How We'd Fix the Commander Ban List | Commander Clash Podcast

[@SabeJones]

I think there needs to be a rule in these conversations: If you say "there's so many cards that do the same thing just as well", you have to name at least two, or your argument dies

[@highdark4]

This!!! Omg they were unironically defending Primeval Titan!

[@soren1803]

@@highdark4 hour of promise, crop rotation, sylvan scrying. Yeah none of them are 6/6 bodies, but if you can’t remove a single 6 mana creature you deserve to lose imo.

[@seanclark4071]

@@soren1803 yeah but that 6/6 is real easy to abuse, while it is harder to recur the effects of instants and sorceries

[@highdark4]

@@soren1803 the problem with Titan if you ever played against it was reanimating, cloning, and copying it. Made Simic obnoxious. Not an issue with the cards you cited.

[@highdark4]

@@TheSLATEcleaner I respect your opinion. I think our point of equivocation is that you may be underestimating getting two lands instead of one, and then again on attack. The rest of your points are well taken. Lands is a very powerful archetype, specially off the back of cheating in this beloved Titan . It is very different than using expedition map.

[@markdudley6411]

The cool coalition victory is assembling coalition victory using the original weather light crew to fill the requirement

[@CharlotteMimic]

That is actually super sweet. Very Exodia-esque

[@gjones9356]

If you did this and cast a banned card to win, congrats. You won. I would shake your hand and thank you for letting me there to witness it.

[@Skel_cat63]

Maximum flavor win. The commander has to be sisay lol

[@metagrossle]

Fuck it, I am doing this. I am building captain Sisay as a power level 8-9. I would love to take out the combo cards and play it more midrangey and use the cool victory.

[@AhranMaoDante]

Bonus points if the creatures all have the Coalition symbol in their art.

[@T_Peazy]

Seth correcting Tomer's pronunciation got me.

[@zztzgza]

Anything is possible in 2021 lol

[@kingofrunes5291]

And it was still not the correct pronuncation^^

[@notSoAverageGuineaPigEnjoyer]

When?

[@ComfyDents]

@@notSoAverageGuineaPigEnjoyer 23:16

[@Volvary]

And still getting it wrong is what gets me. From what I could hear from what Tomer was thinking of saying (Pronouncing it "Less-hey fai-re"), he was on the right track. Seth's pronounciation... La-zai fai-re is quite far from the right track.

[@theflintabletc]

I find it so weird that directly after the Griselbrand with reanimation cards was talked about that they didn't come to that conclusion with Iona. Whenever I came across that angel it was rarely put on the battlefield fairly (preban ofc).

[@andrewf6167]

Seth has the most consistent ban standard it seems to me lol.

[@SmilingFish415]

most consistent + reasonable at least, Richard was pretty consistently on the "unban everything" train lmao

[@nielsmarckmann3897]

He and Tomer seemed to be the only ones who care about the banlist at all. Richard was basically saying "Unban everything, lul" and Crim didn't even care. If you want to play with your Emrakuls and Prime Times, just do it on "No Banlist Night" with your friends, but the official banlist needs to exist for the sake of game stores and events where you play with strangers and you don't always have the confidence to ask "can we please not play with this card?". If you're having this conversation, you need to accept the premise and take it seriously!

[@juliofranciscogomezstoppel1860]

@@nielsmarckmann3897 the funny thing is, there are far more "don't play that" cards, than "please let me use it" cards. No one ever came up in my group asking to play something banned, yet we all keep banning things out of our grup, because there is so much insane shit not banned, the narset+nothion+wheels crap is still absurd, tutoring is still absurd, MLD is horrific... the RC is extremely inconsistent with their decision making, and it's extremely exhausting to keep negotiating rule 0 with everyone every time there is a new player (or you are the new player).

[@deifiedtitan]

@@juliofranciscogomezstoppel1860 We just need to begin ignoring the RC. Surely it’s outdated at this point? The community itself already negotiates this stuff at the group level, and has access to more data than the RC did when they made bans in the earlier days. There’s a strong argument that commander players should be the ones setting a “generally agreed standard” or something similar. It’s not like WotC that has skin in the game on ban lists. The RC’s response to dissent is “just use rule 0”, which is basically “we aren’t taking responsibility for the rules we write, you are”. If the community already is, and can already ignore the agreed standard, then why not have a modernised community driven ban list?

[@juliofranciscogomezstoppel1860]

@@deifiedtitan i think that too. The problem is the kind of people that forms the community. As much as they talk about rule zero and no stomping, the community is full of grifters whales who wants to held hostage the fair players. Just look at all that people crying because of the ban of hulbreacher and Golos. The format must split, with aggresive bans in one side, and "anything goes" in the other.

[@leowilson8107]

The Iona explanation missed that the ban came in the same update as Painter's Servant got unbanned. She died to have some people's pet strategies unbanned.

[@TheRedGauntlet]

And to be fair. Iona is incredibly boring when compared to Painter's servant that has more potential for shenanigans and interestings play in comparison. So yeah, Iona can stay in prison

[@123Broney]

yeah but like 2 card/win the game combos are like everywhere right? and for a lot less mana too. like karn/lattice combo is still in the format.

[@gjones9356]

This. And they didn't even have to be banned for it... Two card combos are everywhere and she costs so much. They should have just unbanned it and left her alone.

[@faerie7dragon]

Iona is banned because they can't let have White have anything fun.

[@TheRedGauntlet]

@@faerie7dragon How is Iona fun?

[@MrShinyObject]

Seth is the only voice of reason here. Everyone's like "there are more broken things in the format," and he's like "yes, and we don't need more!"

[@ich3730]

@Insignatious so your solution is just anarchy? Spike, tournament grinder mirrors all day?

[@hahahafunniness]

The rules committee has evolved into a pretty nasty Ego of the game and we honestly don’t really need them anymore. And they know it too, which is why they always mention rule zero.

