Hot casual take: Mana crypt would be more widely acceptable if it cost 5 bucks vs 200 and would be less frowned upon early compared to Sol Ring because of the potential ot has to bolt your face every turn.
Love the video as always. The take of yours I disagreed with the most was “why not just play a better deck?”. I think decks do play more differently than you are suggesting. Also if we all follow that logic through then it’s just pods of 4 blue-farm. There is a lot of value in playing what you want in the way you want. In a tournament too.
I really only apply it to decks that seem to have no competitive advantage with their commander. Like pretty much every variant of TnK colors actually has a reasonable edge, same with any deck that can go faster, win through different interaction, etc.
@@LemorasCards that’s fair. You used that as your example in the video but I didn’t realize exactly what you meant. This was a fun video. Would make for a fun recurring series.
My hot take: easier does mean better. The more likely you are to make a mistake with a deck, the less likely you are to win with it. Just because a deck is complex doesn’t mean it’s better at winning the game
@@zandaman802disclaimer: I mostly play casual, and prefer it. The main reason I have a cEDH deck is for when I want to play at a balanced table without anyone getting salty because they know what they signed up for. I find a lot of casual decks crumble to interaction, a lot of players are bad at interacting with the stack, have poor timing, and bad at politics. cEDH is exactly the same format as EDH it’s just played at a higher level. You can expect that people who play cEDH are generally higher level players
I never understood people being anti-proxy. You're either someone who has a ton of money and thinks that should gatekeep other people from playing at 100%, or you're just a really mad shop owner that probably charges too much for singles anyway. I am wholly sympathetic to good shop owners, I really am. Hasbro dicks you over time and time again. But to some people, a $20 card is out of their budget. Those people may never spend the thousands of dollars that people picking up Cradles, Grim Monoliths, Duals, etc. can, but that doesn't mean they should just be priced out of the format. Let the people who have the means to spend thousands, spend them and pick up the "slack". If I am playing a card game, I don't want to play against your budget, I want to play against your skill, and allowing proxies is the simplest way to do that.
I am also much more likely to spend money on a format if I already play it. If I can play cEDH and slowly buy into a deck I am far more likely to do that. Not if I have to pay several thousand dollars to even start playing (and potentially finding out I dislike the format/deck).
@@desertbomber My biggest problem is paying all that money just to play the same handful of matchups over and over again. It's a lot like fighting games in that sense. I could never just use one character all the time.
The main argument is that stores need to run sanctioned events. Playtest cards are not allowed here. (Any event using Eventlink). I dont have issues with playtest/proxy cards, WotC however do. I think it would be healthy for cEDH to have playtest cards allowed officially. - Store Owner
Casual players get mad when they get their stuff countered. Casual players get mad about not being able to do what they want to do. There was this kid in my lgs that got mad at me for saying 3 for talion when he was playing werewolf tribal where most stuff costs 3. He was like why are youuu targeting me?? Then deleted me from discord. Xd
Most people get mad when they get countered, especially when it's not a game winning sequence. People come to play, not to tap lands just to do nothing. If you wanna play counters, fine, but you're 100% getting teamed up on.
@johnnycaralta I don't mind being targeted but casuals players do. If I can remove someone from the game by turn 2 I will do it in case they are playing something that makes harder for me to develop my board. Casual players are horrible at treat assessment and king make people because they are horrible at the game and deck building.
Hot take, most people playing stax/playing against stax suck at playing/playing against stax. To play stax you have to have a good understanding of the format on the whole to know what your cards do and when and why to play them. Gone are the days of just jamming a Rule of Law and thinking that's enough to win you the game (thank God too). To beat stax, you need to find the right window to push for a win before the stax takes over the game or find the right window to remove the stax piece to ensure you win the game. I have had hundreds of games where someone goes to remove my stax piece and I point out that if they don't have a win to immediately follow removing it, they shouldn't remove it since they're unlocking another player's win for them. Sometimes they listen and we don't lose, other times they don't and we lose. I'm not saying don't remove the stax piece, but find the right window.
I agree with the second take to an extent.... but when an opponent casts T3feri or Defense Grid and then passes (with no interaction in their hand), yes, they did in fact throw the game and it had little to do with my particular choices. This and similar blunders have happened to me in real games.
People who say "play more responsibly" around rhystic probably dont play turbo lol. Now I dont think it really needs to be banned, but god, I hate that card
I disagree with restrictions you can always brew a list that is as good or better than the staple lists and be very mentally stimulating, as there are what 30k+ cards in the game? It is just people don't put too much thought into it nor just wanna build resilient gimmick decks which a lot of homebrew lists do turn into. Do not underestimate a gimmick deck, granted not everyone is a brewer and you do have to play at least 100 games to see if your brew works against actual people and you do have to gold fish a lot to see if you are not mana screwed or flooded in your opening hands often. Also Iona should be unbanned only higher power people would play her anyways and even less would play something like Painter's servant with her which at that point is just a lockdown deck. Like i can honestly see a competitive Iona deck being mana as white does search for artifacts and Painter's Servant is a artifact, but again that is just 1 deck or made for higher levels of play as she is just a over costly stax creature that you would have to build a deck around for competitive more than likely being stax and for casual high power she probably won't do that great as she is 9cmc and mono white making deck building harder. Otherwise she is just a ok stax card if you are splashing white and can just cheat her out with your fast mana that combos great with Painter's Servant or Helm of the host. Like there are a lot of strategies people can just do if they just sat down and thunk about it especially if you are making a tournament deck and the tournament does not allow proxies. Brewing is what allowed Codie decks to be made and recognized as competitive which was a mistake as some decks are just too strong to bring to a non tournament table
Disagree strongly about people losing to their manabases in this format. Pips aren't real in this format. Everybody is taking advantage of some collection of dorks, colored rocks, rituals, and/or treasure producer in addition to their 8+ Fetchland, 4+ rainbow land Mana bases. It's extremely easy to play cards that cost WW, BBB, RRR, UU all in the same deck and have the reasonable belief that you can cast all of them in every game.
Yeah I think especially considering a lot of those spells aren't trying to be cast on turn 1/2 necessarily. Competent players/deck builders are well aware of how castable a card is.
@@LemorasCardsI certainly agree to an extent but you also have to keep in mind how much you end up mulliganing as a result of bad hands. You mentioned how mulliganing to busted cards is something you should do, which I agree, but it's worth noting that your busted fast mana mostly makes colorless mana, rituals only make a single color, and colorless utility lands are often bad top decks that affect the math for calculating outs on close hands. Getting buried from a resource disadvantage in a midrange meta due to not being able to curve out at all is a realistic expectation, so reducing the need to mulligan by reducing lower pip count cards and increasing land count by 1-2 lands (in more midrange focused decks) is good. Also, regarding which decks are playing all 3 of those cards, Dauthi is out but Tivit, Blue Farm, and Atraxa all often play Beseech the Mirror. I tend to see it in more Atraxa decks, which is a deck that also plays more colorless sources than normal since it plays Delighted Halfling and Grim Monolith in addition to the typical colorless producing lands and fast mana. That deck in particular is a mess of mana fixing.
