I am giving away twenty-five (25) of the Marvel Secret Lairs this December 13 at 3:00pm Pacific on Whatnot! Get $15 credit to spend when you create a new account using my code at www.whatnot.com/invite/tolariancollege !
I love me some gifts ungiven, I ask about this card specifically to Sheldon multiple times at Armada and he gave me the same old its too powerful at its cost point response, then proceded to resolve an intuition demonic tutor. Gifts was my favorite card, and I forced it in ever deck I could when it was standard legal. From dumb combo set ups like in block format, to an over costed buried alive in fair reanimate decks. The card is sweet. I am also a big fan of the Idea of unbanning Recurring Nightmare, and yes I know, "muh interaction". Honestly, that's kind of why I want it. So many people an finally warmed up to the idea that they need a permanent solution to graveyard decks that, it won't take over the format. And while yes there is an infinite that requires a very specific grave set up, it's more likely going to be used as a value piece to swapping two ETBs. If people are still too scared of it, maybe wotc needs to errata the card to say "When # Enters, stare at your opponent". It's functionally the same, but it adds a round of priority, before the fun starts.
Not that I thought Prof was scalping Secret Lair's, but it's cool (and not surprising) to hear he's been able to turn WhatNot streams into supporting local game stores.
The stores that scalped the secret lairs? How did they get them? Wizards gave them to the store as a kind gesture? He wasnt the reason they were unavailable but hes supporting and incentivizing the lgs to continue scalping. They had enough to sell him 25? Seems like they did a max quantity bundle order.
So, here's the thing about "personal responsibility and communication": People can and do already do this with their consistent playgroups. Want to play with a banned card at your home game with friends? Go nuts! We do it all the time! The banlist is really for playing with strangers at LGSes & cons who you'll probably only ever play one game with. It short circuits what would otherwise be a 20 minute Rule Zero negotiation about a bunch of individual cards that results in someone feeling salty because they brought three decks, each of which has some objectionable cards they don't want to have to figure out how to replace at game time.
You are totally right. It's totally reasonable to expect everyone to play the "same" game at community events. Commander especially should be a "hang out" format, and a ban list for community events is a good thing. And screw anyone who thinks they should force others to play by their house rules because they didn't want to play by community guidelines. The whole reason for DND 5e Core+1 rule for adventurer's League was to get around that session 0 discussion for pickup games. It reduces the time to look up rules and features and it also reduces the potential for combining stuff that would break the very tight game balance. It's also INCREDIBLY BORING for your "home game" and arguably killed interest in pickup games at cons.
So many people who argue for the unbanning of Panoptic Mirror, don't know how the mirror actually works. What the Professor described was not a 10 mana play. It was a 5 mana play spread across two turns. You can imprint on your upkeep with the trigger on the stack. People think that it's a late game play. Something you do when you have 10+ mana. It's not. On average, it's a turn 5 play. With great ramp, it's a turn two play with a turn 3 imprint.
It's wild that people are giving you grief for the secret lairs. Your transparency it really appreciated but I worry people that are so unreasonable to get mad about you having secret lairs to give away are also the unreasonable type that won't care how you got the secret lair's. They just want to be mean and mad. Either way, you're awesome and thank you for the great videos.
The issue isn't the fact that he is giving away secret lairs, the issue is that you can't get these secret lairs anywhere else. Its kinda tone deaf to criticize the system and then use the same system to promote a sponsor. Even if he didnt scalp those secret lairs himself, its crappy seeing these used as a way to promote a streaming site. If those secret lairs werr still on sale, there wouldnt be an issue.
I’m realizing that most of these bans really show how the community wants less removal These all require different kinds of removal to stop them from winning or comboing off. Less removal means more focused and personalized decks, which is what I think people tend to gravitate towards. Loved the video prof!
Communication IS harder than you think. We have a person in our group that says there is NO SUCH THING as powerlevel, so we're playing our casual 5-6 power level decks and he will acknowledge and will mill the whole table on turn 3 with his infinite win combo that he tutored for and then will say "that felt bad." but will shuffle up and play another
So, you are CHOOSING to play with someone who is CHOOSING to ignore your social contract. I know others have similar issues, but is that a problem of passivity or something everyone now has to share who doesn't have that problem with their own groups?
Heh sounds like the one player we had, We were running slightly upgraded precons and he showed up with a cedh deck, proceeds to win on turn 3 with infinite tokens. Before we start the next game we ask if anyone wants to change their decks. He stays with the same one and the rest of us gang up on him. He asks why we were ganging up on him. *shrug*
If you establish boundaries, and someone throws them out the window, I feel like the problem is not your boundaries. If I invite people over for a party, tell everyone 2 slices of pizza, and 1 person eats all the pizza, I can tell you who won't be coming to the next party. I used to run Expropriate + Nmemonic Deluge in my simic deck until I realized I got groans everytime I played it, so I took out Expropriate. Nobody said anything, but I read the room.
He's pubstomping you guys 😂😂😂 Tell.him to play something else or build his level. It's the only option you have. Ppl like this look for unfair advantages cause winning is more important than fun. These are ppl that show up with crypt, dockside and lotus in their decks trying to rule 0 full knowing that 90% of ppl took there's out.
I love how the biggest argument (not argument) of prof is "who cares" or "" just shuffle up and play" being his first premise "comander is a casual game".
I know that a large amount of people have playgroups that can spend a long amount of time playing magic… but there’s also many that don’t or can’t spend that much time playing something that takes a long time. For that reason, I feel ‘Just shuffle up and play again’ is a lackluster and ultimately terrible reason to let a format-warping card become unbanned.
I like this "what should be unbanned" approach way more than what the Command Zone Podcast's. Although I don't agree with all of your thoughts, the way you present them make me respect your opinion :) My comment is just to praise your dialog skills :) Great video!
@15:41 I think that this is a bit revisionist as Golos wasn't just the best 5c commander but could easily slot in any 4/3/2/1 color decks as the commander especially if you can grab Cascading Cataracts or similar effects like The World Tree. EDIT: Just to reiterate on it, this is from the commander banlist website: There are many problems with the card, but the greatest is that in the low-to-middle power level tiers where we focus the banlist, Golos is simply a better choice of leader for all but the most commander-centric decks. Its presence crushes the kind of diversity in commander choice which we want to promote. It specifically adresses ALL and not just 5c decks.
A friend of mine used to run a mono-black Golos just to assemble Cabal Coffers+Urborg combo more easily. Killing Golos just helped him find more lands.
Totally agree, Golos was a solution to a format that resists such an idea by definition. Sure my Snow matters deck was better with him, but the format is better without him. Kenrith and other subsequent 5 color legends have filled his gap just fine.
The main issue here is that I agree with him about whether you are playing with friends, people you know, etc. I just moved to a new area and only get to play with strangers at the LGS. They will ALWAYS do the most degenerate option no matter how many rule 0 or pre-game discussions happen. That's why bans are in place.
I can definitely sympathize with you. Though f you're playing with people who need a ban list to be kept in check, I feel like the issue might be the people playing the cards, not the cards themselves.
Fine with a game in which Braids takes over and no one else gets to do their thing, but they better have a way to win. Played plenty of games where 1 player takes complete board control and that’s all they can do leading to a brutally long game that nobody enjoys
Or literally any number of infinite combos (or near infinite combos)... hell a Krark/Sakashima can have 3 of the 2 pieces you need in the command zone, with any number of ways of making that stronger. It's not as if those 10 mana "I win" sorcery cards don't have set up needed to win... like casting Biorhythm on it's own isn't winning a game unless the board was just wiped (you're gonna have to follow up with some sort of damage).
@@ArCSelkie37 Losing to goddamn coalition victory would be much more exciting then losing to the 9999th case of "Big board + craterhoof-like thing" or "Widely known 2 card combo into irrelevant wincondition"
Ubiquity is important for consideration in banning, and while you can certainly say Thoracle is worse, the format isn't made any better by unbanning one card wincons.
I think the Golos unban is a bad idea. The ubiquity is a potential problem, but the other issue is the play pattern he leads to with non-counter interaction. His ETB finds a land, which is presumably the 6th mana of his owner, so even if Golos is removed on the spot, all that’s required is a land drop for him to come right back, and this can keep happening again and again. And that’s not even considering the fact that Golos can get non-basic lands that can ramp beyond 1 mana per tap.
The core issue with golos is that in order to try and keep them in the format you would need to ban Cascading Cataracts or The World Tree or any other land card with similar effect. Heck even fountain port would fall under it. Essentially an entire design space would have to be banned from commander in order to keep 1 card in the format.
Agreed. Prof spent his whole arguement about best in slot, instead of dealing with the actual power of the card. Golos is a 1 card combo in a properly built deck, one that is in your command zone and comes down early.
one rules issue with the Panoptic Mirror section, its a 5 mana play not 10 mana. "You may imprint a card on Panoptic Mirror in response to the upkeep-triggered ability. If you do, that card is available to copy when the triggered ability resolves." so its 5 the turn you play the mirror and 5 on the upkeep of the next turn.
You still leave an entire turn cycle for people to respond to the artifact itself, besides the fact you still need to spend the mana and so either need extra mana to protect your combo (which beats the purpose of doing it on 5 mana) or risk getting countered
Came to say this too, it only takes a single turn cycle even with splitting up the cost, and because you can imprint on end step or upkeep Prof’s senario is very wrong. Especially because you’re in blue so the likely play is pay 5 for mirror leaving up a counter spell, protecting you from an opponent with removal then win the game on your upkeep with infinite turns. I still think it could be okay to unban if there’s a robust rule 0 discussion about power level and extra turns but Prof really undersold this one.