[@galleadden]

Seth: Coalition straight up wins the game thats bannable The rest of the crew: No no 8 mana to win the game is fine. Seth at every other 8 drop shown that rest think are broken: You just said 8 mana to win is fine meaning these are fine!

[@satansamael666]

Worldfire *stares nervously at Seth."

[@drpibisback7680]

I mean, he cares about consistency, which is something the real commander banlist lacks devastatingly.

[@JohnnyYeTaecanUktena]

@Jack Bellamy don't forget that mostly every playgroup follows the banlist

[@JohnnyYeTaecanUktena]

@Jack Bellamy i know, but it is worth pointing out that even if they are guidelines people and not actual rules people are going to follow them like actual rules. As for the most part it is far easier to just use the guidelines than to discuss rules and such for every game and rule zero does not really do anything for non friend group play

[@baconsir1159]

An 8 CMC wubrg sorcery that combos with an AT LEAST 5 drop and specific lands, that loses to not just counterspells but ANY removal. Land removal, creature removal, temporary removal, theft etc. Like you need your commander, who is a at least a 5-drop, and this 8 mana spell you need to hard cast as well as every single basic land type. That's a LOT of conditions with almsot no synergy. Most games it'll be an 8-mana do nothing that could be an actual good card that moves your gamestate forward.

[@elesegerardo]

Seth correcting Tomer on how to pronounce a phrase in French. We have gone full circle. The peak of our society.

[@notSoAverageGuineaPigEnjoyer]

When?

[@user-wluo]

@@notSoAverageGuineaPigEnjoyer 23:20

[@mrmahga6004]

I literally got on the chat stream to say that. Good catch!

[@alecbluhm3826]

I'm pretty sure Iona getting banned was because they unbanned painter's servant and they were worried about people instantly getting hard locked out of the game.

[@anthonydelfino6171]

You're exactly right. I believe they even said so in the announcement as one got banned at the same time the other got banned.

[@JohnnyYeTaecanUktena]

So they forgot rule 0 existed? i am sure they could have waited a bit to see if they needed to emergency ban Iona as it is not like people would have broken the social contract unless they go to tournaments

[@aidennoir597]

"Green does bad things so it should do worse things" sure is a take by Crim.

[@faerie7dragon]

Specially when he thinks Windfall + Hullbreacher is fine.

[@adamfiliatreault3393]

I honestly don't understand his hate on for green. Personally I think blue is the real toxic problem of Commander - I'll just hold up all of my mana to either counter all of your spells, draw a lot of cards or play the large amount of flash threats in the format

[@faerie7dragon]

@@adamfiliatreault3393 He is a blue player at heart, guess finds Green uncomfortably strong when compared to Blue? Big dumb creatures can pressure life totals, even when you have 40, maybe?

[@DXYS95]

@@adamfiliatreault3393 Blue is really strong when there's only one opponent left. However counterspells are somewhat underwhelming when you have to deal with three opponents. Honestly, I'd rather be one of the guys trying to combo off with a green deck rather than act as the only police officer trying to prevent everyone from going off each turn. But that's what happens at casual tables: people don't play any interaction and try to pop off as soon as they get the chance, but it's up to me to stop their degenerate plays because no one else will. As a blue player who doesn't play cheap combos, it's equally annoying to me

[@ich3730]

@@faerie7dragon i mean, there are like 10 different 2 card combos that win you the game on the spot lol. Making everyone discard is pretty shit if you could just, you know, win?

[@soren1803]

“I don’t think other cards do gifts ungiven better” Intuition - “and I took that personally”

[@raedien]

Right? So many crap takes on both the RC and this crew. Smh

[@oneinfinity]

23:16 Seth correcting someone else's pronunciation somehow is one of the funniest things ever to me.

[@ComfyDents]

The even funnier thing is that Seth failed his "correction" aswell while Tomer only lacked the courage to speak the last syllable. ^^

[@ComfyDents]

@James Black one of Tomers tries was correct, if he would have spoken out the last few letters. While Seth still got it wrong, but felt as he could be helping. I'm referring to the original pronounciation from France.

[@Nocturne989]

Griselbrand, a reanimatable creature with a busted ability that normally costs 8 "He's not eight mana" Sundering Titan, a colorless reanimatible creature with a busted ability that normally costs 8. "But it's eight mana" Consistency?

[@itsmeandrewe]

There's a lot of arguing "But Blood Moon" especially when Iona was brought up. Iona shutting off a WHOLE color is not equivocal with an enchantment that hurts /some/ lands. Is totally dead against a deck of 1 color using basics. And weirdly enough Blood Moon doesn't have Power or Toughness. But yeah, Iona and Blood Moon are the same. There's a lot of fallacy in this video.

[@Nocturne989]

@@itsmeandrewe The thing about that "Iona is a creature" argument is that it goes the other way real hard. As strong as Blood Moon is, there's way fewer ways to tutor for it and you can't reanimate it a billion ways for no mana. Iona should not be banned in a format where Contamination, Armageddon, Back to Basics, Blood Moon, etc are legal end of story, but being a creature as opposed to an enchantment has plenty of perks

[@donb7519]

@@Nocturne989 yea but armageddon and contamination are socially banned and blood moon might as well be

[@foundcause898]

Rule 0 in cedh isn't possible if you're in a shop tournament......

[@gamermancrygamer9461]

Tournament magic? Cringe and not based

[@foundcause898]

​@@gamermancrygamer9461 Yes, commander events do exist where top place is who finishes first in each of their rounds.

[@ich3730]

i hate the concept of rule 0 anyways, its a cowardly copout. Why balance a game around a set of rules if you just gonna say "yeah whatever do what you want". Sure, if some guy wants to play Saffi x Hans partners for flavor at the game night, he can go for it.

[@gamermancrygamer9461]

@@ich3730 I mean, the format only really needs the base rules. It doesn't *need* a banlist.

[@brandonhiggs88]

My shop does commander events every Sunday before the lock down we ran it in seasons, and you get points for certain things and minus points from certain things (like land destroying gets you automatic minus 3 points for you seasons total)

[@edwinquinones9356]

What gets me is when some didn’t know why banned. Flash Hulk was banned cause it could be played before anyone plays a land.

