EDH Banned Cards Tier List | Ranking Every Banned Card in Commander

[@mattdeters8306]

The main issue with Recurring Nightmare is the fact that, because of the way it was worded, it's nearly impossible to interact with outside of countering it outright. The return to hand text is part of the activation cost, so upon resolution, you hold priority and activate it, and it's back in your hand before anyone else gets priority to remove it.

[@thetrinketmage]

Are you able to hold priority? It says activate only as a sorcery. You can only do instant speed stuff and hold priority. And yea it’s a little tough to interact with but all graveyard decks fold to a RIP.

[@mattdeters8306]

@@thetrinketmage Whenever a spell resolves, the active player (the one who cast it) receives priority first, so that player will always have priority to activate Nightmare as soon as it resolves, regardless of sorcery speed. And you're right. There's enough graveyard hate in the format that all colors have access to that RN would be a safe unban.

[@Citinited]

First time I ever heard of Emrakul costing 15 mana lol

[@StevenSeagull]

It is my right as an American to copy Shahrazad 17 times

[@thetrinketmage]

The first amendment at work

[@Polskimg]

Funny to see you here, StevenSeagull.

[@motymurm]

I like how "2 mana prime titan" is an argument for unban of the titan and not the ban of extortionist lol.

[@dogwalker1896]

Back when I was in high school, I used Flash in my (very bad) Riku deck. Flashing in Primordial and copying it with Riku was so fun. Banning those two was probably the right decision.

[@vilsvisano2118]

My playgroup had a proxy no ban list commander game where my buddy did end up copying shahrazad like 20 times

[@clashcitycretin10]

Nightmare is banned because the cost is to bounce itself and you have turn player priority. Its already in your hand by the time that an opponent has the vhance to interact. Basically counter it or lose the game to it

[@Infraclear]

I think that comparing Sway of the Stars to Worldfire is pretty natural, but I see it a little differently than you do. For either card, playing it without a serious game plan that converts it into a wincon will probably be seen as time wasting or board resetting. I agree that solving Sway of the Stars and turning it into a reliable wincon is harder than doing the same thing with Worldfire. I don't think that Worldfire or Sway of the Stars are tricking players into building bad decks that waste time. If someone told me, "I'd like to rule zero Sway of the Stars into this game. I'm basically using it as a worse blue version of Worldfire. I have a way to win off of this, and it might get silly." then I'd be happy and excited to see this person try to pull off something wild. If we're keeping Sway of the Stars banned in order to protect players from an opponent casting it when there is no gameplan, then I don't see the actual difference between the two cards.

[@ReubenBruchez]

@18:28 The big problem with Limited Resources is the low cost and the second clause. In a four player game, the hard board limit of 10 lands total stops all land plays until Limited Resources is removed, since there will be at most ~20 lands (5*4) which can be back breaking for color fixing, since you generally don't remove your own lands.

[@1_____________________]

Agree with most of your list but no one playing Emrakul ever plans on getting 15 mana lol. Decks that build around it plan on cheating it out early as 3 mana with Show and Tell. Those decks aren't that good but i think the ban is justified as you either get the big bungus creature and win, or you brick 8 turns on a row and lose. Not much inbetween.

[@thetrinketmage]

I get what you mean but you can just show and tell in omniscience which is just better. Or you could cheat into play razaketh who will combo off easily. My point is there are better things to cheat into play already in the format

[@Foggert772]

​@thetrinketmage as someone who once had an ulamog the ceaseless hunger deck I can fully understand and think emerakul being banned makes sense. Ive turn 4 won the game from ramping HARD into ulamog with mana to spare. Youre telling me I could do that and have another turn to guarantee a win even harder? 15 mana in colorless is so easy it hurts. Turn one, wastes sol ring, turn 2 wastes thran dynamo pristine talisman, turn 3 wastes forsaken monument hedron archive, turn 4 wastes and bam thats 20 mana, cast emerakul get an extra turn equip swiftfoot boots to emerakul and now you've already ruined 2 players entire boards and are so far ahead it isn't funny

[@floaterhill1848]

@@Foggert772 that doesn’t even include a metal worker which is even better

[@Foggert772]

@floaterhill1848 ive done that before as well lol turn 2 ulamog because I was able to metalworker turn 1

[@drewknab8149]

At the time Emrakul was banned, Jhoira of the Ghitu was popular and pretty powerful. It was also played while Prime Time was unbanned. Flickering, Sneak Attack, sacking, and reanimating PT nets so much mana. The format was also slower overall, so blue decks were unironically playing Bribery to combat/play multiple copies of these big beaters.

