I'm fine they design cards for Commander only in sets and commander precons meant for Commander, and even then they need to have the foresight to not make dumb shit like Nadu. Miss Bumbleflower is a perfect example. Pretty darn strong group hug commander that you benefit from a lot more than your opponents do getting +1/+1 counters and 2 cards on your second cast. They shoulda done the same thing with Nadu and just let his stuff trigger only twice OVERALL
Commander is the worst thing to happen to MTG, and I stand by that. And to elaborate, I don't mean EDH. I think EDH was perfectly fine and a great thing. I mean when WotC decided they needed to monetize a market that was perfectly content doing what it was doing. A subtle rules change (things like 'each opponent' for example) was perfectly fine, but from Ikoria onward we've seen too many formats get absolutely eviscerated by attempts to get Commander players to play or buy more cards.
@@MrSyltphademus no the problem is lack of playtesting. they didn't see the issue with oko and they said they straight-up didn't test the final iteration of nadu that went to print.
yea, I get that some people hate fast mana. But that should be a rule0 conversation like everything else in your pod. RC hates commander games that go fast. So they made that decision for everyone. The only people I ever hear of complaining about these cards are content creators and people in their chat. Nobody I play with gives a fuck, and nobody in LGS i've been in care either. All they care about is being told ahead of time so they can either politely refuse or so that they can swap decks to match that level.
@@Geblino rule 0 doesn't work that well where you're playing pick up games at stores or online. The same argument can be reversed on you when you can rule 0 your playgroup to allow these cards.
This seems like bad faith reasoning. The vast majority of cards that are "designed for commander" in an explicit way aren't really problems for the format. The cards banned here are outliers in terms of how broken they are (which is why they were banned lmao)
@@toms1782 well if you buy cardboard for price speculation reasons instead of for playing a fun game, you have to deal with that cardboards value disappearing on a whim
Dockside - 85...down to 30 Jeweled - 90...down to 35 Crypt - 194........down to 81 As of a few hours ago.... Nice example of why people welcome proxies more.
Nice example of why people shouldn't buy expensive cardboard in the first place. Absolutely none of these cards are necessary in a deck to function. Ive been playing commander for a good long while, while avoiding anything above 10 or even 20 if i really really like the card in a flavour kind of way or my budget permits at that point in time and i can say from personal experience that I missed exactly none of these cards even when playing against them. Too many people fall for the trap of "oooh card is expensive so it MUST be in my deck!!"
Still don't understand why Jeweled Lotus is worth anything at all. It's not legal in Commander or Oathbreaker, the only two sanctioned formats it functions in... are people still trying to make a separate cEDH banlist happen?
Even at my LGS the owner used to have a problem with a big amount of decks being filled with proxies and recently he said he doesn't care because even he thinks it's ridiculous
It's worth noting that all 3 of the big cards were reprinted last year, with jeweled lotus in CMM, and dockside+mana crypt in LCI. It's likely the RC wanted these bans for a while, but weren't able to with the upcoming product using these chase cards for marketing, and had to wait for them to be far enough behind us to take action. I don't know the timeline but these bans could have been set as far back as 2022 but held back.
Oh, this is very believable. Don’t ban these in commander, RC. We have already made and printed these chase cards to draw people in, wait until end of year we don’t have plans to reprint them anytime soon. Thanks, love Hasbro.
@LilFlame2001 go and watch the interview that the Professor did with Sheldon from the RC a couple years ago. The Professor asked Sheldon directly if he was getting paid by Wizards and his response was that he would not deny nor confirm anything in regards to that. So there is your answer 😂
@@TwoHanderVGCIf I may ask, Did you get to regularly play with these cards? Or was it more of an investment? Because as long as you had fun with them and built solid memories from the experience of playing them then I wouldn’t consider it a full on loss.
Cradle also requires some work to get online. It wasn’t like tolarian academy where there are a crap ton of free artifacts that also create mana and can be tapped on that turn
@@nCaveman1 I wouldn't say Cradle requires any more work compared to Tolarian Academy. It just gets online couple of turns later in comparison. "Play creatures" isn't a big hurdle to overcome, especially in a format where a token generating commander might often alone be enough to turn Cradle into a filthy mana-making machine.
@@Sicktoid "A couple of turns later" is massive and I'm surprised that you seem to think it's not. Make no mistake, Cradle is an absolute aberration in mana generation, but the absolute gulf between even that and TAcademy stands as a testament to how ludicrous TAcademy is.
Can't say I disagree. So many cards skate by the banlist on supply side constraints similar excuses and personally I'd be happy to see them banned, but then again, I'm personally a proponent of a more robust banlist, so there is bias there.
same here, I only buy singles since M30 and pretty versions for cards I own and use in my decks (because I like shiny stuff). I try to sell or trade whats on my binder only to get the cards I want to upgrade my decks or make a new one every once in a while. (I used to buy a Collector for each set, plus playing a lot in the pre release)
Go Pokemon TCG. I made it my main TCG quite recently due to a lot of scandals and misconducts of Hasbro and WOTC. And the freshness and overall atmosphere compares nowhere to the recent toxicity of the MTG I started noticing.
As someone who owns 3+ Docksides and a Nadu, I really don't feel bad for myself or anyone else. The game pieces were expensive to buy, sure. I'm "out" 150+ CAD now but I was never going to sell anyways. The price of the card only matters the second you cash out, not before and not after. All this really did was allow me to add Fear of Missing Out to my commander deck and a different treasure generator/dice roller to Mr. House. One less generically powerful auto include card makes more room for a more on-theme addition.
Kenobi identified the main issue that other content creators seem to be missing: these cards simply sat far too long without action by RC and were allowed to become highly sought after chase cards. It felt so sudden that cards sitting for years without any identification from RC that they were even remotely being looked at, let alone ban worthy. I hope RC learns from this and begins more aggressively taking action on any new cards printed that are obviously too busted or un fun for commander. I think Dockside and Lotus banning were inevitable over time as the format grew, and the RC should have realized they would eventually be too much to keep around and banned it much earlier before that point, saving many people and LGSs alot of money.
@casteanpreswyn7528 dock is the only one that's been in constant discussion, nadu technically but that's a new release. The RC mentioned lotus once when it released and never brought it up again in future ban announcements as under watch nor was crypt ever mentioned.
I hope the RC will be gone in near future and some people who are thinking about the consequences (also on price market) before taking decisions will take over. If decisions will result in such a massive loss of value in nearly over night, this RC should not have the authority to take such decisions.
@@kritikverloren1814so you'd rather play a game where you have to pay 3-500 bucks on a deck to play with friends and cards so busted that you'd get locked out of the game turn 3? Great to know you care more about the secondary stock market than the actual balance of the game. The problem isn't the RC. It's WOTC making overpowered cards and strong arming the RC into making these decisions or forcing them to not do it. The primary reason sol ring isn't banned, at least imo, is for this reason.
If there is one thing I've learned from these bans, it's that the Commander community (EDH and cEDH alike) is much more fractured on what bannings in the format is supposed to accomplish than I initially thought. When nothing happens, the RC gets shit for being stagnant. But if they commit to a decision and direction, it feels like a third of the playerbase will rise up, tearing at them for ruining what they think the format should be.
The problem is that there are as many different ways to play commander as there are commander players. It's part of the reason that the no bans approach that we've had for the past however long hasn't had a strong negative effect on the format. Players have naturally put themselves in the playgroups where they have fun with commander, so at the end of the day, if you're the kind of player who used these cards, they probably weren't a problem at your table or else people wouldn't be playing at your table.
Someone is always going to get upset over a ban.... But this is due to the RC not doing anything long enough that has caused so many fractures in the community itself.
Well ultimately, it's a group of people and different people have different opinions. For every person loudly complaining about certain cards needing to be banned, there is a person who is happily playing with the cards they have and not engaging in that discussion. It's only when they find out that some of their cards that they'd been happily playing with are now banned that they are drawn into the discussion and they come in angry.
Honestly I don't approve of the bans but seeing the dolts that complain about the RC not doing anything getting to eat crow is pretty satisfying If the RC is doing their job well, the community is doing its job well, and WoTC *isn't* doing their job badly, the Rules Committee shouldn't have to do anything!
Ngl reviewing the ban list and removing stuff on the occasion would be nice. Golos, Emrakul, and primeval titan are definitely slow enough for the format these days.
@FatstaxMTG as an individual who is probably gonna quit because of this ban; those cards should stay banned. Most notably Prime Time. The lands they have made justify its ban
I know you intentionally did not talk about Nadu, but the irony is funny to me that they showed the original version to Casual play design and they said, that this is not fun in Commander only to change it into something that is so not fun in commander, that it had to be banned 😂
I feel so, SO bad for my local game store. They're kinda small,and i recently just sold my extra docksides and jeweled Lotus to them. (2 each) I felt i didn't need multiple when i could shuffle my one real copy between decks and the owner was happy to get some big cards to flip. Now this smaller store is stuck with cards that will most likely NEVER go back up to the prices they were at.
It does suck, but that is one of the risks of buying/selling singles in general. They can increase or reduce in value by a whole lot really easily. And they likely know that as well. That said, I guess just getting some stuff from there would be the best move if you feel bad since they can somewhat recoup their losses. But that is just my opinion.
My LGS has been trying its best to get rid of its commander masters product. Now I don’t think there’s a single soul that would buy it off them after the ban.
@@nunyabusiness3957 and now a chance at instead of any of those hitting a placeholder card for the black lotus in your garth one-eye deck. Nobody wants to pull cards that they cannot use out of extremely expensive boosters.
I agree with everything except for the part about Wizards being upset about losing reprint equity. You can't tell me that there isn't a line that if the committee crossed wizards wouldn't veto and take full control of the format. The truth of the matter is that dockside was a design mistake, jeweled lotus was made intentionally bannable to push commander legends, and mana crypt is just a dated pre-edh overpowered card that wizards has already milked to death in the past decade. It's clear by the modern horizons sets, they will just make "tribute" cards that are just nerfed versions of these. Let's not forget that jeweled lotus is essentially a "tribute" black lotus in the first place. The rules committee should have shown some spine when jeweled lotus came out in the first place.
@@_Axel_G_ They don't. Only one of the four was even in the top 10 on the saltmeter (Nadu). The other poster wasn't saying these were the top four saltiest, just that if you look at their salt values, they would go in that order, respective to each other.
@@_Axel_G_ actually it would be democratic. The salt score is just showing what people don't like, which is fair to consider coz it's the casual format. Though balancing is important too
As someone who is slowly watching one of their most valuable cards just free fall (mana crypt) i can honestly say that i feel like it both sucks and is a relief... i love the card and wanted to play it so i bought one years ago... when it was more appropiate for decks at the time but after moving and going to a newer lgs where people are mostly playing precons and stuff its kinda a relief cause i was kinda torn on putting it into decks or finding decks that i could reasonably feel like if i got the magical christmas land start that i wouldnt feel bad... and while i am losing money even as i type this i think that the discourse has gone on long enough and that the cards being banned today are ultimately better to leave the format as a whole then continuing to continue to push the power level of even the most casual of decks.... so yeah im sad im inevitably going to lose money on the deal but the wider effect of this banning will hopefully send a message to wizards that people dont want these cards in OUR format... its NOT their format... Player created and player maintained format... stop printing obvious staples into OUR format and allow it to grow organically like it was when the format started... just stop wotc... just stahp!
If only there were more players like you who could police themselves among other players not having those cards. The cards wouldn't need to be banned if more souls were like yours.
Yea I pretty much ran my mana crypt in my Legend Matters deck where the extra colorless mana didn't really help all that much, since just about every card had 3-5 coloured pips in the casting cost. When I would explain to the pod that, yes it a strong deck, it's not strong because of the fast mana, they were fine with it. It's strong because I stuffed it with the strongest legendary spells/creatures in the color pie with recursion stapled to their asses. Sure, once or twice I got the goldfish opener with every mana rock in my deck turn 1 but then I'm open to just getting the beat down because I just have a bunch of mana and not much else going on, or I get OL-vandal balsted into the stone age (true story). I'd still only bring it out against people playing decks in the higher tier (IE UR-Dragon, Edgar, Sliver piles, KKrik (or however you spell his name))
@thechikage1091 I'm not completely innocent there were times I'd pull my deck out just be an ass but yeah for the most part it stayed in my oona mill deck as a combo piece as a part of my isochron scepter loop... but yeah... just still feel burned and hopefully my mana vault doesn't go the same way as crypt did seeing the price absolutely skyrocket... definitely going to be keeping an eye on that one for sure...
Great video Vince! Really enjoyed it 😊 In my experience, Dockside is one of those cards that warps the game around itself - people kill it and reanimate it, clone it, flicker it and fight on the stack at every interaction with it. That’s a play pattern we used to see a lot of when Prime Time was legal. So from that perspective, I think this was definitely a good ban.
I think that Josh Lee Kwai told wizards that they shouldnt print jeweled lotus when he was asked to play tests commander legends and they still went ahead with it. In one mind i'm glad these are gone, but i do feel sorry for those who invested into them
I feel like the Rules Committee have painted themselves into a corner with saying that every game/pod/table/LGS should have a Rule 0 list or discussion, and that their banlist is just signposts, BUT THEN ALSO having a ban list. If you have a ban list, make a ban list and curate it frequently and clearly. If you have a suggestions list then you're just another group of players and your suggestions shouldn't hold the weight to cause such a drastic change.
Basically the commander ban list is a group of cards that they don't want you to show up to your lgs and just pub stomp people into the ground with them but once you establish your actual play group you should have no problem having a discussion to ask hey can I play 1 or 2 cards on ban list because they actually fit my deck thematically And go either way with their approval... so yes it has a place but if you have a consistent play group of just friends the ban list is not really nessasary
@@d43m0n412 @@d43m0n412 But that dichotomy is why everyone gets up in arms with the RC. Is it a ban list if it's not actually really banned? Is it a suggestion list? If those cards were just Kitchen Table usage then they wouldn't have been big pack sales chase cards. And on that point, why does WotC have a group outside of their control giving so much control to the product that likely drives the most sales of their product? The gun that they now have to point WotC's head in regards to reprint equity is bonkers.
@@muchochucho9778 Wait how does that compute. Them being banned is less objectively pub-stompy. Whether that is enough or the right hits is a different discussion. And "pubstomping" with stax and land destruction is either a good way to become archenemy and have to 1v3 every game or a good way to make both new and experienced players not let you at their table again because there's no way you got that past an actual rule 0.
I didn’t buy lotus and dockside as an investment, I’m just a new player who made the mistake of building a cedh deck 🫠 very upset by this. The fast pace of the game was what I was enjoying the most, you could always rule 0 these out if your pod wanted to have a slower game. Such a beautiful card jeweled lotus is too what a shame.