[@Jugglerman]

Yes you could win at Turn 0 with Flash Hulk, and you win at Instant speed on top of other people’s wins condition. Other people would have to multigrain for a Force of Will or other combos to prevent it and you would create un fun games

[@RafaRB0]

Maybe the problem is the fact that you have enough mana to play all combo pieces at turn one?

[@drpibisback7680]

@@RafaRB0 The problem is how many cards produce fast mana. You'd have to ban, at minimum: - Mana Crypt - Simian Spirit Guide - Elvish Sprit Guide - Lotus Pedal - Chrome Mox - Gemstone Mines - Chancellor of the Tangle - Mox Opal and probably many others I'm forgetting to make it impossible to play Turn 1/Turn 0 Flash/Hulk. Conversely, you could also just ban Flash and let all of the slightly less broken decks that are on even footing with each other keep their fast mana. EDH is supposed to give you a wide variety of decks, even in CEDH, and that's not possible when Flash/Hulk is so much better than everything else.

[@RafaRB0]

@@drpibisback7680 There are probably less then 15 cards that produce fast mana insanely efficiently, just ban them. they already banned black lotus fo this reason

[@procrastinating6188]

Instead of just banning one card let’s ban 15 cards instead doesn’t really make sense.

[@amusingautomatons2692]

I like how Richard's earbud wires + glasses shape makes him look like an old granny

[@xdavid00]

I'm surprised Intuition didn't get mentioned during the Gifts Ungiven section

[@moralessanchezoscarelias6412]

Yes! Thank you!

[@chadbrown3502]

I suspect it for two reasons... 1. Gifts Ungiven was more current in people's minds - and the Rules Committee is doing that stupid thing were they BAN just ONE CARD of a type they want to discourage - allowing all the other versions of it in the format 2. Gifts has a parity of two in graveyard and two in hand. This allows me two cards in the GY or Hand, with two of those cards let me get stuff from my graveyard. Intuition lacks that parity in the card.

[@akselhansen304]

@@chadbrown3502 looking at cEDH primers for decks running intuition it clearly does what gifts got banned for

[@DominoAmor]

I was going to post this, glad to see it's already here. If gifts were unbanned cEDH would still likely opt for intuition due to lower cmc. Only thing that probably keeps the complaints and attention on intuition down is the price tag.

[@xdavid00]

@@DominoAmor also cEDH would just play both :P Even Fervent Mastery is potentially fringe cEDH viable.

[@SrPacoTaco]

I just want to see a game where someone powers out a Braids on turn one, passes to Tomer, who has to sac his only land during his upkeep, and he has to struggle with "I have no 1 mana plays, do I even play a land right now" and then we all see how he feels about Braids.

[@oliver5732]

But that is not the kind of environment the RC is trying to set Rules for. They claim to ban for kitchen table players and I just can't imagine that someone on the kitchen table thinks it's appropriate to play T1 braids in a pod of Chair Tribal, Bear Tribal and Cards that mention Liliana in the flavortext.deck. That situation only occurs when someone is pubstomping. And that is quite clearly what happened.

[@infernosupreme3429]

Its a commander that is great early game and painfully mediocre late game. Theres also the question of why youd ever run Braids over Tergrid.

[@SrPacoTaco]

@@infernosupreme3429 to lock Tomer out of the game on turn one, duh!

[@infernosupreme3429]

@@SrPacoTaco Seems like THE reason to unban Braids.

[@ich3730]

@@oliver5732 wtf are you talking about? "kitchen table" doesnt mean "shit decks". Even my full blinged out atraxa/narset/tym x thrasios would GROAN at a turn 1 braids. If we ban card for the people who play chair tribal all day, we might as well ban 90% of the format

[@nixhex12]

The dude in the top right frame is really loving the contrarian role

[@mah7999]

Love how you guys absolutely meme about the inconsistency from the RC on the banned list, but then your reasonings for banning or unbanning cards are just as inconsistent lol Great episode!

[@josephrivera9818]

I once had someone reanimate Iona on turn 2 against me while I was playing mono Red, so seeing her gone doesn't hurt my feelings.

[@andrewsparkes8829]

Hijacking your comment to mention Iona was banned at the same time Painter's Servant was unbanned. Due to the amount of artifact tutors and small creature tutors in white, it makes sense both cannot exist together in a format where you have one available at all times, as Iona decks will just be as many cards that search out the Servant, plus the Servant. And of Iona and Servant, Servant is a more enjoyable card that leads to more creative play patterns. So I'm agreed Iona should be thrown under the bus to allow Servant back into the format.

[@adamfiliatreault3393]

Yeah, having a card that can literally say "you can't play Magic anymore" is just bad. I guess some people like to screw one player at the table in particular

[@faerie7dragon]

@@adamfiliatreault3393 Why screw one when you can screw them all with Brisela+ Gaddock Teeg? Then further spice things up with Void Winnover.

[@morgancarlton4544]

@@faerie7dragon This is exactly why it's banned and other stax cards they mentioned aren't. Iona locks out one person, who then can either leave the game and wait for hours until their friends finish or sit hoping one of the other players will remove it to allow them to play again. Other stax cards tend to lock out the ENTIRE table, and if built appropriately enable the person playing them to break parity and win quickly. Stax is "you all can try to break out or we can start a new game", Iona was "you specifically don't get to play this game. Have fun watching us."

[@faerie7dragon]

@@morgancarlton4544 How is that any different from getting killed first by Infect, getting all your engines destroyed or getting wheeled with a draw denial piece on board? Iona, one day, I will play you again.

[@jasonkorf7700]

Lol, Tomer advocating free Braids, not recognizing that Seth and Crim would be staxing him out with that card if she was free.

[@PalPlays]

Tomer is 100% right about her, too.

