EDH Banned Cards Tier List | Ranking all the EDH Banned Cards

[@nickroyer3893]

I used to use Golos for my mazes end deck, my playgroup voted instantly to unban it. Absolutely a "Sheldon lost to it"

[@damo9961]

Its not strong and was never considered strong - its banned for being boring and stupid. Something like 40% of decks were Golos goodstuff piles

[@Monkeydudem2]

Exactly. Glad it's gone. Too boring.

[@rajamicitrenti1374]

Lets you play any card in your deck, lets you cast 3 cards per round for free, and cheats on it's own Commander Tax. There's no theme to it to build around.

[@Uefeti]

Golos is a weird, but reasonable ban. It’s flavorless, themeless and kinda tasteless. You can build whatever from it, and It’s literally pilots itself. Play patterns are extremely similar, play Golos, ramp to 7 with golos ability, find mana-fix land, play 7 mana ability. Thats it. Golos was especially bad for casual, because he could easily stomp dedicated thematic decks, in their own theme. Kenrith is MUCH better

[@At0m1cpickle]

Worth noting a major reason the dexterity cards are consistently banned tmk is accessibility reasons, in case a player is actually unable to use the cards as they are meant to be used because of physical impairments. I think due to this there's basically no chance they ever get unbanned anywhere, and that's probably the correct call. They'd probably be fair game for silver bordered/acorn magic still, but not in black border.

[@Chidon0]

they cant just have a judge flip for them?

[@rajamicitrenti1374]

@@Chidon0 Considering part of the concept of the cards is to try to flip the card such that it lands on the card(s) that you want destroyed, no, not really.

[@mlanier3533]

I knew the guy who got shaharazd got banned. He was at gencon in 2010 when he played it with hivemind in play. Sheldon was watching the game and later it was banned.

[@mightyfp]

14:49 as a 93/94 and vintage player, library does not go in everything. It's a very challenging card to learn to use because you're inadvertently limiting yourself to the number of cards you can play to keep the library open. If you're winning the extra cards are of minimal value and if you're behind you're limiting board development to dig.

[@rajamicitrenti1374]

I would agree with you if it didn't also have the ability to generate colorless mana. The fact that it can makes it practically no downside to play (outside of like Jodah, Archmage Eternal decks), even if you never get the benefit of the card draw ability, makes it too good. Also, current-day Commander has a crap-ton of options to draw a load of cards and constantly keep your hand full, which didn't exist back then.

[@KingBobXVI]

@@rajamicitrenti1374 - Thing is, there are a lot of colorless utility lands that do useful things, but they aren't auto-includes in every deck. Colorless lands have a cost in that they make your mana base less consistent, and imo that's enough for library. If you're using it for mana, you're not using it for its main benefit.

[@KingBobXVI]

Imo, the best argument against it is graveyard decks - since you always draw on your first turn, you can play library, draw back up to 8, and then get a free discard, setting yourself up to reanimate on turn 2. However, there are a lot of better ways to do that, lol (like, you know, entomb). Also Bazaar is legal, so, eh ("best argument" doesn't mean it's a _good_ argument).

[@zacw8869]

I think the major issue that it has in commander way more than fast formats like vintage is that it does operate just as t1 free card. It's like sol ring for a card instead of mana. You draw it every once in a while and your turn 1 play is practically a 1 mana draw 2 (since you get the land and the card). And you can consistently fire it on turn 2 for little cost, so almost operates like recall. You don't need to use it every turn to make what they are saying true. It absolutely would be in every deck.

[@Xenagos]

The comparing of flash and thoracle is so funny because flash got you thoracle. Like it’s not a comparison they’re played together.

[@kwagmeijer26]

Tolarian Academy is so much more busted now than when it was first banned thanks to things like treasure and food.

[@Blacksunstoneful]

also there are multiple artifact lands you can slam into your deck

[@Arvaniz]

Exactly. It should be in "Exiled from existence". It's on a whole other level than Gaea's Cradle.

[@RobinRajamoosh]

Yea I'm always so surprised when people don't realize how broken that card would be if it were unbanned. It can slot into almost any blue deck.

[@epthopper6915]

Tolarian academy would have a greater impact than any of the power 9 on commander, and it wouldn’t even be close.

[@hesperosmariposa9172]

Y'all have great energy, put in the time and work and I bet you'll have thousands of subscribers in no time

[@rulezeroedh844]

Thank you so much!!

[@JayMoney11118]

Do you like armagedon? How about wrath of god? How about mass hand destruction spells? Now combine those three cards, and then make it cost two mana. Thats what balance is

[@shanewroe18]

I agree that balance is very powerful...you can work around it however. It is fun in control. It could be better if nerfed.

[@zoltarth]

I don't think that having something banned because you don't like the playstyle (namely braids) is the right principle to ban cards on. IMO it should only be if something is far too much for the game

[@MrGargal26]

Yeah and even a turn 1 braids dies to a revolted fatal push, swords, path, rapid hybrid, pongify, tons of 1 card kill spells

[@dakodastevens8972]

It always shocks me at how much waffling and discussion there is about Erayo on these sorts of videos. The card is absolutely miserable, I remember it from kamigawa standard, it is trivial to flip, it counts itself as a spell so you only need 3 spells to flip it, and it locks out the entire table until someone can manage to play 2 spells in one turn, one of which has to remove enchantments. On top of that, it's incredibly hard to actually play out from under it because it shuts off your ramp so double spelling is almost impossible. On top of that, if you do manage to remove it, they can probably flip it again immediately. Card was a mistake, has some of the worst play patterns associated with it and playing against it is one of the most miserable experiences you will ever have. Should be exiled from existence.

[@dominorima1147]

on top of that there are cards that say you can only play one card a turn completely locking out any play when combo'd with erayo

[@murrowmench1565]

I played Braid’s Cabal Minion. *Never* unban that card. There is never a point when it survives on the field where it’s fair, and it turns games into non-games if you’re first in turn order and drop it turn two. It can’t be allowed

[@Commander_Claw]

The Odyssey set was my introduction to MTG. That was my first rare. Love that card!

[@untieredegg]

Sits in the same vein as Tergrid, Sheoldred, or even the New Braids. Not fun at all, but could be unbanned.

