at sorcery speed means you cant beat a counter with 0 cards in hand. Honestly how you have to view the game sorta now with artifacts is it broken if it's a guaranteed turn 2-3 drop with arcum dagson, and is that 3 cmc enchantment in white/blue/black enchantment also broken with Zur.
I think you misread panoptic mirror. The tap ability is the imprint. Casting the spell only happens on upkeep. Untapping it only gives you more options on what one spell you get to copy next turn.
CEDH Here: Hullbreacher is a turn 1/2 "all opponents discard their hands, I draw a new hand and play all of it" The point is that any Wheel effect + hullbreach means they loose their hand and you get 7 mana. turn 1 : Mana crypt, island, sol ring, petal, mox opal, hull breach, windfall; woops, I win; 7 new cards, and 21 mana; I am just gonna go infinite now and that is a very unoptimized setup (untap effects, frantic searches, some commanders, ... not taken into effect)
i think thats a pretty optimized setup with 7 cards in opening hand. breacher was mainly used at the end of the person before your's turn to wheel on the next, OR in response to someone elses wheel. Still absurdly strong, i hated playing with it and im glad its gone
@@fosterdawson7339 I play a lot of CEDH, thats one of like 12 or 13 turn 1 hands that do it (dark rite, metamorpho, pyros, other rites, etc) basically any deck that can run a wheel effect and hull breach (usually BRU decks, but sometimes BW) can get it with 7, 6, or 5 cards. so it basically ends games; Whole decks were built around it when a lot of us were testing it. So think of it this way; turn 0-1, 3 cards to tutor for it, 3-4 cards on turn 1-2 to do it with a like 70% chance without new mull; with the new mull (put card on bottom) your looking at 3 or 4 decks that dominate 4 colours, because they just shit on the whole game 90% of the time, and have a better than 20% to have enough blue to also force any counter
What you need to think about is that the legendary creature doesn't need to be the commander, most are broken in the 99 where you can cheat it into play. Iona on Kalhia decks is oppresive, Griselbrand reanimator, any cheat into play effect will show you why the card is banned
The problem with Paradox Engine is that it enables too many different three card combos (that can all fit into a single deck together, particularly with storm), especially for how good it is even when it is just generating value to help you assemble the boardstate for said combo.
Paradox Engine was a house in commander decks with commanders with an insane tap ability. Selvala, Explorer Returned, Yissan Wandering Bard, and Arcan Daggson were some of the worst offenders with this card. Arcum would just tutor it to the field instantly and start assembling a win con on the spot tutoring in Citanul Flute after Paradox Engine, grabbing zero drop creatures to keep pulling out artifacts to win with Staff of Dom during the time.
I think the thing with Sol Ring Vs Mox is because the Mox are essentially free whereas Sol ring requires one mana. Also, the Mox are colored instead of colorless
The mox are banned because they are rare, but also forced to go in every deck 3 or more colors. They can even replace lands. You could drop turn 1 5 color commanders and still have 4 mana left over. Its just too much consistency for turn 1/2 plays. They are mana crypts. Mana crypt>sol ring. Sol ring(while broken)at least requires 1 mana to cast.
Yeah hullbreacher is a two card combo that is non deterministic and leaves every other player on the table watching you play magic while having no hand. Which is wildly unfun.
Issue with library of alex is more we would need to ban mind over matter. MoM -> Discard a card, untap or tap a perm -> search for your win con or win with lab Also any blue deck that can easily draw will get to 7, and it's just a free draw engine and have reliquary. I think it's issue is it's a free draw. ALSO forgot to mention drop it turn 1. As we know mtg commander has exciting turn 1 hand drops... so turn 1 library, 6 cards... end turn your next turn you're at 7 and enjoy this constant draw of 2 cards allowing you to land drop and play a spell leaving you at 6. Starting hand = constant 2 draw Decks with good draw = miko but 0 mana and only for yourself. Add untapped perms like seed born muse, get +x extra cards, get arbor elf +1 card. It's a really easy card to break untap target land/permanent effects so blue/green/white derevi and well you get this in your starting hand with land destruction frowned upon, after turn 3 you're drawing 4, every turn.
Technically this is an issue with any permanent that taps to draw a card. I would say Mind Over Matter is way worse with Library because at that point in the game you're unlikely to have 7 cards.
@@NikachuMTGLive also forgot to add most turn 1's nothing goes on in commander. T1, library, 6 cards T2, 7 cards tap library, 8 cards, play land and sol ring or arbor elf, 6 cards T3, 7 cards tap library, 8 cards if you have arbor 9. Drop a land 7(8) play a spell 6(7). Essentially a starting hand with it is going to be infinitely better then one without it. Because if your hand drops to 5, you got maybe 3-x cards for a 0 drop. Then if you have seedborn it becomes draw X, x is the number of players. The g/u commander who let's every spell net you a free spell or into your hand 1 a turn would be good with it because if they counter your card this turn they'll stay at 6/7 cards. Bird commander can just abuse it with untap effects as early as turn 4. Again with other cards. Evacuation, boom hand is full again, Any wheel effect and it's activated and it's taking a land slot, with its only negative if it never happens is it's a colorless land, but having it turn 1 can net you X cards for x+1 colorless mana
Maybe in your playgroup nothing happens turn 1. But generally Commander is aggressive where you mana ramp into powerful plays (hence why Sol Ring and other artifact ramp is so popular). Library is very weak in that “meta.”
@@NikachuMTGLive Edit: fixing this up so it's not word soup I forgot about it's old combos that make it silly. Land tax- when ever someone has more lands then you, during your upkeep. Search your deck UP TO 3 basic lands. Costs 1 white. You can essentially have your mana ramp above and the draw engine of this. Land tax will make this essentially you always trigger the 7 cost if you play one land behind or crack a sack land on your upkeep have the land effect trigger after land tax, so land tax see's you at 1. Then Red and blue, can abuse wheel effects to discard their hand and draw 7 (now 8), drop a land and play a creature. A more combo deck could just run a whole lot of reaction spells and ramp, react to you, then bring a spell back. Grixis could then use all the draw 8/discard hands to reanimate something back. Murica can do this and land tax. Then there is evacuate like effects that quickly fill your hand. There is the turn 1 beginning if your hand doesn't have any sol ring/mana crypt Trade routes/land tax/library would be in every B/W or B/W/X deck ever Tashemi can abuse it, Derevi can SUPER abuse it (only can activate it when you have 7) so trigger every untap and have it's effect go off before all the untap effect means draw X cards with him for every creature you attack with? Can abuse it if brain storm puts you to 7 halfway through it's effect, or any card with similar put x into hand then discard/put ontop of your library. The biggest issue is imo it's 5,000$ and every deck benefits from running it as it doesn't come into play tapped so it's not a slow land.
About panoptic mirror : on the First upkeep, you can answer the triggered ability by playing the activated ability ... so, it's "active" next turn you play it.
The issue with grislebrand was you built him as your commander with every single piece of fast mana, and ritual effect you could get. And it wasn't very hard to ramp him out turn 2 or 3, maybe even 1 if you got a real luck opener. And even if he got removed you can still just refill your hand to twice it's size or even bigger depending how greedy you want to be to try again the next turn with the best 7 out of the 14 or whatever you just drew. They had him as banned as just a commander for a bit. But they wanted to remove that distinction entirely as they thought it was confusing and just hard banned all the legends in that category (Rofellos, Erayo, etc) to just have it be the end of it.
Ionas effect doesn't go away if she leaves the battlefield. If you play Iona, Flicker her and choose a new color. Continue to do this for as many colors you need too.
Paradox engine isn't so much about coming with a specific card but rather with a critical mass of mana rocks/dorks. You play it and suddenly every opt or harmonize is mana positive or free. You can play extra mana rocks you draw afterwards to do even more. Then if you do find anything that bounces itself it will actually go infinite but even if you don't, it still generates a whole bunch of mana. If you spend 5 mana from rocks for this then casting any other spell means it was actually free.
I just got back into magic , i sold all my cards in 98 , im kicking myself with all the OG cards i had and what I sold them for , but I bought a box of boulders gate commander packs and pulled every dragon and didnt even know what they did , now I do and there pretty fun
Unless i am gravely mistaken Ioanas ability isnt a trigger, just like "Clone" effects. You can't have phyrexian metamorph enter as a copy of 2 creatures for example. That's why its worded "as" and not "when". Thus it cant be copied by strionic resonator etc.
Paradox engine was strong but not oppressive in cEdh. It’s good. I think it was mostly banned for the sins of bad players not knowing how to use it (btw it def was played in Urza along side dramatic scepter. Was amazing w cantrips) cedh players were very sad to see it go. It generally was played in decks that have an infinite mana outlet in the command zone. There were some combos but mostly it was the fact that casual players hated it. It killed some cedh decks when it got banned, like Lady of scrolls and the green and white Selvala.
I feel the need to point out that urza was only released a month before Paradox engine got banned, it was problematic before Urza. Additionally I've literally had a friend apologize for his OPENING HAND because he had enough rocks to slam the engine and keep casting, he proceeded to aetherflux both of us before our first turn, we just told him to shuffle up because we still liked our hands. It really is THAT broken.
Cards like Library are banned mostly because Commander started its banlist based on Vintage's. I do agree Library could be unbanned but it won't simply because it's been banned for so long.
Hey, I'm new here, but I had a buddy who played Leovold quite heavily. We aren't quite at the cEDH scale of power (too expensive for our tastes) but I think the issue with Leovold wasn't the effect itself but rather the extreme speed and consistency with which you can set up Leovold Puzzle Box. In a deck with those colors, card draw and tutors (Even weaker tutors) are plentiful. When you combine that with the innate artifact ramp present in Commander AND the deck's ability to run green for even more ramp. Leovold was consistently locking out the game within the first three to five turns and furthermore, you're locking your opponent out of continuing to draw answers. So the Box MUST be answered immediately upon arrival or it becomes very difficult to potentially answer after the fact... Also, Leovold is only 3 mana and can return to the command zone if removed. (Also typically netting you a card from his own effect in the process) so you only have to worry about holding up defenses to protect the top, since you can easily just recast Leovold a turn later. ((In CEDH this was probably even more powerful, as you are playing with stronger fast mana, better/more plentiful tutors and stronger defensive spells like Force of Will to protect the Box -- Sure, the argument can always be made for the fact that there are more players who might have answers to the combo, but simultaneously, those players are competing with one another. So sometimes it is as simple as one of them doing something scary a turn before the lock is set into place and the various answers of the table being committed to that instead.))