[@zztzgza]

Tomer's argument about Tergrid needing to be banned since Braids is banned is nonsensical because Tergrid doesn't force players to sac something on each turn automatically. People were advocating for Tergrid to be banned but, Tergrid isn't that powerful without support whereas Braids is.

[@MrMarclax]

Its a 4 mana 2-2 that does nothing when you play it. Com on now.

[@bradstrickman5090]

@@zztzgza I don't think he was saying Tergrid needs to be banned. I play Tergrid, she's not that great, she's pretty mediocre

[@MrMarclax]

​@Nick Fanchette What do you mean "immediately"? Braids dies if you breed too hard on it.

[@Balue7]

For Crim, Erayo gets around Krosan Grip by countering it, one of the few ways. Split Second doesn’t prevent triggered abilities from being put on the stack.

[@Brozime]

52:27 Nobody knows what Sundering Titan does I guess. If only reading the card explained it.

[@sagelwi09]

CEDH didn't want flash banned just because it was too powerful and ubiquitous it was banned because the counter play to it required instant speed interaction at all times, if someone had two mana up, they could win at any moment. It wasn't just that your deck choices were limited because you would want to play flash because it was the best, it was in part the best because of how difficult it was to deal with it which also narrowed how you could build your deck.

[@falconlord7811]

Yeah seriously. The wildest times where when someone would cast flash and then lose to the person who responded with their own flash lmao

[@jamescobblepot4744]

The main problem was turn 0 wins. If someone turn 0 gemstone caverns and has whatever spirit guide in hand they effectively get to win before anyone at the table has even drawn. So what happens is anyone who knows they're playing against flash hulk has to consider mulling until they either have a force of will in hand or their own turn 0 flash hulk. So now you have players at the table crippling their opening hand on the off chance someone has a turn 0 win and anyone who doesn't do this risks shuffling up, mulling and then losing before anything can even happen. Once you understand that flash's upside was this powerful the ban makes a lot of sense and truly does become a "this will only ever happen once" because nothing else in the entire game is going to win you the game before the game has even started.

[@wchenful]

Not sure how you define power - but being very consistent and able to win at instant speed as early as t0 is what I'd consider too powerful. Of course this power only exists in the context of the combo but that's the only situation where you would play Flash or Hulk.

[@sagelwi09]

@@wchenful I fear you may have missed the "JUST" in my "didn't want flash banned JUST because it was too powerful" maybe you're saying it's power alone was sufficient to get it banned which maybe true though there are plenty of extremely consistent powerful combos that are still legal, my comment is pointing to the way the flash hulk combo warped deck construction and play patterns in ways those other combos don't.

[@Weasels42]

If I had a dollar for every "what about X" in this episode, I could buy all the playmats in Richard's garage. Y'all need to do some 'no banlist' commander games to put your money where your mouths are for how some of these cards are to play against. Even ignoring the differences in what it seems like you want out of a banlist compared to the RC, there's just as many internal consistency issues with the arguments for unbanning these cards as the quotes being pulled up about the original bannings.

[@dantaylmao]

Have you seen NBL commander? Cause like, all of these cards are non-issues. I actually laughed when Tomer said about playing NBL to show him how busted Prime is hahaha

[@sebastianoparenti3536]

@@dantaylmao you're thinking of no banlist cEDH. Primetime has an entire modern deck around it. It gets picked in vintage cube so often and early. It's probably the best green creature pay off ever.

[@dantaylmao]

@@sebastianoparenti3536 cEDH is EDH. Yeah there's Amulet Titan and Shift Titan right? Or are they the same? I forget lol. Are they contenders again? Cause last I checked they got pushed out of the meta, though I don't keep up too much with non EDH stuff. It's definitely a good card especially in things like cube, but that's not what the conversation here is about.

[@HP0ke-1]

@@dantaylmao amulet titan uses untap triggers on amulet of vigor to win with a huge titan swing with the back up of valakut. Titan shift uses scapeshift as the main wincon where you use titan on turn 3 or 4 to explode out to like 7 or 8 lands then scapeshift a valakut to win.

[@shatzinorris1417]

@@sebastianoparenti3536 Your argument doesn't hold up. Lightning Bolt has decks built around it in all formats, it doesn't mean it is completely OP in cEDH/EDH and should be banned. Hulk is by FAR the better payoff in commander. You can have your two lands with Titan and I'll... Win with hulk ?...

[@discoviolenza1984]

You can tell they never played against sylvan primordial and primeval titan when they where legal.

[@Rakunya]

I did. They convinced me on leaving Prime Time banned, but I honestly think that Sylvan is fine. Especially with Flash banned.

[@NKMitch42]

@@Rakunya I actually think Primordial is the stronger card in the format, it doubles as removal.

[@Rakunya]

@@NKMitch42 very expensive and only non creature removal though. And it only gets Forests, unlike Prime Time which can get any 2 lands.

[@Deris76]

@@Rakunya Removing 3 permanents is still very strong, even if it's nonland cards. Grabbing some lands is just gravy, but it's still so efficient in what it does. I wouldn't want to play against big green deck playing that thing on turn 3-4, or blinked into oblivion...

[@its_chris2323]

@@Rakunya I've seen a UG deck cast Primordial on T4, hit a land/mana rock from everyone, then T5 cloned it twice and hit 2 more mana sources each and no one could do anything anymore.

[@ODIRGO]

The funny thing about this group is that they always imagine games in which an 8 mana spell is played by paying that amount of mana on at least turn 8 (especially Richard), when in reality, the problem with those cards is that they can easily be cheated into play.

[@chadbrown3502]

Concur... in my meta, an 8 MV card just brings awesome to the table. Then again, we avoid infinite combos, and play formats that let one person just play the game and everyone else just waits. Craterhooves have hit the battlefield and not ended games.

[@ssjssj8415]

Apparently no one pays 8 for griselbrand but everyone pays 9 for iona

[@ich3730]

@@chadbrown3502 then you missplayed your craterhoof.