[@zacw8869]

One of the most reasonable one of these videos I've seen. Panoptic mirror is too cool to stay banned. Golos is defo super unbannable imo. There are plenty of generically powerful commanders, its kinda shocking they banned a commander for being boring. He would definitely be a strong commander, casual and cedh, although I'm really not convinced he'd be the strongest, but I didn't play cEDH when he was legal so idk how he was. I also wanted to add that I really like building a deck with a companion. I play with friends online so we build a lot of decks and usually bring new ones every week, and its kinda a joy to be experimenting with different restrictions that allows you to build around another creature. I made a WUBRG jegantha deck and an artifacts zirda deck and they are both a blast. Neither need the companion but breweing around them and using them to get value feels great. It's my hot take that companion is awesome for commander and limited but absolutely horrendous for 60 card constructed, and they should have figure out some way to exclude it from the 1v1. I am almost entirely a limited player so maybe my MOM draft shaped rose tinted glasses make me like companion more than it deserves.

[@zachkeller7517]

Perhaps Golos is another argument for the return of “Banned as a commander.” As a commander though he cheats command tax every time by grabbing 2+mana lands and is generally homogenizing in his incentive. Idk about cEDH but I don’t miss playing with or against him in the command zone in casual and am more content with Kenrith being the go to for 5c goodstuff with his toolbox of abilities being more interesting than ramp+WUBRG to cast a bunch of free shit.

[@AlexOvTheAbyss]

Shaman of Forgotten Ways is basically Biorhythm on a creature for a few more mana and an extra condition. Still no hard to hit, though. Emrakul, yeah, I don't see why she is banned. Maybe back when she was printed she was harder to deal with, but we have so many board wipes, sacrifice effects, hell, even Shriekmaw can take her down.

[@thetrinketmage]

I think I just forgot to read the part of my script which me filmed the shaman but you are totally correct!

[@jeanpierrepolnareff2356]

Protection grants imuinity from efects so no bord sweepers do not work except the new one from the CM collorless precon

[@AlexOvTheAbyss]

@@jeanpierrepolnareff2356 Protection prevents targeting, damaging, enchanting, and blocking. It does not prevent board wipes because they do not target.

[@brennanmohr7348]

Balance is over the top insane. Back in the day, it usually obliterated all of your opponents at once. We don’t want that nonsense going around.

[@smob0]

Limited resources is a problem if it comes out too early, like turn 1 or 2. 10 lands split into 4 players pretty unfairly, two players get 3 lands and two players get 2 lands.

[@thetrinketmage]

But if you are able to get out 2 or 3 lands you can just remove the enchantment and still cast spells that cost 3 or less so isn’t that weaker than Armageddon?

[@abrahamrokhsar9119]

NOOOO, don't remove companions, I think the deckbuilding restriction is really fun to build around, especially in commander where everything is available. I think a better solution is just to either ban lutri as a companion or print another lutri that doesn't have companion.

[@thetrinketmage]

But some don’t even work in commander… and most work better as your commander anyway. Like Obosh as a companion sucks cause if you lose him that’s the only odd cards matters card you got

[@Jundsac]

Great video! Well thought out. I disagree on Fastbond, Gifts Ungiven, and Hullbreacher. I played in a rule 0 group with Fastbond, and all of the decks that weren't lands decks cut it. Gifts Ungiven I think is Intuition but you get 2 cards. 2 kinda Demonic Tutors at instant speed is scary to me. Hullbreacher 2 card combos with wheels in your deck, and also 1 card instant speed combos with your opponents' wheels. Not even Thoracle typically does this. I also think Balance is kinda too good, after testing, but would be willing to budge. Golos was the most egregious ban in rules committee history. Golos was banned for being too popular. At the time, a very powerful Kenrith list was popular in cEDH. I think the mark of a good design is a card that is really popular without being too strong. They literally banned a card BECAUSE it was a good, healthy design, which is absurd. I think if I woke up as the rules committee tomorrow, I would ban Thoracle, Breach, and Dockside, and unban Fastbond, Sylvan Primordial, Braids, Golos, Recurring Nightmare, Paradox Engine, and obviously all of the cards in the bottom tier which I think you're completely spot on about

[@thetrinketmage]

Really fast bond? I agree non lands decks won’t use it but does it not make lands decks very very strong?