[@Jessalakasam]

Chaos Orb can't be unbanned because disabled people may be unable to do what the card asks you to. That's why dexterity is banned

[@rulezeroedh844]

Oh ok that makes a lot of sense

[@wbw911]

but we have a lot of illiterate people playing magic... jkjkjk don't stone me

[@dakodastevens8972]

Chaos orb also has some super hilarious interactions. Like if you turn it into a creature and mutate on it, you end up flipping a pile of cards, and if you create tokens of it, things get weird, because they aren't actually cards just representations of things, they don't actually have a standardized size, so you could potentially flip something much much larger.

[@BresciGaetano]

​​​​​​@@dakodastevens8972Chaos orb is played in "old school 93-94". It's so busted that the format run an errata where it can only have one target and you need to name it before. Back in the days people had to play with all the cards spread around to avoid orb mass whipe. The format is non sactioned and don't care about woke corporate politics ban. I'm pretty sure anyway the players would autoban from their deck in the case the oppo really could not play it becouse physical problems. It Is a friendly format. But is the funniest card to play and the one that trigger nostalgia the most. Also technically with old orb you could strip it into peaces and whipe all board (someone did apparently in some old turnment). That's why they worded that way the unglued version back then. Fair to say now it would be a pretty expensive move :D

[@walls_of_skulls6061]

But my favorite zone is “at least 3 ft above the table”

[@chaosbuster1275]

I’m going to go over the ones I disagree with Balance - Do not unban this card. At all. Notice how the card doesn’t mention artifacts or enchantments, of Planeswalkers. If you unban it, it would be an auto include in every deck built around either card type. With Artifacts, it’s not hard to dump a bunch of mana rocks, cast balance, and your opponents have no cards, probably lost some lands, while you have a crap load of mana, your going to win that game. Enchantress? You mean the archetype that turns 50% of it’s deck into can trips, yeah casting balance is going to make it a miserable crawl for your opponents to catch up. With Planeswalkers, just have no creatures, cast it, and now it’s a cakewalk to get Teferi Master of Time to his ult and win you the game. There is a reason Sheldon said this would be the last card he’s unban. Emurakel - This card is not comparable to Blightsteel. Blightsteel is not hard to deal with on turn 4 or so which is when it’s likely coming out. Either cast one of many exile spells, or just block with a 2/2 and your fine. With Emurkel, the moment they swing at you, your just gonna lose and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Golos - I understand why you think this card was unfair to unban, but I’m telling you as someone who fought against multiple Golos decks he needed to be banned. He just encouraged players to build “janky 5 color decks” that would always take over the game and make it frustrating. Yes, there’s still 5 color good stuff commanders like Kenrith, but Golos enabled 5 color good stuff way to easily, letting you tutor for the best land, while having an activated ability that would let you run away with value. Also, good luck removing him when he pays for his own commander tax. When he was legal, he was the best commander you could ever play and there was no competition. At least Kenrith has competition for best commanders. Prophet of Kruphix is just a card that really does not work with Commander. What this card reads is “you have 4 turns.” Sure, you could get muse and vedalken, but those are 2 cards and 9 mana, this is 1 card for 5. Simic is already the ultimate generic good stuff color. We do not need this card at all. Rofellos is not comparable to Marywn at all. Marywn loses a lot of mana when you boardwipe. You can’t deal with Rofellos’s mana source. Even if you cast mass land destruction, cool, green is the ramp color they’ll catch back up again. Also, he’s 2 mana. You have to kill him like 4 times before he’s hard to cast, and when you do. Guess what, now they’re gonna cast massive creatures that are going to take over and you can’t deal with them because you exhausted your resources dealing with Rofellos. Sway of the Stars - No. just, no. Worldfire at least ends the game. Sway of the Stars is gonna make it last an extra hour. You absolutely CANNOT UNBAN PRIMEVAL TITAN!!! Not when Field of the Dead exist. I already despise that stupid land because there’s almost nothing you can do to stop the onslaught of Zombies. Having a creature that always lets you get that land and trigger multiple times would make me want to just scoop every game I see it.

[@leviponce7730]

Balance is fine if you play it "fairly" but you'll quickly find out the right way to balance is busted as all hell and is effectively a 2 mana one with nothing the table

[@dhantefranklin336]

It's hilarious how often I hear that balance could be unbanned. It's such a weird and uneducated take.

[@leviponce7730]

@@dhantefranklin336 yeah I mean I can sorta forgive people not realizing how insanely broken it is since you'd have to watch vintage or some kinda cube to see it in action but when something is restricted in vintage of all things that should definitely be an indicator of how messed up the card is.

[@wchenful]

I actually agree on the take that Balance can be unbanned. In 1v1 it's very broken but in a 1v3, you need to have a significant amount of setup to outscale 3 other people (since you will most likely become public enemy #1 after resolving it).

[@rajamicitrenti1374]

@@wchenful Or you just play a deck completely built around artifacts, enchantments, and/or planeswalkers, which aren't affected by Balance.

[@wchenful]

@@rajamicitrenti1374 I play a lot of cEDH - that's the power tier that Balance will be most relevant in. Most casual tables will probably frown upon it like any other mass land destruction effects. In cEDH, Balance would not be particularly strong. The majority of decks run a large suite of 0-1 cmc countermagic, artifact and ritual ramp and tutors. Balance would function as a speedbump for most decks and a decently strong setup for something like a rhystic study / mystic remora. But it would probably be fine - not an auto-include in all white decks.

[@Morphling92]

Doesn’t immediately put the best and most broken land in the exile it category. Oh boy here we go

[@rulezeroedh844]

BAN SOL RING, UNBAN LIBRARY , MWAHAHAHAHA

[@Skyfysh]

Really wish the rules committee would just stone the fuck up and unban some of these. Are some potentially miserable? Absolutely. But there are plenty of legal cards that are just as miserable to play against.

[@rulezeroedh844]

Yeah! like as long you talk with your playgroup and let them know, a lot of these would be totally fine

[@Arvaniz]

I fully agree.