[@Evyon25121]

The difference between Blood Moon/Back to Basics and Iona is that you choose how greedy you want your mana base to be, and so you choose to put yourself at risk of those cards. Iona shuts out mono color players immediately just for playing their deck. Like Griselbrand, she's also an easy reanimation target.

[@MTGGoldfishCommander]

You choose whether you want to play mono color as well. Not to mention there's colorless outs to any deck: Nev Disk, Perilous Vault, O Stone, Ugin Ineffable, etc.

[@Evyon25121]

@@MTGGoldfishCommander But you don't actually get a choice because commander is a format centered around colors. No one deserves to get locked out of a casual game out of nowhere just because they wanted to play mono-green bear tribal.. That logic would mean "don't play mono-color commanders if you don't want to get got by Iona" which is quite different than "please just play some basics in your deck." That would also mean that you'd be expected to play colorless outs, which are not as efficient as most colored answers, which is inherently warping.

[@Sevifor]

@@MTGGoldfishCommander Yes, but by playing a monocolor deck, you are agreeing implicitly to accept a certain amount of limitations in the form of the color pie (although admittedly that becomes less of an issue every year). If someone chooses to play a monored deck, they're not going to have enchantment removal. Monowhite? Card draw. Monoblack? Artifact removal. Etc., etc. The more colors you add to the deck the more flexibility your deck has and also the ability to play cards that are more efficient. Reclamation Sage is a commander staple, but I think it's noncontroversial to say that Aura Shards gets the nod between the two, even though they are different card types. Likewise, black does have a limited amount of artifact (and now even enchantment) removal, but green or white has cards that do it so much more *efficiently*. Even if some cards of a particular color can be compared favorably to another color's strength, you won't often see enough redundant copies of that kind of efficiency as you would really want in a deck. Ravenform in blue might be solid artifact removal, but green has Nature's Claim *and* a whole host of other similar effects it can run. For the record, I generally dislike cards that lead to locking players out of the game in general, but I can admit that there is a distinction between cards like Blood Moon, Ruination, Back to Basics, etc., and cards like Iona or Choke. A card like Blood Moon, etc. is going to disproportionately punish the decks with more nonbasic manabases, which in theory will skew towards the decks with more colors, and therefore more inherent flexibility and efficiency. Iona punishes decks with less colors disproportionately, and "punches down" on decks that already are already at a color pie disadvantage compared to their multicolored counterparts.

[@TheRedGauntlet]

@@MTGGoldfishCommander Theres a difference between buliding a commander deck and choosing one and be restricted by its colors. Terrible argurment.

[@eusouzoom]

@@MTGGoldfishCommander based on this you have outs for everything... Play blue and have force of will and mindbreak trap for good measure. Iona can R.I.P. in peace.

[@loganvandeurse4667]

I’m a cedh player and played it since 2017. The main problem that existed with flash was it can win on an opponents upkeep with the god opener of a gemstone cavern and a simian spirit guide esq card. This literally changed mulligan descision by the fact it was possible my opponent could have it in his opening hand. Oracle combos are much more interactive and have many more ways of being stopped unlike the hulk lines. On the note of wanting cedh to rule 0 is not in its spirit because you are wanting to play the best option available to you. The goal is to play the best lines and the best choices available to you legally in the format. Cedh is just commander that doesn’t want as much politics play that traditional commander ensues in

[@thumper3662]

I know they’re clowning on the Iona ban but I thought it was a good ban. It’s an almost exclusively casual card that hoses mono colored decks completely. Unless you have a counterspell ready or colorless removal, you’re pretty much done and your only hope is player removal. Blood moon isn’t as bad because at least basics still work, red decks and artifact decks still work, and you can use mountains for generic in non-red decks. Artifact ramp also gives you colors. Same for contamination. Cedh will never use Iona so that means it’ll only affect casual tables

[@samdalfthegray4495]

Richard truly is chaotic neutral XD

[@KingNaesala]

You actually know who wanted it banned, Shivam Bhatt said on a TCC podcast that he spearheaded and constantly pushed for Iona to get banned until it finally did.

[@Tvboy777]

You can’t disenchant recurring nightmare: the player casting it holds priority and returns RN to their hand as part of the cost of the ability before anyone can ever target it. edit: Seth explained it

[@marjoramme]

It's pretty evident that none of the people on this podcast have ever actually played against these cards, except for perhaps Seth.

[@anthonydelfino6171]

Every time someone tries to justify unbanning Biorhythm because of Shaman of Forgotten Ways, I feel like they've never seen someone do a Blasphemous Act, drop an Ornithopter, then win. Or as a friend of mine used to love to do, attack with a Novablast Wurm then cast Biorhythm. Card is toxic AF

[@drpibisback7680]

@@anthonydelfino6171 They definitely mentioned the Blasphemous Act -> Ornithopter -> Biorhythm line, but the problem is that's a three card combo that ends in a draw if anyone has a removal spell (or if anyone has a creature that creates a token when it dies, in which case they don't lose) and it costs 9 mana. Novablast Wurm + Biorhythm is yet another insanely expensive and slow combo that folds to a single piece of instant-speed removal. Demonic Consultation + Thassa's Oracle being three mana and being uninteractable outside the stack and in the best colors for assembling combo pieces remaining legal completely invalidates any argument in favor of keeping Biorhythm banned. At a table where Biorhythm is a problem, any combo deck would be a problem. That's a problem for Rule 0, not the banlist.

[@anthonydelfino6171]

@@drpibisback7680 then you Rule 0 to make it legal in your own group. I support the rules committee keeping this banned and am unconvinced regarding your argument.

[@dahoodlum1253]

@@drpibisback7680 i think people keep forgetting the fact that casual don't play these cards. Demonic thororacle is played by a very small niche population thats ok with the combo, if Timmy and Johnny just started slotting it into their decks and randomly pulling out wins 10 turns in after an hour and a half the pair would get banned but nobody wants to waste 2 hours for the game to end in a draw.