Best way I’ve learned to explain EDH to new players is to look at it like telling a story with the other players. Now imagine someone cheats in Iona super early and names a color you’re playing, would that bother you? I know some people here won’t care because they magically always have the answer (or don’t want to admit they’re hoping someone else will fix it). One thing a lot of players overlook is why this format was created in the first place. Judges wanted a way to blow off steam after judging all day and why not with a fun goofy “yes and…” approach to play.
First mono white deck I built after 7 years was Avacyn, Angel of Hope. It's pretty neat, Rodney. Angel/Boardwipe Tribal basically with removal AND exile if I feel really funny.
exactly, and that isnt banned. neither is any other lock ALL 3 opponents out. neither is tergrid which is super easy to stax all 3 opponents with on turn 1, and literally every lgs in the country shadowbanned tergrid because even the deck owner doesn't have fun with her, but you still can do it.
A lot of bans in edh are for feel bads in casual. Only once was a card banned specifically because cedh players requested it and it was Flash. And thank god that happened, cedh is so much fun right now!
As someone who doesn't totally get cedh and all of its intricacies just legitimately curious. didn't cedh players want flash banned for 1. it's obviously BS turn 1 win that required opponents to have a free counterspell opening hand to stop but 2. (And more importantly) it warped the entire format meta to trying to deal with it?? If that is the case then didnt flash just get immediately replaced by thoracle combo's that were just as format warping?
@@supranova7594 thoracle isn’t nearly as format warping as flash. Flash enabled turn 0 wins and more importantly, allowed a win at instant speed without a board state.
@@kauwgomboom gotcha so cuz it could be turn 0 there was far fewer ways to stop it since opponents didn't have a board state yet vs thoracle being later in the game allowing setup for responses. I just remembered hearing that most decks switched to thrass/tymna decks to thoracle as many ways as possible so thought that meant it warped it just as much. Good to know though TY
Paradox engine with any artifact that taps to draw a card and a few mana rocks means you play your whole deck. That isn’t an uncommon or unreasonable state for commander. Oh, and also in EDH terms 5 mana is like 3 mana in other formats.
I think the point with Iona is that her effects activates when she enters the battefield but it doesn't says it ends when she leaves. For example, path to the exile exiles one creature, same does oblivion ring with permanents bu it specifies when it leaves the battlefield the permanent comes back. So you could reenter Iona on to the battlefield and ban all colors
I played against a pretty vicious mono white deck that used Mondrak. It’s an tricky card to remove in the first place with a good effect and as commander, he can be recast making him even stickier.
Karakas isn’t even bad for targeting opponents legendary creatures it’s bad for combining with your own commander and protecting it for just holding up a land.
Paradox engine in my Jhoira Weatherlight Captain mana rock tribal deck is essentially easy mode. Jhoira herself replaces the spell you're casting, then just use something like sensei's diving top to get it basically infinite draw and mana. It would be a very powerful engine in that deck, which could get it out on turn 1 or 2
The OG Moxes are 0 mana. In a multi-colored deck you can put all the ones you have out on turn one, use one to play a Sol Ring, then use the Sol Ring to play a signet if you so fancy. You could keep a no land hand as long as you had some of the Moxes in hand with playable ramp and spells.
Playing Historic Brawl recently and looking over some of the banned cards, I think 40 life was just a bit too much for commander, maybe its time to discuss that, maybe 30? even the historic brawl 25? It's something to consider that a number of the banned cards are banned cause of the 40 starting life total, but it also bring about issues of commander damage becoming pointless against anything but a life gain deck, so it is a hard thing to change without causing huge changes to entire archetypes of decks
Iona really depends anyone rolling 5 color decks probably can eat whatever color has been locked out. I imagine why she got banned was due to Two color and especially mono color commander decks that happen to see her drop losing a good portion of your deck or for the case of a mono colored commander just not being able to do anything for the rest of the game. Also since her effect is an ETB, you can cheat her effect into play as she doesn't require a cast to lock out a color.
Limited resources and several lands that tap for 2 or more mana bounce lands lotus lands leaves you far ahead of the rest of the table without letting them catch up.
Most people I play with have targeted land destruction and 15-20 targeted other removal in their decks. There aren’t very many mass removals in our meta - maybe 2-3 per deck, if at all. StP is a bomb, that both saved and screwed me many times because I found it to be more relevant to interact with game ending threats at instant speed than clear a board of non-relavant 3/3s or so.
Interesting to see how different view numbers are between these streams and non-Commander focused ones. Glad to see your show and the channel(s) do well. Thanks for the ton of consistently interesting content. Is there any chance you will be doing the „decks to beat in modern“ videos in the style you used to do or is it just too much effort for the ~20000 views?
Opp agent doesnt have a way to force everyone to discard their hand and tutor 7 cards. Hull is banned not for its ability to punish 1 persons draw effect, but because you can not only use its gotcha effect, but also instantly force a gg 0 cards in hand 21 treasures yourself. Its was designed to be a gotcha but its actually a stax piece that rewards you. It is unfair. It is forced. It is a stronger card than thassas oracle for most decks, but it can be interacted with. So I dont think it should have been banned. Just run more interaction.
Hullbreacher would be fine, as a 2 card combo with Wheel - it'd still be fine, the problem isn't that it's in a two card combo - it's that they reprinted "fairer" wheels so many times it's a 2 card combo with 16 cards in the deck that plays it, and after you do the 2 card wombo combo - you're gonna draw another one - to do it again. 2 card combos that win the game aren't banworthy, but when a card insta wins with the bulk of your deck then I think it can park itself on the ban list lol.
I think it is interesting how Painters Servant was being bought out a few months prior to the unbanning in EDH, only to have it shoot up in price even further when the unbanning was publicly announced for EDH. There is also a card combination that works with Painters Servant and performs the same thing Iona did before they were banned it's just a few more hoops than simply playing Iona. Unban Prophet of Kruphix :P
Most commander decks are made up of 10-15% removal. That means there's 40-60+ removal spells at most commander tables. Even though single target removal can lag behind in multiplayer, you still need answers
I agree. In our group we play in an average of 25% removal. Removal wins games. Our group loves it. It keeps people and decks in check. For us when we are not playing 60 card kitchen table, our commander decks reflect that same strategy and game play. Cheers!
@@dustins9464 that means in your group there's generally more than 100 answer cards, lol, that's legit. I'll admit that it's very hard for me to run interaction, i have to force each removal slot into the deck. If I can get 10% of my deck devoted to removal I generally consider that a win. When I started playing commander my philosophy was that if you just play your game as best as you can you'll end up where you want to be, but I've learned that that just isn't the case
You could potentially have grizzlebrand out on turn 1 or 2 fairly easily with either ramp or cheating it out. With iona and painters servent you can easily go mono white and then as early as turn two have a game of solitaire what makes it even worse is that there is almost nothing that can be done once it's in place. There is a single combo that can be used to cheat the one and only Card that can stop it which is mycosynth latus. The reason why it's the only thing that can stop it is because mycosynth latus says that everything is colorless and that overrides the white in addition to effect. I'll also say that unless you have your way to cheat the mycosynth into play in play already you can't do it. Depending upon what a judge says you can't even nuke iona as she enters play. Painters servent was banned until they realized that eight and a half tails did almost the same as it did when coupled with iona. I made a deck that revolved around shutting down all incoming damage and everything possible from the opponents it was mono white and if it was able to get to turn four or five you would basically be impossible to stop. You couldn't damage me in any way and you couldn't cast spells and I was actively disabling everything that remained. Paradox engine will go infinite with almost any combo if you have any other two cards that can bounce each other or give you infinite mana from your casting you would be unstoppable.
Wasn't here earlier enough in the video to post this. One of the banlist moderators runs a mono green deck and at a commander fest one of his "biggest" fans begged him to play against him, pulled out iona and just ruined the game for him right away. Few months later iona gets banned and painter servant gets unbanned. Didnt know about the grindstone combo, not sure if it ever got banned, (but weird that was the first reason and it's still allowed if that's the case)
Fun fact: 7 damage commanders being a perfect 3 turn clock is not actually convenient, it's intentional, as the format EDH or Elder Dragon Highlander, was built around the original elder dragons, who all have 7 power, and the idea was that if you hit someone with one 3 times, they lose
I also feel like at the power level the format is now I think karakas would be fine because there are common destroy non basic land cards that are cheap and I think the format doesn’t encourage counter magic or spot removal enough because a good portion the basic response is counter or remove it but the amount of people that don’t want to play it because those aren’t “synergistic” with the decks but also necessary to the base game anyways
“Feel bad” cards could be played around people just don’t want to have those answers take up a spot in their deck. Got to have a defense as well as an offense
Paradox engine, step 1 tap all lands, tap 2 tap all rocks or dorks, step 3 cast low mana cost card, step 4 play any x spell, or commander win con. It untaps nonlands including those that untap lands. Any legendary creature that draws cards by tapping or spending mana instantly becomes archenemy.
So? Yeah, it's a combo win. That isn't the problem. Demonstrating a loop and winning isn't the problem. It's casual players spamming a bunch of nonsense for 20 minutes, doing nothing, then passing the turn.
The thing with Iona is you shut out one player, and since they're shut out people won't use resources to bully them since they're basically out... Meaning it's really good at meaning that singled out player chooses to either A wait until Iona dies, or just resign in a format where usually you and 3 others are playing over an hour... It's not BROKEN, it's unfun. lmao
Hullbreacher was a cedh staple but It did not break the format in any way. Effect was fair, it policed other peoples wheels. It was 2 card 6 mana combo with your wheel in a format where thasa consultation exists
Alright so name something that combos with Paradox Engine. I have a couple examples. Karametra and Avacyn’s Pilgrim on board. Cast WhiteMane Lion. Cast trigger untap avacyn’s pilgrim, tutor a land. Enters the battlefield, bounce whitemane lion. Repeat ad nauseum. Slap a guardian project on there for infinite draws. Sliver Overlord, Manaweft Sliver, Nyxbloom ancient. Tap manaweft, tutor a 1 drop sliver, tap overlord, float 2 and play the sliver. Trigger untap. Repeat for 2 and 3, on 3 get Blur sliver. Congrats infinite mana and every creature out of your deck.