I was going to write this comment but you beat me to the punch! 5 mana on two consecutive turns is much easier than 10 mana on one turn. Still, I agree that this card can be unbanned. If you cast this on turn 5, everyone should be thinking about destroying it before the end of the turn cycle. In a world with Isochron Scepter and Dramatic Reversal legal, I have no problem with Panoptic Mirror.
I think we should return to having some legendary creatures only banned from being used as commanders and ok as part of the 99, as opposed to every ban being a blanket one.
One thing that gets missed in the discussion about gifts ungiven: time to resolve the spell. Sure if you know your pile, it can be fairly quick. But if you don't know the pile before you cast it? Or your normal pile has been disrupted by something else. Not even mentioning the time the opponents can spend discussing any given pile you get.
It could be even worse if someone plays the card that says they get to control your action when you search, instead of you. Instead of you searching your deck, someone who doesn't know it has to do it lol.
If you don't know your pile, you're probably better suited with Fact or Fiction rather than Gifts or Intuition. And if you get interacted with before your Gifts resolve, you'll just have to pivot, as any player would who gets interrupted. And if we're banning cards because searching takes a long time in paper (sometimes) then maybe Fetch lands also need a ban? See how ridiculous that sounds? Edit: and your opponents debating on what cards to give you is the best part. It's the mini-game of testing your knowledge. Will you make the right choice or have you been given the illusion of choice?
20:26 My ideal commander unban is Lutri. I just want the cute giant magic otter in my Izzet deck. Ban him as a companion or errata him. Especially now that otter kindred is a viable theme thanks to Bloomburrow. UNBAN THE BOY!
Yeah I would love to run Lutri as a commander or in the 99 for a deck it would work in. I personally wouldn’t want to remove Lutri’s companion mechanic, because I personally really like companion and I’ve enjoyed brainstorming decks that work with all of the companions.
@@Generic_Doodles Nobody in the world would forbid you to play lutri as a commander xD Hes just the 48th worst version of izzet spellslinger, whoever says no to that is a freak ngl.
I genuinely don't want to play Lutri as a Companion, I'm more than fine having him in the 99 in my Bria Riptide Rogue deck (or Alania Divergent Storm, depending on whether I'm more in a mood for creature aggro with some spellslinging or for spellslinging with some creature aggro). In the 99 he's good, but nowhere near broken, arguably Valley Floodcaller is more oppressive than Lutri (casting enchantments, artifacts, and sorceries at instant speed while buffing and untapping your otters is otterly disgusting, which is why Valley Floodcaller is one of my favourite otters)
The imprint ability on Panoptic Mirror is not sorcery speed, meaning you can imprint at the end step of the turn before you. That makes the combo significantly better.
According to WotC's Companion Card Database, you can imprint on your upkeep with the trigger on the stack. Edit: Turn 1- Plains. Sol Ring. Tap Ring for Arcane Signet. Turn 2- Plains. Panoptic Mirror. Turn 3- Upkeep, Imprint Armageddon. Trigger resolves, everyone loses their lands. Tuns 4+ Armageddon every turn.
That does make it better but it’s still a minimum 8 but likely 10 mana investment that gets full countered if any one of your opponents has one of the 286 cards that have the text destroy target artifact, and even then you still need a third piece to the combo to win the game with. By saying this I do not mean to discredit your point that it’s strong but how is that stronger than any of the lesser mana investment win cons that go off at instant speed? I just don’t see it as being the threat that it may have been earlier in EDH.
My problem with the "just shuffle up and play another game" argument, is that it presumes everybody has unlimited time to play the game. as someone who only gets to play a couple of hours every other month, even one of those "ups the game is over" really screws over an entire months worth of mtg for me As for the Banning of Golos, i feel it was more a political move than a necesary ban. Golos was the culmination of two very negative trends of Design by WotC, Both 5 color commanders that are not really 5 color, and comanders that have ramp and card draw build in them... so the Rules cometee ban it to send a message to WotC to stop with that but now that the RC and WotC are one and the same i agree, the ban is useless
I mean did it stop WotC? Has WotC not printed commanders that have ramp and draw into them? Or some other busted effect? The idea that the RC bans effected Wizards at all is a joke.
Other reasons it was banned included the fact that it just ended up warping 2- and 3-color decks into 5-color "good stuff" decks. The homogenization of the format was the problem and it wasn't just restricted to existing 5-color decks.
@@ArCSelkie37There hasn't been a single 5 color commander to match Ur-Dragon or Kenrith yet, and while they have printed plenty of Diet Golos commanders, that's just what they are; diet Golos. They actually are thematic to their colors and work around specific mechanics instead of being generically useful. The only exception is the Simic ones, but for the most part even their worst offenders are from before Golos was banned.
"savour the moment severely inhibits your ability to win the game" You mean because, in my infinite turns, I need to draw the remaining 20 some lands in my deck and win with all my cards and 20+ mana? I might be able to figure that one out
I understand the sentiment around Golos but I don’t want to see it unbanned. It’s just too universal and removes variety, with a commander that pays for itself and provides too much advantages. The only deck I do get is gates, but it’s not too difficult to build a different 5 color commander for gates imo. And honestly it’s refreshing not having a Golos at every single pod.
I feel like comparing it to other 5C Typal Commanders is a little disingenuous too, since part of the problem isn't that Golos is better than other 5C commanders but that Golos is better than 2 or 3 color commanders and pushes them into being 5C and just adding more generically powerful cards.
I think a lot of people would avoid Golos specifically because of how generically good it is. As an example Atraxa is by far the most popular commander on EDHrec, but I've never seen her in person, even in the 99.
Yeah homogeneity is the biggest reason to ban any card, in any format. Comparing it to format staples like Prof does here misses the fact that Golos is a Commander and will be played every game, while Rhystic etc are in the 99 and may never get drawn. It also, as you point out, removes variety by encouraging decks to run him and/or to be built too similarly even if they're ostensibly trying to do different things. Why run anything similar to Golos when Golos does it better and also gives you access to staples in all colours too? I think very few cards should be banned in Commander, but I'd really rather not see Golos back in the format
@GG-bw5qd The 2 are very different top commanders from my experience. Golos saw so much play back in early 2021 it got to a point where having just "A Golos Deck" in regular's collections was practically commonplace. Never has a commander had that much ubiquity in my own experience with the game. It was on trajectory to double the number of decks as the second most popular commander in the format.
In all honesty, I believe Chaos Orb should not be banned in Commander. It makes sense that in any competitive, constructed formats Chaos Orb and Falling Star should not be legal as they could become staples which lock out people with certain disabilities. However, in Commander, if you aren’t able to resolve these cards, that’s fine. You just don’t put them in your deck and the chances a game state require you to resolve one from someone else’s deck are extremely low. If Slaying Mantis was acceptable in a casual-only format in 2017’s Unstable and 2020’s Unsanctioned, Chaos Orb and Falling Star shouldn’t be banned in the most popular casual format now.
well, they do, but a handful of non-universal interaction (swords to plowshares will do nothing against panoptic mirror) is not enough by a long shot if you have to start a game with one. it's also non-interesting play pattern to for example remove braids every turn cycle over and over again. and last but not least the threat assessment ability of average commander player is abysmal. i have seen people remove or counter the most mundane stuff and lose one-two turns later to a combo or an unanswered bomb.
Primeval titan was not banned because it gets two lands. It was banned because it gets two lands and it felt like any deck with green was required to run it.
Yeah like llanowar elves? Every green deck definitely needs to run it. Gotta ban it! It produces 4 mana if you just drop a land every turn up to six mana. Busted.
Gifts Ungiven is banned because you can force your opponent into a no-win scenario by getting 2 combo pieces and 2 reanimates, guaranteeing that you get both combo pieces. Especially at low power where there are no tutors, mediocre interaction, and mediocre card draw, I can't imagine a single other card that could be added to any deck and increase that deck's consistency. People will just learn about the card, learn how to use it, then build all of their decks with a few options that will, in effect, win the game. There are combos in precons, it isn't limited to high power.
Prof likes to think that because he wants to do janky things with busted cards, that means the cards should be allowed. Afterall, if *he* isn't going to abuse them, then what's the harm?
@@damonlouis6536 No, you get 2 cards with it, it tutors 4 cards so you either get one of the combo pieces cheated out easily or you get both combo pieces guaranteed over the next 2 turns. It isn't banned because it tutors a card, it's banned because it tutors entire combos. Entomb is a card, Intuition is a card. Gifts Ungiven is the whole combo. You need 2 tutors to do what Gifts Ungiven does in 1. Intuition only works if you only need half of a combo. You don't even need to draw half of the combo with Gifts Ungiven, turn 4 without ramp you 100% can have an entire game winning combo in your hand. It's broken at every power level, one of the biggest weaknesses of low power is a lack of consistency, Gifts Ungiven gives more consistency than Demonic Tutor. It's one of like 10 cards I think should stay banned, I can't imagine a world where I see a Gifts Ungiven and watch that player get 4 cool cards, people's first thought when they saw Storm was "damn, I can take 10 turns in a row if I just cast cheap shit", Magic players are not chill (I am one of them).
@@ForeverLaxx That's why whenever I talk about thinking Emrakul should be unbanned into bracket 4, I acknowledge that the way I'll play her in my deck is different than the strongest way/how others will play her but talk about what the best case looks like and explain that it's not nearly as bad as things already available. It's always nice to envision the world as ideal where people won't abuse something because you won't, but people will, they always do. The problem is that the worst that Gifts Ungiven gives is 2 of your 4 favorite cards from the deck and the best is the game ends. There is no power level where it doesn't automatically make a deck better.