You can always rule 0 them in if your pod wants to have a faster game. Indeed, it's easier to rule 0 something in than out. If you're trying to 0 in a banned card, you're more likely to have a substitute ready to go if the pod says no. If you 0 out a card, you might make somebody's deck unplayable for that night.
@@Vex-MTGsure but you are more likely to have people unwilling to play against banned cards than you are people unwilling to change which deck they play to make the game competitive for the table. This didn’t actually solve any problems but cost people millions and hurt the perception of collectibility of the game, which, whether you like it or not is a huge portion of the money that goes into the game. This will hurt money incoming into the game which negatively affects R&D budget, which in turn lessens the quality moving forward. Which will only lead to more mistakes like this.
I'd say conservatively between singles and sealed product this wiped 10s of millions of dollars worth of value from magic players in a moment. Truly a crazy time.
Players and shops... Plus to be honest seriously damaged earning potential of commander bombs in future products, which in the long run might be a good thing as Lotus imho was a mistake. In cedh though, Lotus made commanders that cost more than 3 mana more playable, without it and crypt, cmc 5+ commanders might as well be out of the competitive side format. I like the choice for casual, but to be honest, no one in my playgroup used those cards during casual evenings so I see no real benefit from the decision.
@@AbsolutelyGeek people were not playing those cards because they were unavailable to them. both because of the price tag and number of copies available. sol ring is almost as good as crypt and most people run it without any afterthought. banning them will be beneficial to the format. on the other hand this will affect mostly competitive part of the format so i don't see why ban them now. lotus and dockside should not have been in the format in the first place.
As one of those people I'm actually really happy about this. Now unban some of the tame cards like Primetime Titan and Recurring Nightmare that never should have been banned in the first place. RIP my Crypt though.
Did you just call prime time "tame"?! One of the best green cards ever printed.... Tame... Sure, I'll take a turn 3 20/20 flying indestructible. It's tame, bro.
So... We can agree that the problem is not what cards have been banned but rather the RC's philosophy right? They argued that commander is about creativity, but that creativity must be represented in slower decks. So... For people who like faster games, RC is kinda saying that optimizing style creativity is not quite for EDH. And that's not really cool on their side. I was an advocate for the removal of fast mana for years. Me own group had forbidden all of them. We latter expanded and became the only magic format in the LGS and for that point onwards we just asked people (particularly new people) how did they play and what they wanted to play. And, you know, ir worked. With some exceptions, of course, but it worked. A bunch of us eventually picked up cEDH as a thing to play from time to time but as it's own things with it's own decks. And still, worked. I do not belive this banlist is good, not because those cards are getting banned, as one of the points of cEDH is to get the most out of the resources you can get. So the format will just change and adapt. But I do not like the RC's philosophy. Many people claimed they did nothing, but sometimes less is more and if the alternative to nothing is to enforce specific playstyles based on their idea of what the format should be, then inaction is better than action. That being said, I'm interested in what Jim from spike feeders have to say, owing that he is part of the RC
They are not "kinda" saying that. They are literally saying in the first sentence that EDH is for creative, slower strategies that won't work in 1v1 and their goal is to encourage these slower environments. I don't get the confusion, they literally spell it out for you. They've repeatedly told you in plain English that EDH isn't a competitive format and the RC's purpose is to promote social games, not competitive ones. If you want to go fast, Vintage is sweet and would love new players. It even has the benefit that all the broken spells are restricted so you're basically playing EDH
@@traycarrot I think the confusion is due to Wizards not backing up their claim as to why they are banning the cards to begin with. If you are going to use fast mana as the basis of your bans you cannot tell me Sol Ring is not right up there with Crypt and Lotus. Their reasoning behind not banning Sol Ring is the most blatant lie I have ever seen from the RC. "Its unbannable, it's too iconic, it defies the laws of magic". What a load of crock. Its "unbannable" because they printed it in every Precon and know for a fact they can't handle the PR nightmare they would have created by banning Sol Ring. If you are going to use a specific reason for the ban, go full boar. I would be a lot more accepting of this ban list, positive many others would be as well, if they had included Sol Ring. Then I would respect their reasoning as they actually stood by it instead of letting certain cards slide. Imo every POD will now be who drew the sol ring? Oh you? You're the target now. Every single time.
So, the Lost Caverns of Ixalan set just got released 10 months ago containing SEVEN super-sexy reprints of Mana Crypt that have been selling anywhere from $200 all the way up to $3,200 on TCGP, along with a ton of Collector Boosters I'd guess, only to ban that hallmark card less that a year later? I know Nadu had a shorter life span, and the Wizards have already admitted their mistake regarding that one, but it doesn't have a ton of different printings for it either, and it also hasn't been around as long as the game itself. Slimy stuff right here folks.
The cards are still super sexy and I would gladly have them in my collection. But locking them behind ridiculous expensive Collector booster and the pricepoint never made me think about chasing or buying.
I was always amazed that Crypt was legal to begin with considering the O.G moxen are banned and they're basically strictly worse than it in most situations
@@mramisuzuki6962 1) The first banlist was just the Legacy banlist ported over. The moxen are banned in Legacy. 2) The RC are UNOFFICIALLY fine with the use of proxies. I remember something about them being asked their views on proxies. I think it was around the Magic 30 fiasco. They gave a middle of the road political answer. They can't say they are on the side of proxies due to WotC, but they didn't say they were against it. It's like WotC and the secondary market. They know it exists, but they can't acknowledge it.
@@k9commander the RC recently has been neutral about proxy because cEDH wasn’t a “thing” until about 10 years into the format. The original intent was to bring over the ban list from legacy and ban major mana and win out of no where cards. With the purpose of using cards you have on hand. Vintage is 100% a proxy fest and they didn’t want EDH to be that. Recently with cEDH and great emphasis on “power levels” people have been proxying more especially since people now play multiple decks. One/two deck players days are long long long gone. They also don’t mean proxy cards don’t own to juice up your deck to ruin peoples day or turn all you decks into Walletron Goodstuffus decks with fake cards. This is why they are banning expensive cards, because proxies have become so common these cards prices are not a factor and they availability is too high.
I think the biggest issue with the bans is that while all of the cards that were banned have problematic play lines no one was really indicating them as a problem in the format (dockside being an outlier here). However other cards that have been pointed out as real problems for gameplay and fun ex. Smothering Tithe, Rhystic Study weren’t even mentioned as considerations.
If you cannot play around smothering tithe at any point you likely are not a very good magic player. Rhystic study is op and likely should be looked at but there are so many bullshit cards that win you the game out of no where or are "unfun" that going on a crusade make no fucking sense in a format that is suppose to have freedom of play. Isn't rule 0 suppose to be a thing?
@@Yangblaze11 "If you can't play around the card that even if you play around it you still lag behind, you are not a very good magic player" is surely the statement of the century. You know what's funny? Statistically, you are far more likely to win against Smothering Tithe by NOT playing around it than by doing so. Even in the hypothetical scenario where all the players at the table pay the tax, they are still allowing the ST player to get ahead in the game while lagging behind. And most of the time that scenario doesn't happen, which means the people who are paying their taxes are the _only ones_ who are not advancing their gameplan, while those who ignore ST and the ST player are. Sorry, but it doesn't look like a "non-problem" card to me. Also, Rule 0 doesn't help, I wish people stopped acting like it's a magic wand that fixes all problems. Rule 0 only works within your own circle of friendship, and even there there are often disagreements; it almost never succeeds in a pick-up-and-play environment like LGSs.
I mean if the design team tested these cards properly and they ended up never being printed then we wouldn’t have the issue in the first place like you said.
The biggest of my complaints with this ban is their reasoning. There's other fast mana that remain untouched. The game, via power creep, is just getting faster and faster even without fast mana, which makes their argument moot. 3 mana mana rocks aren't as playable as they once were, a lot of decks don't run any. Same with ramp spells. So blaming crypt and jeweled lotus for speeding up the format is just mental gymnastics. This ban just hurts cEDH and proves that the RC philosophy of Rule zero solves issues is a lie
I’m with you Vince. These cards haven’t changed, they’ve existed forever, but I guess the philosophy of the RC I suppose? Lucky enough to have opened my crypt and lotus during mystery booster and commander legends drafts, but it stings. I guess I’m just filled with some general hesitation and worry because I’ve traded into a Serra’s Sanctum and it holds a lot of sentimental and monetary value. I would hate to lose it. /: But I guess also it’s odd from a communication point too, I do remember them talking about potentially banning Dockside… Two or three quarterly updates ago I think?? But this strike down on fast mana seems out of nowhere. Great video man.
I don't think a card like Serra's Sanctum will ever get banned. The thing with Dockside, Mana Crypt and Jeweled lotus is that they fit into every deck for MC and JL and any deck that runs red for Dockside and they always get so much value for very little investment. Where as Serra's Sanctum you need to build up your board with enchantments it isn't just a 'play this and get instant value card' along with needing your deck to already be doing stuff with enchantments to really make it worth it.
then they should have never messed with the Crypt ... banning expensive rare one but leaving cheap one legal is nonsensical - either ban both or neither of them ...
@@kuroginava8498 ah yes because you end up with two specific cards in opening hand in 100 card singleton format sooo often ... ill say it again, if they want to ban Crypt they should ban the Sol ring too... it has to be either both or neither
I would argue Jeskas Will is probably more powerful than Dockside in many cases, especially in lower powered games where people have bigger hands and commanders stick the board easier.
Honestly, I own some of these and I am not even upset. Mind you, I never went and bought these cards, only opening them in packs. However, I am a big supporter of slower games with slower mana bases, so I wouldn't have been upset if Sol Ring got the axe, though I would have been shocked for sure. I think it would have been nice if there was a watchlist of cards that the Commander Rules Committee (CRC) gave us so we have an idea of cards they are looking into banning, just so there is some warning. Like, if Nadu came out and was placed on the watchlist immediately, I don't think many would go out and buy it as much, but then again, maybe the CRC wants to see how a card is played without any influence from them.
The slower game with slower mana bases was at regular edh tables, not cedh tables though. You were just sitting at the wrong table or not having sufficient rule 0 talk
So much gets me angry about these bans is that I've spent the last year or so building into a cEDH deck, and the only fast mana I had for it was Crypt and Lotus. I now don't have a cEDH deck. I was barely hanging on in the pods I was playing and now its too strong for casual pods. The £2K+ i spent, opened and traded into feels wasted and the last year trying to get into a format feels wasted. I have no confidence in the CRC/CAG in how they run the format for cEDH anymore, It feels like were being told that we have to play casually or lose the effort we spent on deckbulding, it shoes that we need more cEDH players on the committee so that they don't kill our format or make our own committee for cEDH The other thing that REALLY gets me angry about this is that WotC knew this was coming for months, and decided to include Commander Masters and Lost Caverns Collector boosters in the Festival in a Box. They knew these bans were coming, and included what would have otherwise been high value product that's now worthless because the chase cards are no longer in the only format that they were legal in. Like squeezing the last few drops out of these cards before they stone cold unplayable.
Smothering tithe is a lot more obnoxious than jeweled lotus, also, most people don't feel bad about bringing tithe into lower power pods and it can easily generate way more mana advantage while also not being restricted to just casting commanders.
@@MrMdawg221 yes and i was talking about smothering tithe taking a turn or 2 not turn 1. Also with mana crypt you could get 1 land a solring and have Smothering tithe turn 1. See how just saying this can happen doesn't make an argurment? Not trying to be a jerk sorry if it comes across that way.
Why would I care what someone tells me to do with the casual format I play? Are they going to come and tell my pod that we can't use these cards? This is good news for me and my pod, because we'll just buy these for cheap now and use them anyhow.
@@jessewallace3805 "Casual" also doesn't mean "We spend 2-4 turns doing a game of chess and the game is over by turn 4-5", which is what cEDH is. Nobody uses "casual" to mean "we play competitive decks, but not in official tournaments".
Seems like a totally fair and reasonable take to me. Not that I don't feel sorry for more casual players who got hurt by the value loss of their cards, but this comment seems to me to be more in the spirit of EDH as a format than a lot of what other people have been saying.
5:00 Also it's waaaay too late to ban Sol Ring. You want people to be able to pick up a precon and play. As simple as it would be to swap it out of every new deck it would still give a bad 1st impression to new players to have to do so. edit: also, 1st new card bans in how long?
@@brandonbrooks779 newbie in store to employee: "how do I play this game?" "you buy any of these boxes _waves hand at wall of product_ " vs "you buy any of these boxes, then take some of the cards out of them, and put _something else_ in, it can't be a duplicate of any of the other 99 cards and has to match the colors" Guess what the response to the second will be
Crypt been legal for long too and still got banned. If one is going both should go imo. Banning one is just stupid and dumb. Heck in some situations sol.ring is even the better card.
@@Lowelo860 if you genuinely can't see the difficulty in banning something that is in literally every precon. Then there's no way to actually have this conversation with you
You seem to be one of the most level headed and logical people I've seen talk about this recent "drama", even simply seeing the problem and pointing at WotC's creating of cards and limiting their access instead of trying to blame the Commander Rules Committee for wanting a casual format to remain casual. Also, unlike most others, not getting confused and trying to state that RCR and WotC are separate one minute and then are the same the next. Bravo, and thanks for the great video!
Instead of banning jeweled lotus, just put it in every precon. Edit: if anyone disagrees with me, just remember "when everyone's super, no one will be."
Interesting take. I can get behind that. Sol Ring is in every precon now, so why not pair it with a Jeweled Lotus? The price of Sol Ring is now more affordable.
Yep and that is why I have zero issue with Sol Ring being legal. Everyone has access to it and therefor everyone can be on an even playing field. I would be OK with Lotus if it were just printed in premium precons like the ones for MH3.
@TheForeverRanger not even premiums, I mean basic precons. Good news is, if it becomes a worthless card. You can play a new game mode. I haven't worked out the name, but I'm thinking jeweled pod or something. Every player starts with a jeweled lotus in their opening hand. It's exiled after it's used, the mana can't be doubled.
@@Le_beaubrun I’d be interested to see a survey of where people play and with whom. From my experience home based playgroups outnumber pick up games 3 to 1, so I’m confused why they are focusing on cultivating a format conducive to a single play style. I could be wrong, it seems like player cultures vary wildly by location based on the wide variety of responses to the ban.
@@Davedave3303 I mean bans dont apply to closed home groups anyways, you can just do wtv you want there. Bans are mostly useful for when you play with new people. Imo those bans will help in this regard to make those experience more fun and smooth.