[@autown]

Golos is a terrible ban considering we have Najeela, and Sisay (besides kenrith)

[@dark_rit]

You cannot say don't unban braids, but could unban balance. Braids is a neutered, pathetic imitation of what balance does. Balance could be on exiled from existence for how broken it is as it isn't very hard to make a deck that makes balance a one-sided card thanks to artifacts just existing.

[@DeanJayJackmanJr]

One Is in the command zone and the other in the 99

[@jaxoncole8132]

Idk how you don’t win with paradox on board

[@JoshuaPantalleresco]

My commentary on your list: First Turn Biorhythm feels terrible. It's so doable. Dropping life like that shouldn't be that easy. Shaman requires a turn and can be dealt with. Bio can come out of nowhere. Gifts Ungiven is insane in any recursion strategy. You'd have to ban yaegmoth's will to make it fair. I've played Library of Alexandria. It's insane. It's on the Academy's level of power. Free draw is crazy, and it's not that hard to keep your hand huge. Sway of the Stars just wrecks lifegain strategies, and doesn't exile. It's a little more degenerate than timetwister because of the drop to 7 for all. Primeval Titan's land stuff takes over so fast. If it was just basic lands, it'd be alright. But it's all lands, which is nuts. Sharazad...You will not enjoy that experience if it ever happens to you. It feels so bad, especially if the card is played over and over again via eternal witness or snapcaster like effects. That's why it's banned. It's not busted, but it takes so...long.

[@9forMortalMen]

Balance is not a cool card. It makes too many non-games where player 1 vomits their hand of fast mana, tutors up balance, and destroys everyone’s hand. I’d unban so much before I unbanned balance.

[@Clemsonalumnus]

So Shahrazad was originally not banned in EDH and I played Group Hug where your only win condition was people scooping to you making the game last forever. When you Twincast a Shahrazad, that’s usually the scoop. You have to play the full game, with all players, as a sub-game; then another full game, with all players, as yet another sub-game. You can make a match take forever. You can make a single game of EDH take 12+ hours. It also gets confusing about generals/commanders and which ones are in play and still in the command zone/general zone, how many times they’ve been cast, etc.

[@kaba9926]

The most obvious one imo is emrakul.

[@funnymcfunfuns1455]

Obvious unban or ban?

[@AugustusAus]

Great video! Only tip is to be careful talking over each other, makes it different to follow.

[@rulezeroedh844]

Thanks! That's actually great feedback thank you

[@AugustusAus]

@@rulezeroedh844 no worries, looking forward to more content.

[@UVAFoozle]

Great discussion. Also love me some Balance I appreciate hearing could unban. Sheldon lost to it made me laugh.

[@NeoHellPoet]

I think the kneejerk reaction to some of the power cards is missing the fact that they're significantly worse in commander than in regular magic. Ancestral drawing 3 cards is... fine. It's a good effect, you would play this card in basically every blue deck, but turn 1 dark ritual, necro, draw 20 is a thing. In 1 on 1 this is broken because you have fewer cards, multiples of your key cards and one opponent. In EDH, if you're playing a high powered game or you're in cEDH, Mystic Remora is frequently a better ancestral and the card is very far from being broken. In low power games, the average card quality is usually low enough to where drawing 3 random cards doesn't give you that much of an edge. If Sol Ring was the ultra expensive card and recall was printed in every blue edh deck, the overall power level of EDH would be significantly lower. The moxen need to be banned because mana rocks are already good and more free mana rocks is just asking for even more turn one wins. Time Walk should stay banned not even because it's 2 mana, but because it's 2 mana and doesn't exile itself. It's way to easy to go infinite and it's way to much value all the times that you don't. Even at it's worst, where it's an explore, it's still decent. Lotus though, much like Recall, not that big a deal. Again, if we had Lotuses instead of Sol rings in every pre con, the powerlevel would be lower. In a fair deck, it sits between OK and actively bad if you're looking for action late game, and you draw mana. In combo it's really good for a lot of loops, but it's also not really necessary. Most decks that would use Lotus to it's full potential already use LED to the same end, so you could ether add Lotus giving the decks a bit more consistency or remove LED to add a different engine that's maybe a bit more resilient but with no consistency gain. They're still all in combo decks, exclusively the stuff of cEDH where the power level is acceptable, and in casual it's just a fun card that means you get to do stuff sooner and maybe become the arch enemy. The real issue with the cards is price. They should stay banned because they're unavailable or if they become available, they should be allowed to at least have a chance in EDH. If the point of the ban list is to sculpt the game around casual play, recall and lotus deserve to join twister as being in the game.

[@shinylapras7710]

I disagree with your assessment of Lotus. We have a worse Lotus in the format through Jeweled and it has already became an auto include in most decks at higher power levels. The ability to gain 3 mana for free, even once is too strong to be within the format.

[@TheAngelRaven]

It truly does confuse me how an entire card is banned, even when following reprints of the card/s are nothing like the original. Crusade was printed in a duel deck with Elspeth. Banning a card because its toxic/doesn't function [Ante]/etc. is one thing, but because the original art was racist? Seriously? Come on, grow up. Also, Bad Braids should be unbanned. Cool, player 4 got it out turn 2. Now they just turn the game into a slog as they - assumably - go sideways over and over since no one - not even THEM - can get ahead. Edit: Iona should be unbanned, per a prior comment of 'Don't you play Commander for fun?'. If you're playing for fun, you aren't shutting out the mono-color deck unless they are about to win. Yes, she's unfun if you are mono, but if you're all playing for fun then you know that if you would win on your next turn, it was earned.

[@chaedi8457]

Can't stand Iona due to a 'friend' of mine. At the time EDH was still pretty new and I only had one deck which was mono blue. It was pretty decent and I enjoyed it, but since my buddy knew I only had the one deck, he went out and purchased enough copies of Iona to put one into every one of his decks and modified his decks to ensure they could play white. It was one of the most annoying things I have ever seen someone do when it came to gaming.

[@hugocovarrubias7080]

ur friend is an ass

[@Arvaniz]

That shows that the problem is the player, more than the card itself. ;-)

[@maribakumon]

Honestly with how busted early game mana is rn I don't see why they couldn't unban the moxen

[@princeDinger]

Yeah they're really not that egregious in Commander.