Gifts ungiven can be abused quite easy if you're tutoring for infinite combos. It's like look here are 2 infinite combos, one goes into the graveyard, the other into my hand. No matter what you choose you're dead
You don't have to wait 2 turn cycles with mirror. It's worded in a weird way where on the turn you untap with it, you can put the time warp under it with the trigger on the stack and still get the infinite turns.
Yes prime time is too strong but sure let me play with to show you. Prime time was good back in the day when people didn’t have all the resources to build good decks. Power level has increased because everyone has gotten better at deck building not counting power creep. It’s very easy to still get that out on t3/t4. Granted people should play more removal but unless it’s exiled it will come back. Then u had the other problem of someone cloning it and at that point which one you killing?
In general I don't think cards like biorythm should come off the ban list. Yes they are 100% fine power level wise, but I don't think that is a good enough reason. People don't like losing to these cards, having these cards in the format, because of how underpowered they are, doesn't really add anything new or interesting into the format, so all that happens is people lose to more big dumb spells. I will say I agree with every one in your top 5 except golos, I think they are powerful/interesting enough to see play, while being fine for the format. My issue with golos stems more from the fact that he is often the best commander in non 5 colored decks, which I just find distasteful. You can also include a cascading cataracts in the deck, that golos can tutor, to use his other ability. Being able to tutor like coffers in a mono black deck for instance, makes him the best mono black commander unless you have a specific synergy in mind with your commander. I don't like that.
I hope jeweled lotus and mana crypt stay banned so those horrific people don't get rewarded. On another note thanks for all the videos prof it makes any day better
11:45 so you can imprint at instant speed, meaning you can hold up countermagic and interaction in case it does get removed, if not, imprint time warp last players end step before yours. On top of this blue has lots of free interaction, misdirection, forces, fierce guardianship, even commandeer and foil if you are all in.
You don't even have to do it at the end of your opponent's turn. You can respond to its own "cast the imprinted card" trigger by activating it and imprinting something to then cast with that same trigger. As is typical for the Professor, he's just too casual of a player to see this and naively believes that because *he* won't abuse a card's powerlevel then that means no one else is going to either.
I am shocked that I disagreed with the whole list save the last one. I will say I would be fine with at least one of the other cards if “Banned as commander” was an option for them. Not Iona though, as someone who plays her in legacy reanimator, Iona has no place in commander while Painter’s Servant is unbanned (and honestly Painter’s Servant is the more interesting card).
You're a good, honorable man Prof and are an indispensable pillar of this community without question. Thank you for everything you have given me and this community through the years, truly. Take care of yourself and be well
At the 16 minute mark I was ready to be incredibly mad that my favourite card wasn't on the list, but thank you for giving your number 1 pick the respect it deserves.
Absolutely agreed on Gifts Ungiven. Agreed with most, actually, except maybe Prime Time. Not because it’s too powerful, but because green needs to be reigned in.
Good that you clarified the whatnot thing, last time that came up I was wondering about the scalping thing too. I don't really care about secret lairs but was assuming whatnot was just scalping them to use them for ads like this.
the issue with Gifts Ungiven is the "fail to find" rule. if the caster wants 2 cards in their graveyard, they can just 'fail to find' the other two. the two found are always sent to the graveyard.
I don't know why Emrakul, Aeons Torn is banned when The World's Anew is way scarier! Annihilator 6 in a deck full of other eldrazi is fine and a big 15 drop should be powerful
Yeah I think the instant "win on cast" cards were pretty unsatisfying when Commander was a slower format. Now when a game grinds on for nearly an hour it's because nobody has gotten to a dominant point on the table. Imo i would house rule "no playing before turn 10" but that's my opinion. Craterhoof is arguably less powerful because it may win hard because it's a "finishing blow" that requires a viable board rather than "gas in the carburetor" like primetime. I would still like to see it back on the list in the power scale. Golos was banned to open up 5c commander design because you know it was intended to kill the "but is it better than Golos?" online talk and pump the value of solid 5c commanders. Unconditional, repeatable land fetch will always be powerful.
I thought that it was Whatnot that bought the items and sent it to TCC to giveaway. That's pretty awesome that you get to decide what to buy Prof even more so that you bought stuff from local shops to giveaway.
What is the self-regulation at an LGS where there is a decent chance you are playing with strangers? I have played with pub-stompers who claim to play casual and have no doubt they would throw these in with all the tutors ASAP. It is more of a "which commander are you playing" than "is your deck CEDH level" so if you see a jank commander and then they tutor out a Gifts Ungiving and casts it before their turn 3 with fast ramp they just give a sheepish grin like whoooopsie.
@@magicthe7 Was gonna say, I have played against people not running CEDH who still pub stomp my Angel Tribal deck or any other deck i have. The banlist exists, hasn't stopped any pub stomping whatsoever.
@@magicthe7 I guess my point is that none of these cards are really CEDH viable so inevitably they go into casual decks but the reason why most of them were banned in the first place is because of poor play experience which seems like the antithesis of casual commander. I think there is room for large mana cost end game cards like Biorhythm but do we really need more powerful cards that just enable 2 cards combos even easier?
I was initially dubious of the whatnot deal. But after checking out the stream last week I really like how you handled the partnership and I appreciate you are using the platform to support LGS's. Will be on this Fridays stream for sure.
Honestly, savor the moment under mirror still sounds like a win, even in monoblue. You get the initial untap step before the first extra turn, then you can fast forward until you get isochron scepter + dramatic reversal, or just wait until your "last draw" for a Thoracle/Lab man style win.
Meh, I don't like the argument for braids. and I hate the "so what just play again" answer. Some of us take 30-60 mins to start a game. Why would I want to go thorough that again and again. And too many people (and I have played with lots of different groups) try to make the "best" deck instead of the "most fun". Keep in mind not every can have a job playing MTG, some of us only get to play 1-2 games a week. And you want to loose one of those to a ten min game.
BUT DONTCHA KNOW IT'S YOUR FAULT FOR NOT JUST WANTING TO SIT DOWN AND HAVE A NICE CARDGAME!? I AM VERY SMART AND IN TOUCH WITH HOW TO MAKE COMMANDER ACCESSIBLE TO PEOPLE r/hyperbole
"There is no way to fully regulate a format like commander. You can't ban commander into working because it is a broken format that only works when we all pretend it works." Well said.
I feel most Gifts Players will know what they're searching for. It's not one of those cards you would put into a deck just because. And if you are putting in a deck just cause, than maybe Fact or Fiction is the card you want.
I am off the mind that the ban list should never get smaller. You can always rule 0 stuff in when playing with your own playgroup. But someone like me who goes to LGS 1-2 times a week and plays with different people for the most time. I can't really do the same.
Stating again, the banlist is not for enfranchised players. It's to make sure Timmy's first time at the LGS isn't met with a Coalition Victory therefore skewing what Timmy thinks Commander is about. It's specifically to protect those people. And with that context the banlist is generally quite good. It's still possible to brick games with Narset Parter Of Veils or ruin draws with Alms Collector. But stuff like CV and Hullbreacher are the best single-card version of "brick game" and "ruin draw" respectively. And they are easier to include/pull off in their respective decks. If you think these are fun, just ask your play group if you can include them.
I bought Iona, Shield of Emeria from my local LSG (it's a tiny place with very little selection) about a month ago because I realized I had a lot of angels to make a Giada deck. After finally putting the deck together last week, I found out she's banned in commander. I bout that card for $10 AND to support my LGS. I figured the price meant it was good and not banned! Not the LGS's fault. Like I said, they are tiny and don't know too much about MTG specifically. Slike, shes a powerful card sure, but also 9 mana. Yet no one bats an eye at Avacyn *rolls eyes*
I really think Balance could come off the list. It was restricted in vintage because playing 4x was just madness but a single copy in 100 cards is just a get out of jail free card especially with no moxes or lotus.
Unironically, thank you for clarifying that you didn't buy up 25 lairs to just give away afterwards. I had a knee-jerk negative reaction to seeing that you had 25 spare to just hand out. Good guy prof, supporting brick and mortar
The Marvel Secret Lairs may as well be banned at this point for how many people couldn't get them in the drop, and the ones that were able to order but can't get Wizards to fulfill the shipment. Much respect to Prof for trying to do a little something to make these cards more accessible.
It sucks that people were being mean to the prof about the secret lairs, but I do appreciate that we got to hear about him supporting brick and mortar stores and how the whatnot sponsorship works :)
ITS NOT ON YOU!!! You are actually helping 25 people who probably did not have a chance to get them get at least one of them!!! Good on you Professor!!!
So as someone whose main intake of Magic is watching EDH gameplay as podcasts and a casual enjoyer of CGB's crossover series with other TCG youtubers, it's funny how many of these were in a recent video about guessing which cards are actually banned in Commander
It’s great to see some common sense. Gifts Rock is my favorite deck of all time and I was never able to make a Commander version of it. I hope Wizards listens to the Prof and makes these cards legal again.
For contrast with Panoptic Mirror, you can also easily take infinite turns with Trade Routes, Time Warp, and Mystic Sanctuary. You have to pay mana for those turns but that's not really a problem when you get to take all the rest of them and you don't have to untap undisrupted for it to work. I understand wanting to discourage repetitive gameplay in general, but it's hardly the most powerful example.
Braids isn’t the problem. It’s the discard and hand removal effects that accompany her to take away your options of dealing with her. Additionally, there is always one player at the table that runs no interaction meaning one or two players have to spend their resources keeping her in check as the other player(s) run away with the game. My time is valuable to me and by removing my lands hand and creatures with no follow up for win con is wasting my time in a spectacularly rude manner. The worst part is, people that play these decks don’t tell you how tuned they tend to be. “It’s not that kind of deck”…. At least stax and prison I can play within. My two cents.