@@SiusBleachyour fast mana comment in particular is wrong Its typically just sol ring and crypt for fast rocks As opposed to the 3-4 moxen run in every deck Grim monolith and mana vault arent as prominent as the legal moxen
Exactly You ban thoracle you get the exact same lines just ending in lab Jace instead of thoracle You ban demonic/pact and the playline itself changes with breach and doomsday lines being your new wincon, which heavily nerfs the strategy
I don't agree with the guy on the casual take. For me, I learned about all the nuances concerning the rules that most casual players had no clue about. This was evident when I returned to casual and knew interactions people were doing incorrectly.
People should get points for scoring a kill on other players, not for winning a pod. Life totals should also be lower (20?). (Comboing and killing 3 players would give max points). Aggression as a strategy is currently shut out because of the structure taken from casual which was intended for long grindy battlecruiser games. This makes combo/control the only viable archetype since you can just hide behind your gigantic life totals (40*3) which makes it almost impossible to apply any pressure. It would give combo/control players a kick in their complacency, and provide some interesting interactions to try to steal that last hit to kill a player.
How do you get around Orcish Bowmaster AND Dockside? Tymna x Reyhan (Kutzil x Breena secret partner) Dorks & artifact hate (Stony Silence, Collector Ouphe, Null Rod) Carpet of Flowers, Wild Growth
FWIW those enchantments are fueling Dockside when you don't have a hate piece in play. That's why Ellivere decks tend to play 8+ pieces that hate out Dockside. Additionally, Reyhan Tymna is usually a stax/taxing midrange deck, which gets punished by decks that try to go larger than it like Tivit, Atraxa, and Kinnan. There doesn't seem to be a great deck for addressing both without just going underneath them, which means you're playing a risky gambit into both of them.
@@SiusBleach Actually I can beat Tivit and Atraxa (Doorkeeper Thrull & Trouble in Pairs). Ellivere is pretty strong though. But I've had a lot of success beating blue farm. I can also answer Kinnan & Sisay with Drana and Linvala Dockside hate in my list... Doorkeeper Thrull, Null Rod, Stony Silence, Collector Ouphe, Dauntless Dismantler Aven Interrupter can slow it down, Silence and Orim's chant can make them lose the rest of that turn... So there's a lot of flexibility there. I usually have artifacts shut down pretty quickly anywhere from turn 1-3 most matches. The ironic thing is I'm more likely to lose to Ellivere than any of the rest of those lists
I think it's a huge hot take to say that all decks pretty much play the same, and that you should always just play the best deck. Remember when magda snipped a tournament because no one knew the combos it was going for. Seems like it's an effective axis to play on. Also no clue how you think rog si plays like blufarms plays like winota.
It's not that every deck plays exactly the same, but a huge amount of them have a ton of the same staples and play patterns. Especially within similar colors, you're going to have a lot of decks that make mana, setup a way to get cards, and try to win behind protection, usually using the same cards to do those things. Obviously, moving into different archetypes with very different color identities, the decks will feel more different. Even the three decks you named are all viable successful options in their colors. Maybe the best example is the differences between rog/si and any random, poorly performing grixis deck. Play patterns are gonna be very similar, but very often you're basically nerfing yourself choosing to play that over what rog/si or tnk give you, especially if that deck doesn't offer a unique play pattern that stands out. This point is also mainly for players I see (usually newer) who experience a lot of frustration by feeling some obligation to be different and getting worse results than they could with little to no gain.
I've thought about running it and similar cards in so many decks but I've never pulled the trigger on it. I think it's at least worth testing if you're interested, the idea is solid.
In my experience, it makes you the archenemy. In a 4 player pod, only your hand remains hidden, so people will overvalue whats in your hand, at least in casual...
Might be just me, but keeping commander as a very open gamestyle, while keeping it from people who make the cards and make the money from it... is a good idea. Wizards should not have control on bans, and even the RC says that the bans are just their own thoughts and rulings. Nobody has to play their way at all. WOTC will be able to make new rules and change anything to make an extra buck. Best to leave it to a group of people who enjoy the game, and just want fun, right?
Yeah I have some issue with things that are done or not done by the RC, but I ultimately don't have a preference for a WotC takeover or think anyone who is against it is wrong, I just acknowledge it'll probably happen at one point, if not publicly at least to some extent behind doors.
Would be cool to split up the format. Comander has all of Wizards new bans. EDH is like modern with current banlist so nothing is lost And cEDH is like vintage with rule 0 if need be.
Cedh players not being able to handle casual is such a joke. Casual players can't even understand the concept of mulling to have a game plan and keep do nothing hands just because they have 3 or 4 lands
We need 2 separate banned lists, 1 for CEDH and a separate one for casual. Half the current list shouldn’t be banned in cedh, and a lot of cedh staples should be banned in casual.
The aggression the rog/si players get when they sit down at a table from there opponits, should also be shown to T&K players based on winrate. Also playing Rog/si VS people who understand the game removes a lot of your political agency in the game with out you saying a single word, due to your commanders. This should also be turn for T&K players from every one in the community.
Yeah I think players sitting down at a table with Rog/Si and TnK should be fearing both, it's just easy to vilify the deck known for being faster first and the Midrange list take advantage of that when they're the actual threat not long after.
I think cedh players don't understand that edh is designed and built up from a casual format. The RC doesnt wanna ban cards simply because a dockside isnt going to do much in a much more casual game and etc. Events should make their own banlist and not rely on the RC for bans as they care more for the casual groups
It’s disingenuous to say financial investment doesn’t on average lead to someone being more knowledgeable about the game overall. Plenty of people that don’t own cards are very informed and great magic players, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see that more often than not the person with money invested also cares enough to put in more effort. It’s just a matter additional motivation, and I would still always prefer proxies be allowed.
This sounds weird, but I think I understand the "seats don't matter, you're playing your seat wrong" statements. Seats (turn order, is what I am assuming) don't matter in the sense that your deck should be equipped to handle whatever seat you are in/turn you start. Hence, seats don't matter if you know how to play your seat. I hope that makes sense.
But you are still saying it matters. If it affects your deck building, mulligan strategies, and how you respond to your opponents then it clearly matters. If you need to adjust your pay to the seat order, then it matters. The only way it wouldn't matter is if you literally played the same regardless of order. A better way to word what was likely their intended statement would be "seat order doesn't affect win percentages, how well you play the seat you have does".
@@MooFishies I see what you are saying, and it is a very valid point. I'm personally seeing it in a different way. If you prepare a deck to handle all situations (highly improbable, I know), then it really doesn't matter. All you have to do is play accordingly. If I go hiking, and bring all the tools I would ever need to deal with any situation, I won't have to worry about which situation it is, because I have the answer. Basically, I am saying that if you make preparation the priority, then nothing else really matters. I hope that adequately shows how I see it.
@@MooFishies on the same note, it very well may be poorly worded like you said. I just wanted to point out what I understood it to be and why it made sense to me.
It's a shame, but I think the cedh community missed their opportunity to take the reigns and run their own ban list when they asked wizards to ban flash for them. Which is a tad ironic to me since edh began as a fan made format. Granted establishing a governing group is complicated etc.
They didn't make their own banlist because nobody wanted to actually make a new format/split the format, they just wanted to play the existing format at the highest powerlevel.
@@desertbomber More addressing the "No more RC" bit of the video. There are already social factors that separate casual EDH from cEDH, so it's strange to me that they aren't separated since it's already considered a faux pas to per se, bring a cEDH deck to a casual or optimized pod. Or maybe it would have solved nothing and players would have stayed true to their nature and have found something to complain about regardless.