Just want to say that official bans on a format that is entirely casual and that you play with your friends is utterly meaningless. My friends and I always end up rebalancing cards anyway if we feel they aren’t to our liking. We changed Nadu to be a hard twice per turn for example because we didn’t feel the card was fair. We changed the way atraxa grand unifier worked because it was too powerful. We buffed all vanilla cards to have some cool effect. For example scathe zombies has an effect where you can sacrifice a swamp to return it from your graveyard to your hand. We got rid of anything that allowed you to play it for free if you discard because we felt the mechanics were dumb. In fact we avoid most ways of cheating things out because we realized quickly that it was only fun for one person. I’m writing this to remind people that they aren’t stuck with playing the cards in the way wizards designed them. In a casual format you get to decide what’s allowed and how the cards work. You just need imagination and creativity. If your play group thinks a card is unfair or boring, redesign it. I have also been experimenting with putting lands in a separate deck and flipping one onto the battlefield each turn. My play group finds this to be much more fair as it gets rid of all the uses with mana screw and mana flood. It keeps bad luck from ruining the play experience of one player at the table who simply misses her land drops repeatedly while another player is bullying everyone because they didn’t. I’m not saying everyone needs to play like we do. Just remember it’s an option to play however you feel is the most fun. It’s a casual format and you can play however you want.
One thing Jim talked about on the cedh discord is that they didn't want to make changes for a while after sheldon passed, because they didn't want to make it seem like he was holding back some bans from the format, but they talked about all the fast mana cards the last time Jim talked with Sheldon and the others. I'd rather them just ban the cards earlier and say "we talked with sheldon before he passed, and these were his thoughts on the bans" but I can understand wanting to not tarnish the memory of the face of the format and one of its creators.
I agree with Crypt being the least offensive of the group, and I’m not entirely sold on the necessity of a ban on it. That said, I do get the reasoning on all of the bans and think the ban announcement is good for the casual side of the format. I do agree with the cEDH players saying that getting rid of Dockside, Jeweled Lotus, and Crypt guts a couple of strategies that compete with Oracle combo decks. Banning them risks making Oracle the only real solution to cEDH. Time will tell on all that, but it’s certainly a concern at the moment.
@@Mibit911 either that or EVERY turn 1 hyperaccelerant card needs to get banned ... its almost like they specifically targeted the Crypt because its rare and expensive
@Asghaad theres so many other cards you could claim do the same thing and allow explosive turns. Dark ritual Elvish spirit guide Sol ring (which they wanted to ban) Mana vault Mox amber in cedh with 0 drop commander Chrome mox and mox opal Mox diamond. Grim monolith Gemstone caverns or mines. Like whats the difference between a turn 1 land sol ring arcane signet esper sentinel Vs 1 land esper sentinel mana crypt signet sol ring. THEY ARE BOTH RIDICULOUS 1 IN A MILLION HANDS TJAT REQUIRE HIGE AMOUNT OF CARDS. the only 2 cards I agree should be banned is Nadu for sure. It's the worst and hurts the least amount of people. And jlo potentially unless they just erratato be 1 mana. Because 3 colored mana for 0 Is broken But 2 colorless mana with potential damage every turn is not
The mismanagement of commander objectively had started with the first commander product WotC spat out, or perhaps even prior. I'll not be dissuaded of this. Great vid btw!
I think this is wrong, and I remember when the first couple of generations of Commander products were released. They were such a boon for the format because they introduced a few new cards for the format without being too warping or homogenising lists, and it meant that a new player could grab a precon deck and join a game with their friends, which was what the format was originally supposed to be. If you ask me, the problem started when they introduced booster play Commander sets and you started having multiple EDH-focused products per year.
Let’s be honest. This doesn’t affect 75% of the commander player base who don’t own these cards. (Yes I know proxies exist, that’s why I said 75 instead of 90) What this really effects is cedh.
it will just push thoracle even further to the top while making a lot of the tier 3-4 decks worse overall it just makes it even more obvious that we need a separation between casual and competitive commander
@@jesuschrist3147 Yeah, I was running Niv Mizzet, Parun because I didn't want a Thoracle win-con and now the whole deck is non-viable. I guess it's still a "good" EDH deck without those cards, but it'll never be cEDH again
Such a bad take. Some of us don't play cEDH, but we still play high power. My deck would never stand a chance in a cEDH pod, but it's a lot of fun when I swing for lethal on turn 4. On another note, this eventually will affect everyone, not just cEDH. I doubt that casuals want to see the cards they just bought get banned.
@nightelfuser no, it's the correct take. The vast majority of players didn't even run these cards, because most of us don't enjoy pubstomping. Only crybaby tryhards ran them.
Missed out on a Dockside literally this past Saturday because I was a little too late getting to the store. So happy that I missed it! Also, this seems insane to me that fast mana is the problem to the RC and yet the win condition of 60% of EDH decks being Thassa's Oracle that they just refuse to touch.
Rough for the dedicated players. Seems like a monkeys paw case. People wanted commander to be managed and official, but also keep the same niche small town charm it had in the start. But you can't have it both ways. The tighter commander lists get across the board, the more it pushes the "good fun time casual game here for 4 hours" players away from the format. You can not build a deck for a format when the laws of the format are different at every table, every time. EDH needs managed like any other format, OR it needs to remain unofficial with no dedicated precons and people just do it up like they used to. But you can't do both.
@@casteanpreswyn7528 I don't think bannings benefit anyone really. Not more than just proper design and testing. I said it pushes casual players away, because a hyper enfranchised player isn't going to quit the game over losing 500 bucks to a ban, we know it's part of the ride. But a casual that just spent a few hundred bucks to have it banned, is more likely to just cash out, or proxy everything. That doesn't benefit the game, or your LGS.
I will miss playing Phyrexian Metamorph to copy my friend's Dockside, then Sculpting Steel to copy mine, but I'm still happy to see it go. Mana Crypt and Jeweled Lotus are surprising, though. Nadu is Nadu and is the premier example of "Don't design cards for Commander, let cards find their home in Commander."
Dockside is as broken now as it was 18 months ago. They didnt ban it then because they wanted to sell more prints of it. It just feels so abusive that dockside was left unchecked for so long, and only NOW they hit it
> They didnt ban it then because they wanted to sell more prints of it. This conspiracy theory has no basis in reality. The RC is not WotC. The RC banned these cards even though WotC still wants to sell more of them. > It just feels so abusive that dockside was left unchecked for so long, and only NOW they hit it The emphasis here should be on "feels". These cards were monitored before they were banned. Nothing about the current timing is actually "abusive". If you want to complain about something, complain about printing overpowered chase-mythics designed specifically for Commander. These bans signal WotC do move away from that, and it will take the format in a more healthy direction.
@@Y00bi yea this dude is completely ignorant lol it’s the same with milking crypt as well not to mention jeweled lotus was just reprinted twice as well, had to wait until after the print runs to throw the bans out
@@Y00bi so? They aren't paid by wotc, they have no contractual obligations to them, and they are not high enough within wotc to actually gain any major benefits from their arrangement. Yall gotta stop with the conspiracy theories. It's fuckin embarrassing.
I can’t help feeling like this happened because Sheldon wasn’t there to stop it from happening. (I also want to note before people blast me: I love these bans.)
Can I also just add this is why I LOVE 7pt Highlander as a format. Your best cards never get banned, they simply become a more costly asset as they become too ubiquitous/powerful in the format.
I think what might salvage some of the situation caused by the bans is to make cedh a separate format almost. With its own ban list. That way these cards retain some of their value but do get cheaper for those wanting to get into cedh. It would also help the power level conversation in casual commander nights since it would be know that none of the decks at the table would be running these types of cards.
My most beloved and sentimental card, my DCI (Judge Promo) Mana Crypt, is now unfortunately nothing but a pretty card to see every once in a while when I open my binder. Feel bad for all the people who only recently obtained cards like this, feel like they hit a milestone in their collection, only to be told that their most recent awesome pull or big buy was a bust.
Proxy a vintage deck and show up to a proxy friendly tournament. Legacy and vintage players are way friendlier towards proxy. We understand the collective struggle. And I have never found anything wrong with an opponent with a whole proxy deck. Even if I have a foiled out whatever deck. It goes without saying.
@@artist91fb a bit unreasonable to ask to suddenly start playing completely different format that is barely played anywhere. i do agree about the community but the amount of opportunities to play vintage in paper is simply too small to be a viable for almost everyone.
The RC, who are clearly fans of durdling rubbish, are disconnected from the actual player base. If I’m playing in a casual game, let’s rule zero and discuss our decks. If I’ve paid to join a tourney for the evening, I don’t want to sit there and watch Timmy durdle out a 3/6 Elven Iguana in their blue green masturbation deck and not be able to fast mana combo them out of the game so we can actually play 4 games in an evening. I don’t want to linger in a game for 3 hours to lose to the same 2-3 green overrun effects. These bans is just reinforcing the same circlejerking rubbish battle cruiser playing run your creatures into mine for 3 hrs rubbish. For the love of Bob, that’s fine at your table. It’s not fine at the lgs
How Commander morphed from the casual format played for fun into a format that people take so seriously that it had actual tournament support, and where you're playing against strangers instead of your friends, is one of the strangest things I've seen happen in my 10+ years following this game. Can't imagine how it must feel for people who've been around so long that they remember the early innocent days of EDH, before these hyper-focused products were being printed and these problematic cards started to exist. Basically what I'm saying is I have little sympathy for people who think that bans focused on slowing down tournament/competitive play is a bad thing. Sorry if that seems callous, but that was never what the format was supposed to be. Jerks exist, and rule zero only gets you so far; some people need to be told where the line is and not to cross it. And if you want to join/create a group that plays no ban list or curates it own, you go for it.
@@StefanWB let me outline my thoughts more fulsomely because the first comment was still fuelled by wtf to the ban (even though I remain fair pissed off) Commander is effectively governed by social contract I’m going to separate Game 1 and Game 2 as a concept based on my usual experiences of Commander Game 1 is the game we are playing in the LGS, where I have paid and there is a competition and prizes. The social contract is established. We are here to win. If you are at this table, you should understand this. If you have brought your GEICO meme deck to face off against my thoroughly optimised Kess combo deck, I guess good luck to you, but I’m not going to apologise for fast mana, tutors, Thoracle, etc. Game 2 is a game we either play after the competitive game, or before the competitive games start. These games are governed by a social contract which starts with Rule Zero. I typically bring 5-7 Decks when I attend, always including a literally sleeved Pre-con (Dimir Zombies), a deck or two I’m working on, a couple of my established decks (Mardu Good Stuff, Vampire Tribal, Goblin Tribal, Sultai Good stuff) and Kess combo. I’ll outline these decks in full, being clear where there are tutors, fast mana, optimising and how it’ll aim to win. Game 1 and Game 2 are completely separate social contracts. The RC have made an assumption every game of commander should be governed exclusively as “Game 2”, and more importantly everyone wants a game to be a leisurely stroll to Timmy Battlecruiser run your creatures into each other. It’s patently false, it’s kind of patronising, and it doesn’t respect players who want to, y’know, end a game. Explosive plays are part of the game. Bring removal. Bring counter spells. I’m kind of sick of the governing body of the game assuming, seemingly assuming, that every game should be linear solitaire that drags out for 10 turns. Game 1 needs fast tools. I don’t want to sit down and watch durdle and meme-y rubbish. Play to win. Game 2, if we’ve all signed up to Timmy Battlecruiser, should proceed as such with the clear social contract we all signed up to.
@@johnvonkerman These bans, while being a massive hit to reprint equity, would not make every single precon, the decks meant to introduce people to the format, for the last 13 years illegal. That would be so much more of a PR nightmare. I don't think WotC likes these bans either, the issue and consumer confidence hit just would've been much bigger.
I wonder what prompted such a big change from the RC? I've been following their updates over the past few years, and they've purposefully pointed out cards they are evaluating for potential bans. They could've easily said something along the lines of, "Nothing yet, but something big may happen at the next quarterly update!" The fact that no one expected this feels like a big middle finger to everyone. I'm curious to see if further communication comes out over the next couple days.
In my opinion, those who are mad are the players who got copies of the card at a high price. Honestly, I don't honestly know what to feel with this one. There are still plenty of fast mana cards but these three were prominent and as a casual commander player, I was used to the status quo. Now with this, maybe I can try CEDH now? I don't know.
@@edpaolosalting9116 one of my buddies is mad because he claims these bans completely cripple his mono red cEDH deck. Another friend of mine is mad cause he pulled a full art foil jeweled lotus and never got to cast it
We are a playgroup of 12 people. Most of us own around 8 Decks. Not a single one of us has or had a Mana crypt a jeweld lotus or a Dockside. So nothinging changes. All of us always agreed that we never run Fast Mana pieces beside of Sol Ring.
I think part of the problem with the ban was how unceremonious it was, there wasn't any announcement informing the community of an update to the banlist without spoiling the changes. At least then players could brace themselves for changes.
I think that would go extremely poorly. Schrodinger’s ban list is a terrible idea as you have people betting on which cards are leaving and cashing out hoping they are right. And trust me that wouldn’t be the end of it. Even just deck building in anticipation. And if you think people are upset now for what isn’t on there? Imagine being certain Rhystic would be taken out and then not. The usual frustration is turned to an 11 because of build up. Seriously a schrodinger’s ban list an awful idea.
@@Arufonsa1 It'd be their own fault for selling out or buying into cards at that point. Giving advance notice would give players a chance to opt out of purchases if they aren't certain that their cards will still be legal
@@otterfire4712 I don’t think this actually counters anything I said. I’m not saying it won’t be their own fault just that it would be a result. And why not try to avoid it?
@@Arufonsa1 I'd rather people intentionally gamble on banlist speculations than players get blindsided by a banlist because the RC just decided to make an update after several years of silence. This surprise banlist hampers the value of further purchases towards deck improvement as you can never be certain when/if RC will suddenly swoop in an ban the cards you just purchased.
@@otterfire4712 Well I want to make it clear. Market speculation is not my only problem with it. Again I think a phantom ban list in general can only end badly with player anticipation. Especially if it isn’t a scheduled yearly thing. Which it often does not need to be. Second I can use your own argument against you here. That’s on them for investing in cardboard. The market does not owe you anything and the house always wins. Play stupid games and all that.
Yeah it sucks financially for people that spent a lot of money on these cards but I think that fundamentally having really expensive cards that give a huge advantage sucks for everyone not willing to pay 200 dollars for a single card. And a lot of people are not willing to pay 200 dollars for a single card because if it gets banned or even reprinted you spent all that money for nothing.
"And a lot of people are not willing to pay 200 dollars for a single card because if it gets banned or even reprinted you spent all that money for nothing."-- You still have the card and you can always play it casually, so it wasnt spent for "nothing". Spending on magic cards is ALWAYS a sunk cost that sometimes can be recouped. Expecting it to be any other way is self delusion or you were deceived.
@@fomori2 yes, you still have the card but are we really going to pretend like resell value does not factor in when people buy a 200 dollar piece of cardboard that can be proxied for pennies? If it is just about playing a game then the cards being real is irrelevant.
@@kidomniman8635If you dont assume the purchase price is a sunk cost, then I would say you are then an "investor" buying a commodity. You benefit when the proice goes up by accepting the risk that the price could go down.