Primeval Titan and Panoptic mirror definitely need a unban, IMO. Also, LUTRI! FREE THE OTTER! The companion Errata would make it a bit more balanced now! Primeval's power level was a bit much at one point, but ever since the Precon power levels have massively been upgraded and refined, It has since shifted to game ending, to great value. Plus, the lands enter tapped, meaning that without shenanigans (spelunking, amulet of Vigor, Seedborn Muse), its gonna require a bit of waiting. Now it is not limited to basics, which means that Field of the dead, Thespian's Stage/Dark Depths, and other lands that cause stuff to occur are fair game, but at 6 mana, thats pretty fair. And Land destruction is pretty Taboo, but primeval titan being unbanned would help promote it a bit, and maybe make it a bit less so. Panoptic, like you said, only copycasts off of an upkeep trigger, which means that it cannot be exploited with an infinite untap combo, and is more mana intensive the bigger the spell you want on it. Plus, if it gets taken out by removal, not only do you lose it, you lose the card imprinted, meaning its even bigger of a loss of resources. And the card you might want to imprint for game winning might not be in your hand.
Professor, shrug off the hate from Secret Lair. I know you're not the problem. Keep up the good fight! As for the banned cards... honorable mention: Biorhythm. I love that you mentioned this, since there is *UNBANNED* version of this card in Shaman of Forgotten Ways. In some respects, you can argue that it has 4 more mana than Biorhythm and takes two turns to resolve instead of one, and requires you to have *formidable* active... but other than the two turn activation, everything else is semantics in green. Why isn't Shaman banned? I don't think Biorhythm should be. As for the real list, I pretty much stopped at Braids. THIS IS MY FAVORITE LEGENDARY CREATURE OF ALL TIME!! (What does this say about me as a person?) I understood her banning as a commander when there were two ban lists - one for legendary creatures that couldn't be your commander but could still be 99, and one for cards that couldn't be played at all. When you run a turbo black deck with lots of rocks, mana doublers like Nirkana Rev and Extraplanar Lens, and just plonk her down turn after turn, watching your opponents sac lands while you just sac her to herself gets very mean. I somewhat understood her continued banning because she has the potential to be a land destruction deck from the command zone. But... As an addition for your points for Braids not being the only 4 mana mono-colored terror of the command zone, she's also now sitting WELL with many other "everyone sac stuff" effects in the game. WotC seems to produce a new "When [this] enters, each player sacrifices a creature." creature every few years, so much so that Muldrotha is riddled with them. Braids also doesn't hit enchantments or planeswalkers, the latter of which wasn't around when she was printed. There are also ways of basically building a Braids' style deck without her, which essentially moots her point to being banned. Even more, they went so far as to make another version of her that *DOES* hit enchantments and lands, but instead gives the opponents the choice whether they want to sacrifice or not. She should be unbanned. The format wasn't warped *AT ALL* when they unbanned Worldfire, and I don't think we'll see too many Braids decks either... other than mine!
When is my girl Emrakul, the Aeons Torn gonna get a comeback arc? Sometimes when a game goes long enough you need to drop something that makes everyone just give up!
As someone who runs an Intuition in my Muldrotha deck, I find it hilarious Gifts Ungiven is banned. An Intuition almost always means I win on the spot.
The panopticon mirror can wait until the end step before your untap to imprint the sorcery or instant, so I can see that getting a bit tricky. Especially if you cheat the Panoptic Mirror in at that end step also. Oh god, Gifts Ungiven…
Still no on Sway the stars. I still say it’s easier to rule 0 in cards than to rule 0 them out and this just resets the game. Too many people would keep hitting the reset button and dragging out the game. Whereas Coalition victory and Biorhythm go for the win with what you have. Maybe on Braids, I feel like she’ll just get abused to lock people out of the game or it just wastes people’s removal and allows others to run for the finish with no interaction No for Gifts ungiven, objectively a 4 card tutor especially for something like Wilhelt or you recast from grave and go again And sadly no for Golos. Not because he’s too homogenous but I think his ability has aged poorly. There’s already a lot of problems in the game and Golos can hit insanely good cards with omniscience stapled onto the commander, let alone any amount of top deck manipulation could run away with the game On 2nd thought no to Coalition Victory. I feel like people would target the WUBRG deck just on meta knowledge even if the card is objectively not that good which just leads to unfun play patterns for whoever is playing the deck. Their commander or any 5 color permanent turns into remove on the spot regardless of if they have it or not
One unconsidered thing Coalition Victory being banned causes, it makes people MUCH less likely to go out of their way to destroy mana fixers for 5c decks. Like a Leyline of the Guildpact goes from 'eh kind of innocuous' to 'oh that needs to GO' if you know they might have coalition victory.
Which is a good thing, imo. Even if MLD is still always going to be frowned upon, attacking rocks, targeted land destruction, hitting major mana fixers, etc. should be a bigger part of the game and it would be a healthier format for it.
I think Golos should stay banned as it's design is awful for the format as a whole and just tells WotC to stop doing that kind of thing. I get the argument is "Commander is casual so who gives a shit about what's legal?" but the problem I have with Golos is that he becomes this creativity void that makes people run a bunch of good cards just because you're on 5 colors. Every time I played against a Golos deck it felt like I was going against the same value pile of good cards with a couple of cards from a strategy sprinkled in. Sure he was the best Gates commander, but with all the support they got and also got two new Commanders in Nine-Fingers and Omo, which both invite different ways to build the deck. I don't think we need Golos or designs like him.
My friends theory is to unban everything and just let the meta sort itself out, then use that data to recreate the ban list of organic shunning of cards.
Prof: "Commander is a casual format; just play what you all agree to!" Also Prof: "Some of these cards really need to be unbanned so people can play them." The banlist exists to facilitate shuffling up and playing with semi-random people you come across; to try and create a somewhat consistent environment with interactions that people will generally enjoy. I agree that some of the mentioned cards can probably be unbanned for those purposes and agree that the current banlist is horribly out of date (especially given all the power creep), but please let's stop defaulting back to "it's a casual format so we should favor nót banning cards" because I have barely any control over what someone I don't know will rock up to the table with in their 99.
So by your logic, a banlist negates any rule zero talk necessity. By that logic, I should be completey happy playing a precon vs a tuned Cedh deck because we are playing with the same banlist, therefore no discussion needed, right? However, IF discussion of playstyle and game goals is important, that negates a need for a banlist. We don't need both a discussion and a banlist, and a banlist alone would be insufficient, whereas a good discussion (outside of tournament play) is all you need.
@@derrickpaulson3093 I think you meant to respond to someone else because your comment doesn't map onto what I said. We need a banlist (or some other limiter) for playing with strangers and loose acquaintances, and Rule Zero for people we know. It's not feasible to customize a play group's meta every time you sit down with new people.
I am giving away twenty-five (25) of the Marvel Secret Lairs this December 13 at 3:00pm Pacific on Whatnot! Get $15 credit to spend when you create a new account using my code at www.whatnot.com/invite/tolariancollege !
thanks for explaining the origin of the product and helping LGSs
What about rofellos?!?!
@@Odin_30 right? I’ve always meant to check out one of those whatnot streams and now I’ll definitely make time tomorrow
The are not banned....... yet
I love me some gifts ungiven, I ask about this card specifically to Sheldon multiple times at Armada and he gave me the same old its too powerful at its cost point response, then proceded to resolve an intuition demonic tutor. Gifts was my favorite card, and I forced it in ever deck I could when it was standard legal. From dumb combo set ups like in block format, to an over costed buried alive in fair reanimate decks. The card is sweet. I am also a big fan of the Idea of unbanning Recurring Nightmare, and yes I know, "muh interaction". Honestly, that's kind of why I want it. So many people an finally warmed up to the idea that they need a permanent solution to graveyard decks that, it won't take over the format. And while yes there is an infinite that requires a very specific grave set up, it's more likely going to be used as a value piece to swapping two ETBs. If people are still too scared of it, maybe wotc needs to errata the card to say "When # Enters, stare at your opponent". It's functionally the same, but it adds a round of priority, before the fun starts.
Not that I thought Prof was scalping Secret Lair's, but it's cool (and not surprising) to hear he's been able to turn WhatNot streams into supporting local game stores.
THANK YOU for supporting LGS and LCS prof!
Prof is the shining gem of the entire community. He has not changed his values EVER.
Exactly what I came here to say. We love that!
The stores that scalped the secret lairs? How did they get them? Wizards gave them to the store as a kind gesture? He wasnt the reason they were unavailable but hes supporting and incentivizing the lgs to continue scalping. They had enough to sell him 25? Seems like they did a max quantity bundle order.
@@XtraBees He probably assembled them among many stores.
Prof. dropping the packs on the ground is a perfect recreation of how the cards were treated before being shipped out
So, here's the thing about "personal responsibility and communication": People can and do already do this with their consistent playgroups. Want to play with a banned card at your home game with friends? Go nuts! We do it all the time! The banlist is really for playing with strangers at LGSes & cons who you'll probably only ever play one game with. It short circuits what would otherwise be a 20 minute Rule Zero negotiation about a bunch of individual cards that results in someone feeling salty because they brought three decks, each of which has some objectionable cards they don't want to have to figure out how to replace at game time.
Exactly!
exactly put the onus on the people who want to use the problem cards not on everyone else
Ok? So dont play with them. Its not compulsory nor is it complicated
You are totally right.
It's totally reasonable to expect everyone to play the "same" game at community events. Commander especially should be a "hang out" format, and a ban list for community events is a good thing. And screw anyone who thinks they should force others to play by their house rules because they didn't want to play by community guidelines.