@@thetimebinder Don't worry it'll catch on any year now! In seriousness though, I just think they changed too much from "standard EDH" and was too much for folks to latch onto it.
@@Ham.bone. Its also considered a dick move to bring a high-power deck to low-power or precon table. That has nothing to do with seperating a group of players out of the format. Also unless those players want to actually have their own format its not gonna work anyway. You can't just say "we are making cEDH seperate" and all the people who wanna play the best deck are gonna say: "Oh yeah of course we are gonna leave". Its like telling a spiky modern player to just play legacy when they don't wanna play legacy they wanna play modern.
The RC is a hypocritical group of salty players. It is long overdue for an actually take over and it get a real ban list. People can play however they want at the kitchen table, but Wotc ruined almost every other format in favor of commander. It is time they just absorb it and start holding official events for them and giving official lists. If they start having to be responsible for the health of it, they will stop printing absolutely broken cards as often for commander into other format sets. My bet is the only reason they don't is because they have to drop the acceptance with proxies in the format because those would also be banned from use. Could lead to a lot of RC cards banned just because it would gatekeep a lot of the format if Wotc took over.
If they got rid of or at least reprinted the Reserve List staples the problem would be solved. Make the true duals, mox diamond, cradle and LED all 30% or more cheaper and now tons of people will be incentivized to actually play these older formats with the real cards. Right now they can't do that so they have to print busted ass cards to try to incentivize players to buy new product and not just save up for the old, expensive, busted ass cards.
@price69420 Wotc are too scared to actually call the bluff of lawsuits that would be thrown out as frivolous. Likely Hasbro doesn't want to further piss people off. MTG30 is still a sore spot for all involved except the landfill where a lot of it ended up.
@@thetimebinder A great question. Right now everything should be unbanned long enough for them to come up with a consistent way of banning things and then ban things consistently. Price point should not be a factor for banning cards while proxy cards are allowed. The point is consistency if they are going to ban things or just remove the list and let groups police themselves. If they make it an official Wotc format, likely a lot of cards get banned and very few come off.
Could not disagree more about the rules committee vs. wizards. Wizards would control the ban list if they could and it would be terrible for us. The reason EDH and cEDH are the most popular format is because its legality is controlled by an outside group who are most worried about the fun level of the game and NOT corporate bottom lines. If WotC controlled the ban list, you would see a lot more items being banned for the sake of making new sets more desirable. The new Necrodominance is a “meh” card. But what if Necropotence was banned? How much more valuable would it be? I would bet big money that if WotC controlled the ban list for EDH, cards like LED and Mox Diamond would get banned so quickly as “format warping”, and newer slightly less powerful versions would hit sets almost immediately. This would be the single worst thing that could happen to EDH.
That's...a take I Guess. They easily could take the format over officially. Wotc doesn't ban things to sell new cards in any format currently, so why do you think they would do it here?
Having the opportunity to use/gain resources first is obviously an advantage. There's a reason all those "turn 0 wins" have to start with nonsense like Leyline of Anticipation + Gemstone Caverns or something
@@baconsir1159he said most decks CAN win on THEIR turn 0, not that most decks ARE WINNING "AT" turn 0. You're misunderstanding. There's a ton of cedh decks that ifnyou go first and you get a god hand or near God hand you can win turn 1 while your opponents are still on their turn 0. Thus the reason why seat order matters.
16:57 But WHY should they? There is no reason when the format is very healthy currently. I do not trust WotC to not move to a power level banlist like every other format. 17:27 what cards do you feel like fit under the RC philosophy that aren't currently banned but would be? 17:45 there are 13 members on the CAG, it is good that one of them or three of them can't get a card banned from the most popular, most casual format of magic. 17:59 A banlist based on power level would ruin the casual format. The game should not be based on power level, but on fun. It's not a competitive format in it's inception but a fun one. It's not a problem with the banlist that cEDH has very strong and very ubiquitous strategies, it's a problem with the format, and cEDH being a break from that. If you personally are not having fun playing cEDH because of the ubiquity, maybe hop into a casual game with a deck and see if that is more fun for you. I treat cEDH like a space between duel decks (it's the exact same matchup every time) and EDH where there is a high level of variance. It's interesting because you don't play it all day every day, and not because of the list of cards that people have created.
Going in order: 1. Any number of reasons, if they find that there's any profit to be gained at all at any point in the games history, they'll do it. Whether that comes from designers or shareholders. 2. I think some cards check enough boxes for bannability like Dockside, Rhystic, Smothering Tithe, etc. And cards that have such an extreme stigma that are more powerful than game restarters like Armageddon effects that making those social bans more in line with a banlist that takes social factors into account probably makes sense. I have a video on bannable cards that goes into different sides of how I think you can reasonably approach a banlist as I think there are many rightanswers. 3. Yeah, i don't want one person to control everything, but in general, I get the impression that no one can get anything to get through the RC, I've seen/talked to other members express frustration. 4. A power level based banlist is always what we'll partially have. Many cards on the current list are there for that reason, and a gameplay based list will always be a thing as well which we've seen in other formats that have banned cards out of decks for logistics or meta health purposes despite not having unhealthy winrates. I don't think I would add or remove much from the list were I in charge, but I would probably strive for something more uniform, remove the concept of a signpost ban in favor of hitting applicable cards. I can't buy the idea that wizards ruins everything it touches and still has a game this successful made by them. Considering the lack of any activity by the RC, wizards is responsible for a huge amount of the growth of commander in the last few years by catering to it so much with cards focused on it and having entire design teams that work on it.
@@LemorasCards I don't think that "we would make more money doing it this way" is a good way to think about why something should happen unless you're the "we" in that statement (and you have a legal fiduciary responsibility). I understand why WotC *would* or *could* do it but not why WotC *should* do it from the perspective of someone who wants a healthy edh format. 2. As for dockside, rhystic, smothering tithe etc. What negative play patterns do those cards create? Cards are not banned because they are powerful, but because they cause some unfun play pattern. I wouldn't say that Tithe or Rhystic are egregious enough in any particular characteristic that they need to be banned. Dockside has been discussed thoroughly and I think it's not at a ubiquitous enough point right now to really restart that conversation. Armageddon and it's ilk bare the discussion of "what do we gain by leaving them unbanned" and imo that is their "fair" lines of play. When you have 3-4 walkers out, and no one has creatures out, an Armageddon is pretty effective at speeding up the game in your favor. I don't think this line of play is unfun or socially banned, but rather that the "bad" line of play of "armaggedon, do nothing, pass" with no backup plan is the socially banned use case that you talk about. This is also true with chaos cards, but those all have actual strategy and legitimate play lines to them beyond "well, maybe I get the good stuff". 3. And this is a POSITIVE. You do not want one person to have power because they don't represent the entire format with their perspective. It is incredibly important to the managing of a social format that a wide swath of different players with different perspectives are served as well as can be. EDH is not a popular format because it's incredibly competitive and tournament ready, but the opposite. 4. There are 0 cards on the current ban list that are banned solely because it is too powerful. When I say a "power level banlist" I mean that the top X most powerful cards are banned or whatever. Objectively low power cards like Coalition Victory that are AWFUL to play against because they would be ultra ubiquitous, and have 0 interesting play patterns would be cards you wouldn't see on a power level based banlist, but should absolutely be banned because of the nature of the format. I also don't believe that beyond power 9 (and those aren't signposts in the sense that they aren't mechanically unique, they are an optics ban for the purpose of "hey this isn't vintage, you don't need power 9"), that there are any signposts. I could and will argue that there aren't any cards that are either 1. banned because they signal what cards not to play but don't deserve to be banned, or 2. Have a play pattern similair enough with another card that both should be banned. I don't think that WotC being pretty good at managing tournament formats has anything to do with their ability to manage a social format. I fully believe they would be able to balance the format, but edh does not need or want to be balanced, it needs and wants to be fun. WotC is very good at making cards, and the RC hasn't fucked up in their management of the format, I don't see why that would need to change now.