[@rajamicitrenti1374]

I imagine part of it (and Black Lotus) is not letting those become a barrier to entry for cEDH, given how few legit copies of each there are and how expensive those are. But also, unbanning them would create another advantage for decks built around commanders with more colors. You already have a situation where the limiting of card pools based on colors already is a bigger penalty for most decks than the increased efficiency that come from not needing to worry about mana color balance and mana fixing. With the moxen unbanned, mono-color decks can only run one of them, but 5-color decks get to (and always will, if proxying) run all 5, making it much more relyable that you will get a busted early-game ramp start.

[@alanbrowne2548]

I think the sheldon lost to it category should be way longer lol.

[@leonfriedemann9151]

I think emrakul could be unbanned. Same for Primetime, and primordial. Primetime sure warps the game arround it, but it's the same with the green treasure dragon. Primordial is the same. Sure you could reanimate it turn 2 or 1 or something, but is it any difference to having some other very strong card reanimated at that time in the game. Or somebody go of turn 2 or 3. I think it depends a lot on what people want to play. And whether there goal is to do broken stuff. If so there is not really a difference to the broken stuff we have already. So conclusion: either we ban a lot more broken cards or unban a lot of the banned ones, since they don't have a big difference in powerlevel or are equally miserable.

[@rulezeroedh844]

I really like this take, and like it's one of those things where you should just let people know you're running these cards so that they aren't surprised by it

[@Devinoch]

You're out of your mind about Primordial. It + Conjurer's Closet is generally cast 5 Stone Rains at opponents on every end step, in addition to the 5 Stone Rains you cast when you played it first.

[@Devinoch]

@Corey Inokuchi You're out of your mind for that statement. Go watch Conjurer's Closet + ANY powerful ETB effect. Now imagine they're every turn. And realize, I'm not arguing for Conjurer's Closet to be banned. Honestly, the number of people with their "hot takes" about play environments they weren't in is INSANE. I've been in EDH since the VERY early days. When I tell you I've seen way more degenerate decks than you can imagine, you can choose not to believe me, but that's your mistake.

[@Devinoch]

@Corey Inokuchi Sylvan Primordial is stone rain each opponent + farseek myself each time it ETBs. I was there when people were doing it and blinking it 2-4 times. (See this plus Deadeye Navigator.) Having fun being eternally locked out of the game yet? No? Literally we all just scooped everytime it hit the board, because we were tired of having no lands. GTFO.

[@Devinoch]

@Corey Inokuchi Great. By your own admission, you don't understand the assignment. Good luck, kid. You're angry and without a cause or a clue.

[@sarico7827]

I'll be honest I want more bans but I also like the idea of tiers or formats. Like Legacy edh for an example, with like less bans and even more bans. As an older player of magic I guess now oh man the age gap. Some of those cards could be unbanned but I'd demand other cards getting banned. Like Prime time I remember him and we even made a special rule in the play group that just used him to search basic lands. Still even with that every green deck used him.

[@LamnOfficial]

I have mice in my apartment and the squeaky transition sound scared the shit out of me coming through my headphones

[@MageSkeleton]

i feel like there should had been more "categories" because there are legendary creatures on the "ban list" and you could easily just have the creature "banned from being in the command zone" which by extension could also include any other exile zone associated with starting the game having access to the card such as Companion. Because let's be honest, Lutri would be an interesting commander as we already have a few legendaries that can do what it does but it was "banned" because then it doesn't become a "commander staple" where everyone ends up having to run Blue/Red just so they can compete because everyone has it as a COMPANION but it could be a special category of "allow as commander, or 99 only" and i'm sure there's a few other categories that should had been considered.

[@MarvelOfRain]

Not sure if you played back in the day but there used to be multiple catagories - banned and banned as a commander to be exact. They rightfully so got rid of it because it was confusing.

[@funnymcfunfuns1455]

Too confusing. Wotc takes into account how confusing mtg is for new players and there are already too many formats, errata and rulings. I played from 1995 to 2009, came back a few years ago and it took me months to figure out out what was going on. To a new player buying a booster pack it has to be absolute madness just to play a game other than sealed.

[@blakezekin553]

Balance would be fine, if it was either more mana, or exiled itself as it resolved. as it stands though, its way too easy to recur.

[@shanewroe18]

Agreed errata the cards make it 4 mana and I'd be okay with it. I'd say then unban it.

[@SvviftDeath]

I am all for unbanning Prophet of Kruphix. I played it and played against it during it's time and while it is still one of the best creatures in a creature deck it is far from the current power scaling. I am basing this of nothing and am heavily biased in this front. I want my best card back for my Roon deck. I only got to play 3x more then everyone else. That's not that overpowered, right?

[@jamincortez]

I hope you guys only take this constructively, but I don't really like your chemistry in this video. There was a bit of interrupting each other, but the more concerning part is all the awkward little disagreements. It's fine to have and express different opinions, but perhaps you guys should have picked one of you to be the ultimate decider, or switched off every other card or something. It seemed to get awkward whenever you two disagreed but then had to put the card somewhere. It's definitely a cool idea for a video though. Hope to see more fun MTG videos!

[@jeremyblackheart]

Prime Time warped the format around it. Grab Cabal Coffers + Urborg, Dark Depths + Stage, ect. It'd 100% be in every green deck. Prophet of Kruphix gives you 4 turns a cycle. Was banned pretty quickly after release and I remember people asking if others were running it before playing with them.

[@burnsboy101]

That was more than 10 years ago, it would be fine now

[@GrizzneyGames]

I was super excited for this video idea but, I can't watch it with all of the effects with my epilepsy. 😭 Still leaving a like, though! You two seem cool!

[@rulezeroedh844]

We're so sorry, we should have thought of that, will definitely work on making the videos easier to watch from here on out

[@GrizzneyGames]

@@rulezeroedh844 That sounds so awesome of you! To be fair, it does look pretty cool! 😎

[@GoldoGolderson]

goofy ass concept for a video, but I liked it.

[@TubaDooter]

Hullbreacher's problem was in stopping the card draw. Flash wasn't great and making treasures is strong with wheels, but Smothering Tithe *exists*. They actually should make another Lutri but without the companion ability.