Given how important rule 0 is supposed to be and how hands off they've been previously, it might be an interesting idea to see them so "suggested bans" lists (plural) ie "these are cards that are problems at a lot of tables so if you want to ban them, these are our suggestions of which ones you ban", then you could also tier them by how restrictive you want to be in terms of removing problematic metas
Iona, Shield of Emeria: can completely take out an entire player if they’re playing a mono deck. Tolarian Academy: unfairly extreme amount of mana for having artifacts. Mana crypt: makes two mana on a potential turn one. The ban list should be for cards that can ruin games or have such an immense unfair advantage. Mana crypt and Jeweled Lotus gives a slight advantage that can be more impactful in early games. This shouldn’t have been cards that were up for debate on banning. This hurts my trust for the rules committee.
@@Enja_Nearthose were banned because their cost is prohibitive and creates a power disparity for those players with access to them. I don’t think the same is the case for these cards.
The Iona ban always seemed like a weird one to me. I know the effect isn't fun and can be completely crushing, but she costs NINE mana. And then an extra two every time.
This is a really good take and a great explanation. It's a great change for the format, but it comes at the cost of thousands and thousands of dollars of players' collections.
Commander is NOT a competitive format to begin with, its entire appeal is the freedom of choice. I'll keep playing whatever I want and I suggest that everybody does the same.
The bannings hurt my collection since I had 4 Mana Crypts, 1 Masterpiece Mana Crypt, 3 Jeweled Lotus, and 2 Docksides. Overall, this stings since I collected them during their release, but overall I do accept this will make games more enjoyable from a non cEDH POV. Now I hug my Ancient Tombs and Mana Vaults more closely since those will start to see a spike left from the bannings.
Mana Crypt should stabilize and still hold some value over time. It's still a legal card in Vintage and it has historical value as well. Jeweled Lotus is going to 0.01 dollars so fast.
I agree with Crypt not being as explosive, but I'd argue it's power is actually much higher than the others. Dockside by itself is a one-time ETB that is entirely dependent on your opponents having permanents, and requires your Commander's color identity to have red to even play it (Atraxa is the most played Commander and can't, for example). Jeweled Lotus is a one-time sacrifice for three mana to play only one or two cards in your entire deck, and it only makes one color (to use Atraxa again, she doesn't benefit much from it). Yes, with recursion or bouncing they can become more, but they themselves are single use pieces - they only get more powerful with other synergistic or combo cards. Crypt on the other hand is mana every turn, starting on the first turn. Every turn it's out, it's power grows. Every turn it isn't destroyed, it's providing value, and that value is 50/50 free. Of the four, I'd almost argue that this card is the MOST powerful in the list. It's floor is two colorless to spend on anything, it's ceiling is an entire game of colorless once or more per turn. Dockside's floor is absolutely no treasures, with an average ceiling between 6-15 treasures, game depending. Jeweled Lotus's floor is straight up 3 mana, it's ceiling isn't much higher - it needs artifact recursion, and then it requires the Commander in a zone to be played.
This is a valuable lesson for me, I'll cut down on booster purchases hard and proxy every card thats more than 50 cents for my commander decks going forward. It's just not worth it to invest in a collection anymore
@@davidbilich1708 I'm not some investor guy, but why bother buying expensive game pieces or trying to pull them when it goes down the drain like this anyway? I don't wanna sit here in 5 years and go like "I spent 5000 on bucks on this cardboard, now it's worth 500 and I don't even have fun playing with it anymore"
I feel like this was a lesson that should of been learned earlier like when wotc was selling four 15 card magic 30th anniversary packs which were basically proxies for $1k
not gonna lie, if you ever at any point considered dropping 100+ bucks on a base edition card, you really needed to learn that lesson. that's why edh is an explicitely proxy friendly format.
I am happy about the bans. It was a problem in my play group with people bringing in jeweled lotus and mana crypts and then wondering why no one wanted to play with them. I never had to face a Nadu deck (thank goodness) but everyone who had said it was painful.
I think the rules committee was in talks with Wizards and Wizards asked them to wait before banning any of these, to allow their products to sell first.
I think that’s honestly the only way it could go. Minus the need for financial earnings you have nothing left to go on but personal interpretation. Even thinking logically the conclusion you want to reach is still based on person preference. I’m not sure what you are expecting. If we just had another group the results would be slightly different but most likely have the same reactions.
As a casual commander player, this ban announcement was a good one & overall a positive step for the format. We don’t need excess fast mana and turn 6 wins in the only casual mtg format! That being said; it is strange timing, there was definitely market manipulation/ insider trading, and it will impact how players spend their money in mtg. Truly being honest; if you were buying $70+ cards for a casual format, then you’re probably taking it too seriously. Precons are $40 and anyone can make a solid edh deck for sub $100. Choosing to play degenerate cards that see competitive play was a choice, not a necessity.
Commander players can say whatever they want, threaten this or that, however time and history shows most of the player base will still buy commander product anyway, and WotC knows it.
That's why I've stayed vocal even after quitting. They didn't just lose a customer; they lost an angry customer who won't go away and be quiet about it.
It feels like everyone that has a spine left mtg years ago, all that's left are people that condone mtg 30th, Pinkertons, universes beyond, product fatigue, designed for commander cards, secret lairs etc...
@@kylesippel1709 cEDH doesn't ruin anything. cEDH players really only play with other cEDH players if they are playing their cEDH decks. The only time I've ever played my cEDH deck in a non-cEDH pod was when a group asked me to play it just so they could see what it looked like. And every cEDH group I've ever played with is 100% proxy friendly. They ENCOURAGE you to proxy a whole deck just so they have more people to play cEDH with. The creativity point is completely bunk, the average player just goes on EDHrec, types in the commander they want to play, and just looks at the most popular cards. A lot of people care more about actually playing the game then they do about the deck building process. The actual problem is assholes. Assholes are purposely bringing decks that they know are too powerful for the groups they are playing with and pubstomping, ruining casual games. And the overwhelming majority of those assholes aren't cEDH players. Most cEDH players want to play against competent players playing decks that are as powerful as their deck is.
@@kylesippel1709 yeah the creativity is so bad that's why we have control decks, stax decks, midrange decks, turbo naus decks, and everything inbetween all in a variety of color combinations and win conditions Cue a ban that outright kills any cEDH commander over 4cmc (even some that *are* 4cmc), guts red decks, and leaves thoracle intact so the meta turns into just UB decks and maybe a smattering of stax piles that don't need quite as much artifact hate
@@swolegolisopod7340 literally the reason they got rid of these cards was lack of creativity 😒 smh....u can run w.e deck u want . There all running the same cards u see over and over and over again.....CEDH stax lol you know nothing sir
I appreciate this video. I own one dockside and a jeweled lotus. Both were given to me by family that mean a lot to me. I didn't move them from deck to deck and I barely played with the deck they were in because we're usually playing low power anyway. But I still get all of my play group CALLING ME asking me while they laugh "What are you gonna do?" Like have some fucking consideration guys. No one likes losing money or things they play with.
that's just actual general wisdom tho. it's insane to me that magic player somehow think that spending hundreds of bucks for the cheapest version of a an actually legal and widely played card is ok.
Honestly. I fucking hate that tournament players are being forced to cater to casual players who can self police anyway. Also, after making these cards chase cards for the past few years, this is incredibly scummy.
What I think might happen out of this is that CEDH will become it's own separate format with a different ban list, which I think is a good thing in the long run since the CEDH player has a completely different mindset (when intending to play this way) and will stop problems when the different types of players clash when half the pod is expecting one type of play and the other isn't.
My jaw hit the floor when I heard about this at work today. The LGS I work at dodged a bullet because we were bought out of all of those cards. (Well except nadu, but there wasn't much value there.) It is legitimately insane that they banned all of these at the same time, and while I agree with the reasoning behind all of them, I think maybe these bans should have been stagnated.
Ban the rules committee, who asked for them? Who voted for them? What gives them the right to dictate to us how commander should be played. Just a bunch of out of touch content creators.
Phew! I dodged a bullet! Just this last weekend, I was tied between picking up a Revised Taiga or a HrPr Mana Crypt. Went with the Taiga. 😌 Can save myself a few extra tenners when I pick up my Crypt in October. 👍
The extreme irony of "I designed Nadu for commander" and getting it banned everywhere.
Fuel for the "Don’t design cards for commander" discussion.
Commander players don't want this either. Just make normal cards for MtG and we'll repurpose the junk in unintended ways, that's half the fun.
I'm fine they design cards for Commander only in sets and commander precons meant for Commander, and even then they need to have the foresight to not make dumb shit like Nadu. Miss Bumbleflower is a perfect example. Pretty darn strong group hug commander that you benefit from a lot more than your opponents do getting +1/+1 counters and 2 cards on your second cast. They shoulda done the same thing with Nadu and just let his stuff trigger only twice OVERALL
Commander is the worst thing to happen to MTG, and I stand by that.
And to elaborate, I don't mean EDH. I think EDH was perfectly fine and a great thing. I mean when WotC decided they needed to monetize a market that was perfectly content doing what it was doing. A subtle rules change (things like 'each opponent' for example) was perfectly fine, but from Ikoria onward we've seen too many formats get absolutely eviscerated by attempts to get Commander players to play or buy more cards.
Designed for commander.. but wasn't tested even once in the format before it's release....
@@MrSyltphademus no the problem is lack of playtesting. they didn't see the issue with oko and they said they straight-up didn't test the final iteration of nadu that went to print.
3 of the 4 banned cards were specifically designed with Commander in mind.
Let that sink in.
yea, I get that some people hate fast mana. But that should be a rule0 conversation like everything else in your pod. RC hates commander games that go fast. So they made that decision for everyone. The only people I ever hear of complaining about these cards are content creators and people in their chat. Nobody I play with gives a fuck, and nobody in LGS i've been in care either. All they care about is being told ahead of time so they can either politely refuse or so that they can swap decks to match that level.
@@Geblino rule 0 doesn't work that well where you're playing pick up games at stores or online. The same argument can be reversed on you when you can rule 0 your playgroup to allow these cards.
Not really working in reverse because financially a hit. Yea, a risk collecting anything but people have the right to be pissed when it happens.
This seems like bad faith reasoning. The vast majority of cards that are "designed for commander" in an explicit way aren't really problems for the format. The cards banned here are outliers in terms of how broken they are (which is why they were banned lmao)
@@toms1782 well if you buy cardboard for price speculation reasons instead of for playing a fun game, you have to deal with that cardboards value disappearing on a whim
"Hey let's print chase mythics! The packs will sell like crack!"
"Oops they're all banned! Hope you enjoyed your gaming budget while it lasted"
Something something reap what you sow
Gotta please shareholders
I LITERALLY just opened the showcase foil Jeweled Lotus from my Festival In A Box packs WHILE WATCHING THIS VIDEO. I'm losing my mind.
I have a foil lotus and a normal one that I got opening a box...... ooohhhh wellll........ :(
I just opened my Festival in a box and the Ixilan pack had a neon yellow mana crypt
it hurts
Opened my full art last week from my boxes. I'm pretty fucking pissed.
Fuck dude that is awful!
The fact that all of these were printed as THE chase cards of their respective sets in the past year is what really grinds my gears.
blame wotc with their fire design that focus commander not the RC
Mana crypt wasn't
@@cablefeed3738LCI?
@@cablefeed3738 it was for caverns of ixalan along with all the different designs it had
@@cablefeed3738it got printed as chase card for caverns of ixalan
Dockside - 85...down to 30
Jeweled - 90...down to 35
Crypt - 194........down to 81
As of a few hours ago....
Nice example of why people welcome proxies more.
There should be a . Between those numbers
And they should!!!! If this gets more people in on that then better for the format.
Nice example of why people shouldn't buy expensive cardboard in the first place. Absolutely none of these cards are necessary in a deck to function.
Ive been playing commander for a good long while, while avoiding anything above 10 or even 20 if i really really like the card in a flavour kind of way or my budget permits at that point in time and i can say from personal experience that I missed exactly none of these cards even when playing against them.
Too many people fall for the trap of "oooh card is expensive so it MUST be in my deck!!"
Still don't understand why Jeweled Lotus is worth anything at all. It's not legal in Commander or Oathbreaker, the only two sanctioned formats it functions in... are people still trying to make a separate cEDH banlist happen?
Even at my LGS the owner used to have a problem with a big amount of decks being filled with proxies and recently he said he doesn't care because even he thinks it's ridiculous
It's worth noting that all 3 of the big cards were reprinted last year, with jeweled lotus in CMM, and dockside+mana crypt in LCI. It's likely the RC wanted these bans for a while, but weren't able to with the upcoming product using these chase cards for marketing, and had to wait for them to be far enough behind us to take action. I don't know the timeline but these bans could have been set as far back as 2022 but held back.
Oh, this is very believable. Don’t ban these in commander, RC. We have already made and printed these chase cards to draw people in, wait until end of year we don’t have plans to reprint them anytime soon. Thanks, love Hasbro.
I don't think WotC and the Rules Committee have that level of communication, but I could be wrong.
@@LilFlame2001they do. There’s WoTC staff on the rule committee.
@@LilFlame2001 imagine being this naive
@LilFlame2001 go and watch the interview that the Professor did with Sheldon from the RC a couple years ago. The Professor asked Sheldon directly if he was getting paid by Wizards and his response was that he would not deny nor confirm anything in regards to that. So there is your answer 😂
6 hours after announcement
Mana Crypt - $80
Jeweled Lotus - $41
Dockside extortionist - $28
That was fast
Why would Jeweled Lotus be above $0?
soon jeweled lotus will become one cents
Yeah I lost like $400 bucks in one hour 😅
It should probably go lower. Two of these weren''t played anywhere outside of commander.
@@TwoHanderVGCIf I may ask, Did you get to regularly play with these cards? Or was it more of an investment? Because as long as you had fun with them and built solid memories from the experience of playing them then I wouldn’t consider it a full on loss.
After this ban, I heavily believe that tabernacle and cradle are only legal because of the lack of copies/ reserved list.
Cradle also requires some work to get online. It wasn’t like tolarian academy where there are a crap ton of free artifacts that also create mana and can be tapped on that turn
@@nCaveman1 I wouldn't say Cradle requires any more work compared to Tolarian Academy. It just gets online couple of turns later in comparison. "Play creatures" isn't a big hurdle to overcome, especially in a format where a token generating commander might often alone be enough to turn Cradle into a filthy mana-making machine.
@@Sicktoid "A couple of turns later" is massive and I'm surprised that you seem to think it's not. Make no mistake, Cradle is an absolute aberration in mana generation, but the absolute gulf between even that and TAcademy stands as a testament to how ludicrous TAcademy is.
Can't say I disagree. So many cards skate by the banlist on supply side constraints similar excuses and personally I'd be happy to see them banned, but then again, I'm personally a proponent of a more robust banlist, so there is bias there.