[@Jundsac]

@@thetrinketmage It did make lands decks very very strong, but as you pointed out in the video, it felt about as broken as Underworld Breach, so it gets a pass by that metric. Was pretty borderline broken tho, I would like to see it unbanned to have the players test it and decide

[@thetrinketmage]

It did get unrestricted in vintage recently and didn’t do much so you might be onto something

[@rafaelfreire3490]

17:52 think of braids this way. The braids player goes first and manages to put her into play on turn 2 after a lucky turn 1 sol ring play. You have until your upkeep to remove her before you have to sacrifice your only permanent; a simply forest. Oh and you have to do this at instant speed with only 1 mana available. And this is not counting all of the crazy shit CEDH players can do to put her down on turn 1. In the 99, I guess she’s fine, it’s annoying but whatever. But as a commander, it’s absolutely backbreaking for most decks.

[@thetrinketmage]

I totally get that, you jam all the fast mana like dark ritual and mana crypt to get her into play. But… let’s say they played a turn 2 braids off of a dark ritual. Can’t you just not play land number 2 or 3 or 4 and just wait? It’s not like braids will kill you and they will eventually run out of stuff to sac unless they also found the perfect token generator. Then once braids is gone just play the lands you held back

[@meepilee7991]

These takes are based, Id put balance higher up personally since if you play only artifacts/enchantments its just 2 mana boardwipe and get past indestructible, and beyond that use it is somewhat versatile. Its just 2 mana too cheap for my taste. Although I'm definitely more of a casual player to cedh

[@SDTCG]

I think Primeval Titan should at least be in "Strong but fine", but probably in "Maybe". I see why it's banned, but it might not need to be. One thing about Dockside is it requires opponents to have artifacts and enchantments, which they usually do, but not always. With prime time you always have lands in your deck, and it just fetches out Gaia's Cradle or other powerful lands. As far as paradox engine, I think it absolutely should stay banned. It can be abused so easily. Saying, "It doesn't go in EVERY deck" is a moot point. It could be built around so easily that it would warp the format immediately.

[@thetrinketmage]

You are correct that sometimes dockside is a dead card and prime time would almost never be a dead card. But how often does that happen? For engine I’m saying it doesn’t go in every deck cause the RC said it does which I disagree with

[@TheUniversalEclipse]

With fast mana we either need to get rid of the rest of it or just allow the ones banned. I can't take people seriously who say sol ring is fine but a mox isn't all the while they are proxying gaea's craddle.

[@thetrinketmage]

I get the sentiment like is mana crypt that much better or worse than a mox ruby. But also not all fast mana is the same. I think mana vault is noticeably worse and there is something to be said about having some fast mana to help combo decks! I think we could afford to lose some fast mana but I wouldn’t cut all of it!

[@mattdeters8306]

Magda would love Paradox Engine.

[@darkinsanity98473]

As someone who is just now getting into CEDH and built Blue Farm, any talk of bans makes me extremely nervous. I quit constructed formats like standard, modern and Legacy because I was sick of bans happening constantly.

[@thetrinketmage]

Congratulations on starting cEDH! It’s fun! As for bans I’d say 99% of the casual edh bans don’t affect cEDH so you are fine

[@yugioh1870]

I find it really interesting that you put sundering titan in a different spot than primoridial

[@thetrinketmage]

Primordial always can hit 3 lands regardless of land type and ramps you putting you way ahead!

[@flangwang]

I miss paradox engine too!