The whole reason for DND 5e Core+1 rule for adventurer's League was to get around that session 0 discussion for pickup games. It reduces the time to look up rules and features and it also reduces the potential for combining stuff that would break the very tight game balance. It's also INCREDIBLY BORING for your "home game" and arguably killed interest in pickup games at cons.
The banlist is ONLY FOR COMPETATIVE. Rule zero is for casual. Banlist is for tournys. Thats iy.
So many people who argue for the unbanning of Panoptic Mirror, don't know how the mirror actually works.
What the Professor described was not a 10 mana play. It was a 5 mana play spread across two turns. You can imprint on your upkeep with the trigger on the stack.
People think that it's a late game play. Something you do when you have 10+ mana. It's not. On average, it's a turn 5 play. With great ramp, it's a turn two play with a turn 3 imprint.
that still isn't a good reason imo. there are cheaper 2 card combos that just win the game.
It's wild that people are giving you grief for the secret lairs. Your transparency it really appreciated but I worry people that are so unreasonable to get mad about you having secret lairs to give away are also the unreasonable type that won't care how you got the secret lair's. They just want to be mean and mad. Either way, you're awesome and thank you for the great videos.
The issue isn't the fact that he is giving away secret lairs, the issue is that you can't get these secret lairs anywhere else. Its kinda tone deaf to criticize the system and then use the same system to promote a sponsor. Even if he didnt scalp those secret lairs himself, its crappy seeing these used as a way to promote a streaming site. If those secret lairs werr still on sale, there wouldnt be an issue.
I’m realizing that most of these bans really show how the community wants less removal
These all require different kinds of removal to stop them from winning or comboing off.
Less removal means more focused and personalized decks, which is what I think people tend to gravitate towards.
Loved the video prof!
Hence the common critique that Commander is often Competitive Solitaire
Communication IS harder than you think. We have a person in our group that says there is NO SUCH THING as powerlevel, so we're playing our casual 5-6 power level decks and he will acknowledge and will mill the whole table on turn 3 with his infinite win combo that he tutored for and then will say "that felt bad." but will shuffle up and play another
Obviously I'm missing contexts, but I don't think I'd keep inviting a player that kept playing unfun decks after the group had tried talking to them.
So, you are CHOOSING to play with someone who is CHOOSING to ignore your social contract. I know others have similar issues, but is that a problem of passivity or something everyone now has to share who doesn't have that problem with their own groups?
Heh sounds like the one player we had, We were running slightly upgraded precons and he showed up with a cedh deck, proceeds to win on turn 3 with infinite tokens. Before we start the next game we ask if anyone wants to change their decks. He stays with the same one and the rest of us gang up on him. He asks why we were ganging up on him. *shrug*
If you establish boundaries, and someone throws them out the window, I feel like the problem is not your boundaries. If I invite people over for a party, tell everyone 2 slices of pizza, and 1 person eats all the pizza, I can tell you who won't be coming to the next party.
I used to run Expropriate + Nmemonic Deluge in my simic deck until I realized I got groans everytime I played it, so I took out Expropriate. Nobody said anything, but I read the room.
He's pubstomping you guys 😂😂😂
Tell.him to play something else or build his level. It's the only option you have.
Ppl like this look for unfair advantages cause winning is more important than fun. These are ppl that show up with crypt, dockside and lotus in their decks trying to rule 0 full knowing that 90% of ppl took there's out.
I love how the biggest argument (not argument) of prof is "who cares" or "" just shuffle up and play" being his first premise "comander is a casual game".
I know that a large amount of people have playgroups that can spend a long amount of time playing magic… but there’s also many that don’t or can’t spend that much time playing something that takes a long time. For that reason, I feel ‘Just shuffle up and play again’ is a lackluster and ultimately terrible reason to let a format-warping card become unbanned.
I like this "what should be unbanned" approach way more than what the Command Zone Podcast's.
Although I don't agree with all of your thoughts, the way you present them make me respect your opinion :)
My comment is just to praise your dialog skills :)
Great video!
Clipped the "wotc is the problem" going to get good mileage out of that in the future
@15:41 I think that this is a bit revisionist as Golos wasn't just the best 5c commander but could easily slot in any 4/3/2/1 color decks as the commander especially if you can grab Cascading Cataracts or similar effects like The World Tree.
EDIT: Just to reiterate on it, this is from the commander banlist website:
There are many problems with the card, but the greatest is that in the low-to-middle power level tiers where we focus the banlist, Golos is simply a better choice of leader for all but the most commander-centric decks. Its presence crushes the kind of diversity in commander choice which we want to promote.
It specifically adresses ALL and not just 5c decks.
A friend of mine used to run a mono-black Golos just to assemble Cabal Coffers+Urborg combo more easily. Killing Golos just helped him find more lands.
Totally agree, Golos was a solution to a format that resists such an idea by definition. Sure my Snow matters deck was better with him, but the format is better without him. Kenrith and other subsequent 5 color legends have filled his gap just fine.
The main issue here is that I agree with him about whether you are playing with friends, people you know, etc. I just moved to a new area and only get to play with strangers at the LGS. They will ALWAYS do the most degenerate option no matter how many rule 0 or pre-game discussions happen. That's why bans are in place.
I can definitely sympathize with you. Though f you're playing with people who need a ban list to be kept in check, I feel like the issue might be the people playing the cards, not the cards themselves.
Fine with a game in which Braids takes over and no one else gets to do their thing, but they better have a way to win. Played plenty of games where 1 player takes complete board control and that’s all they can do leading to a brutally long game that nobody enjoys
They have a way to win... it might take 33 turns, but it’s there....
Honestly, this. If you're not playing it as a game ender, but a game extender, I'm gonna wanna flip the table
Concession is an option
So is not playing the game to begin with
That’s typically what ends up happening in my experience. I just hate giving up
I want to see a Shuffle Up episode with a proper Braids deck. Let's see a turn 1 or turn 2 Braids game.
Unban Lutri! They're just a lil guy! They didn't hurt nobody!
Just ban them as a companion. Or the Companion mechanic as a whole.
I’ve always thought the biggest argument for all the “I win” sorceries is that oracle is allowed in the format
Or literally any number of infinite combos (or near infinite combos)... hell a Krark/Sakashima can have 3 of the 2 pieces you need in the command zone, with any number of ways of making that stronger. It's not as if those 10 mana "I win" sorcery cards don't have set up needed to win... like casting Biorhythm on it's own isn't winning a game unless the board was just wiped (you're gonna have to follow up with some sort of damage).
@@ArCSelkie37 Losing to goddamn coalition victory would be much more exciting then losing to the 9999th case of "Big board + craterhoof-like thing" or "Widely known 2 card combo into irrelevant wincondition"
There are so many one card wincons in the format it makes no sense to not allow a card like biorhythm
Ubiquity is important for consideration in banning, and while you can certainly say Thoracle is worse, the format isn't made any better by unbanning one card wincons.
@@snek3201and i sincierly hope all of them get shoved into the highest bracket so i dont ever have to see them again
I think the Golos unban is a bad idea. The ubiquity is a potential problem, but the other issue is the play pattern he leads to with non-counter interaction. His ETB finds a land, which is presumably the 6th mana of his owner, so even if Golos is removed on the spot, all that’s required is a land drop for him to come right back, and this can keep happening again and again. And that’s not even considering the fact that Golos can get non-basic lands that can ramp beyond 1 mana per tap.
...or bouncelands, guaranteeing the land drop for recasting him.
The core issue with golos is that in order to try and keep them in the format you would need to ban Cascading Cataracts or The World Tree or any other land card with similar effect. Heck even fountain port would fall under it. Essentially an entire design space would have to be banned from commander in order to keep 1 card in the format.
Agreed. Prof spent his whole arguement about best in slot, instead of dealing with the actual power of the card. Golos is a 1 card combo in a properly built deck, one that is in your command zone and comes down early.
one rules issue with the Panoptic Mirror section, its a 5 mana play not 10 mana. "You may imprint a card on Panoptic Mirror in response to the upkeep-triggered ability. If you do, that card is available to copy when the triggered ability resolves." so its 5 the turn you play the mirror and 5 on the upkeep of the next turn.
From my understanding of maths, 5 mana + 5 mana does in fact equal 10 mana spent on a singular action
what's 5 +5, again?
You still leave an entire turn cycle for people to respond to the artifact itself, besides the fact you still need to spend the mana and so either need extra mana to protect your combo (which beats the purpose of doing it on 5 mana) or risk getting countered
Came to say this too, it only takes a single turn cycle even with splitting up the cost, and because you can imprint on end step or upkeep Prof’s senario is very wrong. Especially because you’re in blue so the likely play is pay 5 for mirror leaving up a counter spell, protecting you from an opponent with removal then win the game on your upkeep with infinite turns.
I still think it could be okay to unban if there’s a robust rule 0 discussion about power level and extra turns but Prof really undersold this one.
I was going to write this comment but you beat me to the punch! 5 mana on two consecutive turns is much easier than 10 mana on one turn. Still, I agree that this card can be unbanned. If you cast this on turn 5, everyone should be thinking about destroying it before the end of the turn cycle. In a world with Isochron Scepter and Dramatic Reversal legal, I have no problem with Panoptic Mirror.
I think we should return to having some legendary creatures only banned from being used as commanders and ok as part of the 99, as opposed to every ban being a blanket one.
I would go with mechanics over creatures. No cascade style effects at all (coughjodahcough) or any other version of free stuff
One thing that gets missed in the discussion about gifts ungiven: time to resolve the spell.
Sure if you know your pile, it can be fairly quick. But if you don't know the pile before you cast it? Or your normal pile has been disrupted by something else. Not even mentioning the time the opponents can spend discussing any given pile you get.
It could be even worse if someone plays the card that says they get to control your action when you search, instead of you. Instead of you searching your deck, someone who doesn't know it has to do it lol.