@@Sicktoidlol you've never played with academy then. Its much faster
My friends and I have been proxy friendly since M30. The greed and mismanagement turned us off. My magic spending is down 95% over the past 4 years.
same here, I only buy singles since M30 and pretty versions for cards I own and use in my decks (because I like shiny stuff). I try to sell or trade whats on my binder only to get the cards I want to upgrade my decks or make a new one every once in a while. (I used to buy a Collector for each set, plus playing a lot in the pre release)
This is the way to play! When you remove money from the game you start to see things a little closer to objective.
Go Pokemon TCG. I made it my main TCG quite recently due to a lot of scandals and misconducts of Hasbro and WOTC. And the freshness and overall atmosphere compares nowhere to the recent toxicity of the MTG I started noticing.
@@mugthemagpie3001 I’ve heard mostly good things. 👍
These bans make me think only one thing:
Mishra's Workshop stays winning.
So is mana vault... glad i keep one just in case XD
Chrome mox, mox opal too along with ancient tomb @@baduncle3084
How often are you seeing workshop? Lol wut
@@Monkeydudem2 After bans like this? I'd allow anyone to scribble it on a basic land and call it good.
One of my favorite cards that no one talks about. Time to annoy my playgroup with mono grey artifacts again
As someone who owns 3+ Docksides and a Nadu, I really don't feel bad for myself or anyone else. The game pieces were expensive to buy, sure. I'm "out" 150+ CAD now but I was never going to sell anyways. The price of the card only matters the second you cash out, not before and not after. All this really did was allow me to add Fear of Missing Out to my commander deck and a different treasure generator/dice roller to Mr. House. One less generically powerful auto include card makes more room for a more on-theme addition.
This is why you proxy $200 cards folks it could become a 70 dollar card the next day
Preach
Yes and yes!
This is why i will be proxying every single card moving forward, no more money for wotc.
70? Already below 50$ in Europe
collecting is part of the game. The rc just took it away
Since it’s useless now I Already turned my dockside into a goblin shaman token for my fables
Jeweled lotus will be a gorgeous treasure token
Based
Good idea tbh
Screw that, slam it in Pirates. It fits the theme to run a banned pirate. people can deal with it the sea has no laws
@@TwiZt3DLoTuSdo what you want cause pirates are free, you are a pirate
Kenobi identified the main issue that other content creators seem to be missing: these cards simply sat far too long without action by RC and were allowed to become highly sought after chase cards. It felt so sudden that cards sitting for years without any identification from RC that they were even remotely being looked at, let alone ban worthy.
I hope RC learns from this and begins more aggressively taking action on any new cards printed that are obviously too busted or un fun for commander. I think Dockside and Lotus banning were inevitable over time as the format grew, and the RC should have realized they would eventually be too much to keep around and banned it much earlier before that point, saving many people and LGSs alot of money.
They've literally been talking about these cards for years. Dockside was in discussions for being banned on release.
@casteanpreswyn7528 dock is the only one that's been in constant discussion, nadu technically but that's a new release.
The RC mentioned lotus once when it released and never brought it up again in future ban announcements as under watch nor was crypt ever mentioned.
Over a decade of manacrypt 😂bit was moronic
I hope the RC will be gone in near future and some people who are thinking about the consequences (also on price market) before taking decisions will take over. If decisions will result in such a massive loss of value in nearly over night, this RC should not have the authority to take such decisions.
@@kritikverloren1814so you'd rather play a game where you have to pay 3-500 bucks on a deck to play with friends and cards so busted that you'd get locked out of the game turn 3? Great to know you care more about the secondary stock market than the actual balance of the game. The problem isn't the RC. It's WOTC making overpowered cards and strong arming the RC into making these decisions or forcing them to not do it. The primary reason sol ring isn't banned, at least imo, is for this reason.
If there is one thing I've learned from these bans, it's that the Commander community (EDH and cEDH alike) is much more fractured on what bannings in the format is supposed to accomplish than I initially thought. When nothing happens, the RC gets shit for being stagnant. But if they commit to a decision and direction, it feels like a third of the playerbase will rise up, tearing at them for ruining what they think the format should be.
The problem is that there are as many different ways to play commander as there are commander players. It's part of the reason that the no bans approach that we've had for the past however long hasn't had a strong negative effect on the format. Players have naturally put themselves in the playgroups where they have fun with commander, so at the end of the day, if you're the kind of player who used these cards, they probably weren't a problem at your table or else people wouldn't be playing at your table.
the format is fragmented and the rc supports only one of those fragments. They shouldn't be in charge of the format
Someone is always going to get upset over a ban....
But this is due to the RC not doing anything long enough that has caused so many fractures in the community itself.
Well ultimately, it's a group of people and different people have different opinions. For every person loudly complaining about certain cards needing to be banned, there is a person who is happily playing with the cards they have and not engaging in that discussion. It's only when they find out that some of their cards that they'd been happily playing with are now banned that they are drawn into the discussion and they come in angry.
RC is bought by wotc they do not ban anything that was recently released to not affect sales...
“I wish the rules committee would do something.”
“No not like that!”
Honestly I don't approve of the bans but seeing the dolts that complain about the RC not doing anything getting to eat crow is pretty satisfying
If the RC is doing their job well, the community is doing its job well, and WoTC *isn't* doing their job badly, the Rules Committee shouldn't have to do anything!
@@jinxed7915 I absolutely love that they banned nadu, and idc about dockside, but I hate the mana crypt and jeweled lotus bans.
The only criticism I have is that I would’ve banned more cards than this.
I’m so glad they’re doing their job for once
Ngl reviewing the ban list and removing stuff on the occasion would be nice. Golos, Emrakul, and primeval titan are definitely slow enough for the format these days.
@FatstaxMTG as an individual who is probably gonna quit because of this ban; those cards should stay banned. Most notably Prime Time. The lands they have made justify its ban
I know you intentionally did not talk about Nadu, but the irony is funny to me that they showed the original version to Casual play design and they said, that this is not fun in Commander only to change it into something that is so not fun in commander, that it had to be banned 😂
I feel so, SO bad for my local game store. They're kinda small,and i recently just sold my extra docksides and jeweled Lotus to them. (2 each) I felt i didn't need multiple when i could shuffle my one real copy between decks and the owner was happy to get some big cards to flip.
Now this smaller store is stuck with cards that will most likely NEVER go back up to the prices they were at.
It does suck, but that is one of the risks of buying/selling singles in general. They can increase or reduce in value by a whole lot really easily. And they likely know that as well.
That said, I guess just getting some stuff from there would be the best move if you feel bad since they can somewhat recoup their losses. But that is just my opinion.
Buying card is an investment. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
@coryfoster4907 I am not entirely sure what you are referring too. Are you talking about buying singles just to buy cards for your deck?
My LGS has been trying its best to get rid of its commander masters product. Now I don’t think there’s a single soul that would buy it off them after the ban.
Same as no reason to buy ixalan
Why not?? There's still great hits like Fierce Giardianship, Deflecting Swat, Deadly Rollick, Craterhoof and dozens of others.
@@nunyabusiness3957 not for the price
@@nunyabusiness3957 and now a chance at instead of any of those hitting a placeholder card for the black lotus in your garth one-eye deck. Nobody wants to pull cards that they cannot use out of extremely expensive boosters.
@@nunyabusiness3957 i mean, it would depend on their retail price. Those premium products have inflated price so ... Meh.
I agree with everything except for the part about Wizards being upset about losing reprint equity. You can't tell me that there isn't a line that if the committee crossed wizards wouldn't veto and take full control of the format. The truth of the matter is that dockside was a design mistake, jeweled lotus was made intentionally bannable to push commander legends, and mana crypt is just a dated pre-edh overpowered card that wizards has already milked to death in the past decade. It's clear by the modern horizons sets, they will just make "tribute" cards that are just nerfed versions of these. Let's not forget that jeweled lotus is essentially a "tribute" black lotus in the first place. The rules committee should have shown some spine when jeweled lotus came out in the first place.
That's why the other 3 bans are fine but crypt should be unbanned
@@Mibit911may as well unban the mox while we're at it.
@@Enja_Near what mox?
Plenty of moxes are unbanned.
Mox diamond
Mox Opal
Chrome mox
Mox amber
What your saying makes no sense
OR we get (wait for it) two banlists so everyone wins!
@@Mibit911 Don't be facetious.
if you look on the EDHREC salt list, it shows the banned cards in this order from most to least salty: Nadu; Dockside; Lotus; Crypt.
If the RC bases their decisions on the salt meter is like a psychologist who bases his decisions on the horoscope
who knows what they base their decisions on, I'm sure the salt list has some influence. They wouldn't ban Nadu that quickly if it didn't.
@@_Axel_G_ They don't. Only one of the four was even in the top 10 on the saltmeter (Nadu). The other poster wasn't saying these were the top four saltiest, just that if you look at their salt values, they would go in that order, respective to each other.
Crypt needs to be unbanned
@@_Axel_G_ actually it would be democratic. The salt score is just showing what people don't like, which is fair to consider coz it's the casual format. Though balancing is important too
As someone who is slowly watching one of their most valuable cards just free fall (mana crypt) i can honestly say that i feel like it both sucks and is a relief... i love the card and wanted to play it so i bought one years ago... when it was more appropiate for decks at the time but after moving and going to a newer lgs where people are mostly playing precons and stuff its kinda a relief cause i was kinda torn on putting it into decks or finding decks that i could reasonably feel like if i got the magical christmas land start that i wouldnt feel bad... and while i am losing money even as i type this i think that the discourse has gone on long enough and that the cards being banned today are ultimately better to leave the format as a whole then continuing to continue to push the power level of even the most casual of decks.... so yeah im sad im inevitably going to lose money on the deal but the wider effect of this banning will hopefully send a message to wizards that people dont want these cards in OUR format... its NOT their format... Player created and player maintained format... stop printing obvious staples into OUR format and allow it to grow organically like it was when the format started... just stop wotc... just stahp!
💯
What on earth.... prioritizing the enjoyment and health of the format over your own financial investments? Blasthemy!!! 😮
If only there were more players like you who could police themselves among other players not having those cards. The cards wouldn't need to be banned if more souls were like yours.
Yea I pretty much ran my mana crypt in my Legend Matters deck where the extra colorless mana didn't really help all that much, since just about every card had 3-5 coloured pips in the casting cost. When I would explain to the pod that, yes it a strong deck, it's not strong because of the fast mana, they were fine with it. It's strong because I stuffed it with the strongest legendary spells/creatures in the color pie with recursion stapled to their asses. Sure, once or twice I got the goldfish opener with every mana rock in my deck turn 1 but then I'm open to just getting the beat down because I just have a bunch of mana and not much else going on, or I get OL-vandal balsted into the stone age (true story).
I'd still only bring it out against people playing decks in the higher tier (IE UR-Dragon, Edgar, Sliver piles, KKrik (or however you spell his name))
@thechikage1091 I'm not completely innocent there were times I'd pull my deck out just be an ass but yeah for the most part it stayed in my oona mill deck as a combo piece as a part of my isochron scepter loop... but yeah... just still feel burned and hopefully my mana vault doesn't go the same way as crypt did seeing the price absolutely skyrocket... definitely going to be keeping an eye on that one for sure...
Great video Vince! Really enjoyed it 😊 In my experience, Dockside is one of those cards that warps the game around itself - people kill it and reanimate it, clone it, flicker it and fight on the stack at every interaction with it. That’s a play pattern we used to see a lot of when Prime Time was legal. So from that perspective, I think this was definitely a good ban.
I think that Josh Lee Kwai told wizards that they shouldnt print jeweled lotus when he was asked to play tests commander legends and they still went ahead with it. In one mind i'm glad these are gone, but i do feel sorry for those who invested into them
Meanwhile Josh sold a bunch of cards on this upcoming ban announcement. The insider trading is unreal
To be honest i don't see why the RC did not immediately ban the lotus shortly after if they really did not want Wizards to print it
@@khub5660source?
@@khub5660 source? Just curious is all
@@JohnnyYeTaecanUktena likely pressure from WotC to keep the chase card(s) legal.
I feel like the Rules Committee have painted themselves into a corner with saying that every game/pod/table/LGS should have a Rule 0 list or discussion, and that their banlist is just signposts, BUT THEN ALSO having a ban list. If you have a ban list, make a ban list and curate it frequently and clearly. If you have a suggestions list then you're just another group of players and your suggestions shouldn't hold the weight to cause such a drastic change.
Basically the commander ban list is a group of cards that they don't want you to show up to your lgs and just pub stomp people into the ground with them but once you establish your actual play group you should have no problem having a discussion to ask hey can I play 1 or 2 cards on ban list because they actually fit my deck thematically And go either way with their approval... so yes it has a place but if you have a consistent play group of just friends the ban list is not really nessasary
@@d43m0n412but that means they endorse pubstomping with stax and land destruction, so this argument really doesnt hold up to any scrutiny
@@d43m0n412 @@d43m0n412 But that dichotomy is why everyone gets up in arms with the RC. Is it a ban list if it's not actually really banned? Is it a suggestion list? If those cards were just Kitchen Table usage then they wouldn't have been big pack sales chase cards.
And on that point, why does WotC have a group outside of their control giving so much control to the product that likely drives the most sales of their product? The gun that they now have to point WotC's head in regards to reprint equity is bonkers.
@@muchochucho9778 Wait how does that compute. Them being banned is less objectively pub-stompy. Whether that is enough or the right hits is a different discussion. And "pubstomping" with stax and land destruction is either a good way to become archenemy and have to 1v3 every game or a good way to make both new and experienced players not let you at their table again because there's no way you got that past an actual rule 0.
You can rule zero to UNBAN, this is for public play
I didn’t buy lotus and dockside as an investment, I’m just a new player who made the mistake of building a cedh deck 🫠 very upset by this. The fast pace of the game was what I was enjoying the most, you could always rule 0 these out if your pod wanted to have a slower game. Such a beautiful card jeweled lotus is too what a shame.
You can always rule 0 them in if your pod wants to have a faster game.
Indeed, it's easier to rule 0 something in than out. If you're trying to 0 in a banned card, you're more likely to have a substitute ready to go if the pod says no. If you 0 out a card, you might make somebody's deck unplayable for that night.
Nothing changes at the kitchen table, just your lgs. And turbo decks in cedh totally survive this unless you're on Etali or something
@@Vex-MTGsure but you are more likely to have people unwilling to play against banned cards than you are people unwilling to change which deck they play to make the game competitive for the table. This didn’t actually solve any problems but cost people millions and hurt the perception of collectibility of the game, which, whether you like it or not is a huge portion of the money that goes into the game. This will hurt money incoming into the game which negatively affects R&D budget, which in turn lessens the quality moving forward. Which will only lead to more mistakes like this.