@@Temzilla2 I really don't have time to discuss all of these points again, but my point about WotC involvement in any of these comments hasn't been about why I want it, it's about why I think it will happen. I don't have a preference because things seem fine at the moment and I don't know what they would do, but I also know that I think the RC/CAG's approach seems not ideal to me and that WotC has ran the game fine, so I neither fear or desire one approach one way or the other, but I do think realistically they'll want full control of the biggest format.
Cedh was a good idea, but it fell apart immediately. It's pay to win garbage like modern/vintage/legacy. People are too desperate to win, so they have to seek out every single possible advantage. That sounds sensible, until you realize that eventually you're actively paying thousands of dollars specifically to not play magic. Also, when you can say a commanders name and know whats in the deck, you've ruined the whole point of edh. Make your deck your own. Winning with somebody else's deck list means nothing.
Commander as a multiplayer game is improperly formatted, it's that simple. 2-head giant, tag team, symmetrical turn order, and point-based games are far superior logistically. Commander currently has an asymmetrical turn order which benefits the first seat. For instance, if you're in seat 1 and on turn 1 play "Black land" + Dark Ritual + Lotus Petal + Manamorphose you can then instantly win with Thoracle combo. You have the benefit of risking a wincon while your opponents have zero defenses. The only card in the game that can stop this is Mental Misstep which can statistically only exist in 20% of decks. So yeah, the game is unbalanced.
Force of Will, Force of Negation, Endurance all can stop it as well and if you are hoping that one of your three opponents doesn't have an answer is a bold strategy that will get you through Swiss, but will wreck you in top 16
@@thetimebinder You can't counter spells if you're silenced....I already covered that above. You either waste your counter on the silence and still lose, or you don't counter the silence and still lose. The odds of a CEDH deck having 4 free counter spells in hand, 2 of which are specific to this situation, in their opening hand no less, is absolutely bonkers.
@@blankspace178 First, there are non-spells that can counter and disrupt combos. Second, I can counter your Silence and then Player B can then counter your combo.
@@blankspace178 but yes, if you cast Silence, then a bunch of mana, then Thoracle combo, you win. So what? Combos are allowed to win. Every Color and color combination can win turn 1 while also having protection.
@@blankspace178 the chance there are two free counters in the hands of your THREE opponents is much greater than you having a Silence, Demonic Consultation, Thassa's Oracle and the mana to play it all. Even assuming you cast Silence into an Ad Nauseum to get this off, that says way more about Ad Nauseum than it does about Silence + Thoracle. Even then Rog Si is allowed to win turn 1 sometimes.
@@LemorasCards I’ve only done 3 tournaments since I’ve begun playing cedh and every new player in cedh has been playing blue farm and make the pods worse lol.
My hot take on cEDH I love it but damn it's ruining magic and the other formatted as Wizards panders to it too much. It's caused other formatted to be warped because of it. On top of all the other cards they keep pushing out causing testing to not be as good as it used to be
@@czairkolmoslink5952 Other than Initiative wrecking Legacy, what Commander cards have really wrecked eternal play? All the cards banned in Legacy recently have come from Standard sets or Modern Horizons. Banned Modern cards come from Standard or Modern Horizons. Few if any Eternal cards that were banned even saw Commander play. So what "Catered to Commander cards" wrecked eternal formats?
@@thetimebinder my argument is Card design as cards in standard do get tailored to Commander and commander players complain about a color being weak causing Wizards to overcompensate this happened with Green and White. Hogaak wrecked modern and they thought it just be a commander card. Unset being legal and losing their silver border was also because of Commander. There are more examples but the main point is commander has become a problem. Warping card design.
@@czairkolmoslink5952 Hogak and Unfinity are fair criticisms. I don't think Esper Sentinel giving white card draw didn't ruin Eternal formats. To be fair, plenty of Standard cards have wrecked Eternal Formats before Commander was a thing. If you complaint is that there are formats that WOTC should never design for, then that's an opinion you can have. Financially, Commander is selling a bunch of product for WOTC. Why shouldn't they make cards for it?
Real takes EDH and CEDH are the same game. “Casual” is a crutch word. Want to fix commander? Stop complaining. Accept that “you’re not that good” loved your take on big fish in small pond. Can’t afford a card? Proxy it. Affording cards just fine? Stop bitching.
Chill Take: Thoracle is the most boring way to win in cEDH. | Hot Take: Blue should be banned. This comment was brought to you by your resident Blue-Hater.
Stax is the best deck type as it allows you and your friends to spend more time together
🤗🤗🤗🤗
Absolutely! ❤❤❤
The best archetype is the friends we made along the way.
The power of friendship is the peak of the meta
And the stax player still loses in the end giving joy to the table.
@@rafaelpieslak2120 it’s a great sacrifice to be the UNITER of the table
Who else can be like the great emperor leelouch if not the stax player?
Hot casual take: Mana crypt would be more widely acceptable if it cost 5 bucks vs 200 and would be less frowned upon early compared to Sol Ring because of the potential ot has to bolt your face every turn.
Word. Mana crypt is a worse sol ring!
Yeah I think ideal casual for me has neither card, or everyone running both.
Yeah broke MTG bums just have severe envy problems
Same
Love the video as always. The take of yours I disagreed with the most was “why not just play a better deck?”. I think decks do play more differently than you are suggesting. Also if we all follow that logic through then it’s just pods of 4 blue-farm. There is a lot of value in playing what you want in the way you want. In a tournament too.
I really only apply it to decks that seem to have no competitive advantage with their commander. Like pretty much every variant of TnK colors actually has a reasonable edge, same with any deck that can go faster, win through different interaction, etc.
@@LemorasCards that’s fair. You used that as your example in the video but I didn’t realize exactly what you meant. This was a fun video. Would make for a fun recurring series.
Casual players literally don't know how the game works
Yea it’s all Thassa’s oracle/demonic consultation wins to them. Although they’ve never tried it hahaah
😆
Came here to say this
The average casual player crumbles to light interaction
@@itzmimz8238accurate lol, "😮 oh boy, youre attacking me with your creature? Idk how Im gonna come back from this"
My hot take: easier does mean better. The more likely you are to make a mistake with a deck, the less likely you are to win with it. Just because a deck is complex doesn’t mean it’s better at winning the game
Casual players suck at casual lol
In which way? Those so called op cards in cedh are very weak in casual besides a few amount of expensive cards
@@zandaman802disclaimer: I mostly play casual, and prefer it. The main reason I have a cEDH deck is for when I want to play at a balanced table without anyone getting salty because they know what they signed up for. I find a lot of casual decks crumble to interaction, a lot of players are bad at interacting with the stack, have poor timing, and bad at politics. cEDH is exactly the same format as EDH it’s just played at a higher level. You can expect that people who play cEDH are generally higher level players
I never understood people being anti-proxy. You're either someone who has a ton of money and thinks that should gatekeep other people from playing at 100%, or you're just a really mad shop owner that probably charges too much for singles anyway.