If you don't know your pile, you're probably better suited with Fact or Fiction rather than Gifts or Intuition.
And if you get interacted with before your Gifts resolve, you'll just have to pivot, as any player would who gets interrupted.
And if we're banning cards because searching takes a long time in paper (sometimes) then maybe Fetch lands also need a ban? See how ridiculous that sounds?
Edit: and your opponents debating on what cards to give you is the best part. It's the mini-game of testing your knowledge.
Will you make the right choice or have you been given the illusion of choice?
20:26 My ideal commander unban is Lutri. I just want the cute giant magic otter in my Izzet deck. Ban him as a companion or errata him. Especially now that otter kindred is a viable theme thanks to Bloomburrow. UNBAN THE BOY!
Yeah I would love to run Lutri as a commander or in the 99 for a deck it would work in.
I personally wouldn’t want to remove Lutri’s companion mechanic, because I personally really like companion and I’ve enjoyed brainstorming decks that work with all of the companions.
@@Generic_Doodles Nobody in the world would forbid you to play lutri as a commander xD Hes just the 48th worst version of izzet spellslinger, whoever says no to that is a freak ngl.
I genuinely don't want to play Lutri as a Companion, I'm more than fine having him in the 99 in my Bria Riptide Rogue deck (or Alania Divergent Storm, depending on whether I'm more in a mood for creature aggro with some spellslinging or for spellslinging with some creature aggro).
In the 99 he's good, but nowhere near broken, arguably Valley Floodcaller is more oppressive than Lutri (casting enchantments, artifacts, and sorceries at instant speed while buffing and untapping your otters is otterly disgusting, which is why Valley Floodcaller is one of my favourite otters)
I would love for Lutri to be freed from the shadow realm.
Lutri is a perfect card for rule 0. As long as you dont use it as a conpanion barely anyone will ever bat an eye.
The imprint ability on Panoptic Mirror is not sorcery speed, meaning you can imprint at the end step of the turn before you. That makes the combo significantly better.
exactly, people seem to forget that...
Also, as someone once mentioned, nothing is stopping the player imprinting an armageddon...
According to WotC's Companion Card Database, you can imprint on your upkeep with the trigger on the stack.
Edit:
Turn 1- Plains. Sol Ring. Tap Ring for Arcane Signet.
Turn 2- Plains. Panoptic Mirror.
Turn 3- Upkeep, Imprint Armageddon. Trigger resolves, everyone loses their lands.
Tuns 4+ Armageddon every turn.
If you play it, you probably have something crazy. The result still stands that everyone knows it needs to go and have a cycle to do it
@@k9commander Wow, that is even worse than I thought, that mean you only need 5 mana for the combo.
That does make it better but it’s still a minimum 8 but likely 10 mana investment that gets full countered if any one of your opponents has one of the 286 cards that have the text destroy target artifact, and even then you still need a third piece to the combo to win the game with. By saying this I do not mean to discredit your point that it’s strong but how is that stronger than any of the lesser mana investment win cons that go off at instant speed? I just don’t see it as being the threat that it may have been earlier in EDH.
Titan did nothing wrong! Free my boy!
My problem with the "just shuffle up and play another game" argument, is that it presumes everybody has unlimited time to play the game. as someone who only gets to play a couple of hours every other month, even one of those "ups the game is over" really screws over an entire months worth of mtg for me
As for the Banning of Golos, i feel it was more a political move than a necesary ban. Golos was the culmination of two very negative trends of Design by WotC, Both 5 color commanders that are not really 5 color, and comanders that have ramp and card draw build in them... so the Rules cometee ban it to send a message to WotC to stop with that
but now that the RC and WotC are one and the same i agree, the ban is useless
I mean did it stop WotC? Has WotC not printed commanders that have ramp and draw into them? Or some other busted effect? The idea that the RC bans effected Wizards at all is a joke.
Other reasons it was banned included the fact that it just ended up warping 2- and 3-color decks into 5-color "good stuff" decks. The homogenization of the format was the problem and it wasn't just restricted to existing 5-color decks.
@@ArCSelkie37There hasn't been a single 5 color commander to match Ur-Dragon or Kenrith yet, and while they have printed plenty of Diet Golos commanders, that's just what they are; diet Golos. They actually are thematic to their colors and work around specific mechanics instead of being generically useful. The only exception is the Simic ones, but for the most part even their worst offenders are from before Golos was banned.
@@malmasterson3890"to match the-Ur dragon" one of the weakers 5c commanders you mean
@@ivonneiglesias2596 I'm not talking about competitive power, I'm talking about ubiquity.
"savour the moment severely inhibits your ability to win the game"
You mean because, in my infinite turns, I need to draw the remaining 20 some lands in my deck and win with all my cards and 20+ mana? I might be able to figure that one out
I understand the sentiment around Golos but I don’t want to see it unbanned. It’s just too universal and removes variety, with a commander that pays for itself and provides too much advantages. The only deck I do get is gates, but it’s not too difficult to build a different 5 color commander for gates imo. And honestly it’s refreshing not having a Golos at every single pod.
I feel like comparing it to other 5C Typal Commanders is a little disingenuous too, since part of the problem isn't that Golos is better than other 5C commanders but that Golos is better than 2 or 3 color commanders and pushes them into being 5C and just adding more generically powerful cards.
I think a lot of people would avoid Golos specifically because of how generically good it is. As an example Atraxa is by far the most popular commander on EDHrec, but I've never seen her in person, even in the 99.
@@GG-bw5qdI see her ALL THE TIME
Yeah homogeneity is the biggest reason to ban any card, in any format. Comparing it to format staples like Prof does here misses the fact that Golos is a Commander and will be played every game, while Rhystic etc are in the 99 and may never get drawn. It also, as you point out, removes variety by encouraging decks to run him and/or to be built too similarly even if they're ostensibly trying to do different things. Why run anything similar to Golos when Golos does it better and also gives you access to staples in all colours too?
I think very few cards should be banned in Commander, but I'd really rather not see Golos back in the format
@GG-bw5qd The 2 are very different top commanders from my experience. Golos saw so much play back in early 2021 it got to a point where having just "A Golos Deck" in regular's collections was practically commonplace. Never has a commander had that much ubiquity in my own experience with the game. It was on trajectory to double the number of decks as the second most popular commander in the format.
2:06 As always it turns out the Prof is an outstanding member of the community.
In all honesty, I believe Chaos Orb should not be banned in Commander.
It makes sense that in any competitive, constructed formats Chaos Orb and Falling Star should not be legal as they could become staples which lock out people with certain disabilities.
However, in Commander, if you aren’t able to resolve these cards, that’s fine. You just don’t put them in your deck and the chances a game state require you to resolve one from someone else’s deck are extremely low.
If Slaying Mantis was acceptable in a casual-only format in 2017’s Unstable and 2020’s Unsanctioned, Chaos Orb and Falling Star shouldn’t be banned in the most popular casual format now.
I think the biggest mistake youve made this video, is assuming that commander players run interaction.
well, they do, but a handful of non-universal interaction (swords to plowshares will do nothing against panoptic mirror) is not enough by a long shot if you have to start a game with one. it's also non-interesting play pattern to for example remove braids every turn cycle over and over again. and last but not least the threat assessment ability of average commander player is abysmal. i have seen people remove or counter the most mundane stuff and lose one-two turns later to a combo or an unanswered bomb.
Primeval titan was not banned because it gets two lands. It was banned because it gets two lands and it felt like any deck with green was required to run it.
It also slows games down, as the green player is now doing at least one tutor per turn until it's dealt with or they win.
Like hour of promise? A legal card thats do the same
@@ivonneiglesias2596 are you kidding? its a sorcery not a commander, not even close to the same
Yeah like llanowar elves? Every green deck definitely needs to run it. Gotta ban it! It produces 4 mana if you just drop a land every turn up to six mana. Busted.
@@zatorith. Prime time isn't a commander either.
Gifts Ungiven is banned because you can force your opponent into a no-win scenario by getting 2 combo pieces and 2 reanimates, guaranteeing that you get both combo pieces. Especially at low power where there are no tutors, mediocre interaction, and mediocre card draw, I can't imagine a single other card that could be added to any deck and increase that deck's consistency. People will just learn about the card, learn how to use it, then build all of their decks with a few options that will, in effect, win the game. There are combos in precons, it isn't limited to high power.
so it's a bad entomb? it's still a bad intuition at best
Prof likes to think that because he wants to do janky things with busted cards, that means the cards should be allowed. Afterall, if *he* isn't going to abuse them, then what's the harm?
@@damonlouis6536 No, you get 2 cards with it, it tutors 4 cards so you either get one of the combo pieces cheated out easily or you get both combo pieces guaranteed over the next 2 turns. It isn't banned because it tutors a card, it's banned because it tutors entire combos. Entomb is a card, Intuition is a card. Gifts Ungiven is the whole combo. You need 2 tutors to do what Gifts Ungiven does in 1. Intuition only works if you only need half of a combo. You don't even need to draw half of the combo with Gifts Ungiven, turn 4 without ramp you 100% can have an entire game winning combo in your hand. It's broken at every power level, one of the biggest weaknesses of low power is a lack of consistency, Gifts Ungiven gives more consistency than Demonic Tutor. It's one of like 10 cards I think should stay banned, I can't imagine a world where I see a Gifts Ungiven and watch that player get 4 cool cards, people's first thought when they saw Storm was "damn, I can take 10 turns in a row if I just cast cheap shit", Magic players are not chill (I am one of them).