Turn one Sol Ring will generate 20 mana over 10 turns (minus one to play it) A mox will only generate 10 mana over 10 turns. I think that 2 mana ramp is fine but ban all the free and 1 mana ramp
in cedh hullbreacher is actually used to stop ppl from going off. When it was legal it made games longer and more enjoyable, like what endurance is doing to graveyard decks hull was doing to storm decks... the only problem is that I think it should have been white and that that was the way white gets resources it balances opponents and gets rewarded for doing so... then it would have been played a lot more... but other than it was actually solving more problems then making any... also I think you would really enjoy cedh and all of your chat is players that are playing power level 5... all of the things they say are things that they will tell cedh players to deal with in rule 0 talks when in competitive magic there is no f*cking rule 0!!
iona doesnt need a combo, she stops you from playing the one card you built your deck around, your commander, and also a significant portion of any non mono deck. in multiplayer u just name the most shared color among opponents. most decks are 3 colour, so likely in a 4 player ghame, 2 opponents will share a colour.
So I wanna answer the cedh Hullbreacher thing. Was it objectively strong enough to catch the ban hammer on power alone?? It’s close. Cedh community was sorta split on it. The problem was more the toxic play patterns especially in cEdh. It was most brutal cast in response to someone else’s wheel 😖 or even just nasty response to brainstorm. But the games would tend to grind to a halt but not technically end. It also took away from diversity as every single cedh deck w blue that played creatures would run it in the 99. Opposition agent only goes in grindy/controlly/midrange decks but hullbreacher fueled turbo nause strategies and was also the best blue hate bear for control strategies
Alright, land destruction isn't frowned upon nearly as much as chat seemed to think it was. Anyone upset over a Strip Mine is probably just a Gate player that's upset they couldn't use Maze's End. It's only mass land destruction like Worldslayer and Armageddon that people don't like, because if you destroy all lands without a plan to win within the next turn, it just slows the game for no reason.
Krenko, mob boss costs 4 mana/suggesting you have 4 lands> Paradox engine with say, Arcane Encyclopedia (3, tap- draw a card)+ Krenko, Mob Boss+Skirk prospector (sacrifice goblin for mana) with another goblin= create 3 mana, tap encyclopedia, draw a card. Having goblins that cost 1-2 mana means, if you play a (1 mana cost) Goblin, paradox engine untaps krenko and Arcan encyclopedia. 4 goblins/tap krenko for 4 goblin tokens. Sacrifice 3 goblins/Play another 1mana* goblin spell. 5 goblins/untap-tap krenko, 6 tokens, 2 lands still available. -3 tokens, draw a card. Play another goblin 9 goblins= 9 tokens-3 tokens. Draw a card. Play another. 16 goblins=16 tokens-3 tokens. Draw a card No more lands, but 16 gobins to use as mana. It's only a matter of time before you come across goblin war strike, siege gang commander etc.
Some commentary to the banlist portion of the video: Griselbrand: Needs to stay banned or Entomb and Reanimate wins the game. Too mutch card draw with 40 life. Better in the 99 than as commander. Would make Tin Fins a deck in edh. Hullbreacher: Can get unbanned. „Unfun“ with Wheels, but will be telegraphed by leaving 3 Mana open, then flash this in, then cast draw 7. Easy to see if you look for it. Iona, Shield of Emeria: Can be unbanned. The „combo“ with Painters Servant is nothing I would worry about. Karakas: Yeah, needs to stay banned for the sake of the format. Leovold, Emissary of Trest: Please stay banned. Powerful Commander, but the best antidote for Leovold is more Leovold. BUG in cedH with Thassa's Oracle, Tainted pact, the best tutors etc. would be quite good. Library of Alexandria: Can be unbanned. Could be great in slow reactive decks but those are hard to play. Limited Resources: Needs to stay banned due to the multiplayer format. Could be insane in Selesnya Staxx decks if allowed. Lutri, the Spellchaser: Unfortunate, but for balance sake it should be banned because no reason not to use it if you have the colors. The Moxen: Should stay banned. Colored Mana without cost is very good. Mox + Sol Ring = Turn 1 colored 3 CMC Spell → Blood Moon, Rhystic Study etc. Plus they make higher colored commanders even better and those do not need any help. Panoptic Mirror: Can be unbanned. The Combos it does enable are worse than the available ones. Needs 5 Mana to win the game. Play it, untap, react to the trigger to imprint a Time Walk. You may imprint a card on Panoptic Mirror in response to the upkeep-triggered ability. If you do, that card is available to copy when the triggered ability resolves. (2004-12-01) Paradox Engine: Great card, would love to see this unbanned for Combo decks. It got banned because it made long turns without develloping a win, it was banned because it was annoying, not because it was too good imho. Mono White Commanders: Well Tehar, Ancestor's Apostle (Eggs Type deck), Oswald Fiddlebender (Artifact Combo) and Heliod, Sun-Crowned (Ballista Combo) are definitely playable decks. And well Sol Ring was once upon a time on the reserved list: mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Reserved_List
Hullbreacher isnt that telegraphed with holding up 3 mana, thats just a generic blue deck either holding/bluffing a counterspell. The fact that you can do it in response to an opponents wheel/even just a good draw spell made it quite strong. I want to say a lot of outcry was that in the casual scene people would jam hullbreacher+wheels in their decks and then end up with a lot of mana and not a win, which made the game a lot less fun for the other 3 players
@@fosterdawson7339 3 Mana is a lot, so you should expect something. Usually the "dangerous" play was 3 Mana open -> End phase Hullbreacher and in his Main Phase -> Wheel. You kinda have to sniff this out, but the same is true for Opposition Agent so I don't see it as that bad. Casual players would have to leave mana up and they do not seem to like that idea.
31:53 limited resources. If you have a four player game of Commander and each person has two lands that's the most amount of lands it allows. 10/4 = 2.5... this card would make a lot more sense for a 1v1 format... If someone plays it late game though then everybody gets five lands. This card would be do able as long as it isn't played early game... I think the card was made with a 1v1 format in mind.
The difference between losing on the spot and being locked out of a game by a card like Iona is that you can leave the table if you want, use the bathroom, get a snack, get some fresh air... and if Iona only shuts down one player, that's potentially worse than dominating the entire table. Very unfun. Broken? Probably not, because you should still have an answer even in a mono-color deck.
the answer is not letting her get out but i agree for 9 mana its not broken at all. locking a single player out doesn't mean you win and there's literally HUNDREDS of win against all 3 opponents for less than 9 mana. literally any deck should be able to play win cons by 9 mana. most can do it by 5 mana
@@bennycostello2472 winning or losing isn't the point at all. If this were competitive magic, first of all, it would be a moot point because she's way too slow, but more importantly, how "fun" the card is wouldn't matter - all that matters in competitive magic is if the card is "fair". But Commander is mostly a casual format, so fun is more important, and potentially being locked out of a game is incredibly unfun. "Don't let it hit the table" is pretty naive - there's a ton of ways to cheat Iona into play early. "You should have a way to deal with it." You certainly should, but that doesn't mean you will. "There should be other players that can deal with it." Only if they want to. We could bandy questions and answers like those back and forth forever, but the rules committee decided it wasn't worth the heartache. They made a lot of players happy and fewer players sad - that's a win.
MLD is frowned because most people dont know when to fire em off with a winning board state for after, so then the game just durdled while people redraw lands and ramp. Honestly with all the possibilities of a opponent using a boros charm/ heroic intervention effect for indestructible or a teferi's protection in response to casting a MLD I'd say it's probably not even as strong as it used to be when commander first started
It feels like the true problem with Iona is that people disallow conceding in their EDH games. Like in 1v1 you'd say "if a player is locked out of the game by this they give up, shuffle, and play the next match" but in 4 player commander they say "if a player is locked out of the game by this THEY HAVE TO SIT THOUGH THE ENTIRE GAME" - or what? - the other 3 people burn them at the stake? Are regular EDH groups really that toxic?
There are some mono colored cedh decks but prob the only arguably tier one (maybe not even maybe tier 1.5 or 2) mono colored decks are Godo and Urza. Red and blue. There are decent like tier 2 or 3 mono colored decks aside from those but they are not top decks. Heliod ballista is kinda fine and the mono green like Selvala/Marwyn type lists are decent. Krr’k son of yawgmoth is prob like a tier 3 mono black deck maybe it’s better than that. These lists are at a disadvantage in cEdh just cause the mana is so good w fetches and duals and of course the card pool access is a big deal
Urza isn't even tier 1. Dockside and the mass number of token makers made him much weaker because Winter Orb and Back to Basics don't matter when your opponent untaps one land, plays one, drops a Dockside, gets a bunch of treasures, then combos off.
As a cEDH player I feel hullbreacher is obviously very broken, but broken cards are the norm in cEDH so that is no reason to ban it. I think it should be unbanned honestly. Like many cards on the banlist tbh. Something like Flash Hulk was broken because you could win turn 0 off a gemstone caverns + spirit guide or just go off at instant speed and you'd be almost unstoppablke. But Hullbreacher takes some time to set up so I see no problem with it. Breacher + wheel wins you the game, yeah, but so does narset + wheel, at least 99% of the time. And a 6-mana 2-card win con is nothing out of the ordinary at any rate. That's simply a T3 kill, like so many A+B combos out there can achieve.
paradox engine + acererak + mana rocks/dorks = infinite combo if you just never complete the tomb of annihilation. and there are so many more combos with this. and since acererak and other commanders can combo with this, its too stable. but the kci argument also holds true for this i guess.