[@robertmiller2814]

omg unban balance and don't limited resources?

[@bradtramel9467]

subbed for the mom jeans shirt

[@tbaggins5349]

15:25 library isnt even remotely a good comparison to sol ring or mana crypt. Library gives you effectively an extra draw every turn while also being the historically second HARDEST permanent type in the game to remove outside of basic lands. Library has no downside at all much like karakas. Dont have 7 cards in hand to draw? Still just a land that taps for mana. Its just entirely to effecient even in a multi-player format to be fine imo.

[@jeremykline6687]

Hard unban

[@dark_rit]

Sol ring and mana crypt are better than library. Only reason library is banned is because it's expensive, but there is tons of card draw available in the format. If you let me open on turn 1 library or sol ring in each game, I'm picking sol ring. It isn't hard to destroy nonbasic lands in a format like commander where people play all sorts of nonbasics you want to blow up because some nonbasic lands like coffers are just that good.

[@johnasenfranks5860]

@@dark_rit hot take: sol ring should be banned

[@sanfranfan53]

Library isn’t a powerful, broken card.

[@man.newton]

Got a few to disagree with your placement: 1 - Balance. If I dump my hand into mana rocks and then cast Balance turn 1 (which is doable), it's an instant Mindslicer. Picture this: Land, Sol Ring, Mox Opal, Arcane Signet, Balance. I've just unloaded 5 cards out of my hand, meaning that if it resolves, everyone discards down to 3. 2 - Golos. The problem I have with Golos isn't that he is "generically the best 5-color commander" but instead that he pays for at least half of his commander tax every time you play him. Similar to Yuriko or Derevi, cards that cheat the commander tax aren't a good thing. 3 - Prophet of Kruphix. I played in a reasonably high-level pod when Theros released, and this was endless misery. Every game devolved into finding Prophet or finding a clone to clone the Prophet already on the board, and it dragged the game to a halt in a way that no other card before or since ever has, except maybe Paradox Engine. 4 - Rofellos. The Roffelcopter is the most insane mana accelerant in the format, bar none. I've played in a "what if" league at my LGS and I cast a Boundless Realms on turn 4. 5 - Shahrazad. If you're not "in the know", then you probably don't realize the judge nightmare of casting Burning Wish in a Shahrazad subgame, to take the Shahrazad off the stack in the main game and put it in your hand in the subgame.

[@niccolofarina3773]

why would iona be too strong? it would be too strong just to be played against a mono color and I don't think there are many mono color cbeing played, so a way to remove that card since you play 3 to 5 colors on average, well there's always...

[@chaosbuster1275]

Yeah, but this card has no purpose other then to basically lock a mono color deck out of the game.

[@Nunubotz2]

i agree with all except for prophet and gift unigiven, gift ungiven is an i win card it should never leave the ban zone, you only select wich card you want to loose to, and prophet was so damly op that was the people begging to get it ban in the forums, it was at that time that simic became it's own color on the color pie lmao.

[@totalvoid6234]

Fully expected Rofellos to be removed from existence. Turn 2 Rofellos, turn 3 6 mana monster or combo. Every single game.

[@Verd254]

I use golos in a chromatic black deck myself. Fun commander. Glad I can still use him in historic brawl on arena.

[@wchenful]

Channel should be higher than lotus or ancestral - with 40 life to work with in commander and a guaranteed build-around from the command zone, it's way more broken since there's practically no RNG component. Prophet of Kruphix is also kind of messed up. Usually, you drop it on your turn, and from that moment on, you take a turn on everyone else's turn (greatly increasing the amount of time people have to wait) - and since your lands untap, you can protect it with countermagic. If it survives through a whole round, there's a 90% chance you've won. Re: dexterity cards - the reason you probably don't want to unban them is if you're using a prized alpha dual land worth thousands, you don't want some rando pelting it with their cards.

[@linezero9016]

if you do a similar video, can you explain what the card does? that way some of us can just listen to the audio

[@stephenball2108]

Rofellos is not a reasonable unban. When your commander just reads “you always have access to 6 mana on turn 3” that’s a problem. Marwyn decks can pump out a ton of mana and then always get set back to the Stone Age in a board wipe. If you have Rofellos and they clear your board on turn 4, turn 5 it’s “play a land, recast Rofellos, if you don’t remove him then next turn I have 10 mana”

[@untieredegg]

Honestly, if some of these cards were just errata'd slightly differently they'd be fine. If Karakas was only you control it'd still be exceptionally good, but not ban territory. The black Braids would be fine at 5 or 6 mana. Tinker would be fine if it worked like Eldritch Evolution or some such.

[@RowanHeartwood]

I have very strong feeling about Shahrazad. It's banned because it breaks the game as its rules now are. In Magic your deck has a minimum number of cards, and you will always start the subgame below that number. You cast it, roll off, start the subgame, and each player proceeds to lose the game in turn order because the libraries are illegally sized. Furthermore, in commander, the colour identity rule is broken because Shahrazad uses only the library in the new game, not the command zone, thereby making whatever deck you have an illegal deck. Finally, this takes the game into a meta state like ante, and if you forget to put cards back into the new game, or accidentally shuffle the last game's cards into the new one, and you break both games. Add to the fact that this takes up an awful lot of physical space, and time, not to mention the disagreements this card is sure to spark, and this becomes the worst card in Magic the Gathering.