@@ForeverLaxx That's why whenever I talk about thinking Emrakul should be unbanned into bracket 4, I acknowledge that the way I'll play her in my deck is different than the strongest way/how others will play her but talk about what the best case looks like and explain that it's not nearly as bad as things already available. It's always nice to envision the world as ideal where people won't abuse something because you won't, but people will, they always do. The problem is that the worst that Gifts Ungiven gives is 2 of your 4 favorite cards from the deck and the best is the game ends. There is no power level where it doesn't automatically make a deck better.
Gifts ungiven can be abused quite easy if you're tutoring for infinite combos. It's like look here are 2 infinite combos, one goes into the graveyard, the other into my hand. No matter what you choose you're dead
You don't have to wait 2 turn cycles with mirror. It's worded in a weird way where on the turn you untap with it, you can put the time warp under it with the trigger on the stack and still get the infinite turns.
I'ts your fault that I can't eat dairy, dirtly SCALPERS bought out all my lactose tolerance!!!!
Yes prime time is too strong but sure let me play with to show you. Prime time was good back in the day when people didn’t have all the resources to build good decks. Power level has increased because everyone has gotten better at deck building not counting power creep. It’s very easy to still get that out on t3/t4. Granted people should play more removal but unless it’s exiled it will come back. Then u had the other problem of someone cloning it and at that point which one you killing?
Without even knowing which cards, still probably yes.
Seconded.
Thirdeded.
Braids ? Hell nah
The same, except the opposite.
dark pact and the other ante cards
In general I don't think cards like biorythm should come off the ban list. Yes they are 100% fine power level wise, but I don't think that is a good enough reason. People don't like losing to these cards, having these cards in the format, because of how underpowered they are, doesn't really add anything new or interesting into the format, so all that happens is people lose to more big dumb spells. I will say I agree with every one in your top 5 except golos, I think they are powerful/interesting enough to see play, while being fine for the format. My issue with golos stems more from the fact that he is often the best commander in non 5 colored decks, which I just find distasteful. You can also include a cascading cataracts in the deck, that golos can tutor, to use his other ability. Being able to tutor like coffers in a mono black deck for instance, makes him the best mono black commander unless you have a specific synergy in mind with your commander. I don't like that.
ZEUSE, LET ME PLAY GIFT STORM IN COMMANDER AND MY LIFE IS YOURS!!!
I hope jeweled lotus and mana crypt stay banned so those horrific people don't get rewarded. On another note thanks for all the videos prof it makes any day better
11:45 so you can imprint at instant speed, meaning you can hold up countermagic and interaction in case it does get removed, if not, imprint time warp last players end step before yours. On top of this blue has lots of free interaction, misdirection, forces, fierce guardianship, even commandeer and foil if you are all in.
You don't even have to do it at the end of your opponent's turn. You can respond to its own "cast the imprinted card" trigger by activating it and imprinting something to then cast with that same trigger.
As is typical for the Professor, he's just too casual of a player to see this and naively believes that because *he* won't abuse a card's powerlevel then that means no one else is going to either.
I am shocked that I disagreed with the whole list save the last one.
I will say I would be fine with at least one of the other cards if “Banned as commander” was an option for them. Not Iona though, as someone who plays her in legacy reanimator, Iona has no place in commander while Painter’s Servant is unbanned (and honestly Painter’s Servant is the more interesting card).
You're a good, honorable man Prof and are an indispensable pillar of this community without question. Thank you for everything you have given me and this community through the years, truly. Take care of yourself and be well
I really want emrakul unbanned. I love the big eldrazi!!!
Prof so based for brick and mortar spending
At the 16 minute mark I was ready to be incredibly mad that my favourite card wasn't on the list, but thank you for giving your number 1 pick the respect it deserves.
Absolutely agreed on Gifts Ungiven. Agreed with most, actually, except maybe Prime Time. Not because it’s too powerful, but because green needs to be reigned in.
Let's turn Griselbanned into Griselbrand. Come on!
Good that you clarified the whatnot thing, last time that came up I was wondering about the scalping thing too. I don't really care about secret lairs but was assuming whatnot was just scalping them to use them for ads like this.
the issue with Gifts Ungiven is the "fail to find" rule. if the caster wants 2 cards in their graveyard, they can just 'fail to find' the other two. the two found are always sent to the graveyard.
I don't know why Emrakul, Aeons Torn is banned when The World's Anew is way scarier! Annihilator 6 in a deck full of other eldrazi is fine and a big 15 drop should be powerful
Yeah I think the instant "win on cast" cards were pretty unsatisfying when Commander was a slower format. Now when a game grinds on for nearly an hour it's because nobody has gotten to a dominant point on the table. Imo i would house rule "no playing before turn 10" but that's my opinion. Craterhoof is arguably less powerful because it may win hard because it's a "finishing blow" that requires a viable board rather than "gas in the carburetor" like primetime. I would still like to see it back on the list in the power scale.
Golos was banned to open up 5c commander design because you know it was intended to kill the "but is it better than Golos?" online talk and pump the value of solid 5c commanders.
Unconditional, repeatable land fetch will always be powerful.
"Cards that should come off the commander banlist"
What is it? The Braids?
Even if it's unbanned, I'm never putting 100 cards on the same table as golos
I thought that it was Whatnot that bought the items and sent it to TCC to giveaway. That's pretty awesome that you get to decide what to buy Prof even more so that you bought stuff from local shops to giveaway.
What is the self-regulation at an LGS where there is a decent chance you are playing with strangers? I have played with pub-stompers who claim to play casual and have no doubt they would throw these in with all the tutors ASAP. It is more of a "which commander are you playing" than "is your deck CEDH level" so if you see a jank commander and then they tutor out a Gifts Ungiving and casts it before their turn 3 with fast ramp they just give a sheepish grin like whoooopsie.
Regardless of whats on the banlist, a pubstomper will build a deck that pubstomps.
@@magicthe7 Was gonna say, I have played against people not running CEDH who still pub stomp my Angel Tribal deck or any other deck i have. The banlist exists, hasn't stopped any pub stomping whatsoever.
@@magicthe7 I guess my point is that none of these cards are really CEDH viable so inevitably they go into casual decks but the reason why most of them were banned in the first place is because of poor play experience which seems like the antithesis of casual commander. I think there is room for large mana cost end game cards like Biorhythm but do we really need more powerful cards that just enable 2 cards combos even easier?
Video starts at 4:56
Actual list at 8:15
Love when Prof does the sphinx everytime on these countdown videos, so good.
I was initially dubious of the whatnot deal. But after checking out the stream last week I really like how you handled the partnership and I appreciate you are using the platform to support LGS's. Will be on this Fridays stream for sure.
Honestly, savor the moment under mirror still sounds like a win, even in monoblue. You get the initial untap step before the first extra turn, then you can fast forward until you get isochron scepter + dramatic reversal, or just wait until your "last draw" for a Thoracle/Lab man style win.
Meh, I don't like the argument for braids. and I hate the "so what just play again" answer. Some of us take 30-60 mins to start a game. Why would I want to go thorough that again and again. And too many people (and I have played with lots of different groups) try to make the "best" deck instead of the "most fun". Keep in mind not every can have a job playing MTG, some of us only get to play 1-2 games a week. And you want to loose one of those to a ten min game.
BUT DONTCHA KNOW IT'S YOUR FAULT FOR NOT JUST WANTING TO SIT DOWN AND HAVE A NICE CARDGAME!? I AM VERY SMART AND IN TOUCH WITH HOW TO MAKE COMMANDER ACCESSIBLE TO PEOPLE r/hyperbole
"There is no way to fully regulate a format like commander. You can't ban commander into working because it is a broken format that only works when we all pretend it works."
Well said.
If you think Nadu took long turns, watch a random player tutor 4 cards with gifts ungiven 😂
I feel most Gifts Players will know what they're searching for. It's not one of those cards you would put into a deck just because.
And if you are putting in a deck just cause, than maybe Fact or Fiction is the card you want.
I am off the mind that the ban list should never get smaller. You can always rule 0 stuff in when playing with your own playgroup. But someone like me who goes to LGS 1-2 times a week and plays with different people for the most time. I can't really do the same.
“But you know what’s NOT banned?” as a segue way was right there, prof. smh my head
Stating again, the banlist is not for enfranchised players. It's to make sure Timmy's first time at the LGS isn't met with a Coalition Victory therefore skewing what Timmy thinks Commander is about. It's specifically to protect those people. And with that context the banlist is generally quite good. It's still possible to brick games with Narset Parter Of Veils or ruin draws with Alms Collector. But stuff like CV and Hullbreacher are the best single-card version of "brick game" and "ruin draw" respectively. And they are easier to include/pull off in their respective decks. If you think these are fun, just ask your play group if you can include them.
I bought Iona, Shield of Emeria from my local LSG (it's a tiny place with very little selection) about a month ago because I realized I had a lot of angels to make a Giada deck. After finally putting the deck together last week, I found out she's banned in commander. I bout that card for $10 AND to support my LGS. I figured the price meant it was good and not banned! Not the LGS's fault. Like I said, they are tiny and don't know too much about MTG specifically. Slike, shes a powerful card sure, but also 9 mana. Yet no one bats an eye at Avacyn *rolls eyes*
I really think Balance could come off the list. It was restricted in vintage because playing 4x was just madness but a single copy in 100 cards is just a get out of jail free card especially with no moxes or lotus.
Even if the professor bought all those cards it's not his fault for false scarcity
Commander should have no cards banned. If you want to play a turn three infinite combo go for it. Just don't expect a second game with that deck!
Unironically, thank you for clarifying that you didn't buy up 25 lairs to just give away afterwards. I had a knee-jerk negative reaction to seeing that you had 25 spare to just hand out.