Paradox just made the fast mana worse. Play it, then something cheap, get all the rocks back again. Keep cycling (not themechanic) cheap stuff with rocks to get big mana banked, cast draw spells (Thrassisos was a common commander for this, or any other commander with a mana dump or tap to draw effect), it would just last a long time to see if people could get enough mana for their combo or to draw the right pieces. And it would be slow.
you could just make tokens of ionia and do all 5 colors that way, then have emrakul and your opponents cant do anything at all but scoop. so if you can find a way to cheat her out stupid quick and copy her then it's essentially sending everyone to life in prison
I wish Iona wasn't banned, I had her in my Mayael, the Anima deck, and it was strong but not broken there, however I understand why it had to be banned with painter coming back (which was banned with Grindstone)
Leovold is frightening, Last time I ever played Leovold was an 8 player game. And I managed to draw a particular hand that if sequenced just right, you shut the remaining 7 players by turn 3 T1: Forest > Exploration > Swamp T2: Island > Island > Leovold T3:: Forest > Teferi's Puzzle Box (Dispel for the instant speed Not Krosan Grip answer)
Let's see Netherborn Alter, Command beacon are the only two cards that brings a commander from the command zone to your hand so you can then discard and graveborn and i know know this because if playing Phage as commander you need it in the hand if you don't have stuff like PLatinum Angel or Torpororb or even Lich's Mastery. Anyways Griselbrand is only banned becasue it is a 7/7 with lifelink meaning it always pay for those cards so a free 7 cards every turn is kinda broken, but there are more broken stuff that are legal in commander that i say it should be legal or at least unban Coalition Victory especially since you have a easier win con to pull off such as Ramses, Assassin Lord that reads if you kill a player with an assassin you win the game yes literally in a pod of 4 kill 1 and the other two just instantly loses. If that doesn't give Feels bad vibes Iona should be unbanned literally
Kinda. With the rule change, your Commander always goes to the graveyard. You can just choose to send it back to the command zone immediately after it died.
10 years cedh experience:In regards to hullbreacher : The format, especially cedh needs fast efficient answers and threats similar to the elemental cycle in mh2. The problem is that we dont have a casual and competive ban list and way too many cards get banned because of complaints from the casuals as opposed to the whole community
Hey so it’s $15 for you do my deck in deck list review? I need some advice on my Gruul aggro/midrange list. Doesnt even need to be during coffee and mtg I just need some tips and ideas
Want more Banned Commander Card discussion? Watch the next video here: Watch Part 3: ruclips.net/video/m7KZbExIkmw/видео.html
If fast mana or mana rocks were banned everyone would just play mana dorks
As someone who played with iona before she was banned the most often overlooked part of her is that the effect dosen't say it ends if you no longer control iona so if you can flicker her a couple time's you can very quickly put a permanent lock on the game so that opponents can only cast colorless spells so mostly just shuts off all of their cards.
Griselbrand is the most painful card in history to look at. Its a 7/7 with the ability of paying 7 life to draw 7 cards. Why would you make its casting cost 8? Just commit to the theme and make it cost 7.
Sincerely, a 7 fan.
I was in testing, but they said its was just too strong to the environment at time and gameplay always has to come before aesthetics. It did little to dampen the power of this card out of standard though.
Can we not just add that if it enters the battlefield and wasn’t cast then exile it instead.
Sol Ring might be more powerful than any one Mox, but having more fast mana in your deck means you're more likely to get multiple fast mana spells in your opener.
The thing people miss with karakas is that it's free protection for your own commander and allows you to dodge commander tax, plus it's excellent with some ETB commanders
Cards don't have to go infinite to be broken and powerful. I don't understand why people always ask about the infinite combos. How many cards go infinite with rhystic study?
All the more reason why HB should be unbanned
@@xFreSh999_ what gets me about the hullbreacher ban is that Sheldon constantly talks about cards that are breaking wheels, but never really thinks about wheels being broken themselves. Timetwister, Windfall, and Wheel Of Fortune are all restricted in vintage for good reason, and that reason isn't hullbreacher, or notion thief, or even narset parter of veils. Just ban the 3 problem wheels, all the rest are clearly substantially weaker and don't need a ban, then Sheldon can stop complaining about Dauthi Voidwalker breaking wheels.
@@HugHeist T
@@HugHeist err no, hull breacher does something much more powerfull than those cards listed that you fail to realize, it ramps to heavens, card advantage is great but you need the mana to cast the cards in hand typically which is why hullbreacher is over the edge, simply put something like a narset planeswalker or notion thief plus a wheel is brutal yes but players can come back more easily from having no hand than having no hand and having to contest with someone who now has 20+ spare mana.
Wheels themselves are also no really busted as are equal for all players until another factor is introduced but said other factor can be removed in response unlike hullbreacher who comes in as a response to the lack of concern over the wheel effect.
While notion thief can do the same trick the distinction made by hullbreacher suddenly gaining a large amass of game tempo via the mana is what makes it much stronger and backbreaking ultimately.
Hullbreacher also does what it does in response to more than just wheels being cast as well.
The biggest factor is hullbreacher is so good is this mix of unpredictability and the fact that if it does go off then you are dealling with someone who suddenly has more than enough mana to just end the game with, that capability is much stronger compared to the drawpower of notion thief as deck power is increased as well because the decks will have more consistancy in already getting everything they would need without having to draw a bunch of cards due to being full of tutors and interchangable combo pieces.
Frankly I am most surprised that dockside didn't go with hullbreacher for creating similar issues with earlygame extreme ramp.
@@sablesalt drawing cards let you draw mana. The 3 wheels i mentioned are restricted in vintage and banned in legacy, where hullbreacher is legal at 4. If it's symmetrical then why aren't they unbanned there? Could it possibly be because that effect is one of the top 5 most powerful effects printed?
You keep comparing hullbreacher to notion thief but yiu fail to realize the world of difference between a 3 mana 1 color card and a 4 mana 2 color card. Nobody has ever notion thief and wheeled and lost. Ad nauseum and peer into the abyss see extremely wide play as 1 card win cons and naus usually draws about 20-30 cards, which thief wheel draws 28.
Watching this video shows the different mindsets of someone in a competitive format vs a casual one. Many people play for fun and the commander council acknowledges that. They make bans more for the good of the average player and rarely cater to the competitive ones. Plus with a singles format with 100 card decks you often don’t draw into the removal you need for these majorly oppressive cards
Remember that all infinite mana combos with two cards is a to card combo and not a three card combo since if the win con is your commander you always have access to.
What makes paradox engine so good is you can "storm off" with whatever pile of generically powerful cards is already in your deck and find a win, it's effectively a 1 card combo because there is enough draw and tutors in EDH to keep gas flowing and with any significant amount of mana rocks each of those spells is mana positive.
Honestly it is probably banned for the sins of Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, and friends. Typically what it looks like is vomit artifact mana into play (ex: workshop, mana crypt) -> cast paradox engine -> cast random cards generating mana until you find a tutor (most of the cards in your deck cantrip like a KCI deck, + brainstorm, ponder, git probe, preordain are all legal in commander), then whatever tutor you find can go fetch underworld breach / past in flames / yawgmoth's will / some other source of CA then recast the tutor fetching a wincon
Paradox Engine is not banned for being too powerful. It"s banned because it wasted so much time when casual players take a 20 minute turn, do nothing, then pass the turn.
Mono color commanders are EXTREMELY popular, but Iona can also almost completely shut down many 2 color decks as well. It just does not mesh well with the intent of the format, as well as the restrictions on color identity. It doesn't help that most Iona lists are built around stax and making everything unable to be cast for your opponents.
As for Karakas you can target opponent's legendaries, aka their Commander. They'd never be able to keep their commander out since you can just force the commander to hand the moment it etbs
Leovold wheels as a commander and is in the best 3 colors of commander
Also if all three oponents are running duel color decks, you hitting at least two oponents.
Cedh players are mixed on Hullbreacher. Due to the nature of cedh, cards are cards. While annoying and blow out inducing, it was nowhere near as bad as Flash.
Cards like Hullbreacher are largely gonna get banned on the spot because of Leovold. the Commander counsel let Leovold run ruckshod for a while to see if the format would balance itself and it didn't. Leovold decks would get their Lockout online with Teferi's puzzelbox and then the rest of the table would have to wait for the Leovold player to finish playing solitaire. Same reason Iona is banned. Cards that can almost single handedly tell an opponent that they can't play this game anymore generally get banned.
@@richardmazkin9994 Leovold was banned because he's in the command zone. Narset and Notion Thief aren't banned.
It’s fine in cedh easily dealt with
@@outacontrol7528 I would say that it's "easy" to deal with Hullbreacher in cedh.
So, the thing about Iona (I love this card, btw) is that it can lock all your opponents out if you're a good deckbuilder. White flickers pretty well. Her ability is etb. If you have a few flicker cantrips in hand or on the battlefield, then you can just wait for each end step and name the next color in turn order. Each opponent could play artifacts and lands and use whatever they have left, but you could potentially give yourself multiple "additional turns" with consistent flickering of Iona.
Also just saying "this player can't play the game anymore", well it's just dreadfully unfun
@@Cerebrosum also if he sees this, the difference between being iona locked and being dead is: you still have to draw a card each turn, etc, you just physically can't...do anything to help your boardstate
Iona + flickerform = You don't get to play, you don't get to play .. and now you don't get to play.. then remark with 'Isn't magic fun!' and wonder why you don't have friends
The issue with Iona is that it severely punishes mono-color commanders for just existing. Reanimating this turn 1, declare that color, and now your 4-player pod is a 3-player pod on turn 1.
All the ban reasons.
Iona: ban was mostly because of reanimate decks of W/B or W/B/R so stitch together/stands of night/nim deathmantle/victimize/animate dead/dread return/Recurring Nightmare/unburial rites/Kaalia/apprentice necromancer/doomed necromancer + any commander who raises 3 CMC creature (common in W/B or W/B/G commanders) creatures every turn. She would make mono unplayable, someone like Zur can just hunt for Re-occurring Nightmare back before it was banned, sac a creature get iona and this enchantment in hand. Hmmm possibly naming most likely blue as blue has the most annoying thing for reanimate which is put into hand?
Karakas: yeah auto include in any white as it's non tap land so essentially a plains with a bonus effect. There is 3 common non-basic land removals which will turn their Karakas in a plain, crucible of world is a common card in EDH. I know I abuse it in white/blue with land tax+trade secrets for fast draw. Also bouncing your own commander with come into play w/o the commander cost.
Hullbreacher -> Memory Jar/Puzzle Box/Wheel effects, with teferri's puzzle box can put people onto top deck the game while getting absurd mana. You would most likely find your combo and have in a 3 player game 21 mana. If your combo requires you to spend 21 mana of any color + 3-4 mana in lands and maybe 2-3 mana rocks.
Leovold: Slows down the game, wheel effects, memory jar, teferi's puzzle box make it into top deck for a solution which again it's not an instant I win but it's more of a I'll just scoop instead of hoping for me to top deck artifact removal, that wont get countered.