[@MrEsyphelon]

This conversation just got me thinking about what Griselbrand in K'rikk would look like. Pardon me while I go empty my stomach

[@pro711200]

Peer into the abyss already exists

[@williedustice6661]

My play group let's me run griselbrand in my k'rikk deck and honestly it is a totally fair card in the deck you never really draw more then 7 off of it because you want the rest of your life to pay for your spells.

[@Crunchatize_Me_Senpai]

I just want it unbanned so I can play my Rise of Liliana theme deck. I wish they would bring back the distinction of “banned as commander but not in the 99.” They said that’s confusing for new players but I’m starting to think no one on the rules committee has ever met a new player. I also think maybe they should either ban Entomb or Reanimate. Without both of those cards, a lot of these banned cards would be tolerable, and a lot of insanely broken legal cards would come down a notch. Griselbrand is fine if you actually pay 8 mana, but Entombing and then Reanimating it (or basically anything) is broken as hell. Or maybe they should just start banning specific combos, so you can run the individual pieces, but not all of it. Seems like that strategy would solve a lot of problems with the format’s most degenerate combos without hurting people who want to play the individual cards fairly. It wouldn’t be hard at all to enforce.

[@baconsir1159]

I want it unbanned for my Belakor + Gyruda deck

[@DiscardatRandom]

Necropotence exists

[@mingusog7036]

There could be a one-drop uncounterable instant that just said "you win the game" and richard would still be like "i mean its good i guess but it doesnt seem meta warping, i dont think it really needs to be banned"

[@TheGeekAvenger]

Commander Clash Team: The RC was salty once so they banned these cards Also Commander Clash Team: Braids makes us sad so we have to ban it.

[@twitchtveldenkoo2916]

Braids makes everyone sad, that's the issue

[@drpibisback7680]

Braids is sort of like the worst parts of every Tergrid deck everyone hates made even better. You jam Braids on turn 1-2 and it's entirely possible nobody has a 1-2 mana removal spell or cheap early play and thus can never play a second land. But then Braids can't just win turn 1 either, since you also have to keep playing and sacrificing stuff to keep Braids and lock everyone down. It's an inevitable slog and there's no reason not to build your Braids deck like that. Tergrid Rax 'n Stax isn't a good time, but decks that can jam turn 1 Braids from the command zone are even worse.

[@ManjMau]

I remember the day Iona got banned like it was yesterday... The reason it was banned (Which the CAG never admitted to) was because they wanted to unban Painter's Servant. And once I heard painter's servant was unbanned I immediately constructed a deck around it, which if Iona was unbanned I would also auto-include in my deck and it would be a game-ender.

[@SmartAlec1]

Yeah Iona with Painter's Servant just kind of auto locks the table and "dies to removal" doesn't do anything. It's tedious.

[@DylanHunter64]

That reason you mentioned is total bullshit, Shivam and the CAG have stated numerous times that it wasn't. You weren't in the room so you can't say it as if it's true, when the real reason is that it hoses a single player and force them to not play. It's that simple

[@SmartAlec1]

@@DylanHunter64 Well if it wasn't than it was quite a coincidence

[@ManjMau]

@@DylanHunter64 Well it is quite a coincidence that Painter's Servant was unbanned at the same time Iona was banned. Almost as if they didn't want the two to be played together... Hmm...

[@DylanHunter64]

@@ManjMau Read any of Shivam's tweets or responses about Iona. It's exclusively about not letting a single person play, they wanted to ban to avoid a scenario where a new player gets locked out and just has to watch. Painters Servant was being watched as a card that can probably be unbanned safely

[@EthanAronson]

I feel like they could easily test "8 mana win the game Sorcery is okay" by house ruling for a week the first player to cast Conflux wins the game.

[@ich3730]

or time stretch, expropriate, insurection, torment of hailfire and the other dozens of cards that are sorceries that win the game instantly if you are not stupid xD

[@mgschwartz]

It’s just like, what do certain casual players want out of magic? They say they want their/other decks to have a chance to show off what they can do, make big splashy plays, and play crazy powerful cards (not necessarily cheap/efficient mana wise, but strong effects). But then turn around and complain when someone wins the game with a 8 cmc sorcery. It’s like if it’s not creatures (but not TOO good of creatures) swinging for the win, telegraphed a turn in advance, then it’s just unfun feelsbads

[@drpibisback7680]

@@mgschwartz This is effectively what Battlecruiser Magic advocates believe. Everyone should be playing big durdly creatures that they were psyched about when they were 12 and smashing them together until somebody wins. Mana curves, interaction, and everything else that makes doing so suboptimal in other formats should be shunned.

[@SchlockGoblin]

they should just print a new version of coalition victory where you need 5 lands and 5 creatures

[@ms.sysbit5511]

You need a basic: Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, and Forest. Then I’d be fine with it. Fetches + shocks make it way too easy otherwise.

[@PalPlays]

@@ms.sysbit5511 Happily Ever After is close.

[@Basimilus]

@@ms.sysbit5511 That would be actually a pretty cool card I like that.

[@augustfilbert6305]

@@ms.sysbit5511 And triomes make it even easier. You can get away with just two of them.

[@JohnnyYeTaecanUktena]

@@ms.sysbit5511 that would be too easy with how green ramp is as they all search basic lands and they can get creatures out fast as well

[@thesp1r1tdragon55]

24:33 Have you heard of Intuition? It literally does the same job as Gifts for one less mana. 3 cards are enough to build a game winning pile like Underworld breach, sevinnes reclamation, LED

[@michelangeloiacovella913]

Ssshhh keep my boi intuition unbanned pls

[@filiphorvath8932]

@@michelangeloiacovella913 remove it from the RL then

[@michelangeloiacovella913]

@@filiphorvath8932 bans should take Power level into consideration and not wether a card Is reserved list or not. The fact that gifts ungiven Is banned and intuition isn't is laughable to say the least

[@steven3814]

Intuition is also like 160 dollars right now.

[@filiphorvath8932]

@@michelangeloiacovella913 The bans do not take power level into consideration - they consider fun and the banlist is a suggestion of what effects aren’t fun. I advocate banning the entire list because the economics of the RL are scummy, it should have been at least revised years ago and Commander players should not contribute to inflating the prices of those cards.