[@najawin8348]

Yawgmoth's Bargain is 6 mana, it's fine. Strong, very strong, but fine. (Especially if you're allowing Balance, it's comparable in power level.) Paradox Engine _should_ be a guaranteed win if the player knows what they're doing when they start going off. Flash is exile from existence, card cannot come off the banlist. First and foremost, flash decks _played ThOracle,_ and the best deck when flash was banned was an incredibly optimized 90 cards or so with 10 pieces you could argue about called sushi hulk. It had something like a 40% win rate at tables (remember, baseline is 25%) and if you accounted for the fact that there might be multiple sushi hulk piles at a table a "sushi hulk" deck would win like 60% of the time. The basic form of the deck could also be bought for $100, meaning that it encouraged people to play it at non cedh tables, because a slightly less powerful version of the deck (but still more than strong enough to compete at most tables) was incredibly cheap with obvious and well developed combo lines / well understood theory. It encouraged some of the worst gameplay ever - where players simply _wouldn't attempt to win_ because whenever they did another player would try to flash in their combo at instant speed, winning on top of them. (Same principle made it difficult for people to develop their boards. If you tap out you open yourself up to people flashing in the win, so people played as few cards as possible, only cards that generated tons of advantage, tutors, and very specific hate pieces. Noting, of course, that the usual hate pieces - things like Rule of Law - weren't helpful, and actually helped flash decks out.) Okay, so the flash + hulk combo is toxic. But is hulk maybe the problem instead? Yeah, no. One of the side effects of this is that it called people's attention to flash as a card in general, which was one of Wizard's most egregious design mistakes ever printed. You can have *_any etb or ltb/death trigger for two cards + 2 mana._* Can you think of ways to break this? I certainly can. (Flash OmniRector is one of the more famous, but things like Flash Bearer of the Heavens allow you an instant speed boardwipe in Izzet for 2 mana.) Card is one of the most egregious mistakes ever printed, and the fact that the RC didn't ban it sooner is a testament to their own stuborness. Nah, Golos is v v strong. You could _probably_ unban him, but there's legit reasons not to. (It is weird that they called out Kenrith rather than Najeela in the ban post though.) Iona could def be unbanned. Very few people play monocolor, and the guy who got it banned hates all stax pieces. It's very rarely a problem. Yeaaaahhhh, don't unban Recurring Nightmare. Panopticon is proaaaaabably fine? Haven't looked at it in a second. But isochron already causes problems and this is isochron but also for sorceries. Primordial is fine, win more. Prophet is bonkers, cannot. Sundering's doable. Not thrilling, but doable. Upheaval is fine, if strong.

[@bonkstephenson4803]

My pod unbanned worldfire a while before the actual unban...and despite my efforts have only won a handful of games with it.

[@dakotajohnson4229]

Sorry, but Golos is in Arena and I have yet to have half the BS I pulled in a golos deck than I do in a Reaper King deck. Reaper King with 1 of 2 cards becomes an Arliegh-Burke class guided missile destroyer. Edit: My Reaper King deck has a combo which makes it so nobody, including RK, can win.

[@rajamicitrenti1374]

The funny thing about the ante cards is that most of them are bad, but one is unquestionably the most busted card ever printed. Makes Ancestral Recall look like a chump.

[@hansvader3791]

if library was unbanned it would shoot up to 2000 for a destroyed copy at least

[@rulezeroedh844]

reprint it in every edh precon lmao

[@hansvader3791]

@@rulezeroedh844 reserve list

[@rohansingh7698]

I think we can unban recall. As a singelton copy in a 100 card format thst has so much card draw, i don't think it's making a huge impact on any average game.

[@malmasterson3890]

Imo, the only viable excuse to unban Golos died with Baldur's Gate. In an era where so many new commanders are coming out and still being overshadowed despite many being really strong we don't need Golos further exacerbating the issue. "Oh, but Kenrith just took its place." Yeahhhhh no, lmao. Not even remotely close to Golos's level. The most popular commander in the format now is Atraxa, but even she isn't nearly as open ended & brokenly generic as Golos was. Could an argument have been made at the time to keep him legal? Sure, but now there's really no purpose to unbanning him since most of the niches he covered are filled anyways or were just stupid to begin with.

[@sanfranfan53]

Golos doesn’t deserve to be banned. Even though he can literally fill any niche strategy, plenty of people still chose to play different commanders; just because he can be “boring.” Just because he was popular, due to his generic ability, doesn’t mean he was running away and taking over all commander’s archetypes. Yeah, I get he was the undisputed #1 commander, ; and yeah, he could play just about any archetype. But when you break down the dozens of archetypes he plays in, he’s nowhere near the top commander in the vast majority of archetypes. Some people were just tired of playing against Golos. But I’d rather play against a diverse Golos deck over a ultra-saturated Atraxa Superfriends/Infect deck. And I am confident most people would feel the same. With the ridiculous selection of commanders to choose from now, there is absolutely no reason for Golos to stay banned.

[@malmasterson3890]

@sanfranfan53 Just because he wasn't #1 in all archetypes doesn't mean he didn't still have a monopoly over the format. Having our top commander be the most generic value commander ever just makes everything feel that much more stale, and yeah boring. Just because he wasn't always the best option doesn't change the fact that he could do basically anything he wanted with incredible efficiency, taking a little bit off everyone else's plate of food. You can cherrypick all you want, but the roles can easily be reversed; I & I'm sure most others would much rather play against a Horror Tribal or Sagas Atraxa deck than play against a Golos LandBlink deck. Realistically though, in either regard I'd much rather just see a more interesting niche COMMANDER that doesn't get much attention, and with Atraxa at the helm the overall diversity of the format has gone up. If we brought back Golos, he would be just as bad as before, if not worse, with the current influx of commanders.

[@sanfranfan53]

@@malmasterson3890 Sure! A Golos Landblink deck was arguably the most common archetype. And an Atraxa Sagas deck would be a more welcoming than the 9/10 times I’ve played against Superfriends/Infect decks. But I’ve also played against a fun jank mono-black Golos deck. And a fun God tribal deck. Golos is just generically good at being a binding piece for any archetype that normally doesn’t have access to certain colors. A monopoly implies that Golos dominated the format, and there was no other reason to play another commander other than Golos. But that’s not the case. He was the most popular commander, but only a fraction of the population of commanders we had pre-2021. Now, we have a plethora of selection to choose from, with every set releasing 50+ legendary creatures. Yeah, Golos would immediately skyrocket back up in popularity, but people would still play with different commanders. Especially with the current popularity of the format, that has experienced commander without Golos. I just don’t see any adequate argument against Golos, other than people were annoyed by the frequency of seeing a Golos. But we have sooooo many commander options now.