Library of Alexandria: Last time i check the price was 5,000$ that would again take a land slot in every deck, just like how sol ring/sensei divining top/mana crypt/mana vault is in most decks increasing 200$, this would make it 5,000$ or we would just need a vintage proxy rule for it. The issue with it is if you have no good turn 1 drops, this will allow you to draw an extra card, drop a land and play a single spell every turn til you have something worth while. HEAVILY combo's with white which has land tax effects like land tax or weathered wayfarer which can quickly fill up your hand with lands. Wheel effects that put you to 8, teferri's puzzle box again you're always at 8. If you have an untap effect you can trigger it multiple time so you can have this net you multiple cards cause you can activate it at 7, but if you put all the draw effects at the end for essentially paying 1 colorless mana on average you will most likely draw 3-4 making it an ancestral recall. If you never get it's effect in a game it's still a fast land that makes colorless.
Limited resources, is generally playing land ramp, put it gaddock teeg so most your expensive spells cant even be ramped too. Generally in a table of 4 if you have 2 lands + search for a land spells. If you dont play green, you're going to be stuck at 2 mana and gaddock teeg will lock out of your 4 mana or higher spells. But again they'd prob be playing green/white with creature and artifact removal.
Lutri: It was banned because companion was you could essentially have it on the side board of all your decks that can run R/B you would have to play against them knowing they had a 3 cmc fork in hand.
Mox: I think it's an Library of alexandria where it's a price + rarity thing. I'd honestly be fine with all the 1 fast mana removal and just allow players to proxy this since it is a casual format. Vintage allows for proxies, why not commander? The big thing
Panoptic Mirror: It's an infinite turn combo but it doesn't END just there, it combos TOO well in most artifact decks.
T1, land, sol ring mana crypt, unwinding clock
T2, Land, Pan mirror, demonic tutor, put mana vault into play
T2 P2, search shimmer myr, play it
T2 P3, search metal worker, play it
T2 P4, search staff of dominion, play, it win?
It's biggest issue unlike ice cream scepter where it's only good for what mana drain, counter spell, dramatic reversal, fork. so 4 cards in an entire deck. Mirror takes any spell and goes crazy with it in any artifact deck. It has to be return to dust, which is the most common exile artifact, and with artifact re-animation being something 3 colors can do graveyard->battlefield and green can also bring back to hand, and fast mana being so strong, For one artifact slot it makes all your sorcey and instants repeatable. Target artifact removal isn't that used that much unless you're green/red, you might run 2-3 but that's a low chance, It usually comes out from a more expensive form with a body to be reanimated (acid slime) or AOE. But again you would have to also deal with their academy ruins, goblin welder,master transmuter,arcuum dagson,etc the turn right after destroying it bringing it back for 0-2 mana with a new spell. They will cast every turn with unwinding clock, twice, and thrice extra with voltaic key + mana key.
Paradox Engine: To many artifact commanders can cheat this into play and abuse it. Arcum Dagson goes infinite with sol ring/mana crypt/mana vault + 2 lands + cheap artifact creatures (most the creatures in it are 0-2 cmc.) If you get 2 fast rocks in hand and a 0 cost you can turn 2 this combo.
Turn 2 or 3 combo that literally requires you to have 1 fast rock in hand to turn 3 it, or turn 2 with sol and crypt/sol/vault with 2 of these in hand, 2 islands, and 2 any of his artifact creatures in hands that are CMC 2 (so 40% of the deck).
Play 1 artifact creature, sac it with dagson to find paradox engine.
Play artifact creature with your 2 lands and untap everything
Play a artifact creature from hand 2 cmc or less,
Sac it with dagson for Citanul flute, use the flute to search X for 0
Play the 0 cost artifact creature, turn it into another mana rock that provides 2 mana
flute for 2, get myr retriever sacing it getting another mana rock getting you to 6 every time you cast a spell
search for 3, getting junk diver. play myr retriever Return myr retriever to hand.
Sac for aether resevoir
Go infinite with myr retriever/junkdiver to play 50 spells gaining 50 more life and nuke someone for 50.
Issue is a lot of them aren't "broken" imo maybe outside of paradox and panoptic mirror, you wont win the game if this drops but put the game to a slow crawl or way to expensive and would be a staple in every deck. It might work in MTGO with vintage masters, but unbanning Mox and Library would make competitive decks all rise by absurd price values. Hullbreacher/leovold just slows down the game for everyone BUT them. Lutri is honestly I could see unbanned now with the needing to pay 3 at sorcery speed means you cant beat a counter with 0 cards in hand.
Honestly how you have to view the game sorta now with artifacts is it broken if it's a guaranteed turn 2-3 drop with arcum dagson, and is that 3 cmc enchantment in white/blue/black enchantment also broken with Zur.
Right about all of these except Lutri.
Lutri was banned because it effectively has no companion cost unlike all the others.
I think you misread panoptic mirror. The tap ability is the imprint. Casting the spell only happens on upkeep. Untapping it only gives you more options on what one spell you get to copy next turn.
CEDH Here: Hullbreacher is a turn 1/2 "all opponents discard their hands, I draw a new hand and play all of it"
The point is that any Wheel effect + hullbreach means they loose their hand and you get 7 mana.
turn 1 : Mana crypt, island, sol ring, petal, mox opal, hull breach, windfall;
woops, I win; 7 new cards, and 21 mana; I am just gonna go infinite now
and that is a very unoptimized setup (untap effects, frantic searches, some commanders, ... not taken into effect)
i think thats a pretty optimized setup with 7 cards in opening hand. breacher was mainly used at the end of the person before your's turn to wheel on the next, OR in response to someone elses wheel. Still absurdly strong, i hated playing with it and im glad its gone
@@fosterdawson7339 I play a lot of CEDH, thats one of like 12 or 13 turn 1 hands that do it (dark rite, metamorpho, pyros, other rites, etc) basically any deck that can run a wheel effect and hull breach (usually BRU decks, but sometimes BW) can get it with 7, 6, or 5 cards. so it basically ends games; Whole decks were built around it when a lot of us were testing it.
So think of it this way; turn 0-1, 3 cards to tutor for it, 3-4 cards on turn 1-2 to do it with a like 70% chance without new mull; with the new mull (put card on bottom) your looking at 3 or 4 decks that dominate 4 colours, because they just shit on the whole game 90% of the time, and have a better than 20% to have enough blue to also force any counter
What you need to think about is that the legendary creature doesn't need to be the commander, most are broken in the 99 where you can cheat it into play. Iona on Kalhia decks is oppresive, Griselbrand reanimator, any cheat into play effect will show you why the card is banned
The problem with Paradox Engine is that it enables too many different three card combos (that can all fit into a single deck together, particularly with storm), especially for how good it is even when it is just generating value to help you assemble the boardstate for said combo.
Spot removal, for when an opponent has a serious threat or combo piece but you like your board position.
Paradox Engine was a house in commander decks with commanders with an insane tap ability. Selvala, Explorer Returned, Yissan Wandering Bard, and Arcan Daggson were some of the worst offenders with this card. Arcum would just tutor it to the field instantly and start assembling a win con on the spot tutoring in Citanul Flute after Paradox Engine, grabbing zero drop creatures to keep pulling out artifacts to win with Staff of Dom during the time.
Hullbreacher + Wheel of Fortune sounds like a LOT of fun.
I think the thing with Sol Ring Vs Mox is because the Mox are essentially free whereas Sol ring requires one mana. Also, the Mox are colored instead of colorless
The mox are banned because they are rare, but also forced to go in every deck 3 or more colors. They can even replace lands. You could drop turn 1 5 color commanders and still have 4 mana left over. Its just too much consistency for turn 1/2 plays. They are mana crypts. Mana crypt>sol ring. Sol ring(while broken)at least requires 1 mana to cast.
correction every deck why would you not run a land that says yea play me in addition to the other lands in your deck
Iona / Helm of the host combo would be interesting. In 4 turns you lock the table if you can keep it alive.
Yeah hullbreacher is a two card combo that is non deterministic and leaves every other player on the table watching you play magic while having no hand. Which is wildly unfun.
Issue with library of alex is more we would need to ban mind over matter.
MoM -> Discard a card, untap or tap a perm -> search for your win con or win with lab
Also any blue deck that can easily draw will get to 7, and it's just a free draw engine and have reliquary. I think it's issue is it's a free draw.
ALSO forgot to mention drop it turn 1. As we know mtg commander has exciting turn 1 hand drops... so turn 1 library, 6 cards... end turn your next turn you're at 7 and enjoy this constant draw of 2 cards allowing you to land drop and play a spell leaving you at 6.
Starting hand = constant 2 draw
Decks with good draw = miko but 0 mana and only for yourself.
Add untapped perms like seed born muse, get +x extra cards, get arbor elf +1 card.
It's a really easy card to break untap target land/permanent effects so blue/green/white derevi and well you get this in your starting hand with land destruction frowned upon, after turn 3 you're drawing 4, every turn.
Technically this is an issue with any permanent that taps to draw a card. I would say Mind Over Matter is way worse with Library because at that point in the game you're unlikely to have 7 cards.
@@NikachuMTGLive also forgot to add most turn 1's nothing goes on in commander.
T1, library, 6 cards
T2, 7 cards tap library, 8 cards, play land and sol ring or arbor elf, 6 cards
T3, 7 cards tap library, 8 cards if you have arbor 9. Drop a land 7(8) play a spell 6(7).
Essentially a starting hand with it is going to be infinitely better then one without it. Because if your hand drops to 5, you got maybe 3-x cards for a 0 drop. Then if you have seedborn it becomes draw X, x is the number of players. The g/u commander who let's every spell net you a free spell or into your hand 1 a turn would be good with it because if they counter your card this turn they'll stay at 6/7 cards. Bird commander can just abuse it with untap effects as early as turn 4. Again with other cards.
Evacuation, boom hand is full again, Any wheel effect and it's activated and it's taking a land slot, with its only negative if it never happens is it's a colorless land, but having it turn 1 can net you X cards for x+1 colorless mana
Maybe in your playgroup nothing happens turn 1. But generally Commander is aggressive where you mana ramp into powerful plays (hence why Sol Ring and other artifact ramp is so popular). Library is very weak in that “meta.”