Good guy prof, supporting brick and mortar
The Marvel Secret Lairs may as well be banned at this point for how many people couldn't get them in the drop, and the ones that were able to order but can't get Wizards to fulfill the shipment. Much respect to Prof for trying to do a little something to make these cards more accessible.
It sucks that people were being mean to the prof about the secret lairs, but I do appreciate that we got to hear about him supporting brick and mortar stores and how the whatnot sponsorship works :)
ITS NOT ON YOU!!! You are actually helping 25 people who probably did not have a chance to get them get at least one of them!!! Good on you Professor!!!
So as someone whose main intake of Magic is watching EDH gameplay as podcasts and a casual enjoyer of CGB's crossover series with other TCG youtubers, it's funny how many of these were in a recent video about guessing which cards are actually banned in Commander
It’s great to see some common sense. Gifts Rock is my favorite deck of all time and I was never able to make a Commander version of it. I hope Wizards listens to the Prof and makes these cards legal again.
For contrast with Panoptic Mirror, you can also easily take infinite turns with Trade Routes, Time Warp, and Mystic Sanctuary. You have to pay mana for those turns but that's not really a problem when you get to take all the rest of them and you don't have to untap undisrupted for it to work. I understand wanting to discourage repetitive gameplay in general, but it's hardly the most powerful example.
Time for a Shuffle Up and Play: Banned Commander Edition
Braids isn’t the problem. It’s the discard and hand removal effects that accompany her to take away your options of dealing with her. Additionally, there is always one player at the table that runs no interaction meaning one or two players have to spend their resources keeping her in check as the other player(s) run away with the game. My time is valuable to me and by removing my lands hand and creatures with no follow up for win con is wasting my time in a spectacularly rude manner. The worst part is, people that play these decks don’t tell you how tuned they tend to be. “It’s not that kind of deck”…. At least stax and prison I can play within. My two cents.
I agree with the number 1 pick. Everyone will know what's going in your hand and graveyard. Also, thanks for the secret lairs. (Not Sarcasm)
Primeval Titan and Panoptic mirror definitely need a unban, IMO. Also, LUTRI! FREE THE OTTER! The companion Errata would make it a bit more balanced now!
Primeval's power level was a bit much at one point, but ever since the Precon power levels have massively been upgraded and refined, It has since shifted to game ending, to great value. Plus, the lands enter tapped, meaning that without shenanigans (spelunking, amulet of Vigor, Seedborn Muse), its gonna require a bit of waiting. Now it is not limited to basics, which means that Field of the dead, Thespian's Stage/Dark Depths, and other lands that cause stuff to occur are fair game, but at 6 mana, thats pretty fair.
And Land destruction is pretty Taboo, but primeval titan being unbanned would help promote it a bit, and maybe make it a bit less so.
Panoptic, like you said, only copycasts off of an upkeep trigger, which means that it cannot be exploited with an infinite untap combo, and is more mana intensive the bigger the spell you want on it. Plus, if it gets taken out by removal, not only do you lose it, you lose the card imprinted, meaning its even bigger of a loss of resources. And the card you might want to imprint for game winning might not be in your hand.
A friend whips a Braids deck out at commander night? I’d rather not play the game at all tyvm
Professor, shrug off the hate from Secret Lair. I know you're not the problem. Keep up the good fight!
As for the banned cards... honorable mention: Biorhythm. I love that you mentioned this, since there is *UNBANNED* version of this card in Shaman of Forgotten Ways. In some respects, you can argue that it has 4 more mana than Biorhythm and takes two turns to resolve instead of one, and requires you to have *formidable* active... but other than the two turn activation, everything else is semantics in green. Why isn't Shaman banned? I don't think Biorhythm should be.
As for the real list, I pretty much stopped at Braids. THIS IS MY FAVORITE LEGENDARY CREATURE OF ALL TIME!! (What does this say about me as a person?) I understood her banning as a commander when there were two ban lists - one for legendary creatures that couldn't be your commander but could still be 99, and one for cards that couldn't be played at all. When you run a turbo black deck with lots of rocks, mana doublers like Nirkana Rev and Extraplanar Lens, and just plonk her down turn after turn, watching your opponents sac lands while you just sac her to herself gets very mean. I somewhat understood her continued banning because she has the potential to be a land destruction deck from the command zone.
But...
As an addition for your points for Braids not being the only 4 mana mono-colored terror of the command zone, she's also now sitting WELL with many other "everyone sac stuff" effects in the game. WotC seems to produce a new "When [this] enters, each player sacrifices a creature." creature every few years, so much so that Muldrotha is riddled with them. Braids also doesn't hit enchantments or planeswalkers, the latter of which wasn't around when she was printed. There are also ways of basically building a Braids' style deck without her, which essentially moots her point to being banned. Even more, they went so far as to make another version of her that *DOES* hit enchantments and lands, but instead gives the opponents the choice whether they want to sacrifice or not.
She should be unbanned. The format wasn't warped *AT ALL* when they unbanned Worldfire, and I don't think we'll see too many Braids decks either... other than mine!
The answer should always be Shahrazad. Mostly because I find it funny.
When is my girl Emrakul, the Aeons Torn gonna get a comeback arc? Sometimes when a game goes long enough you need to drop something that makes everyone just give up!
Are banned because weird people think that a 15 cmc "win the Game" is Broken lmao
I really wish he had a podcast on Apple Podcasts or even Spotify that was regularly updated
Nothing should be banned in commander. Well, maybe Islands.
Challenge accepted!
As a blue player, yeah probably
As someone who runs an Intuition in my Muldrotha deck, I find it hilarious Gifts Ungiven is banned. An Intuition almost always means I win on the spot.
The panopticon mirror can wait until the end step before your untap to imprint the sorcery or instant, so I can see that getting a bit tricky. Especially if you cheat the Panoptic Mirror in at that end step also.
Oh god, Gifts Ungiven…
Still no on Sway the stars. I still say it’s easier to rule 0 in cards than to rule 0 them out and this just resets the game. Too many people would keep hitting the reset button and dragging out the game. Whereas Coalition victory and Biorhythm go for the win with what you have.
Maybe on Braids, I feel like she’ll just get abused to lock people out of the game or it just wastes people’s removal and allows others to run for the finish with no interaction
No for Gifts ungiven, objectively a 4 card tutor especially for something like Wilhelt or you recast from grave and go again
And sadly no for Golos. Not because he’s too homogenous but I think his ability has aged poorly. There’s already a lot of problems in the game and Golos can hit insanely good cards with omniscience stapled onto the commander, let alone any amount of top deck manipulation could run away with the game
On 2nd thought no to Coalition Victory. I feel like people would target the WUBRG deck just on meta knowledge even if the card is objectively not that good which just leads to unfun play patterns for whoever is playing the deck. Their commander or any 5 color permanent turns into remove on the spot regardless of if they have it or not
One unconsidered thing Coalition Victory being banned causes, it makes people MUCH less likely to go out of their way to destroy mana fixers for 5c decks. Like a Leyline of the Guildpact goes from 'eh kind of innocuous' to 'oh that needs to GO' if you know they might have coalition victory.
It both gives 5 color players an effortless wincon and a reason for the table to always gang up on them. It's bad in all cases.
Which is a good thing, imo. Even if MLD is still always going to be frowned upon, attacking rocks, targeted land destruction, hitting major mana fixers, etc. should be a bigger part of the game and it would be a healthier format for it.
I love how major mtg ytbers have 5 minutes of ads before starting their video to fund mtg card addiction
I think Golos should stay banned as it's design is awful for the format as a whole and just tells WotC to stop doing that kind of thing. I get the argument is "Commander is casual so who gives a shit about what's legal?" but the problem I have with Golos is that he becomes this creativity void that makes people run a bunch of good cards just because you're on 5 colors. Every time I played against a Golos deck it felt like I was going against the same value pile of good cards with a couple of cards from a strategy sprinkled in. Sure he was the best Gates commander, but with all the support they got and also got two new Commanders in Nine-Fingers and Omo, which both invite different ways to build the deck. I don't think we need Golos or designs like him.
Sway the Stars is a sorcery that costs 3 more mana, but Sway the Stars does not say "nonland"
Free my boy Prime Time. Been over 10 years, the world is ready.
My friends theory is to unban everything and just let the meta sort itself out, then use that data to recreate the ban list of organic shunning of cards.
Prof: "Commander is a casual format; just play what you all agree to!"
Also Prof: "Some of these cards really need to be unbanned so people can play them."
The banlist exists to facilitate shuffling up and playing with semi-random people you come across; to try and create a somewhat consistent environment with interactions that people will generally enjoy. I agree that some of the mentioned cards can probably be unbanned for those purposes and agree that the current banlist is horribly out of date (especially given all the power creep), but please let's stop defaulting back to "it's a casual format so we should favor nót banning cards" because I have barely any control over what someone I don't know will rock up to the table with in their 99.
So by your logic, a banlist negates any rule zero talk necessity. By that logic, I should be completey happy playing a precon vs a tuned Cedh deck because we are playing with the same banlist, therefore no discussion needed, right? However, IF discussion of playstyle and game goals is important, that negates a need for a banlist. We don't need both a discussion and a banlist, and a banlist alone would be insufficient, whereas a good discussion (outside of tournament play) is all you need.
@@derrickpaulson3093 I think you meant to respond to someone else because your comment doesn't map onto what I said. We need a banlist (or some other limiter) for playing with strangers and loose acquaintances, and Rule Zero for people we know. It's not feasible to customize a play group's meta every time you sit down with new people.
you missed the most important line: "commander is a broken game that only works when we pretend it does"
"I just wanna do good in the world...
...through capitalism.
How's that workin' out for ya, prof?
...It's alright."
No ethical consumption etc.
Can't believe they're blaming you for the Marvel Secret Lair disaster. Please guys, behave!