How about you rule zero them back in? Cedh is now more c now that centralizing cards are gone.
I'd say conservatively between singles and sealed product this wiped 10s of millions of dollars worth of value from magic players in a moment. Truly a crazy time.
Players and shops... Plus to be honest seriously damaged earning potential of commander bombs in future products, which in the long run might be a good thing as Lotus imho was a mistake.
In cedh though, Lotus made commanders that cost more than 3 mana more playable, without it and crypt, cmc 5+ commanders might as well be out of the competitive side format.
I like the choice for casual, but to be honest, no one in my playgroup used those cards during casual evenings so I see no real benefit from the decision.
good, it's a game not an investment
@@AbsolutelyGeekit’s demented that 3+ mana equals less playable in the first place
@@AbsolutelyGeek people were not playing those cards because they were unavailable to them. both because of the price tag and number of copies available. sol ring is almost as good as crypt and most people run it without any afterthought. banning them will be beneficial to the format. on the other hand this will affect mostly competitive part of the format so i don't see why ban them now. lotus and dockside should not have been in the format in the first place.
That's the risk of buying cards though.Your value can tank at any time.
The 'nothing ever happens' folks are getting absolutely wrecked this year
There are years where weeks happen, and there are weeks where years happen
As one of those people I'm actually really happy about this. Now unban some of the tame cards like Primetime Titan and Recurring Nightmare that never should have been banned in the first place. RIP my Crypt though.
wrecked? I'm part of them and I'm *rejoicing* .
This year
Did you just call prime time "tame"?!
One of the best green cards ever printed.... Tame...
Sure, I'll take a turn 3 20/20 flying indestructible. It's tame, bro.
So... We can agree that the problem is not what cards have been banned but rather the RC's philosophy right?
They argued that commander is about creativity, but that creativity must be represented in slower decks. So... For people who like faster games, RC is kinda saying that optimizing style creativity is not quite for EDH. And that's not really cool on their side.
I was an advocate for the removal of fast mana for years. Me own group had forbidden all of them. We latter expanded and became the only magic format in the LGS and for that point onwards we just asked people (particularly new people) how did they play and what they wanted to play. And, you know, ir worked. With some exceptions, of course, but it worked. A bunch of us eventually picked up cEDH as a thing to play from time to time but as it's own things with it's own decks. And still, worked.
I do not belive this banlist is good, not because those cards are getting banned, as one of the points of cEDH is to get the most out of the resources you can get. So the format will just change and adapt. But I do not like the RC's philosophy. Many people claimed they did nothing, but sometimes less is more and if the alternative to nothing is to enforce specific playstyles based on their idea of what the format should be, then inaction is better than action.
That being said, I'm interested in what Jim from spike feeders have to say, owing that he is part of the RC
They are not "kinda" saying that. They are literally saying in the first sentence that EDH is for creative, slower strategies that won't work in 1v1 and their goal is to encourage these slower environments.
I don't get the confusion, they literally spell it out for you. They've repeatedly told you in plain English that EDH isn't a competitive format and the RC's purpose is to promote social games, not competitive ones. If you want to go fast, Vintage is sweet and would love new players. It even has the benefit that all the broken spells are restricted so you're basically playing EDH
No we can’t. Ben even says the problem is these cards were printed in the first place. I hold a similar stance.
@@traycarrot I think the confusion is due to Wizards not backing up their claim as to why they are banning the cards to begin with. If you are going to use fast mana as the basis of your bans you cannot tell me Sol Ring is not right up there with Crypt and Lotus. Their reasoning behind not banning Sol Ring is the most blatant lie I have ever seen from the RC. "Its unbannable, it's too iconic, it defies the laws of magic". What a load of crock. Its "unbannable" because they printed it in every Precon and know for a fact they can't handle the PR nightmare they would have created by banning Sol Ring. If you are going to use a specific reason for the ban, go full boar. I would be a lot more accepting of this ban list, positive many others would be as well, if they had included Sol Ring. Then I would respect their reasoning as they actually stood by it instead of letting certain cards slide. Imo every POD will now be who drew the sol ring? Oh you? You're the target now. Every single time.
So, the Lost Caverns of Ixalan set just got released 10 months ago containing SEVEN super-sexy reprints of Mana Crypt that have been selling anywhere from $200 all the way up to $3,200 on TCGP, along with a ton of Collector Boosters I'd guess, only to ban that hallmark card less that a year later? I know Nadu had a shorter life span, and the Wizards have already admitted their mistake regarding that one, but it doesn't have a ton of different printings for it either, and it also hasn't been around as long as the game itself. Slimy stuff right here folks.
The cards are still super sexy and I would gladly have them in my collection. But locking them behind ridiculous expensive Collector booster and the pricepoint never made me think about chasing or buying.
Super Slimy
I pulled one just 3 months ago and now regret not selling it 😪
Wizards largely doesn't care about the value of your collection, they care about getting you to buy packs.
I was always amazed that Crypt was legal to begin with considering the O.G moxen are banned and they're basically strictly worse than it in most situations
They’re banned because they didn’t want to EDH to be a proxy fest.
😂
@@mramisuzuki6962 the rc and cab literally advocate for proxies. Well, except for Sheldon, may he rot in hell.
@@mramisuzuki6962
1) The first banlist was just the Legacy banlist ported over. The moxen are banned in Legacy.
2) The RC are UNOFFICIALLY fine with the use of proxies. I remember something about them being asked their views on proxies. I think it was around the Magic 30 fiasco. They gave a middle of the road political answer.
They can't say they are on the side of proxies due to WotC, but they didn't say they were against it. It's like WotC and the secondary market. They know it exists, but they can't acknowledge it.
@@k9commander the RC recently has been neutral about proxy because cEDH wasn’t a “thing” until about 10 years into the format. The original intent was to bring over the ban list from legacy and ban major mana and win out of no where cards. With the purpose of using cards you have on hand. Vintage is 100% a proxy fest and they didn’t want EDH to be that. Recently with cEDH and great emphasis on “power levels” people have been proxying more especially since people now play multiple decks. One/two deck players days are long long long gone.
They also don’t mean proxy cards don’t own to juice up your deck to ruin peoples day or turn all you decks into Walletron Goodstuffus decks with fake cards. This is why they are banning expensive cards, because proxies have become so common these cards prices are not a factor and they availability is too high.
I think the biggest issue with the bans is that while all of the cards that were banned have problematic play lines no one was really indicating them as a problem in the format (dockside being an outlier here). However other cards that have been pointed out as real problems for gameplay and fun ex. Smothering Tithe, Rhystic Study weren’t even mentioned as considerations.
If you cannot play around smothering tithe at any point you likely are not a very good magic player. Rhystic study is op and likely should be looked at but there are so many bullshit cards that win you the game out of no where or are "unfun" that going on a crusade make no fucking sense in a format that is suppose to have freedom of play. Isn't rule 0 suppose to be a thing?
@@Yangblaze11 "If you can't play around the card that even if you play around it you still lag behind, you are not a very good magic player" is surely the statement of the century.
You know what's funny? Statistically, you are far more likely to win against Smothering Tithe by NOT playing around it than by doing so. Even in the hypothetical scenario where all the players at the table pay the tax, they are still allowing the ST player to get ahead in the game while lagging behind. And most of the time that scenario doesn't happen, which means the people who are paying their taxes are the _only ones_ who are not advancing their gameplan, while those who ignore ST and the ST player are. Sorry, but it doesn't look like a "non-problem" card to me.
Also, Rule 0 doesn't help, I wish people stopped acting like it's a magic wand that fixes all problems. Rule 0 only works within your own circle of friendship, and even there there are often disagreements; it almost never succeeds in a pick-up-and-play environment like LGSs.
I mean if the design team tested these cards properly and they ended up never being printed then we wouldn’t have the issue in the first place like you said.
Oh I bet they did. Make no mistake these things didn’t slip under the radar. They worked as intended to sell cards.
I'm SO glad I always play really dumb silly bad decks so I never have to worry about the banlist lol
Exactly this. My group of 10 plays 50$ budget leagues with 10$ upgrades. It's the best way to play
Wait, you PLAY? I thought investing money was the game 😮🤯😲😳😱🫨.
The biggest of my complaints with this ban is their reasoning. There's other fast mana that remain untouched. The game, via power creep, is just getting faster and faster even without fast mana, which makes their argument moot. 3 mana mana rocks aren't as playable as they once were, a lot of decks don't run any. Same with ramp spells. So blaming crypt and jeweled lotus for speeding up the format is just mental gymnastics.
This ban just hurts cEDH and proves that the RC philosophy of Rule zero solves issues is a lie
I’m with you Vince. These cards haven’t changed, they’ve existed forever, but I guess the philosophy of the RC I suppose? Lucky enough to have opened my crypt and lotus during mystery booster and commander legends drafts, but it stings.
I guess I’m just filled with some general hesitation and worry because I’ve traded into a Serra’s Sanctum and it holds a lot of sentimental and monetary value. I would hate to lose it. /:
But I guess also it’s odd from a communication point too, I do remember them talking about potentially banning Dockside… Two or three quarterly updates ago I think?? But this strike down on fast mana seems out of nowhere. Great video man.
I don't think a card like Serra's Sanctum will ever get banned. The thing with Dockside, Mana Crypt and Jeweled lotus is that they fit into every deck for MC and JL and any deck that runs red for Dockside and they always get so much value for very little investment. Where as Serra's Sanctum you need to build up your board with enchantments it isn't just a 'play this and get instant value card' along with needing your deck to already be doing stuff with enchantments to really make it worth it.
Never say never. Their is definitely a world where they get rid of reserve list cards in the formate just because that are hard to people to Access.
they won't ban Sol Ring because it sits on shelves in every store in precons. Wizards have probably rule zeroed not being able to ban it lol
A lot more people would be pissed if sol ring was banned since its not paywalled.
then they should have never messed with the Crypt ... banning expensive rare one but leaving cheap one legal is nonsensical - either ban both or neither of them ...
@@Asghaad Its to reduce the amount of cards which give 2 mana so they dont combo in each other and lead into 5 mana on turn 2
@@kuroginava8498 ah yes because you end up with two specific cards in opening hand in 100 card singleton format sooo often ...
ill say it again, if they want to ban Crypt they should ban the Sol ring too... it has to be either both or neither
@@kuroginava8498I mean you can easily jesikas will on turn 2 for 7 mana…
I would argue Jeskas Will is probably more powerful than Dockside in many cases, especially in lower powered games where people have bigger hands and commanders stick the board easier.
also
wizards: commander is the most flourishing format we have
wizards: lets burn hundreds of dollars from the most dedicated commander players
Honestly, I own some of these and I am not even upset. Mind you, I never went and bought these cards, only opening them in packs. However, I am a big supporter of slower games with slower mana bases, so I wouldn't have been upset if Sol Ring got the axe, though I would have been shocked for sure.
I think it would have been nice if there was a watchlist of cards that the Commander Rules Committee (CRC) gave us so we have an idea of cards they are looking into banning, just so there is some warning. Like, if Nadu came out and was placed on the watchlist immediately, I don't think many would go out and buy it as much, but then again, maybe the CRC wants to see how a card is played without any influence from them.
The slower game with slower mana bases was at regular edh tables, not cedh tables though. You were just sitting at the wrong table or not having sufficient rule 0 talk
So much gets me angry about these bans is that I've spent the last year or so building into a cEDH deck, and the only fast mana I had for it was Crypt and Lotus.
I now don't have a cEDH deck. I was barely hanging on in the pods I was playing and now its too strong for casual pods. The £2K+ i spent, opened and traded into feels wasted and the last year trying to get into a format feels wasted. I have no confidence in the CRC/CAG in how they run the format for cEDH anymore, It feels like were being told that we have to play casually or lose the effort we spent on deckbulding, it shoes that we need more cEDH players on the committee so that they don't kill our format or make our own committee for cEDH
The other thing that REALLY gets me angry about this is that WotC knew this was coming for months, and decided to include Commander Masters and Lost Caverns Collector boosters in the Festival in a Box. They knew these bans were coming, and included what would have otherwise been high value product that's now worthless because the chase cards are no longer in the only format that they were legal in. Like squeezing the last few drops out of these cards before they stone cold unplayable.
Not sure how its done but I think the format should completely split into competetive preban versus casual commander
Smothering tithe is a lot more obnoxious than jeweled lotus, also, most people don't feel bad about bringing tithe into lower power pods and it can easily generate way more mana advantage while also not being restricted to just casting commanders.
You also need 4 mana for it where you dont need any for Mana crypt. Its inherently slower.
@@TheBANKO1 land, sol ring, signet or talisman. Boom 4 mana on turn two for tithe.
@@MrMdawg221 yes and i was talking about smothering tithe taking a turn or 2 not turn 1. Also with mana crypt you could get 1 land a solring and have Smothering tithe turn 1. See how just saying this can happen doesn't make an argurment? Not trying to be a jerk sorry if it comes across that way.
Why would I care what someone tells me to do with the casual format I play? Are they going to come and tell my pod that we can't use these cards? This is good news for me and my pod, because we'll just buy these for cheap now and use them anyhow.
@@benbullock3954 I'm glad at least one person figured this out. You're playing a casual format, do whatever you want.
@@Chadekaful If jeweled lotus will be under 5 dolars i will buy it for my precon decks to have some fun :D
@@Chadekafulcasual meaning non-tourney play, not casual meaning weaksauce/underwhelming cards.
@@jessewallace3805 "Casual" also doesn't mean "We spend 2-4 turns doing a game of chess and the game is over by turn 4-5", which is what cEDH is. Nobody uses "casual" to mean "we play competitive decks, but not in official tournaments".
Seems like a totally fair and reasonable take to me. Not that I don't feel sorry for more casual players who got hurt by the value loss of their cards, but this comment seems to me to be more in the spirit of EDH as a format than a lot of what other people have been saying.
5:00 Also it's waaaay too late to ban Sol Ring. You want people to be able to pick up a precon and play. As simple as it would be to swap it out of every new deck it would still give a bad 1st impression to new players to have to do so. edit: also, 1st new card bans in how long?
Exactly this. If you want new people coming in you can't ban the card that is in 100% of the entry level products
@@MrDegan2yes they can
@@brandonbrooks779 newbie in store to employee: "how do I play this game?" "you buy any of these boxes _waves hand at wall of product_ " vs "you buy any of these boxes, then take some of the cards out of them, and put _something else_ in, it can't be a duplicate of any of the other 99 cards and has to match the colors" Guess what the response to the second will be
Crypt been legal for long too and still got banned. If one is going both should go imo. Banning one is just stupid and dumb. Heck in some situations sol.ring is even the better card.