@@NikachuMTGLive Edit: fixing this up so it's not word soup
I forgot about it's old combos that make it silly. Land tax- when ever someone has more lands then you, during your upkeep. Search your deck UP TO 3 basic lands. Costs 1 white. You can essentially have your mana ramp above and the draw engine of this. Land tax will make this essentially you always trigger the 7 cost if you play one land behind or crack a sack land on your upkeep have the land effect trigger after land tax, so land tax see's you at 1.
Then Red and blue, can abuse wheel effects to discard their hand and draw 7 (now 8), drop a land and play a creature. A more combo deck could just run a whole lot of reaction spells and ramp, react to you, then bring a spell back. Grixis could then use all the draw 8/discard hands to reanimate something back. Murica can do this and land tax.
Then there is evacuate like effects that quickly fill your hand.
There is the turn 1 beginning if your hand doesn't have any sol ring/mana crypt
Trade routes/land tax/library would be in every B/W or B/W/X deck ever
Tashemi can abuse it, Derevi can SUPER abuse it (only can activate it when you have 7) so trigger every untap and have it's effect go off before all the untap effect means draw X cards with him for every creature you attack with?
Can abuse it if brain storm puts you to 7 halfway through it's effect, or any card with similar put x into hand then discard/put ontop of your library.
The biggest issue is imo it's 5,000$ and every deck benefits from running it as it doesn't come into play tapped so it's not a slow land.
About panoptic mirror : on the First upkeep, you can answer the triggered ability by playing the activated ability ... so, it's "active" next turn you play it.
The issue with grislebrand was you built him as your commander with every single piece of fast mana, and ritual effect you could get. And it wasn't very hard to ramp him out turn 2 or 3, maybe even 1 if you got a real luck opener. And even if he got removed you can still just refill your hand to twice it's size or even bigger depending how greedy you want to be to try again the next turn with the best 7 out of the 14 or whatever you just drew. They had him as banned as just a commander for a bit. But they wanted to remove that distinction entirely as they thought it was confusing and just hard banned all the legends in that category (Rofellos, Erayo, etc) to just have it be the end of it.
Ionas effect doesn't go away if she leaves the battlefield. If you play Iona, Flicker her and choose a new color. Continue to do this for as many colors you need too.
Yea
entomb turn 1, fetch Griselbrand and bin it, turn 2 reanimate, draw 35 cards
Paradox engine isn't so much about coming with a specific card but rather with a critical mass of mana rocks/dorks. You play it and suddenly every opt or harmonize is mana positive or free. You can play extra mana rocks you draw afterwards to do even more. Then if you do find anything that bounces itself it will actually go infinite but even if you don't, it still generates a whole bunch of mana. If you spend 5 mana from rocks for this then casting any other spell means it was actually free.
I just got back into magic , i sold all my cards in 98 , im kicking myself with all the OG cards i had and what I sold them for , but I bought a box of boulders gate commander packs and pulled every dragon and didnt even know what they did , now I do and there pretty fun
With iona you can just double the etb triggers with any number of cards. Strionic resonator for example. No more black or blue cards.
Also with Kaalia on turn 4, Anger in the graveyard....
Unless i am gravely mistaken Ioanas ability isnt a trigger, just like "Clone" effects. You can't have phyrexian metamorph enter as a copy of 2 creatures for example.
That's why its worded "as" and not "when". Thus it cant be copied by strionic resonator etc.
Paradox engine was strong but not oppressive in cEdh.
It’s good. I think it was mostly banned for the sins of bad players not knowing how to use it (btw it def was played in Urza along side dramatic scepter.
Was amazing w cantrips) cedh players were very sad to see it go. It generally was played in decks that have an infinite mana outlet in the command zone. There were some combos but mostly it was the fact that casual players hated it.
It killed some cedh decks when it got banned, like Lady of scrolls and the green and white Selvala.
RIP to my Feather and Baral decks ;_;
You also have Thrasios as an outlet for paradox engine
I feel the need to point out that urza was only released a month before Paradox engine got banned, it was problematic before Urza.
Additionally I've literally had a friend apologize for his OPENING HAND because he had enough rocks to slam the engine and keep casting, he proceeded to aetherflux both of us before our first turn, we just told him to shuffle up because we still liked our hands. It really is THAT broken.
Cards like Library are banned mostly because Commander started its banlist based on Vintage's. I do agree Library could be unbanned but it won't simply because it's been banned for so long.
that and RL prices would make it skyrocket even more than it needs to
Hey, I'm new here, but I had a buddy who played Leovold quite heavily. We aren't quite at the cEDH scale of power (too expensive for our tastes) but I think the issue with Leovold wasn't the effect itself but rather the extreme speed and consistency with which you can set up Leovold Puzzle Box. In a deck with those colors, card draw and tutors (Even weaker tutors) are plentiful. When you combine that with the innate artifact ramp present in Commander AND the deck's ability to run green for even more ramp. Leovold was consistently locking out the game within the first three to five turns and furthermore, you're locking your opponent out of continuing to draw answers. So the Box MUST be answered immediately upon arrival or it becomes very difficult to potentially answer after the fact... Also, Leovold is only 3 mana and can return to the command zone if removed. (Also typically netting you a card from his own effect in the process) so you only have to worry about holding up defenses to protect the top, since you can easily just recast Leovold a turn later.
((In CEDH this was probably even more powerful, as you are playing with stronger fast mana, better/more plentiful tutors and stronger defensive spells like Force of Will to protect the Box -- Sure, the argument can always be made for the fact that there are more players who might have answers to the combo, but simultaneously, those players are competing with one another. So sometimes it is as simple as one of them doing something scary a turn before the lock is set into place and the various answers of the table being committed to that instead.))
Best way I’ve learned to explain EDH to new players is to look at it like telling a story with the other players. Now imagine someone cheats in Iona super early and names a color you’re playing, would that bother you? I know some people here won’t care because they magically always have the answer (or don’t want to admit they’re hoping someone else will fix it).
One thing a lot of players overlook is why this format was created in the first place. Judges wanted a way to blow off steam after judging all day and why not with a fun goofy “yes and…” approach to play.
First mono white deck I built after 7 years was Avacyn, Angel of Hope. It's pretty neat, Rodney. Angel/Boardwipe Tribal basically with removal AND exile if I feel really funny.
My first commander deck was a Limited Resources deck with artifact & land destruction… so I’d have 10 lands and the other 3 just got to watch
exactly, and that isnt banned. neither is any other lock ALL 3 opponents out. neither is tergrid which is super easy to stax all 3 opponents with on turn 1, and literally every lgs in the country shadowbanned tergrid because even the deck owner doesn't have fun with her, but you still can do it.
A lot of bans in edh are for feel bads in casual. Only once was a card banned specifically because cedh players requested it and it was Flash. And thank god that happened, cedh is so much fun right now!
As someone who doesn't totally get cedh and all of its intricacies just legitimately curious. didn't cedh players want flash banned for 1. it's obviously BS turn 1 win that required opponents to have a free counterspell opening hand to stop but 2. (And more importantly) it warped the entire format meta to trying to deal with it??
If that is the case then didnt flash just get immediately replaced by thoracle combo's that were just as format warping?
@@supranova7594 thoracle isn’t nearly as format warping as flash. Flash enabled turn 0 wins and more importantly, allowed a win at instant speed without a board state.
@@kauwgomboom gotcha so cuz it could be turn 0 there was far fewer ways to stop it since opponents didn't have a board state yet vs thoracle being later in the game allowing setup for responses. I just remembered hearing that most decks switched to thrass/tymna decks to thoracle as many ways as possible so thought that meant it warped it just as much. Good to know though TY
Forgot about Prophet Meta?
Also, Hullbreacher/Titan/Leovold, we’re extremely oppressive even in CEDH, they are not banned for solely casual reasons.
Paradox engine with any artifact that taps to draw a card and a few mana rocks means you play your whole deck. That isn’t an uncommon or unreasonable state for commander.
Oh, and also in EDH terms 5 mana is like 3 mana in other formats.
I think the point with Iona is that her effects activates when she enters the battefield but it doesn't says it ends when she leaves.
For example, path to the exile exiles one creature, same does oblivion ring with permanents bu it specifies when it leaves the battlefield the permanent comes back.
So you could reenter Iona on to the battlefield and ban all colors
But the effect doesn’t apply when it’s not on the battlefield right?
@@tetrawaffle337 thats the point, it doesn't says "until Iona leaves the battlefield"
I played against a pretty vicious mono white deck that used Mondrak. It’s an tricky card to remove in the first place with a good effect and as commander, he can be recast making him even stickier.
Karakas isn’t even bad for targeting opponents legendary creatures it’s bad for combining with your own commander and protecting it for just holding up a land.
Paradox engine in my Jhoira Weatherlight Captain mana rock tribal deck is essentially easy mode. Jhoira herself replaces the spell you're casting, then just use something like sensei's diving top to get it basically infinite draw and mana. It would be a very powerful engine in that deck, which could get it out on turn 1 or 2
The OG Moxes are 0 mana. In a multi-colored deck you can put all the ones you have out on turn one, use one to play a Sol Ring, then use the Sol Ring to play a signet if you so fancy. You could keep a no land hand as long as you had some of the Moxes in hand with playable ramp and spells.
play the Griselbrand on turn 2 with Sol Ring turn 1 then 2 Dark Rituals and the ring on turn 2 for 8 mana
Playing Historic Brawl recently and looking over some of the banned cards, I think 40 life was just a bit too much for commander, maybe its time to discuss that, maybe 30? even the historic brawl 25? It's something to consider that a number of the banned cards are banned cause of the 40 starting life total, but it also bring about issues of commander damage becoming pointless against anything but a life gain deck, so it is a hard thing to change without causing huge changes to entire archetypes of decks
Iona really depends anyone rolling 5 color decks probably can eat whatever color has been locked out.
I imagine why she got banned was due to Two color and especially mono color commander decks that happen to see her drop losing a good portion of your deck or for the case of a mono colored commander just not being able to do anything for the rest of the game.
Also since her effect is an ETB, you can cheat her effect into play as she doesn't require a cast to lock out a color.
Limited resources and several lands that tap for 2 or more mana bounce lands lotus lands leaves you far ahead of the rest of the table without letting them catch up.
The problem w the moxen is that all cedh lists would have to be 5 colors to compete
Most people I play with have targeted land destruction and 15-20 targeted other removal in their decks. There aren’t very many mass removals in our meta - maybe 2-3 per deck, if at all. StP is a bomb, that both saved and screwed me many times because I found it to be more relevant to interact with game ending threats at instant speed than clear a board of non-relavant 3/3s or so.