I am wholly sympathetic to good shop owners, I really am. Hasbro dicks you over time and time again. But to some people, a $20 card is out of their budget. Those people may never spend the thousands of dollars that people picking up Cradles, Grim Monoliths, Duals, etc. can, but that doesn't mean they should just be priced out of the format. Let the people who have the means to spend thousands, spend them and pick up the "slack".
If I am playing a card game, I don't want to play against your budget, I want to play against your skill, and allowing proxies is the simplest way to do that.
That's the biggest issue in nearly every format, and so many people mistake their wallet for skill.
I am also much more likely to spend money on a format if I already play it. If I can play cEDH and slowly buy into a deck I am far more likely to do that. Not if I have to pay several thousand dollars to even start playing (and potentially finding out I dislike the format/deck).
@@desertbomber My biggest problem is paying all that money just to play the same handful of matchups over and over again. It's a lot like fighting games in that sense. I could never just use one character all the time.
The main argument is that stores need to run sanctioned events. Playtest cards are not allowed here. (Any event using Eventlink).
I dont have issues with playtest/proxy cards, WotC however do. I think it would be healthy for cEDH to have playtest cards allowed officially.
- Store Owner
If you can't afford the game don't play. Simple.
Casual players get mad when they get their stuff countered. Casual players get mad about not being able to do what they want to do.
There was this kid in my lgs that got mad at me for saying 3 for talion when he was playing werewolf tribal where most stuff costs 3. He was like why are youuu targeting me?? Then deleted me from discord. Xd
Most people get mad when they get countered, especially when it's not a game winning sequence. People come to play, not to tap lands just to do nothing. If you wanna play counters, fine, but you're 100% getting teamed up on.
@johnnycaralta I don't mind being targeted but casuals players do.
If I can remove someone from the game by turn 2 I will do it in case they are playing something that makes harder for me to develop my board.
Casual players are horrible at treat assessment and king make people because they are horrible at the game and deck building.
The take that having proxies means you are less intellectually invested is wild. And I would wager that person has very little success in cedh.
Expecting opponents to have/use interaction is always a gamble, don't be surprised/angry when they don't have it
Brewers advantage has way more impact then people give it credit for
It's definitely at its best with decks that have unusual combos that are hard to interact with.
Hot take, most people playing stax/playing against stax suck at playing/playing against stax. To play stax you have to have a good understanding of the format on the whole to know what your cards do and when and why to play them. Gone are the days of just jamming a Rule of Law and thinking that's enough to win you the game (thank God too). To beat stax, you need to find the right window to push for a win before the stax takes over the game or find the right window to remove the stax piece to ensure you win the game. I have had hundreds of games where someone goes to remove my stax piece and I point out that if they don't have a win to immediately follow removing it, they shouldn't remove it since they're unlocking another player's win for them. Sometimes they listen and we don't lose, other times they don't and we lose. I'm not saying don't remove the stax piece, but find the right window.
I agree with the second take to an extent.... but when an opponent casts T3feri or Defense Grid and then passes (with no interaction in their hand), yes, they did in fact throw the game and it had little to do with my particular choices. This and similar blunders have happened to me in real games.
Yeah, it definitely happens and it sucks when it does.
Hot take: casuals are way more toxic than cedh players.
People who say "play more responsibly" around rhystic probably dont play turbo lol. Now I dont think it really needs to be banned, but god, I hate that card
I disagree with restrictions you can always brew a list that is as good or better than the staple lists and be very mentally stimulating, as there are what 30k+ cards in the game? It is just people don't put too much thought into it nor just wanna build resilient gimmick decks which a lot of homebrew lists do turn into. Do not underestimate a gimmick deck, granted not everyone is a brewer and you do have to play at least 100 games to see if your brew works against actual people and you do have to gold fish a lot to see if you are not mana screwed or flooded in your opening hands often.
Also Iona should be unbanned only higher power people would play her anyways and even less would play something like Painter's servant with her which at that point is just a lockdown deck. Like i can honestly see a competitive Iona deck being mana as white does search for artifacts and Painter's Servant is a artifact, but again that is just 1 deck or made for higher levels of play as she is just a over costly stax creature that you would have to build a deck around for competitive more than likely being stax and for casual high power she probably won't do that great as she is 9cmc and mono white making deck building harder. Otherwise she is just a ok stax card if you are splashing white and can just cheat her out with your fast mana that combos great with Painter's Servant or Helm of the host.
Like there are a lot of strategies people can just do if they just sat down and thunk about it especially if you are making a tournament deck and the tournament does not allow proxies. Brewing is what allowed Codie decks to be made and recognized as competitive which was a mistake as some decks are just too strong to bring to a non tournament table
Disagree strongly about people losing to their manabases in this format. Pips aren't real in this format. Everybody is taking advantage of some collection of dorks, colored rocks, rituals, and/or treasure producer in addition to their 8+ Fetchland, 4+ rainbow land Mana bases. It's extremely easy to play cards that cost WW, BBB, RRR, UU all in the same deck and have the reasonable belief that you can cast all of them in every game.
Yeah I think especially considering a lot of those spells aren't trying to be cast on turn 1/2 necessarily. Competent players/deck builders are well aware of how castable a card is.
@@LemorasCardsI certainly agree to an extent but you also have to keep in mind how much you end up mulliganing as a result of bad hands. You mentioned how mulliganing to busted cards is something you should do, which I agree, but it's worth noting that your busted fast mana mostly makes colorless mana, rituals only make a single color, and colorless utility lands are often bad top decks that affect the math for calculating outs on close hands. Getting buried from a resource disadvantage in a midrange meta due to not being able to curve out at all is a realistic expectation, so reducing the need to mulligan by reducing lower pip count cards and increasing land count by 1-2 lands (in more midrange focused decks) is good.
Also, regarding which decks are playing all 3 of those cards, Dauthi is out but Tivit, Blue Farm, and Atraxa all often play Beseech the Mirror. I tend to see it in more Atraxa decks, which is a deck that also plays more colorless sources than normal since it plays Delighted Halfling and Grim Monolith in addition to the typical colorless producing lands and fast mana. That deck in particular is a mess of mana fixing.
@@SiusBleachyour fast mana comment in particular is wrong
Its typically just sol ring and crypt for fast rocks
As opposed to the 3-4 moxen run in every deck
Grim monolith and mana vault arent as prominent as the legal moxen
For the Blood Moon take, about half of Magda lists doing well are still playing it (per MTG Top 8). A solid portion are playing Magus as well.
True, I have seen some not opt to run it but that's a deck where the card can make a lot of sense.
"People need to play responsibly."😂
My brother in Christ, Blue Farm runs them all strictly to profit no matter what.
Thoracle isn't banworthy, the cards surrounding it are. Tainted Pact, Underworld breach, even Demonic Consultation to an extent
Exactly
You ban thoracle you get the exact same lines just ending in lab Jace instead of thoracle
You ban demonic/pact and the playline itself changes with breach and doomsday lines being your new wincon, which heavily nerfs the strategy
This was a fun one
I don't agree with the guy on the casual take. For me, I learned about all the nuances concerning the rules that most casual players had no clue about. This was evident when I returned to casual and knew interactions people were doing incorrectly.
What is Hareruya and how does it differ from US events? Did some googling but didn't find any event rules or anything.