@@Lowelo860 if you genuinely can't see the difficulty in banning something that is in literally every precon. Then there's no way to actually have this conversation with you
You seem to be one of the most level headed and logical people I've seen talk about this recent "drama", even simply seeing the problem and pointing at WotC's creating of cards and limiting their access instead of trying to blame the Commander Rules Committee for wanting a casual format to remain casual. Also, unlike most others, not getting confused and trying to state that RCR and WotC are separate one minute and then are the same the next.
Bravo, and thanks for the great video!
Instead of banning jeweled lotus, just put it in every precon. Edit: if anyone disagrees with me, just remember "when everyone's super, no one will be."
Interesting choice, but ultimately one the RC actually has no control over.
The RC has no control over what cards are printed in precons.
Interesting take. I can get behind that. Sol Ring is in every precon now, so why not pair it with a Jeweled Lotus? The price of Sol Ring is now more affordable.
Yep and that is why I have zero issue with Sol Ring being legal. Everyone has access to it and therefor everyone can be on an even playing field. I would be OK with Lotus if it were just printed in premium precons like the ones for MH3.
@TheForeverRanger not even premiums, I mean basic precons. Good news is, if it becomes a worthless card. You can play a new game mode. I haven't worked out the name, but I'm thinking jeweled pod or something. Every player starts with a jeweled lotus in their opening hand. It's exiled after it's used, the mana can't be doubled.
I feel bad for players on a low income casual players who saved for weeks or even months to have "one good deck" that used these cards
now all their decks are better and they dont have to save this way again
@@Le_beaubrunexcept there are 100 other high power cards that need banned before you stop getting pub stomped, this solved nothing.
@@Davedave3303 nah current ban will help store games immensly, reduce non-games, but ye wont help with a closed playgroup
@@Le_beaubrun I’d be interested to see a survey of where people play and with whom. From my experience home based playgroups outnumber pick up games 3 to 1, so I’m confused why they are focusing on cultivating a format conducive to a single play style. I could be wrong, it seems like player cultures vary wildly by location based on the wide variety of responses to the ban.
@@Davedave3303 I mean bans dont apply to closed home groups anyways, you can just do wtv you want there. Bans are mostly useful for when you play with new people. Imo those bans will help in this regard to make those experience more fun and smooth.
Just want to say that official bans on a format that is entirely casual and that you play with your friends is utterly meaningless. My friends and I always end up rebalancing cards anyway if we feel they aren’t to our liking. We changed Nadu to be a hard twice per turn for example because we didn’t feel the card was fair. We changed the way atraxa grand unifier worked because it was too powerful. We buffed all vanilla cards to have some cool effect. For example scathe zombies has an effect where you can sacrifice a swamp to return it from your graveyard to your hand. We got rid of anything that allowed you to play it for free if you discard because we felt the mechanics were dumb. In fact we avoid most ways of cheating things out because we realized quickly that it was only fun for one person. I’m writing this to remind people that they aren’t stuck with playing the cards in the way wizards designed them. In a casual format you get to decide what’s allowed and how the cards work. You just need imagination and creativity. If your play group thinks a card is unfair or boring, redesign it.
I have also been experimenting with putting lands in a separate deck and flipping one onto the battlefield each turn. My play group finds this to be much more fair as it gets rid of all the uses with mana screw and mana flood. It keeps bad luck from ruining the play experience of one player at the table who simply misses her land drops repeatedly while another player is bullying everyone because they didn’t.
I’m not saying everyone needs to play like we do. Just remember it’s an option to play however you feel is the most fun. It’s a casual format and you can play however you want.
This is such a shock to the system, there was no world where i thought the commander banning commitee would actually take action against anything ever
*Sets fire to my Nadu deck complete with jeweled lotus and mana crypt*
*cries*
Good, you're a bad person if you played Nadu. Lol
One thing Jim talked about on the cedh discord is that they didn't want to make changes for a while after sheldon passed, because they didn't want to make it seem like he was holding back some bans from the format, but they talked about all the fast mana cards the last time Jim talked with Sheldon and the others. I'd rather them just ban the cards earlier and say "we talked with sheldon before he passed, and these were his thoughts on the bans" but I can understand wanting to not tarnish the memory of the face of the format and one of its creators.
I agree with Crypt being the least offensive of the group, and I’m not entirely sold on the necessity of a ban on it. That said, I do get the reasoning on all of the bans and think the ban announcement is good for the casual side of the format.
I do agree with the cEDH players saying that getting rid of Dockside, Jeweled Lotus, and Crypt guts a couple of strategies that compete with Oracle combo decks. Banning them risks making Oracle the only real solution to cEDH. Time will tell on all that, but it’s certainly a concern at the moment.
Crypt should be the only one unbanned.
It's been played too long, bought too much and is fine when it's 1 in 99
@@Mibit911 either that or EVERY turn 1 hyperaccelerant card needs to get banned ... its almost like they specifically targeted the Crypt because its rare and expensive
@Asghaad theres so many other cards you could claim do the same thing and allow explosive turns.
Dark ritual
Elvish spirit guide
Sol ring (which they wanted to ban)
Mana vault
Mox amber in cedh with 0 drop commander
Chrome mox and mox opal
Mox diamond.
Grim monolith
Gemstone caverns or mines.
Like whats the difference between a turn 1 land sol ring arcane signet esper sentinel
Vs
1 land esper sentinel mana crypt signet sol ring.
THEY ARE BOTH RIDICULOUS 1 IN A MILLION HANDS TJAT REQUIRE HIGE AMOUNT OF CARDS.
the only 2 cards I agree should be banned is Nadu for sure. It's the worst and hurts the least amount of people.
And jlo potentially unless they just erratato be 1 mana.
Because 3 colored mana for 0
Is broken
But 2 colorless mana with potential damage every turn is not
The mismanagement of commander objectively had started with the first commander product WotC spat out, or perhaps even prior. I'll not be dissuaded of this. Great vid btw!
I think this is wrong, and I remember when the first couple of generations of Commander products were released. They were such a boon for the format because they introduced a few new cards for the format without being too warping or homogenising lists, and it meant that a new player could grab a precon deck and join a game with their friends, which was what the format was originally supposed to be.
If you ask me, the problem started when they introduced booster play Commander sets and you started having multiple EDH-focused products per year.
You can get an “explosive” start with ancient tomb as well and doesn’t cost as much as mana crypt
Topical, Moisturized, In your Lane, Thriving.
👀
Not a Mana Source in sight. Just people living in the moment.
Let’s be honest. This doesn’t affect 75% of the commander player base who don’t own these cards. (Yes I know proxies exist, that’s why I said 75 instead of 90) What this really effects is cedh.
it will just push thoracle even further to the top while making a lot of the tier 3-4 decks worse
overall it just makes it even more obvious that we need a separation between casual and competitive commander
@@jesuschrist3147 Yeah, I was running Niv Mizzet, Parun because I didn't want a Thoracle win-con and now the whole deck is non-viable. I guess it's still a "good" EDH deck without those cards, but it'll never be cEDH again
@@Undercoverfire this is a skill issue.
Such a bad take. Some of us don't play cEDH, but we still play high power. My deck would never stand a chance in a cEDH pod, but it's a lot of fun when I swing for lethal on turn 4. On another note, this eventually will affect everyone, not just cEDH. I doubt that casuals want to see the cards they just bought get banned.
@nightelfuser no, it's the correct take. The vast majority of players didn't even run these cards, because most of us don't enjoy pubstomping. Only crybaby tryhards ran them.
Probably the best and well spoken video on the topic. Great job and thanks for the video
Missed out on a Dockside literally this past Saturday because I was a little too late getting to the store. So happy that I missed it!
Also, this seems insane to me that fast mana is the problem to the RC and yet the win condition of 60% of EDH decks being Thassa's Oracle that they just refuse to touch.
Rough for the dedicated players. Seems like a monkeys paw case. People wanted commander to be managed and official, but also keep the same niche small town charm it had in the start. But you can't have it both ways. The tighter commander lists get across the board, the more it pushes the "good fun time casual game here for 4 hours" players away from the format. You can not build a deck for a format when the laws of the format are different at every table, every time.
EDH needs managed like any other format, OR it needs to remain unofficial with no dedicated precons and people just do it up like they used to. But you can't do both.
Why in hell would you wanna play a single game of mtg that takes that long? Sounds awful, move to boardgames instead.
@@jessewallace3805 idk bro ask casual commander players that don't Ike powerful cards or decks that win before turn 23.
These bannings literally benefit those players you say it pushes away, what are you on about. At least be consistent.
@@casteanpreswyn7528 I don't think bannings benefit anyone really. Not more than just proper design and testing. I said it pushes casual players away, because a hyper enfranchised player isn't going to quit the game over losing 500 bucks to a ban, we know it's part of the ride. But a casual that just spent a few hundred bucks to have it banned, is more likely to just cash out, or proxy everything. That doesn't benefit the game, or your LGS.
I will miss playing Phyrexian Metamorph to copy my friend's Dockside, then Sculpting Steel to copy mine, but I'm still happy to see it go. Mana Crypt and Jeweled Lotus are surprising, though. Nadu is Nadu and is the premier example of "Don't design cards for Commander, let cards find their home in Commander."
I run all 3, of these cards. I am understandably miffed, but, I kinda agree in a way & I get it. Also, annoying WOTC is a HUGE bonus haha
Dockside is as broken now as it was 18 months ago. They didnt ban it then because they wanted to sell more prints of it. It just feels so abusive that dockside was left unchecked for so long, and only NOW they hit it
> They didnt ban it then because they wanted to sell more prints of it.
This conspiracy theory has no basis in reality. The RC is not WotC. The RC banned these cards even though WotC still wants to sell more of them.
> It just feels so abusive that dockside was left unchecked for so long, and only NOW they hit it
The emphasis here should be on "feels". These cards were monitored before they were banned. Nothing about the current timing is actually "abusive".
If you want to complain about something, complain about printing overpowered chase-mythics designed specifically for Commander. These bans signal WotC do move away from that, and it will take the format in a more healthy direction.
The RC isn't part of WOTC, they have no incentives.
@@seanedgar164 my brother in christ there is literally a WotC employee on the RC.
@@Y00bi yea this dude is completely ignorant lol it’s the same with milking crypt as well not to mention jeweled lotus was just reprinted twice as well, had to wait until after the print runs to throw the bans out
@@Y00bi so? They aren't paid by wotc, they have no contractual obligations to them, and they are not high enough within wotc to actually gain any major benefits from their arrangement.
Yall gotta stop with the conspiracy theories. It's fuckin embarrassing.
Solid video man, you’ve earned a sub, such an out of touch decision by a committee no one really asked for.
I can’t help feeling like this happened because Sheldon wasn’t there to stop it from happening. (I also want to note before people blast me: I love these bans.)
I'm fine with all 3 except crypt
Can I also just add this is why I LOVE 7pt Highlander as a format. Your best cards never get banned, they simply become a more costly asset as they become too ubiquitous/powerful in the format.
would work well in commander as well, pick you poison and go ham. if only it was more supported id convert full time
I think what might salvage some of the situation caused by the bans is to make cedh a separate format almost. With its own ban list. That way these cards retain some of their value but do get cheaper for those wanting to get into cedh. It would also help the power level conversation in casual commander nights since it would be know that none of the decks at the table would be running these types of cards.
My most beloved and sentimental card, my DCI (Judge Promo) Mana Crypt, is now unfortunately nothing but a pretty card to see every once in a while when I open my binder. Feel bad for all the people who only recently obtained cards like this, feel like they hit a milestone in their collection, only to be told that their most recent awesome pull or big buy was a bust.
Proxy a vintage deck and show up to a proxy friendly tournament. Legacy and vintage players are way friendlier towards proxy. We understand the collective struggle. And I have never found anything wrong with an opponent with a whole proxy deck. Even if I have a foiled out whatever deck. It goes without saying.
@@artist91fb a bit unreasonable to ask to suddenly start playing completely different format that is barely played anywhere. i do agree about the community but the amount of opportunities to play vintage in paper is simply too small to be a viable for almost everyone.
To be fair, after the downfall of paper Vintage and prior to the rise of Commander, Mana Crypt was just that - a pretty piece of paper.
@@laricus3647 You can still play them man, unless you only play in sanctioned commander games, which Im not sure even exists
@@Chadekaful people do not mind using them but prefer to use real cards.
The RC, who are clearly fans of durdling rubbish, are disconnected from the actual player base.
If I’m playing in a casual game, let’s rule zero and discuss our decks.
If I’ve paid to join a tourney for the evening, I don’t want to sit there and watch Timmy durdle out a 3/6 Elven Iguana in their blue green masturbation deck and not be able to fast mana combo them out of the game so we can actually play 4 games in an evening. I don’t want to linger in a game for 3 hours to lose to the same 2-3 green overrun effects.
These bans is just reinforcing the same circlejerking rubbish battle cruiser playing run your creatures into mine for 3 hrs rubbish. For the love of Bob, that’s fine at your table. It’s not fine at the lgs
My name is Bob, and I approve this message.
This sounds like a skill issue to me.
How Commander morphed from the casual format played for fun into a format that people take so seriously that it had actual tournament support, and where you're playing against strangers instead of your friends, is one of the strangest things I've seen happen in my 10+ years following this game. Can't imagine how it must feel for people who've been around so long that they remember the early innocent days of EDH, before these hyper-focused products were being printed and these problematic cards started to exist.
Basically what I'm saying is I have little sympathy for people who think that bans focused on slowing down tournament/competitive play is a bad thing. Sorry if that seems callous, but that was never what the format was supposed to be. Jerks exist, and rule zero only gets you so far; some people need to be told where the line is and not to cross it. And if you want to join/create a group that plays no ban list or curates it own, you go for it.
@@StefanWB let me outline my thoughts more fulsomely because the first comment was still fuelled by wtf to the ban (even though I remain fair pissed off)
Commander is effectively governed by social contract
I’m going to separate Game 1 and Game 2 as a concept based on my usual experiences of Commander
Game 1 is the game we are playing in the LGS, where I have paid and there is a competition and prizes. The social contract is established. We are here to win. If you are at this table, you should understand this. If you have brought your GEICO meme deck to face off against my thoroughly optimised Kess combo deck, I guess good luck to you, but I’m not going to apologise for fast mana, tutors, Thoracle, etc.
Game 2 is a game we either play after the competitive game, or before the competitive games start. These games are governed by a social contract which starts with Rule Zero. I typically bring 5-7 Decks when I attend, always including a literally sleeved Pre-con (Dimir Zombies), a deck or two I’m working on, a couple of my established decks (Mardu Good Stuff, Vampire Tribal, Goblin Tribal, Sultai Good stuff) and Kess combo. I’ll outline these decks in full, being clear where there are tutors, fast mana, optimising and how it’ll aim to win.
Game 1 and Game 2 are completely separate social contracts. The RC have made an assumption every game of commander should be governed exclusively as “Game 2”, and more importantly everyone wants a game to be a leisurely stroll to Timmy Battlecruiser run your creatures into each other.