[@malmasterson3890]

@sanfranfan53 That's anecdotal. Statistically speaking, just as the majority of Atraxa decks are superfriends/infect, so too was Golos Lands/Blink. He could also play other top archetypes at the same time with no issue & very oppressively. People use the term monopoly to refer to things that aren't technically full monopolies all the time; like WWE over professional wrestling. Regardless, in terms of commander, Golos was dominant, having strong standings in most top archetypes. Of course he was only a fraction of all decks, but regardless of power or versatility, no commander is ever gonna reach that level simply because of the nature of the format. That doesn't change that Golos was by the widest margin, the most popular commander during his reign. I'm glad you brought up the plethora of new options & that people would still play other commanders cause I have another statistic for you. For pretty much the entirety of commander, since WotC took over, the format has become more & more centralized. Every year, the number of commanders that made up 50% of the format continued to get smaller & smaller, and it got extremely bad when Golos was released. Now, for the first time in years, this trend has finally seemed to end. I would say that is indeed the main crux of my argument is that I was just tired of seeing the same obnoxious Golos lists all the time, but as I just stated those abundance of commander options you speak of are only just now seeing more play & it directly coincides with his ban. In conclusion, I think at the time there certainly could have been an argument for him not to be banned, but now especially I see no upside to unbanning him that doesn't result in more downsides for the format as a whole. Banning Golos did the job of eliminating all of the obnoxious Golos decks from seeing play, but those with actually fun & interesting ideas for him can just ask the table to rule 0 it.

[@collinbeal]

Erayo is just way too easy to combine with cards that make it so that players can only cast one spell per turn. Definitely exile

[@rulezeroedh844]

I mean there is already rule of law effects that do that anyways, but having it in the command zone could make games very very unfun

[@watery2211]

If you are playing to win, just use thoracle... There are much better and easier ways to win than trying to cast 4 spells in a turn.

[@thellusionistmaster]

i just ran across this video, and i will admit. I felt like i was going insane for a second. half of the cards in the unban pile / could unban pile need to stay banned for the format to stay some what sane as a whole. Rofellos is easy to break, more then the elf guy yall referenced to. Rofellos can go off t3 and each subsequent turn after it, doubles your mana. having that ability on a 2 drop legendary creature that can be replayed over and over again is bizarre. Coalition victory is a no down side win the game. sure having a creature/creatures with all colors and having 1 of each basic is a bit hard to pull off, it is a barely hard to meet win condition. most of the other "i win" cards that exist in edh have more requirments for the win, Thoracle having at least 2 or less cards in deck, even though can be achieved with mill/exile library effects, Happily ever after having to meet card types etc. Gift's Ungiven is almost a guarenteed way to get a 2 card combo into play / hand. Biorhythm is an easy way to setup a win, because in a good selection of edh decks, combo based strategys or voltron strategys will only have a small amount of creatures on board at any given time. Biorhythm favours the token strategys to overtake a game. Shaman of the forgotten ways has the requirement of meeting formidable and spending effectivly 13 mana (11 for activation but you are losing out on using Shaman for mana.) Library is banned due to it being reserved list, which I'm aware duals are RL but Library is not within easy access to obtain 1 due to the scarcity of its market and price.

[@Devinoch]

Golos might have been fine without the comes into play get a land ability (or at the VERY least, make it a BASIC land), but getting a land drop each time your commander hits the board is just utterly miserable, to watch your opponent constantly ramping resources, in addition to just getting free cards with him. It's pretty obvious neither of you played against a Golos deck before. Our LGS basically just refused to play with any player who brought a Golos deck after they went an entire month not losing a commander night. As for why Emrakul's there, it's two things - protection from colored spells and Annihilator 6. How, exactly, do you get rid of it? And don't you love sacrificing all your permanents? Don't you? ... no. no, you do not.

[@CyphersBasement]

Interesting that Schindler is going over a list with us.

[@jimmyb2655]

Nobody is paying 15 for Emrakul. it's gonna get put into play for free, or someone's going to pay 5 with a belbe's portal or other cheat in effect. This card comes down, everyone groans and the game just ends, nobody even let the guy attack with emrakul, they all just conceded, saving about 15 minutes of sacrificing things to the guys weak boardstate that only had forced sacrifice and emrakul on turn 6. We unbanned some cards for a weekend and it was pure chaos. Emrakul got unbanned in my shop (my call) and at the end of the night I was like "fun experiment, it's all banned again."

[@davidarbour2683]

unban Emrakul yeah right straight into my animar deck so i can play it for free ;)

[@Blacksunstoneful]

You don't get the extra turn though, and unless you play it early enough for annihilator 6 to board wipe 3 people they can just kill it with tokens or make you sack it

[@warmenace]

25:25 You just discovers the plot to inception 😂

[@murrowmench1565]

Another two: don’t unban prophet. Having two cards in one card slot was broken. It was a game-warper every single time. Second, Rofellos is don’t unban. Marwyn can be killed or bounced and reset the counters. You can’t reset the amount of forests someone has. It is much more broken and ends games.

[@user-rh9uu1bg1p]

Shahrazad is a fair and balanced card and should totally be unbanned :)

[@rulezeroedh844]

now here is a man of reason

[@michaelcepile2263]

Shame you can't grab it back with Burning wish. That would be fun 😂

[@Arvaniz]

I think you're overestimating Ancestral Recall. In a multiplayer format with so many draw engines, drawing three cards as an instant isn't that glorious. Even if you pair it with Isochron Scepter (which requires a little work, probably a tutor), it isn't much better than Arcanis or Azami, and nothing compared with Necropotence. Not to mention other commander engines likes Jhoira, Korvold, and many other that can draw 3-4 cards every turn (and sometimes much more, with a good Jhoira build). Permanents are always better than instants in EDH. For example, Thoughtcast draws 2 card for 1 mana (typically), which is almost as good, and sees play in only 3% of blue decks.

[@Blacksunstoneful]

I played a worldfire once after I blinked a Yorion in and won that game lol That's only happened once out like 50 games

[@IcemilkIllusion]

Am I the only person who thinks Leovold could be unbanned? I understand that he is unfun to play against but at this point, I would argue, there are worse commanders and commander decks to play against with all of the newer stax cards.

[@Chidon0]

invoke prejudice would be exiled frome xistence theres a reason they havent made a new version of it the effect is way too strong

[@l33_generic37]

Iona is awful to play against. Before we followed the ban list one of my play group ran it in their angel deck. Chose black. I was playing mono black and two others were rocking dimir and rakdos. This is also before we knew how to REALLY build decks so nobody could do anything about it. It was horrible. Also the problem with primeval titan is that it searches for two LANDS, not two basics. It can get absolutely dumb.