They use an ELO system where the winner gains the losers ELO, and a draw sees everyone lose points.
@@LemorasCards reminds me of chess, which honestly would incentivize people to be more competitive so i would welcome it to come over
People should get points for scoring a kill on other players, not for winning a pod. Life totals should also be lower (20?). (Comboing and killing 3 players would give max points).
Aggression as a strategy is currently shut out because of the structure taken from casual which was intended for long grindy battlecruiser games. This makes combo/control the only viable archetype since you can just hide behind your gigantic life totals (40*3) which makes it almost impossible to apply any pressure.
It would give combo/control players a kick in their complacency, and provide some interesting interactions to try to steal that last hit to kill a player.
How do you get around Orcish Bowmaster AND Dockside? Tymna x Reyhan (Kutzil x Breena secret partner) Dorks & artifact hate (Stony Silence, Collector Ouphe, Null Rod) Carpet of Flowers, Wild Growth
FWIW those enchantments are fueling Dockside when you don't have a hate piece in play. That's why Ellivere decks tend to play 8+ pieces that hate out Dockside. Additionally, Reyhan Tymna is usually a stax/taxing midrange deck, which gets punished by decks that try to go larger than it like Tivit, Atraxa, and Kinnan. There doesn't seem to be a great deck for addressing both without just going underneath them, which means you're playing a risky gambit into both of them.
@@SiusBleach Actually I can beat Tivit and Atraxa (Doorkeeper Thrull & Trouble in Pairs). Ellivere is pretty strong though. But I've had a lot of success beating blue farm.
I can also answer Kinnan & Sisay with Drana and Linvala
Dockside hate in my list...
Doorkeeper Thrull, Null Rod, Stony Silence, Collector Ouphe, Dauntless Dismantler
Aven Interrupter can slow it down, Silence and Orim's chant can make them lose the rest of that turn... So there's a lot of flexibility there. I usually have artifacts shut down pretty quickly anywhere from turn 1-3 most matches.
The ironic thing is I'm more likely to lose to Ellivere than any of the rest of those lists
I think it's a huge hot take to say that all decks pretty much play the same, and that you should always just play the best deck. Remember when magda snipped a tournament because no one knew the combos it was going for. Seems like it's an effective axis to play on. Also no clue how you think rog si plays like blufarms plays like winota.
It's not that every deck plays exactly the same, but a huge amount of them have a ton of the same staples and play patterns. Especially within similar colors, you're going to have a lot of decks that make mana, setup a way to get cards, and try to win behind protection, usually using the same cards to do those things. Obviously, moving into different archetypes with very different color identities, the decks will feel more different. Even the three decks you named are all viable successful options in their colors. Maybe the best example is the differences between rog/si and any random, poorly performing grixis deck. Play patterns are gonna be very similar, but very often you're basically nerfing yourself choosing to play that over what rog/si or tnk give you, especially if that deck doesn't offer a unique play pattern that stands out.
This point is also mainly for players I see (usually newer) who experience a lot of frustration by feeling some obligation to be different and getting worse results than they could with little to no gain.
Thoughts on Telepathy as a card? In a Shorikai list. Just a single {U} to reveal all opponent's hands. Definitely counter bait
I've thought about running it and similar cards in so many decks but I've never pulled the trigger on it. I think it's at least worth testing if you're interested, the idea is solid.
In my experience, it makes you the archenemy. In a 4 player pod, only your hand remains hidden, so people will overvalue whats in your hand, at least in casual...
Was that Jeskai comment a shot at someone? 😂
Might be just me, but keeping commander as a very open gamestyle, while keeping it from people who make the cards and make the money from it... is a good idea. Wizards should not have control on bans, and even the RC says that the bans are just their own thoughts and rulings. Nobody has to play their way at all. WOTC will be able to make new rules and change anything to make an extra buck. Best to leave it to a group of people who enjoy the game, and just want fun, right?
Yeah I have some issue with things that are done or not done by the RC, but I ultimately don't have a preference for a WotC takeover or think anyone who is against it is wrong, I just acknowledge it'll probably happen at one point, if not publicly at least to some extent behind doors.
@@LemorasCards to that... we can truly both agree
Would be cool to split up the format. Comander has all of Wizards new bans. EDH is like modern with current banlist so nothing is lost
And cEDH is like vintage with rule 0 if need be.
Know who doesnt suck??? My boy Gaddock Teeg! ❤❤❤ :)
Gaddock Teeg haters in shambles right now.
@@LemorasCards Hahahaha
Cedh players not being able to handle casual is such a joke.
Casual players can't even understand the concept of mulling to have a game plan and keep do nothing hands just because they have 3 or 4 lands
That's one way to phrase "I'm an ignorant moron".
The RC hasn't done shit since Sheldon left. I don't expect them to do shit even if mtg reprints banned cards such as Recurring Nightmare
We need 2 separate banned lists, 1 for CEDH and a separate one for casual. Half the current list shouldn’t be banned in cedh, and a lot of cedh staples should be banned in casual.
Here's my hot take: White should have access to the cards Balance and Limited Resources.
What do you think? 😂
The aggression the rog/si players get when they sit down at a table from there opponits, should also be shown to T&K players based on winrate. Also playing Rog/si VS people who understand the game removes a lot of your political agency in the game with out you saying a single word, due to your commanders. This should also be turn for T&K players from every one in the community.
Yeah I think players sitting down at a table with Rog/Si and TnK should be fearing both, it's just easy to vilify the deck known for being faster first and the Midrange list take advantage of that when they're the actual threat not long after.
I think cedh players don't understand that edh is designed and built up from a casual format. The RC doesnt wanna ban cards simply because a dockside isnt going to do much in a much more casual game and etc. Events should make their own banlist and not rely on the RC for bans as they care more for the casual groups
"wizards controlling a banlist is a when not an if" wow that aged unfortunately well
People seriously need to stop whining about Bowmaster imo
He's just a little guy...and his 10/10 token friend.
It’s disingenuous to say financial investment doesn’t on average lead to someone being more knowledgeable about the game overall. Plenty of people that don’t own cards are very informed and great magic players, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see that more often than not the person with money invested also cares enough to put in more effort. It’s just a matter additional motivation, and I would still always prefer proxies be allowed.
This sounds weird, but I think I understand the "seats don't matter, you're playing your seat wrong" statements.
Seats (turn order, is what I am assuming) don't matter in the sense that your deck should be equipped to handle whatever seat you are in/turn you start. Hence, seats don't matter if you know how to play your seat. I hope that makes sense.
But you are still saying it matters. If it affects your deck building, mulligan strategies, and how you respond to your opponents then it clearly matters. If you need to adjust your pay to the seat order, then it matters. The only way it wouldn't matter is if you literally played the same regardless of order.
A better way to word what was likely their intended statement would be "seat order doesn't affect win percentages, how well you play the seat you have does".
@@MooFishies I see what you are saying, and it is a very valid point. I'm personally seeing it in a different way. If you prepare a deck to handle all situations (highly improbable, I know), then it really doesn't matter. All you have to do is play accordingly.
If I go hiking, and bring all the tools I would ever need to deal with any situation, I won't have to worry about which situation it is, because I have the answer.
Basically, I am saying that if you make preparation the priority, then nothing else really matters.
I hope that adequately shows how I see it.
@@MooFishies on the same note, it very well may be poorly worded like you said. I just wanted to point out what I understood it to be and why it made sense to me.