[@SaintHoop]

LET THE OTTER SWIM FREE

[@sir_quirkus7206]

At the power of cards now I think prophet can come off banlist. It’s only creatures and it doesn’t refill your hand so it needs to be paired with draw effects like beast whisperer. So 9 mana to pop off to me is fair

[@zachkeller7517]

Power creep is a terrible excuse to give UGX value decks 3 extra turns per turn cycle. It was bad enough back when it was legal long before they pushed Simic into the ionosphere.

[@donnellobrien1415]

I think you totally underestimate Limited Resources. It prevents land drops when there are 10 lands in play total. It's clearly a card that was only intended to be a check against big green mana decks 1 versus 1 and was not designed for multiplayer even remotely. Imagine a Green / White deck that rushes out their 5 lands ASAP before dropping the 1 Mana Limited Resources. That leaves only remaining 5 lands to share between your 3 opponents; best case scenario one of them ramped as hard as you and are at parity. Worst case you are the only green player in the pod and your opponents are stuck at 2 mana each. Then you spend the rest of the game protecting your enchantment by pushing out Hatebears that make spells more expensive, disable ETB effects for creatures and Stony Silence effects to turn off Mana rocks. If you don't have the Counter/Enchantment Destruction and possibly even the Graveyard exile in your pod's opening hand the game could already be over as tutoring and recurring a 1 mana enchantment in white/green is ludicrously easy. Not to mention you are in the perfect colors to play mass land destruction and then bring all of your lands from graveyard back to play and lock opponents at 0 Lands, even with their hands full of all of the lands that you have been preventing them from playing for turns at a time. It sounds really oppressive and unfun.

[@koboldqueen3055]

the point of many of the banns you criticize is to preserve the format's intended play. every format has it and you see banning even by wizards for that reason. most of those cards are banned because Cammander as a format is about playing a long game slowly building to a victory. and those cards in some way go against the intended play of the formate. either by winning out of nowhere or doing one of the worst things in commander. knocking one to two people out of the game and then dragging on for another hour. These are things opposed to the format. so they are banned and justly so. especsily instance and sorcery wins because there simply aren't counterspells outside of blue unless we want to talk about the small collection of expensive novelty spells from early magic and the two red has. they just shouldn't be part of the format. no matter how much I'd love playing weird jank builds with them that use them in ways not intended. I would love to build a deck around giving emrakul to my opponents and forcing them to attack me. emrakul is just bad for the format. plus a lot of these cards were like golos and dockside. they were just always run and made the format stall. I played through most of these cards banning I've been playing edh for almost a decade and a half and most cards you call out I do know why this is banned outside of the stuff from before I played where cards they hamaginized the format to a massive extent. I remember regularly seeing Emrakul mirror matches and golos mirror matches. or mirror matches with the biorhythm deck. these cards are banned because simply put when they were legal they led to less deck variety and were so popular and so oppressive to most strategies that they pushed a lot of deck types out of most pods. they made the format worse by taking away the thing that makes the format fun, variety. no amount of influencers saying x and y to encourage better decks will change that most people aren't as invested as us, and its really hard to look at on of the most popular commanders or staples that are making games unfun for most causal players and say that they shouldn't be banned and they should just get good.

[@zikegladion6848]

I cried the day paradox engine was banned, and will continue to bitch about it until the end of time.

[@SwagzLife]

I feel like paradox engine would be fine and nice in cEDH but it would just make some artifact decks absolutely explode LGS tables on commander tuesdays. Like, my Myr deck could just play Cryptolith Rite turn 1 or 2, Urtet and some manarocks, play the Paradox Engine and tap infinitely, make Urtet and all Myr infinitely big and since it's an artifact it's decently easy to tutor in WUBRG. Would I put it in and make it so consistent? Probably not, since it'd make it too competetive... But maybe that's good? I feel there are too few "power level 8" decks. Strong enough to be frowned upon in rando pods, but too weak for cEDH. Idk. Or maybe people just rarely make those (to me) sweetspot decks.

[@NewSirenSong]

Shahrazad is objectively the funniest card in magic

[@spacewizardpip1111]

I want Tinker so baaaaddd lmaooooo. It’s too op, an auto include as you’d say but FUCK it’s a hysterical card

[@ThaZapa]

They could easily just have Lutri be banned only as a companion.