[@dislikebutton9571]

If you've ever played against Iona as a mono colored deck, you know just how bad for the format it was. Mono blue only stands a chance if they counter it, but even then if it gets resolved once then its over for you. Things that wreck mono color are always awful, because mono color is already a sub optimal choice for most decks, there's a reason why the most played commanders in recent years are 3-5 colors.

[@TheSteveo313]

I just started playing magic again after 10+ years away. I played when EDH first started before it was even recognized by wizards and you know what...it was so much more fun. no bans and no one looked for turn 1 combo wins...you played to play. Try hards ruined my favorite format and has turned me strictly into a collector instead of a player. Of course I played when mana burn and ante was a thing also and think they should both still be part of it. The game has changed so much and I just cannot enjoy it like I use to not just edh but mtg in general

[@Lord_lost13]

I think that if grizelbrand and yogmoths bargen is banned they should 100% banned Necro potence.Necro potence does the exact same thing for cheaper and one downside

[@lillianoftheveil]

I would unban Biorhythm and Coalition Victory. I would love to run Braids in commander as an aristocrats deck, but I understand the issue.

[@Ddelsol47]

I'm shocked y'all didn't put channel in "banned from existence" cause it literally is. There's NO FORMAT IN MAGIC where channel is legal. It's even restricted in Vintage, it's only legal format.

[@KingBobXVI]

I still think Karakas should be unbanned. People should already be playing more targeted land destruction anyway, if your deck is completely unusable when the opponent has removal (and this doesn't even accrue commander tax...) then it's a deck-building problem, either because you're _too_ dependent on your commander, or because you don't have any way to deal with lands (which already makes you vulnerable to things like field of the dead). And saying "your opponents never get their commander" is just wrong - this only hits one, unless two of your opponents are mana screwed, you can't hit all of them every turn cycle. And I disagree with Golos - the problem with it was that it's too homogenizing, it's not just the best 5c commander, it's a better commander choice than probably most decks with fewer colors, lol.

[@MrWarptime]

Lutri would be fine as a Commander or in the deck and is only a problem because the rules committee made Companion a thing in Commander. Less Sheldon lost to it and more Sheldon lost it.

[@toast_recon]

Balance being lower than braids is super weird. There's a few weird misplacements like that. But cool vid

[@bjorntaphorn8747]

I think a lot of cards could be unbanned. There are arguments for and against a lot of them. But ultimately many of them wouldn’t add much the format as you guy said. But I can’t understand you or the RC in the case of Panoptic Mirror. I have no clue why it is on the ban list in the first place. It is a two card, at least 10 mana combo that can be interacted with over a hole turncycle. In a lifegain deck Felidar Sovereign is better and nobody asks for it to get banned. And this card would add something for the format. It can be used in a lot of different themes.

[@rajamicitrenti1374]

If you can get the 10 mana all on one turn (which this is Commander, it's not too hard to do, especially if running Urza Lord High Artificer as your commander), then there isn't any delay on the infinite turns. Someone has to have instant-speed artifact removal and the mana to cast it, or the game ends.

[@sanfranfan53]

Bring Golos back!

[@malmasterson3890]

No lol, if your deck is actually fun just rule 0 it.

[@sanfranfan53]

@@malmasterson3890 exactly! Just make him legal again, and rule 0 him into or out of games. There are plenty of commanders and tables, out there, to choose from. 😁👍

[@malmasterson3890]

@sanfranfan53 That defeats the point. By banning him we eliminated the surplus of boring & obnoxious Golos decks, so now if you actually have an interesting build with him, the table can just rule 0 him in. Much better than the other way around, especially since his banning has greatly increased the diversity of commanders seeing play.

[@georgeg7229]

When golos was unbanned, every single game on xmage had a golos deck in it, sometimes 2 golos decks in the same game. It was madness.

[@sanfranfan53]

@@georgeg7229 now I would just find another game, at that point! Haha! One Golos is fine with me, but multiples of any commander seems really annoying!

[@michaelwilson3418]

I think they need to do banned as a commander. Braids would be fine in the 99 same with Rofelos

[@fervorx]

could unban balance????? I love you guys BUT LMAO

[@loganhall7776]

Prime time is an exile, etb get a dark depths off

[@jaycejones1024]

Emrakul prismatic bridge would be so broken

[@jeffkuykendall3189]

Golos needs to be unbanned so my Kenrith deck can go back under the radar from the hammer…

[@sorafowler4497]

DO NOT UNBAN RECURRING NIGHTMARE -Your friendly cEDH player

[@rulezeroedh844]

but scary nightmare card goes brrrrr

[@sorafowler4497]

@@rulezeroedh844 Actually ya know what unban it, so protean hulk is broken once again

[@jesuscarreno3237]

Please dont use that effect on the cards that shit hurts my eyes

[@doomninja1]

Letting you draw three and making an opponent do it aswell isn’t broken, plus in regards to like brainstorm, that protects you from discard effects. In commander they can bring it back.

[@JacoDeltaco]

in a two player game but not in a 4 one it is two player get to draw there deck and there is nothing you can do.

[@caseyp5665]

Saying Emrakul doesnt warp the format is like saying steroids dont change anything in sports.

[@purrfectwaffle8621]

Not covering Ante cards; understandable, had to be removed for Legal reasons. The “Racist” cards, 4 picked by Wizard’s which aren’t even racist; whatever, you do you.

[@SmartYouTubification]

Library of Alexandria can stay in hell forever. Reserved list, over $1k, if it stays on the field its interesting politics but too good.

[@Rannulfus]

Please for the love of all that is good and just, stop saying keep Lutri banned. GIVE. HER. THE. YORION. TREATMENT. Banned as a COMPANION. She's fine as a commander or even in the 99.

[@absolutelymassive9482]

It's a casual format, unban everything

[@nrossetti2046]

Darksteel Mutation

[@nkyxyz]

hullbreacher ban is a cope the card is a cedh card just dont play it in casual