@@str4ypanda I agree with all your points, I think we are pretty much saying the same thing just in different ways.
Y’all understand 🫡
The most underrated deck is Unctus ;p
Hullbreacher should have never been banned.
Here’s my real hot take lemoras cards is the best cedh channel ❤️ you guys!
SCORCHING take haha thank you!
It's a shame, but I think the cedh community missed their opportunity to take the reigns and run their own ban list when they asked wizards to ban flash for them. Which is a tad ironic to me since edh began as a fan made format. Granted establishing a governing group is complicated etc.
They didn't make their own banlist because nobody wanted to actually make a new format/split the format, they just wanted to play the existing format at the highest powerlevel.
They did, it's called Conquest. No one plays it.
@@desertbomber More addressing the "No more RC" bit of the video. There are already social factors that separate casual EDH from cEDH, so it's strange to me that they aren't separated since it's already considered a faux pas to per se, bring a cEDH deck to a casual or optimized pod. Or maybe it would have solved nothing and players would have stayed true to their nature and have found something to complain about regardless.
@@thetimebinder Don't worry it'll catch on any year now! In seriousness though, I just think they changed too much from "standard EDH" and was too much for folks to latch onto it.
@@Ham.bone. Its also considered a dick move to bring a high-power deck to low-power or precon table. That has nothing to do with seperating a group of players out of the format. Also unless those players want to actually have their own format its not gonna work anyway. You can't just say "we are making cEDH seperate" and all the people who wanna play the best deck are gonna say: "Oh yeah of course we are gonna leave". Its like telling a spiky modern player to just play legacy when they don't wanna play legacy they wanna play modern.
27 lands? I run 24 rofl
Same in Rog/Si, havent tried going that low in Rog/Thras or TnK yet.
Love how salty you get when you read a hot take that targets or relates to you lol
Lands are broken.
lmao at that take by andre desir, what a joke
The RC is a hypocritical group of salty players. It is long overdue for an actually take over and it get a real ban list. People can play however they want at the kitchen table, but Wotc ruined almost every other format in favor of commander. It is time they just absorb it and start holding official events for them and giving official lists. If they start having to be responsible for the health of it, they will stop printing absolutely broken cards as often for commander into other format sets. My bet is the only reason they don't is because they have to drop the acceptance with proxies in the format because those would also be banned from use. Could lead to a lot of RC cards banned just because it would gatekeep a lot of the format if Wotc took over.
If they got rid of or at least reprinted the Reserve List staples the problem would be solved. Make the true duals, mox diamond, cradle and LED all 30% or more cheaper and now tons of people will be incentivized to actually play these older formats with the real cards. Right now they can't do that so they have to print busted ass cards to try to incentivize players to buy new product and not just save up for the old, expensive, busted ass cards.
@price69420 Wotc are too scared to actually call the bluff of lawsuits that would be thrown out as frivolous. Likely Hasbro doesn't want to further piss people off. MTG30 is still a sore spot for all involved except the landfill where a lot of it ended up.
What cards should be banned or unbanned in cedh?
@@thetimebinder A great question. Right now everything should be unbanned long enough for them to come up with a consistent way of banning things and then ban things consistently. Price point should not be a factor for banning cards while proxy cards are allowed. The point is consistency if they are going to ban things or just remove the list and let groups police themselves. If they make it an official Wotc format, likely a lot of cards get banned and very few come off.
Could not disagree more about the rules committee vs. wizards. Wizards would control the ban list if they could and it would be terrible for us. The reason EDH and cEDH are the most popular format is because its legality is controlled by an outside group who are most worried about the fun level of the game and NOT corporate bottom lines. If WotC controlled the ban list, you would see a lot more items being banned for the sake of making new sets more desirable. The new Necrodominance is a “meh” card. But what if Necropotence was banned? How much more valuable would it be? I would bet big money that if WotC controlled the ban list for EDH, cards like LED and Mox Diamond would get banned so quickly as “format warping”, and newer slightly less powerful versions would hit sets almost immediately. This would be the single worst thing that could happen to EDH.
That's...a take I Guess.
They easily could take the format over officially. Wotc doesn't ban things to sell new cards in any format currently, so why do you think they would do it here?
The seat order doesn't matter opinion is pretty much invalidated as soon as you ave an opponent that wins on your turn zero.
Having the opportunity to use/gain resources first is obviously an advantage. There's a reason all those "turn 0 wins" have to start with nonsense like Leyline of Anticipation + Gemstone Caverns or something
I mean most decks can win t0 with a nut draw, it’s a powerful format. But very uncommon.
@@Zen-708 How tf are most decks winning T0? You basically need Leyline of Anticipation, which no one actually plays besides memes
@@baconsir1159he said most decks CAN win on THEIR turn 0, not that most decks ARE WINNING "AT" turn 0. You're misunderstanding. There's a ton of cedh decks that ifnyou go first and you get a god hand or near God hand you can win turn 1 while your opponents are still on their turn 0. Thus the reason why seat order matters.
@@baconsir1159 t0 in this scenario refers to before other players have a turn.
16:57 But WHY should they? There is no reason when the format is very healthy currently. I do not trust WotC to not move to a power level banlist like every other format.
17:27 what cards do you feel like fit under the RC philosophy that aren't currently banned but would be?
17:45 there are 13 members on the CAG, it is good that one of them or three of them can't get a card banned from the most popular, most casual format of magic.
17:59 A banlist based on power level would ruin the casual format. The game should not be based on power level, but on fun. It's not a competitive format in it's inception but a fun one. It's not a problem with the banlist that cEDH has very strong and very ubiquitous strategies, it's a problem with the format, and cEDH being a break from that. If you personally are not having fun playing cEDH because of the ubiquity, maybe hop into a casual game with a deck and see if that is more fun for you.
I treat cEDH like a space between duel decks (it's the exact same matchup every time) and EDH where there is a high level of variance. It's interesting because you don't play it all day every day, and not because of the list of cards that people have created.
Going in order:
1. Any number of reasons, if they find that there's any profit to be gained at all at any point in the games history, they'll do it. Whether that comes from designers or shareholders.
2. I think some cards check enough boxes for bannability like Dockside, Rhystic, Smothering Tithe, etc. And cards that have such an extreme stigma that are more powerful than game restarters like Armageddon effects that making those social bans more in line with a banlist that takes social factors into account probably makes sense. I have a video on bannable cards that goes into different sides of how I think you can reasonably approach a banlist as I think there are many rightanswers.
3. Yeah, i don't want one person to control everything, but in general, I get the impression that no one can get anything to get through the RC, I've seen/talked to other members express frustration.
4. A power level based banlist is always what we'll partially have. Many cards on the current list are there for that reason, and a gameplay based list will always be a thing as well which we've seen in other formats that have banned cards out of decks for logistics or meta health purposes despite not having unhealthy winrates. I don't think I would add or remove much from the list were I in charge, but I would probably strive for something more uniform, remove the concept of a signpost ban in favor of hitting applicable cards. I can't buy the idea that wizards ruins everything it touches and still has a game this successful made by them. Considering the lack of any activity by the RC, wizards is responsible for a huge amount of the growth of commander in the last few years by catering to it so much with cards focused on it and having entire design teams that work on it.