[@airsoftingwrong]

Unban black lotus coward

[@domicci4460]

You forget how easy it is to cheat out that kind of creature nijusu decks can get him out for 3

[@stevenkurinec4194]

I don't agree with your griselbrand opinion. Any format that allows necropotence should allow griselbrand. I was ok back when he was banned AS COMMANDER, because that is different than being part of the 99.

[@madsnorlax223]

The worst take in here is that very few people play companions in commander, and nobody cares about losing companions in commander. Rude! My favorite deck, the first deck i built that actuslly felt fun and powerful is henzie with umori companion. I recently updated my volo deck to be a keruga list! And im working on a jenson/jegantha list! I love companions! Its super fun for casual mid power conmander to have a weird building restriction and be rewarded for it - even if the rewards usually arent worth the cost.

[@thetrinketmage]

You would like what my cohost said on my podcast this week

[@Beessoup]

I think emrakul is fine in the command zone, because it is harder to cheat her out. But when it is in the 99 there are just so many ways to cheat her out that i get why she is banned. As a colorless eldrazi player, i still want her to be released.

[@thetrinketmage]

I know you can cheat her out but is that better than cheating out blightsteel or omniscience. It wouldn’t be close to the best thing to cheat into play

[@jawsomejasper8353]

I believe the reason Sundering Titan is banned is because it really hard stomps mono-colored decks, which are already relatively underpowered. I do agree it probably shouldn't be banned but that is probably why.

[@justass3001]

It doesn’t hurt mono-colored decks, you can only choose one of their lands. It hurts more the more colors you have

[@insaneboarman]

Free my boy Lutri he needs to see his otter friends 😭

[@joemccary5238]

my deck has 3 was to cast emrakul for free so i guess i get it but i want it in my deck anyway lol

[@thetrinketmage]

Right but can’t you use that to cheat into play many many other things that win the game? Like omniscience or blightsteel

[@TheStrangeBloke]

I am not an experienced player but it kind of seems like emrakul is problematic BECAUSE she fucks up exactly one player. Feels personal to see her get reanimated on you.

[@RoyalBanana-c2y]

0:07 that didn't age well lol

[@jeanpierrepolnareff2356]

The proublem with aeons torn is it is almost imposable to ineteact with and since it is collorless it can go in any cheat/fast mana shell and would function as a better blightsteel

[@thetrinketmage]

How is it better than blightsteel? Also how often do we see decks that cheat big things into play? It’s not a common archetype

[@jean-baptistedelabroise5391]

yeah unban gift's ungiven please 😁

[@tertmemelur1880]

23:38 but replace "Paradox Engine" with "Nadu" lmao

[@jonasdietrich8109]

#UnbanEmrakul #FreeEmrakul

[@roguebanshee]

This video sounded mostly like "I opened these cards that are on the banlist, please let me play them. These other cards I don't have can stay banned."

[@thetrinketmage]

I think I don’t own anything that is banned other than hullbreacher. Many of these were banned before I started playing edh so I never picked up a copy

[@darkmatter32x]

Iona should stay banned. Too oppresive for mono colors.

[@keeganbham]

YES! UNBAN EMMY

[@Garl_Vinland]

You put, like, nothing in Not Healthy, when a lot of those things deserved “Not healthy”

[@thetrinketmage]

Such as?

[@zsewqaspider]

@@thetrinketmage Sundering Titan and Iona are the big two, the just lock a mono-color player out of the game while being big reanimation targets.

[@thetrinketmage]

Sundering Titan is 100% not as good as terastadon. Would you ban the elephant? Iono is fine I played for so many years with that card I’m the format and saw only one player ever get locked out from it and actually lose. It gets board wiped too easily to be a serious threat

[@Garl_Vinland]

@@thetrinketmage They're still not healthy. One other combo piece away from soft locking any opponent. Pretty much any sign post bann is "Not healthy"

[@zsewqaspider]

@@thetrinketmage Titan very much is more of a problem as it's entirely a land destruction card whereas the elephant is just noncreature permanent removal, and the reason that Iona didn't see much play is that while yes it was easy to remove, it was still a massive dick move so people just didn't play it.

[@yugioh1870]

Dockside is inherently fair