Interesting to see how different view numbers are between these streams and non-Commander focused ones. Glad to see your show and the channel(s) do well.
Thanks for the ton of consistently interesting content.
Is there any chance you will be doing the „decks to beat in modern“ videos in the style you used to do or is it just too much effort for the ~20000 views?
Maybe I could make the decks to beat video in Coffee and MTG format. I don't seem to be doing it in a regular video anyway
Opp agent doesnt have a way to force everyone to discard their hand and tutor 7 cards. Hull is banned not for its ability to punish 1 persons draw effect, but because you can not only use its gotcha effect, but also instantly force a gg 0 cards in hand 21 treasures yourself. Its was designed to be a gotcha but its actually a stax piece that rewards you. It is unfair. It is forced. It is a stronger card than thassas oracle for most decks, but it can be interacted with. So I dont think it should have been banned. Just run more interaction.
No, but Opp Agent cand be played on a Maralen deck to a complete game lock if your oponent dosent have a way to kill one them in hand.
Hullbreacher would be fine, as a 2 card combo with Wheel - it'd still be fine, the problem isn't that it's in a two card combo - it's that they reprinted "fairer" wheels so many times it's a 2 card combo with 16 cards in the deck that plays it, and after you do the 2 card wombo combo - you're gonna draw another one - to do it again. 2 card combos that win the game aren't banworthy, but when a card insta wins with the bulk of your deck then I think it can park itself on the ban list lol.
Also Hullbreacher was format warping considering card draw is one of the most powerful things in cEDH so they hated it
I think it is interesting how Painters Servant was being bought out a few months prior to the unbanning in EDH, only to have it shoot up in price even further when the unbanning was publicly announced for EDH. There is also a card combination that works with Painters Servant and performs the same thing Iona did before they were banned it's just a few more hoops than simply playing Iona.
Unban Prophet of Kruphix :P
Most commander decks are made up of 10-15% removal. That means there's 40-60+ removal spells at most commander tables. Even though single target removal can lag behind in multiplayer, you still need answers
I agree. In our group we play in an average of 25% removal. Removal wins games. Our group loves it. It keeps people and decks in check.
For us when we are not playing 60 card kitchen table, our commander decks reflect that same strategy and game play.
Cheers!
@@dustins9464 that means in your group there's generally more than 100 answer cards, lol, that's legit. I'll admit that it's very hard for me to run interaction, i have to force each removal slot into the deck. If I can get 10% of my deck devoted to removal I generally consider that a win. When I started playing commander my philosophy was that if you just play your game as best as you can you'll end up where you want to be, but I've learned that that just isn't the case
You could potentially have grizzlebrand out on turn 1 or 2 fairly easily with either ramp or cheating it out. With iona and painters servent you can easily go mono white and then as early as turn two have a game of solitaire what makes it even worse is that there is almost nothing that can be done once it's in place. There is a single combo that can be used to cheat the one and only Card that can stop it which is mycosynth latus. The reason why it's the only thing that can stop it is because mycosynth latus says that everything is colorless and that overrides the white in addition to effect. I'll also say that unless you have your way to cheat the mycosynth into play in play already you can't do it. Depending upon what a judge says you can't even nuke iona as she enters play. Painters servent was banned until they realized that eight and a half tails did almost the same as it did when coupled with iona. I made a deck that revolved around shutting down all incoming damage and everything possible from the opponents it was mono white and if it was able to get to turn four or five you would basically be impossible to stop. You couldn't damage me in any way and you couldn't cast spells and I was actively disabling everything that remained. Paradox engine will go infinite with almost any combo if you have any other two cards that can bounce each other or give you infinite mana from your casting you would be unstoppable.
Wasn't here earlier enough in the video to post this. One of the banlist moderators runs a mono green deck and at a commander fest one of his "biggest" fans begged him to play against him, pulled out iona and just ruined the game for him right away. Few months later iona gets banned and painter servant gets unbanned.
Didnt know about the grindstone combo, not sure if it ever got banned, (but weird that was the first reason and it's still allowed if that's the case)
Fun fact: 7 damage commanders being a perfect 3 turn clock is not actually convenient, it's intentional, as the format EDH or Elder Dragon Highlander, was built around the original elder dragons, who all have 7 power, and the idea was that if you hit someone with one 3 times, they lose
FWIW cedh players did create a format check it out, it’s called conquest
I also feel like at the power level the format is now I think karakas would be fine because there are common destroy non basic land cards that are cheap and I think the format doesn’t encourage counter magic or spot removal enough because a good portion the basic response is counter or remove it but the amount of people that don’t want to play it because those aren’t “synergistic” with the decks but also necessary to the base game anyways
“Feel bad” cards could be played around people just don’t want to have those answers take up a spot in their deck. Got to have a defense as well as an offense
Paradox engine, step 1 tap all lands, tap 2 tap all rocks or dorks, step 3 cast low mana cost card, step 4 play any x spell, or commander win con. It untaps nonlands including those that untap lands. Any legendary creature that draws cards by tapping or spending mana instantly becomes archenemy.
So? Yeah, it's a combo win. That isn't the problem. Demonstrating a loop and winning isn't the problem. It's casual players spamming a bunch of nonsense for 20 minutes, doing nothing, then passing the turn.
I only play EDH and I have no idea what you mean by Sol Ring being busted. It rarely makes a big difference in games.
Paradox Engine in a Sliver Overlord deck:
All your creatures are dorks and you can tutor everything you need.
The thing with Iona is you shut out one player, and since they're shut out people won't use resources to bully them since they're basically out... Meaning it's really good at meaning that singled out player chooses to either A wait until Iona dies, or just resign in a format where usually you and 3 others are playing over an hour...
It's not BROKEN, it's unfun. lmao
Hullbreacher was a cedh staple but It did not break the format in any way. Effect was fair, it policed other peoples wheels. It was 2 card 6 mana combo with your wheel in a format where thasa consultation exists
Alright so name something that combos with Paradox Engine. I have a couple examples.
Karametra and Avacyn’s Pilgrim on board. Cast WhiteMane Lion. Cast trigger untap avacyn’s pilgrim, tutor a land. Enters the battlefield, bounce whitemane lion. Repeat ad nauseum. Slap a guardian project on there for infinite draws.
Sliver Overlord, Manaweft Sliver, Nyxbloom ancient. Tap manaweft, tutor a 1 drop sliver, tap overlord, float 2 and play the sliver. Trigger untap. Repeat for 2 and 3, on 3 get Blur sliver. Congrats infinite mana and every creature out of your deck.
Turn one Sol Ring will generate 20 mana over 10 turns (minus one to play it)
A mox will only generate 10 mana over 10 turns. I think that 2 mana ramp is fine but ban all the free and 1 mana ramp
lets make green the best color
Iona doesnt say while it is IN PLAY, therefor you blink it 4 times and nobody else can cast any spells! (Might be wrong)
The problem with paradox engine in my opinion is the shear number of 3 card combos
in cedh hullbreacher is actually used to stop ppl from going off. When it was legal it made games longer and more enjoyable, like what endurance is doing to graveyard decks hull was doing to storm decks... the only problem is that I think it should have been white and that that was the way white gets resources it balances opponents and gets rewarded for doing so... then it would have been played a lot more... but other than it was actually solving more problems then making any... also I think you would really enjoy cedh
and all of your chat is players that are playing power level 5... all of the things they say are things that they will tell cedh players to deal with in rule 0 talks when in competitive magic there is no f*cking rule 0!!
iona doesnt need a combo, she stops you from playing the one card you built your deck around, your commander, and also a significant portion of any non mono deck. in multiplayer u just name the most shared color among opponents. most decks are 3 colour, so likely in a 4 player ghame, 2 opponents will share a colour.
So I wanna answer the cedh Hullbreacher thing. Was it objectively strong enough to catch the ban hammer on power alone?? It’s close. Cedh community was sorta split on it. The problem was more the toxic play patterns especially in cEdh. It was most brutal cast in response to someone else’s wheel 😖 or even just nasty response to brainstorm.
But the games would tend to grind to a halt but not technically end. It also took away from diversity as every single cedh deck w blue that played creatures would run it in the 99. Opposition agent only goes in grindy/controlly/midrange decks but hullbreacher fueled turbo nause strategies and was also the best blue hate bear for control strategies
Alright, land destruction isn't frowned upon nearly as much as chat seemed to think it was. Anyone upset over a Strip Mine is probably just a Gate player that's upset they couldn't use Maze's End. It's only mass land destruction like Worldslayer and Armageddon that people don't like, because if you destroy all lands without a plan to win within the next turn, it just slows the game for no reason.
"I cast Armageddon on turn seven becuase you guys are scary"
"Listen here you little shit"
@@scooterthefrog i cast armageddon cuz i have avacyn we are not the same
Krenko, mob boss costs 4 mana/suggesting you have 4 lands>
Paradox engine with say, Arcane Encyclopedia (3, tap- draw a card)+ Krenko, Mob Boss+Skirk prospector (sacrifice goblin for mana) with another goblin= create 3 mana, tap encyclopedia, draw a card. Having goblins that cost 1-2 mana means, if you play a (1 mana cost) Goblin, paradox engine untaps krenko and Arcan encyclopedia. 4 goblins/tap krenko for 4 goblin tokens.
Sacrifice 3 goblins/Play another 1mana* goblin spell. 5 goblins/untap-tap krenko, 6 tokens, 2 lands still available. -3 tokens, draw a card.
Play another goblin 9 goblins= 9 tokens-3 tokens. Draw a card.
Play another. 16 goblins=16 tokens-3 tokens. Draw a card
No more lands, but 16 gobins to use as mana.
It's only a matter of time before you come across goblin war strike, siege gang commander etc.
Some commentary to the banlist portion of the video:
Griselbrand: Needs to stay banned or Entomb and Reanimate wins the game. Too mutch card draw with 40 life. Better in the 99 than as commander. Would make Tin Fins a deck in edh.
Hullbreacher: Can get unbanned. „Unfun“ with Wheels, but will be telegraphed by leaving 3 Mana open, then flash this in, then cast draw 7. Easy to see if you look for it.