@@LemorasCards I don't think that "we would make more money doing it this way" is a good way to think about why something should happen unless you're the "we" in that statement (and you have a legal fiduciary responsibility). I understand why WotC *would* or *could* do it but not why WotC *should* do it from the perspective of someone who wants a healthy edh format.
2. As for dockside, rhystic, smothering tithe etc. What negative play patterns do those cards create? Cards are not banned because they are powerful, but because they cause some unfun play pattern. I wouldn't say that Tithe or Rhystic are egregious enough in any particular characteristic that they need to be banned. Dockside has been discussed thoroughly and I think it's not at a ubiquitous enough point right now to really restart that conversation.
Armageddon and it's ilk bare the discussion of "what do we gain by leaving them unbanned" and imo that is their "fair" lines of play. When you have 3-4 walkers out, and no one has creatures out, an Armageddon is pretty effective at speeding up the game in your favor. I don't think this line of play is unfun or socially banned, but rather that the "bad" line of play of "armaggedon, do nothing, pass" with no backup plan is the socially banned use case that you talk about. This is also true with chaos cards, but those all have actual strategy and legitimate play lines to them beyond "well, maybe I get the good stuff".
3. And this is a POSITIVE. You do not want one person to have power because they don't represent the entire format with their perspective. It is incredibly important to the managing of a social format that a wide swath of different players with different perspectives are served as well as can be. EDH is not a popular format because it's incredibly competitive and tournament ready, but the opposite.
4. There are 0 cards on the current ban list that are banned solely because it is too powerful. When I say a "power level banlist" I mean that the top X most powerful cards are banned or whatever. Objectively low power cards like Coalition Victory that are AWFUL to play against because they would be ultra ubiquitous, and have 0 interesting play patterns would be cards you wouldn't see on a power level based banlist, but should absolutely be banned because of the nature of the format.
I also don't believe that beyond power 9 (and those aren't signposts in the sense that they aren't mechanically unique, they are an optics ban for the purpose of "hey this isn't vintage, you don't need power 9"), that there are any signposts. I could and will argue that there aren't any cards that are either 1. banned because they signal what cards not to play but don't deserve to be banned, or 2. Have a play pattern similair enough with another card that both should be banned.
I don't think that WotC being pretty good at managing tournament formats has anything to do with their ability to manage a social format. I fully believe they would be able to balance the format, but edh does not need or want to be balanced, it needs and wants to be fun.
WotC is very good at making cards, and the RC hasn't fucked up in their management of the format, I don't see why that would need to change now.
@@Temzilla2 I really don't have time to discuss all of these points again, but my point about WotC involvement in any of these comments hasn't been about why I want it, it's about why I think it will happen. I don't have a preference because things seem fine at the moment and I don't know what they would do, but I also know that I think the RC/CAG's approach seems not ideal to me and that WotC has ran the game fine, so I neither fear or desire one approach one way or the other, but I do think realistically they'll want full control of the biggest format.
@@LemorasCards Fair enough on the how vs why.
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Cedh was a good idea, but it fell apart immediately. It's pay to win garbage like modern/vintage/legacy. People are too desperate to win, so they have to seek out every single possible advantage. That sounds sensible, until you realize that eventually you're actively paying thousands of dollars specifically to not play magic.
Also, when you can say a commanders name and know whats in the deck, you've ruined the whole point of edh. Make your deck your own. Winning with somebody else's deck list means nothing.
Commander as a multiplayer game is improperly formatted, it's that simple. 2-head giant, tag team, symmetrical turn order, and point-based games are far superior logistically. Commander currently has an asymmetrical turn order which benefits the first seat. For instance, if you're in seat 1 and on turn 1 play "Black land" + Dark Ritual + Lotus Petal + Manamorphose you can then instantly win with Thoracle combo. You have the benefit of risking a wincon while your opponents have zero defenses. The only card in the game that can stop this is Mental Misstep which can statistically only exist in 20% of decks. So yeah, the game is unbalanced.
Force of Will, Force of Negation, Endurance all can stop it as well and if you are hoping that one of your three opponents doesn't have an answer is a bold strategy that will get you through Swiss, but will wreck you in top 16
@@thetimebinder You can't counter spells if you're silenced....I already covered that above. You either waste your counter on the silence and still lose, or you don't counter the silence and still lose. The odds of a CEDH deck having 4 free counter spells in hand, 2 of which are specific to this situation, in their opening hand no less, is absolutely bonkers.
@@blankspace178 First, there are non-spells that can counter and disrupt combos. Second, I can counter your Silence and then Player B can then counter your combo.
@@blankspace178 but yes, if you cast Silence, then a bunch of mana, then Thoracle combo, you win. So what? Combos are allowed to win. Every Color and color combination can win turn 1 while also having protection.
@@blankspace178 the chance there are two free counters in the hands of your THREE opponents is much greater than you having a Silence, Demonic Consultation, Thassa's Oracle and the mana to play it all. Even assuming you cast Silence into an Ad Nauseum to get this off, that says way more about Ad Nauseum than it does about Silence + Thoracle. Even then Rog Si is allowed to win turn 1 sometimes.
Stop telling new cedh players to play blue farm
I usually don't. Like in my best deck for new players' tier list video, I did I recommended a decent amount of decks over it.
@@LemorasCards I’ve only done 3 tournaments since I’ve begun playing cedh and every new player in cedh has been playing blue farm and make the pods worse lol.
My hot take on cEDH
I love it but damn it's ruining magic and the other formatted as Wizards panders to it too much. It's caused other formatted to be warped because of it. On top of all the other cards they keep pushing out causing testing to not be as good as it used to be
That has nothing to do with cedh. That's just Commander in general.
@@thetimebinder by the end of the day you are still commander. Wizards still prints cards hindering other formats to push into your decks.
@@czairkolmoslink5952 Other than Initiative wrecking Legacy, what Commander cards have really wrecked eternal play? All the cards banned in Legacy recently have come from Standard sets or Modern Horizons. Banned Modern cards come from Standard or Modern Horizons. Few if any Eternal cards that were banned even saw Commander play. So what "Catered to Commander cards" wrecked eternal formats?
@@thetimebinder my argument is Card design as cards in standard do get tailored to Commander and commander players complain about a color being weak causing Wizards to overcompensate this happened with Green and White. Hogaak wrecked modern and they thought it just be a commander card. Unset being legal and losing their silver border was also because of Commander. There are more examples but the main point is commander has become a problem. Warping card design.
@@czairkolmoslink5952 Hogak and Unfinity are fair criticisms. I don't think Esper Sentinel giving white card draw didn't ruin Eternal formats. To be fair, plenty of Standard cards have wrecked Eternal Formats before Commander was a thing. If you complaint is that there are formats that WOTC should never design for, then that's an opinion you can have. Financially, Commander is selling a bunch of product for WOTC. Why shouldn't they make cards for it?
Real takes
EDH and CEDH are the same game.
“Casual” is a crutch word.
Want to fix commander? Stop complaining.
Accept that “you’re not that good” loved your take on big fish in small pond.
Can’t afford a card? Proxy it.
Affording cards just fine? Stop bitching.
Just ban rhystic, dockside, bowmasters, and g cradle. Cedh will be saved.
Not my Cradle 😢
@@LemorasCards Nevermind cradle can stay 🥹
Scalding take lol
Chill Take: Thoracle is the most boring way to win in cEDH. | Hot Take: Blue should be banned.
This comment was brought to you by your resident Blue-Hater.
Cedh doesn't care what is "boring".