[@MindLaboratory]

Richard: they should unban everything until they ban everything

[@0Whitelottus0]

YES!

[@theatog]

Ya. ignore the "RC has no consistency" argument conveniently to make a point. I don't think Richard has the soundest reasoning/argument most of the time. If only he didn't mention the "consistency problem" a thousand times. The RC is inconsistent, selfish, subjective, incompetent, and has no integrity. Goddamn fXXk the RC. Oh, i forgot. Did i say this: fxxk the RC. Edit: just finished the video. Richard worst crime is arguing for Wish board. "Isn't it weird they print card that doesn't work in commander?" um... hello? "Isn't it WEIRDER they print card that doesn't work in every other format BUT commander (i.e. command tower and friends)?"

[@DakovaL]

The Rules Committee holds on to the past way to hard with how some of these cards are still banned

[@kriosuranous3440]

It’s insane to me that they were unanimous on time vault being banned but they all were against flash being banned.

[@juliofranciscogomezstoppel1860]

Flash isn't the problem, Hulk is. In fact, flash has almost no other good etb or die effect compared to what the hulk combo does, because, as allways, the main issue with commander is fast mana and tutors. With protean hulk out of the format, The craziest thing with flash would be... what? Agent of treachery maybe? As long as they keep being incredibly inconsistent with the banning list, more and more stupid cards will be banned in order to protect the big cash grab cards, like dockside.

[@stephenlewis3047]

I want to say, I once resolved an Expropriate in a large pod. However, in response, an opponent surprise reanimated a Jin-Gitaxias. I got five extra turns, and did not win that game, because my Expropriate basically became a 'discard your hand, then draw five cards.'

[@tzarl]

I feel like the crew gets hung up on power level stuff even after acknowledging that the ban list is not solely about power of individual cards. There's a difference between "basically wins the game" and "actually just wins the game". Coalition Victory isn't banned because it's too powerful, it's banned because it creates bad play experiences. If you have a 5c deck why not run it? And if you're playing against that deck, do you now have to play as if your opponent could have it at any moment? It doesn't create good play experiences to constantly have everyone ganging up on preventing the 5c deck from ever sticking their commander just out of fear of one card. As much as people rag on Expropriate it doesn't create anywhere near the same negative play experience, even if it is arguably a stronger card.

[@jeffcgh]

I have 3 5c decks and I cannot think of a single situation where I would run it. There are so many two card combos with your commander: freed from the real and any mana commander in the ENTIRE GAME is 100x better than coalition victory

[@baconsir1159]

You don't play it because it's ass.

[@joshuawarman4498]

Cedh to commander is like grand prix is to me playing standard with my friends. the point is to do the Strongest things with the normal commander rules. Which means the normal commander ban list.

[@a_level_70_elite_raccoon]

My eyes are rolling so hard right now. "Your 8 Mana sorcery should win the game."

[@j_g_t6091]

Why is that bad?

[@Frostgiantbutsmall]

Approach of the Second Sun: *nervous sweating*

[@ich3730]

it should absolutely win the game tho? Anything above 7 mana is so expensive nowadays, it should either be a game winner or powered out by ramp

[@electrohouselover07]

With Richard disagreeing with the rest of them on a couple of cards, only makes me want to see you guys play them to test it. Like you did with G.O.A.T. Magic. Would that be possible? That sounds like a pretty sweet idea!

[@derrickthewhite1]

The "No Ban List Game" sounded really good to me too!

[@josephhawkins7974]

They talk about possibly doing that during the video, think it's a fun idea.

[@electrohouselover07]

@@josephhawkins7974 Yeah I actually wrote that just before they said the exact same thing in the video hahaha Then I felt quite unoriginal lol

[@SuperOwei]

'No Ban List but without the remaining 8 of the power 9' sounds better

[@aGoshDarnTravesty]

Unfortunately, it would probably be like most of their cEDH games. The decks/cards don't look strong when the pilot doesn't know how to use it.

[@EdBurke37]

Seth: "Magic players are smart." Have you BEEN on the internet? We're all idiots!

[@ponderousplum7970]

Correction: *You're* all idiots! I'm only stupid.

[@csPOthr33cs]

Seth's visible confusion at 47:00 is absolutely priceless

[@AllegoryGar]

The cartoon head scratch and the noises killed me

[@Zentenski]

I only listened to this episode, so thank you for making me go back and see this^^

[@csPOthr33cs]

@@Zentenski absolutely, SaffronOlives facial expressions are one of the many reasons I keep coming back.

[@csPOthr33cs]

@@AllegoryGar the reactions of a man who has played against Sylvan Primordial

[@PalPlays]

Their argument for Recurring Nightmare is the most coherent justification of any card on the banlist. "It is most likely the only spell you will want to cast for the entire game." This is the same justification that should be used to ban Golos.

[@DRAGHNALL]

Woo they did my Fish mail. Respect the opinions of the crew.

[@chapter_black3234]

32:23 The reason Iona was banned so recently was that Wizards was reprinting Painter's Servant, which was originally banned for color restrictions in deck construction, and when they realized that Iona + Painter's Servant is a full lock on opponents casting spells, they decided to swap bannings of the combo.

[@Sean-gy6dx]

Just searching to see if anyone mentioned this. Glad I found this before I spammed the same argument.

[@123Broney]

yeah but like 2 card/win the game combos are like everywhere right? and for a lot less mana too. like karn/lattice combo is still in the format.

[@swebartender4697]

Ehhh, the latest version of painter servant printed was the masterpiece version in kaledash block back in 2017. Meanwhile Iona was banned in 2019.

[@chapter_black3234]

@@swebartender4697 Fair. It was bad implication. They had recently reprinted it, but the card itself was getting a lot of notariaty for becoming a Modern staple almost exclusively to answer Eldrazi decks. That's just how much the modern and legacy competitive environment has influenced EDH and increasingly the other way around as well. True-Name Nemesis is evidence of that. The whole idea of conceptually separating the competitive format from a "casual" EDH environment (whatever that would be defined as) is just a dead end.