Iona, Shield of Emeria: Can be unbanned. The „combo“ with Painters Servant is nothing I would worry about.
Karakas: Yeah, needs to stay banned for the sake of the format.
Leovold, Emissary of Trest: Please stay banned. Powerful Commander, but the best antidote for Leovold is more Leovold. BUG in cedH with Thassa's Oracle, Tainted pact, the best tutors etc. would be quite good.
Library of Alexandria: Can be unbanned. Could be great in slow reactive decks but those are hard to play.
Limited Resources: Needs to stay banned due to the multiplayer format. Could be insane in Selesnya Staxx decks if allowed.
Lutri, the Spellchaser: Unfortunate, but for balance sake it should be banned because no reason not to use it if you have the colors.
The Moxen: Should stay banned. Colored Mana without cost is very good. Mox + Sol Ring = Turn 1 colored 3 CMC Spell → Blood Moon, Rhystic Study etc. Plus they make higher colored commanders even better and those do not need any help.
Panoptic Mirror: Can be unbanned. The Combos it does enable are worse than the available ones.
Needs 5 Mana to win the game. Play it, untap, react to the trigger to imprint a Time Walk.
You may imprint a card on Panoptic Mirror in response to the upkeep-triggered ability. If you do, that card is available to copy when the triggered ability resolves. (2004-12-01)
Paradox Engine: Great card, would love to see this unbanned for Combo decks. It got banned because it made long turns without develloping a win, it was banned because it was annoying, not because it was too good imho.
Mono White Commanders:
Well Tehar, Ancestor's Apostle (Eggs Type deck), Oswald Fiddlebender (Artifact Combo) and Heliod, Sun-Crowned (Ballista Combo) are definitely playable decks.
And well Sol Ring was once upon a time on the reserved list:
mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Reserved_List
It was reserved and restricted now it’s just restricted. Kinda funny hunh
The flickering of Iona allows for all 4 other colors to be chosen. Then you shut down everything other than mono white
@@davidhowell1415 No. Each time you flicker her the old choice goes away.
Hullbreacher isnt that telegraphed with holding up 3 mana, thats just a generic blue deck either holding/bluffing a counterspell. The fact that you can do it in response to an opponents wheel/even just a good draw spell made it quite strong. I want to say a lot of outcry was that in the casual scene people would jam hullbreacher+wheels in their decks and then end up with a lot of mana and not a win, which made the game a lot less fun for the other 3 players
@@fosterdawson7339
3 Mana is a lot, so you should expect something. Usually the "dangerous" play was 3 Mana open -> End phase Hullbreacher and in his Main Phase -> Wheel. You kinda have to sniff this out, but the same is true for Opposition Agent so I don't see it as that bad. Casual players would have to leave mana up and they do not seem to like that idea.
Specifically mass land destruction is frowned upon. If you play a FOTD or cradle I’m popping it
31:53 limited resources. If you have a four player game of Commander and each person has two lands that's the most amount of lands it allows. 10/4 = 2.5... this card would make a lot more sense for a 1v1 format... If someone plays it late game though then everybody gets five lands. This card would be do able as long as it isn't played early game... I think the card was made with a 1v1 format in mind.
the card was definitely made for 1v1 formats since its a pretty old card and commander didnt come out until i think the early 2010s?
The difference between losing on the spot and being locked out of a game by a card like Iona is that you can leave the table if you want, use the bathroom, get a snack, get some fresh air... and if Iona only shuts down one player, that's potentially worse than dominating the entire table. Very unfun. Broken? Probably not, because you should still have an answer even in a mono-color deck.
the answer is not letting her get out but i agree for 9 mana its not broken at all. locking a single player out doesn't mean you win and there's literally HUNDREDS of win against all 3 opponents for less than 9 mana. literally any deck should be able to play win cons by 9 mana. most can do it by 5 mana
@@bennycostello2472 winning or losing isn't the point at all. If this were competitive magic, first of all, it would be a moot point because she's way too slow, but more importantly, how "fun" the card is wouldn't matter - all that matters in competitive magic is if the card is "fair". But Commander is mostly a casual format, so fun is more important, and potentially being locked out of a game is incredibly unfun.
"Don't let it hit the table" is pretty naive - there's a ton of ways to cheat Iona into play early. "You should have a way to deal with it." You certainly should, but that doesn't mean you will. "There should be other players that can deal with it." Only if they want to.
We could bandy questions and answers like those back and forth forever, but the rules committee decided it wasn't worth the heartache. They made a lot of players happy and fewer players sad - that's a win.
Basically land destruction is looked down on it edh. But strip mine is used it always every edh deck I run
MLD is frowned because most people dont know when to fire em off with a winning board state for after, so then the game just durdled while people redraw lands and ramp. Honestly with all the possibilities of a opponent using a boros charm/ heroic intervention effect for indestructible or a teferi's protection in response to casting a MLD I'd say it's probably not even as strong as it used to be when commander first started
Hullbreacher also does some things that blue is bad at ramp
It feels like the true problem with Iona is that people disallow conceding in their EDH games. Like in 1v1 you'd say "if a player is locked out of the game by this they give up, shuffle, and play the next match" but in 4 player commander they say "if a player is locked out of the game by this THEY HAVE TO SIT THOUGH THE ENTIRE GAME" - or what? - the other 3 people burn them at the stake? Are regular EDH groups really that toxic?
There are some mono colored cedh decks but prob the only arguably tier one (maybe not even maybe tier 1.5 or 2) mono colored decks are Godo and Urza. Red and blue. There are decent like tier 2 or 3 mono colored decks aside from those but they are not top decks. Heliod ballista is kinda fine and the mono green like Selvala/Marwyn type lists are decent. Krr’k son of yawgmoth is prob like a tier 3 mono black deck maybe it’s better than that. These lists are at a disadvantage in cEdh just cause the mana is so good w fetches and duals and of course the card pool access is a big deal
Urza isn't even tier 1. Dockside and the mass number of token makers made him much weaker because Winter Orb and Back to Basics don't matter when your opponent untaps one land, plays one, drops a Dockside, gets a bunch of treasures, then combos off.
Question, are you still doing those "deck review+play a match" offers through paypal?
yes! $35 USD to paypal.me/nikachumtg
As a cEDH player I feel hullbreacher is obviously very broken, but broken cards are the norm in cEDH so that is no reason to ban it. I think it should be unbanned honestly. Like many cards on the banlist tbh. Something like Flash Hulk was broken because you could win turn 0 off a gemstone caverns + spirit guide or just go off at instant speed and you'd be almost unstoppablke. But Hullbreacher takes some time to set up so I see no problem with it. Breacher + wheel wins you the game, yeah, but so does narset + wheel, at least 99% of the time. And a 6-mana 2-card win con is nothing out of the ordinary at any rate. That's simply a T3 kill, like so many A+B combos out there can achieve.
So howling mine + any of the restrict how many cards people can draw is value tho
My commander is jhoira of the ghitu with eldrazi and other high cost cards as well as time counter manipulaton
paradox engine + acererak + mana rocks/dorks = infinite combo if you just never complete the tomb of annihilation. and there are so many more combos with this. and since acererak and other commanders can combo with this, its too stable.
but the kci argument also holds true for this i guess.
Paradox just made the fast mana worse. Play it, then something cheap, get all the rocks back again. Keep cycling (not themechanic) cheap stuff with rocks to get big mana banked, cast draw spells (Thrassisos was a common commander for this, or any other commander with a mana dump or tap to draw effect), it would just last a long time to see if people could get enough mana for their combo or to draw the right pieces. And it would be slow.
you could just make tokens of ionia and do all 5 colors that way, then have emrakul and your opponents cant do anything at all but scoop. so if you can find a way to cheat her out stupid quick and copy her then it's essentially sending everyone to life in prison
Imagine playing a 9cmc commander like the Ur Dragon and your opponent goes, "tap, nope!"
i know the pain
I wish Iona wasn't banned, I had her in my Mayael, the Anima deck, and it was strong but not broken there, however I understand why it had to be banned with painter coming back (which was banned with Grindstone)
Leovold is frightening, Last time I ever played Leovold was an 8 player game. And I managed to draw a particular hand that if sequenced just right, you shut the remaining 7 players by turn 3
T1: Forest > Exploration > Swamp
T2: Island > Island > Leovold
T3:: Forest > Teferi's Puzzle Box (Dispel for the instant speed Not Krosan Grip answer)
Let's see Netherborn Alter, Command beacon are the only two cards that brings a commander from the command zone to your hand so you can then discard and graveborn and i know know this because if playing Phage as commander you need it in the hand if you don't have stuff like PLatinum Angel or Torpororb or even Lich's Mastery. Anyways Griselbrand is only banned becasue it is a 7/7 with lifelink meaning it always pay for those cards so a free 7 cards every turn is kinda broken, but there are more broken stuff that are legal in commander that i say it should be legal or at least unban Coalition Victory especially since you have a easier win con to pull off such as Ramses, Assassin Lord that reads if you kill a player with an assassin you win the game yes literally in a pod of 4 kill 1 and the other two just instantly loses. If that doesn't give Feels bad vibes Iona should be unbanned literally
The only thing I know about commander is that the most broken white card is Mana tithe.
You can choose to put your commander in the graveyardinstaed of back to the command zone to avoid commander tax
Kinda. With the rule change, your Commander always goes to the graveyard. You can just choose to send it back to the command zone immediately after it died.
10 years cedh experience:In regards to hullbreacher : The format, especially cedh needs fast efficient answers and threats similar to the elemental cycle in mh2.
The problem is that we dont have a casual and competive ban list and way too many cards get banned because of complaints from the casuals as opposed to the whole community
I can get any card from command or hand out on turn 2. 🤔 if perfect hand.
I love how it kept saying how expensive these cards were to cast as if that is the main way big creatures come out in commander
I play mono red commander. The only deck I run is goblin tribal, my commander is muxus goblin grandee.
Panoptic mirror was banned back when you had 200 hp divided by # of players. It just added too much freedom.
It was land destruction looping, time looping, etc. It just has so many cards it can imprint that can lock a game out. But it was banned LONG ago.
Hey so it’s $15 for you do my deck in deck list review?
I need some advice on my Gruul aggro/midrange list. Doesnt even need to be during coffee and mtg I just need some tips and ideas
Yes, $15 USD to PayPal.me/nikachumtg and I would be happy to review on show!