It’s patently false, it’s kind of patronising, and it doesn’t respect players who want to, y’know, end a game. Explosive plays are part of the game. Bring removal. Bring counter spells. I’m kind of sick of the governing body of the game assuming, seemingly assuming, that every game should be linear solitaire that drags out for 10 turns.
Game 1 needs fast tools. I don’t want to sit down and watch durdle and meme-y rubbish. Play to win.
Game 2, if we’ve all signed up to Timmy Battlecruiser, should proceed as such with the clear social contract we all signed up to.
Someone made a great point regarding Sol Ring, "You'd have to be insane to think WotC would let the rules committee make every precon not legal."
If WotC had any say, THESE bans wouldn't have happened
@@johnvonkerman These bans, while being a massive hit to reprint equity, would not make every single precon, the decks meant to introduce people to the format, for the last 13 years illegal. That would be so much more of a PR nightmare. I don't think WotC likes these bans either, the issue and consumer confidence hit just would've been much bigger.
All those bans did was homogenize cEDH meta into Dimir, killed all viable high cmc commanders, and solidified seat 4 at the table as an auto loose
3 of the 4 cards banned were designed with Commander in mind.
Also remember that none of them were designed with PLAY TEST backup.😂
Hit the nail on the head. Appreciate the quick reporting Vince!
I wonder what prompted such a big change from the RC? I've been following their updates over the past few years, and they've purposefully pointed out cards they are evaluating for potential bans. They could've easily said something along the lines of, "Nothing yet, but something big may happen at the next quarterly update!" The fact that no one expected this feels like a big middle finger to everyone. I'm curious to see if further communication comes out over the next couple days.
People are gonna be mad about this one…
In my opinion, those who are mad are the players who got copies of the card at a high price.
Honestly, I don't honestly know what to feel with this one. There are still plenty of fast mana cards but these three were prominent and as a casual commander player, I was used to the status quo.
Now with this, maybe I can try CEDH now? I don't know.
@@edpaolosalting9116 one of my buddies is mad because he claims these bans completely cripple his mono red cEDH deck. Another friend of mine is mad cause he pulled a full art foil jeweled lotus and never got to cast it
@@edpaolosalting9116 yeah, just is a striaght up -300€. Gameplay wise it's totally fine, bc those are giga broken lol
Considering Olivia is getting doxxed and death threats, these morons need to either smoke or touch grass.
We are a playgroup of 12 people. Most of us own around 8 Decks. Not a single one of us has or had a Mana crypt a jeweld lotus or a Dockside. So nothinging changes. All of us always agreed that we never run Fast Mana pieces beside of Sol Ring.
I think part of the problem with the ban was how unceremonious it was, there wasn't any announcement informing the community of an update to the banlist without spoiling the changes. At least then players could brace themselves for changes.
I think that would go extremely poorly. Schrodinger’s ban list is a terrible idea as you have people betting on which cards are leaving and cashing out hoping they are right. And trust me that wouldn’t be the end of it. Even just deck building in anticipation. And if you think people are upset now for what isn’t on there? Imagine being certain Rhystic would be taken out and then not. The usual frustration is turned to an 11 because of build up. Seriously a schrodinger’s ban list an awful idea.
@@Arufonsa1 It'd be their own fault for selling out or buying into cards at that point. Giving advance notice would give players a chance to opt out of purchases if they aren't certain that their cards will still be legal
@@otterfire4712 I don’t think this actually counters anything I said. I’m not saying it won’t be their own fault just that it would be a result. And why not try to avoid it?
@@Arufonsa1 I'd rather people intentionally gamble on banlist speculations than players get blindsided by a banlist because the RC just decided to make an update after several years of silence.
This surprise banlist hampers the value of further purchases towards deck improvement as you can never be certain when/if RC will suddenly swoop in an ban the cards you just purchased.
@@otterfire4712 Well I want to make it clear. Market speculation is not my only problem with it. Again I think a phantom ban list in general can only end badly with player anticipation. Especially if it isn’t a scheduled yearly thing. Which it often does not need to be.
Second I can use your own argument against you here. That’s on them for investing in cardboard. The market does not owe you anything and the house always wins. Play stupid games and all that.
Yeah it sucks financially for people that spent a lot of money on these cards but I think that fundamentally having really expensive cards that give a huge advantage sucks for everyone not willing to pay 200 dollars for a single card.
And a lot of people are not willing to pay 200 dollars for a single card because if it gets banned or even reprinted you spent all that money for nothing.
"And a lot of people are not willing to pay 200 dollars for a single card because if it gets banned or even reprinted you spent all that money for nothing."--
You still have the card and you can always play it casually, so it wasnt spent for "nothing". Spending on magic cards is ALWAYS a sunk cost that sometimes can be recouped. Expecting it to be any other way is self delusion or you were deceived.
@@fomori2 yes, you still have the card but are we really going to pretend like resell value does not factor in when people buy a 200 dollar piece of cardboard that can be proxied for pennies?
If it is just about playing a game then the cards being real is irrelevant.
@@kidomniman8635If you dont assume the purchase price is a sunk cost, then I would say you are then an "investor" buying a commodity. You benefit when the proice goes up by accepting the risk that the price could go down.
Given how important rule 0 is supposed to be and how hands off they've been previously, it might be an interesting idea to see them so "suggested bans" lists (plural) ie "these are cards that are problems at a lot of tables so if you want to ban them, these are our suggestions of which ones you ban", then you could also tier them by how restrictive you want to be in terms of removing problematic metas
no powerful expensive card is safe. time to sell and proxy
Dual lands are weirdly safe.
Iona, Shield of Emeria: can completely take out an entire player if they’re playing a mono deck. Tolarian Academy: unfairly extreme amount of mana for having artifacts. Mana crypt: makes two mana on a potential turn one. The ban list should be for cards that can ruin games or have such an immense unfair advantage. Mana crypt and Jeweled Lotus gives a slight advantage that can be more impactful in early games. This shouldn’t have been cards that were up for debate on banning. This hurts my trust for the rules committee.
Under that logic we should unban black lotus and the original mox.
@@Enja_Nearthose were banned because their cost is prohibitive and creates a power disparity for those players with access to them. I don’t think the same is the case for these cards.
@@ChuzzPuff mana crypt is not a slight advantage. same with sol ring they are very powerful cards especially if you mulligan well
The Iona ban always seemed like a weird one to me. I know the effect isn't fun and can be completely crushing, but she costs NINE mana. And then an extra two every time.
This is a really good take and a great explanation. It's a great change for the format, but it comes at the cost of thousands and thousands of dollars of players' collections.
Commander is NOT a competitive format to begin with, its entire appeal is the freedom of choice. I'll keep playing whatever I want and I suggest that everybody does the same.
The bannings hurt my collection since I had 4 Mana Crypts, 1 Masterpiece Mana Crypt, 3 Jeweled Lotus, and 2 Docksides. Overall, this stings since I collected them during their release, but overall I do accept this will make games more enjoyable from a non cEDH POV. Now I hug my Ancient Tombs and Mana Vaults more closely since those will start to see a spike left from the bannings.
Mana Crypt should stabilize and still hold some value over time. It's still a legal card in Vintage and it has historical value as well. Jeweled Lotus is going to 0.01 dollars so fast.
Cool story
I agree with Crypt not being as explosive, but I'd argue it's power is actually much higher than the others.
Dockside by itself is a one-time ETB that is entirely dependent on your opponents having permanents, and requires your Commander's color identity to have red to even play it (Atraxa is the most played Commander and can't, for example). Jeweled Lotus is a one-time sacrifice for three mana to play only one or two cards in your entire deck, and it only makes one color (to use Atraxa again, she doesn't benefit much from it). Yes, with recursion or bouncing they can become more, but they themselves are single use pieces - they only get more powerful with other synergistic or combo cards.
Crypt on the other hand is mana every turn, starting on the first turn. Every turn it's out, it's power grows. Every turn it isn't destroyed, it's providing value, and that value is 50/50 free. Of the four, I'd almost argue that this card is the MOST powerful in the list. It's floor is two colorless to spend on anything, it's ceiling is an entire game of colorless once or more per turn. Dockside's floor is absolutely no treasures, with an average ceiling between 6-15 treasures, game depending. Jeweled Lotus's floor is straight up 3 mana, it's ceiling isn't much higher - it needs artifact recursion, and then it requires the Commander in a zone to be played.
This is a valuable lesson for me, I'll cut down on booster purchases hard and proxy every card thats more than 50 cents for my commander decks going forward. It's just not worth it to invest in a collection anymore
Good it's a card game not an investment.
@@davidbilich1708 I'm not some investor guy, but why bother buying expensive game pieces or trying to pull them when it goes down the drain like this anyway?
I don't wanna sit here in 5 years and go like "I spent 5000 on bucks on this cardboard, now it's worth 500 and I don't even have fun playing with it anymore"
I feel like this was a lesson that should of been learned earlier like when wotc was selling four 15 card magic 30th anniversary packs which were basically proxies for $1k
not gonna lie, if you ever at any point considered dropping 100+ bucks on a base edition card, you really needed to learn that lesson. that's why edh is an explicitely proxy friendly format.
@@Cubicthing I pulled my lotus and bought the deck for dockside (well not exclusively for dockside)
I am happy about the bans. It was a problem in my play group with people bringing in jeweled lotus and mana crypts and then wondering why no one wanted to play with them. I never had to face a Nadu deck (thank goodness) but everyone who had said it was painful.
Your playgroup valued their cards over each other. You just give them the ultimatum and say look you can take your cards to a cedh table
@@mentosmuncher that ended up happening but that would have needed to be a conversation with every new person who comes and plays.
I think the rules committee was in talks with Wizards and Wizards asked them to wait before banning any of these, to allow their products to sell first.
The rules committee LOVE to talk about rule 0 and power levels of decks but will ban anything they personally dont like
I think that’s honestly the only way it could go. Minus the need for financial earnings you have nothing left to go on but personal interpretation. Even thinking logically the conclusion you want to reach is still based on person preference. I’m not sure what you are expecting. If we just had another group the results would be slightly different but most likely have the same reactions.
As a casual commander player, this ban announcement was a good one & overall a positive step for the format.
We don’t need excess fast mana and turn 6 wins in the only casual mtg format!
That being said; it is strange timing, there was definitely market manipulation/ insider trading, and it will impact how players spend their money in mtg.
Truly being honest; if you were buying $70+ cards for a casual format, then you’re probably taking it too seriously.
Precons are $40 and anyone can make a solid edh deck for sub $100. Choosing to play degenerate cards that see competitive play was a choice, not a necessity.
i would love to see a ban system that just auto bans any card that goes past the 50$ mark
Commander players can say whatever they want, threaten this or that, however time and history shows most of the player base will still buy commander product anyway, and WotC knows it.
That's why I've stayed vocal even after quitting. They didn't just lose a customer; they lost an angry customer who won't go away and be quiet about it.
It feels like everyone that has a spine left mtg years ago, all that's left are people that condone mtg 30th, Pinkertons, universes beyond, product fatigue, designed for commander cards, secret lairs etc...
Yeah, can't wait for all these martyrs to buy out the next SLD in 30 minutes 😂
I can’t f*cking wait for cEDH to separate from EDH and have its own banlist. If this sticks it just made the format so much worse and unbearable.
Cedh is copy paste, cedh is what ruins the game and the creativity of the game wich is the exact reason they banned it
So much worse? So it was already bad? 😂
@@kylesippel1709 cEDH doesn't ruin anything. cEDH players really only play with other cEDH players if they are playing their cEDH decks. The only time I've ever played my cEDH deck in a non-cEDH pod was when a group asked me to play it just so they could see what it looked like. And every cEDH group I've ever played with is 100% proxy friendly. They ENCOURAGE you to proxy a whole deck just so they have more people to play cEDH with. The creativity point is completely bunk, the average player just goes on EDHrec, types in the commander they want to play, and just looks at the most popular cards. A lot of people care more about actually playing the game then they do about the deck building process.
The actual problem is assholes. Assholes are purposely bringing decks that they know are too powerful for the groups they are playing with and pubstomping, ruining casual games. And the overwhelming majority of those assholes aren't cEDH players. Most cEDH players want to play against competent players playing decks that are as powerful as their deck is.
@@kylesippel1709 yeah the creativity is so bad that's why we have control decks, stax decks, midrange decks, turbo naus decks, and everything inbetween all in a variety of color combinations and win conditions
Cue a ban that outright kills any cEDH commander over 4cmc (even some that *are* 4cmc), guts red decks, and leaves thoracle intact so the meta turns into just UB decks and maybe a smattering of stax piles that don't need quite as much artifact hate
@@swolegolisopod7340 literally the reason they got rid of these cards was lack of creativity 😒 smh....u can run w.e deck u want . There all running the same cards u see over and over and over again.....CEDH stax lol you know nothing sir
I appreciate this video. I own one dockside and a jeweled lotus. Both were given to me by family that mean a lot to me. I didn't move them from deck to deck and I barely played with the deck they were in because we're usually playing low power anyway. But I still get all of my play group CALLING ME asking me while they laugh "What are you gonna do?" Like have some fucking consideration guys. No one likes losing money or things they play with.
Well, never pay more than 20$ for a MTG card!
20? i was comfortable spending 100, but after this i‘m not comfortable with anything over 1
that's just actual general wisdom tho. it's insane to me that magic player somehow think that spending hundreds of bucks for the cheapest version of a an actually legal and widely played card is ok.
20$ is too much. i am confortable in 5 - 10$ range.
Never pay more than the price of a high quality proxy/counterfiet.
Fuck it. It's cheaper and Commander is a fucking joke format.
Honestly. I fucking hate that tournament players are being forced to cater to casual players who can self police anyway.
Also, after making these cards chase cards for the past few years, this is incredibly scummy.
What I think might happen out of this is that CEDH will become it's own separate format with a different ban list, which I think is a good thing in the long run since the CEDH player has a completely different mindset (when intending to play this way) and will stop problems when the different types of players clash when half the pod is expecting one type of play and the other isn't.
They should have announced that before banning cards...
My jaw hit the floor when I heard about this at work today. The LGS I work at dodged a bullet because we were bought out of all of those cards. (Well except nadu, but there wasn't much value there.) It is legitimately insane that they banned all of these at the same time, and while I agree with the reasoning behind all of them, I think maybe these bans should have been stagnated.
Ban the rules committee, who asked for them? Who voted for them? What gives them the right to dictate to us how commander should be played. Just a bunch of out of touch content creators.
Phew! I dodged a bullet! Just this last weekend, I was tied between picking up a Revised Taiga or a HrPr Mana Crypt. Went with the Taiga. 😌 Can save myself a few extra tenners when I pick up my Crypt in October. 👍
I think either fast mana is cool or it isn't. The argument for "some but not too much fast mana" is stupid.