[@Sean-gy6dx]

@@123Broney tbf no one really cares if you win the game with a combo, but to lock me out and force me to concede just feels bad

[@ms.sysbit5511]

Iona was banned because they unbanned Painter’s Servant at the same time. They feared that very, very hard lock but not the better Knowledge Pool varieties.

[@MTGGoldfishCommander]

This is incorrect. The person who advocated Iona's ban (Shivam) said Painter's Servant unbanning had nothing to do with the decision to ban Iona.

[@oORoOFLOo]

Shivam probably thinks each commander game should be ended by each player milling themselves by natural draw. That guy is completely nuts and he is toxic about it. A classic toxic casual.

[@ms.sysbit5511]

@@MTGGoldfishCommander they just happened simultaneously and happen to form the hardest lock in MTG (only activated/triggered abilities can break it). It was the real reason she was banned and everyone knows it. Iona had been in the format for years without issue and barely any use. This was the time everyone was fearing Painters + Grindstone combos.

[@darkencroix6412]

@@MTGGoldfishCommander Except the fact that Sheldon has been on the keep Painter's Servant banned wagon for years citing Iona, and Grindstone as reasons for it's ban for years. I can almost guarantee Painter's Servant wouldn't be unbanned if at least Iona wasn't added to the list.

[@donb7519]

@@darkencroix6412 right but that means they unbanned servant because they banned iona because someone petioned enough not the other way around

[@Jason-fv4rg]

1 banned card with high availability and an overpowered effect: "yeah but what about this 3 card combo with a card on the reserved list!"

[@scogel8911]

I think you all forgot to mention the fact that intuition is unbanned while gifts ungiven is. Which makes no logical sense since they have effectively the same outcome.

[@ExKiwi-yw8er]

seth can't pronounce 1/5th of the english language but he nails laissez faire immediately. interesting...

[@ComfyDents]

The even funnier thing is that Seth failed his "correction" aswell while Tomer only lacked the courage to speak the last syllable. ^^

[@brianr8780]

I think all of Kaldra should be banned. The worldslayer combo leaves an unfun game state that takes forever to finish from because the person has to attack with kaldra which isn’t that big. It takes 17 mana to do “fairly” which is easy in the format with mana rocks like Hedron archive and are all artifacts, specifically equipment, which can be tutored by white, the most powerful color.

[@ich3730]

kekW

[@falconlord7811]

You forgot your /s lmao

[@r.r.theninja6812]

The way priority works, as long as you always activate recurring nightmare the moment you play it, it is basically a buyback spell, because bouncing it to your hand is part of the cost, so enchantment removal definitely does not work.

[@Fromaginator]

I always forget Tomer is in Canada, stay safe out there best wishes from Nova Scotia

[@ammonaustin9081]

Crim doesnt respect the power of Green / land cards if he doesnt understand just how broken Prime Time would be in modern day EDH.

[@Kydrou]

And seems like Richard does not play enough green to know how easy it is to make 8 mana

[@ammonaustin9081]

@@Kydrou Tbh I dont think Sylvan Primordial is that bad unless its in a blink strategy. But maybe I'm bias cause I would love to play it lol

[@dsadams17]

I'm shuddering at the thought of someone dropping a PrimeTime with Panharmonicon or Yarok on the field.

[@ich3730]

@@dsadams17 fishing their cradle AND urborg AND cabal coffers in the same turn

[@nickcosgrove5215]

No way tomer tried to compare braids by itself to maralyn and op agent combined, which is also a different effect in the first place lol

[@juliofranciscogomezstoppel1860]

plus more cards, plus more mana, plus requiring an entire turn cycle. Tomer is very inconsistent (aka stupid) with his arguments.

[@joshuanolet8679]

One thing to point out with blood moon is that it punishes greedy players who don’t play basic lands. It’s very easy to get around it, just play more basic lands.

[@donb7519]

i mean when we have so many duel lands getting printed at common now is it really greedy. Also is it greedy to not want say your evolving wilds or other basic land fetch land shut down and turned into what may be just a colorless land

[@cheetsmcgee3678]

I know I'm late here, but Iona became banned when Painter's servant came off the ban list.

[@posaiduck1131]

I know I'm late here but this arguement makes no sense, Teferi, mage of Zhalfir and Lavinia are legal and they can be in the command zone. And they can be comboed with cards like Knowledge pool to completely lock everyone out of the game.

[@drpibisback7680]

1:27:05 - Tomer misses the paradox of stax: whenever you limit a Magic player's decisions, they spend ten times as long on every action because each choice they _can_ make feels so much more important. If you have two lands in play and no castable spells in hand, you will agonize over which land to sacrifice because maybe if you draw that card you'll want to have sacrificed this one, but then if you draw either of these... but if they get... or what does that do... and now you've turned three minutes worth of game actions total into three players taking 45 minutes to get through three turns. The paradox of stax is related to why players often throw the game when they're really far ahead - there's a certain amount of time allotted to all decisions by default, and that time is going to be divided evenly between each decision. When you have a lot of decisions to make, you spend no time on them, but when you have a few, you spend all of it on them.

[@Kryptnyt]

I think the balanced version of Karakas would just be colorshifted Minamo, School at Water's Edge, with "W, T: Tap target legendary permanent." Love me some Icy Manipulator effects in Commander.

[@dsadams17]

That or some sort of "Tap, Sacrifice Karakas: Return target Legendary Creature to its owner's hand."

[@solDelta]

I may not agree with Seth about cereal (I definitely don't) but I agree with him about Coalition Victory.

[@DoctorCataclysm]

Pro-fluid!

[@k9commander]

My memory could be deceiving me, but I remember an episode of Game Knights where Josh played Expropriate and didn't win after his extra turn.

[@Erik-yq7es]

WOTC propaganda, my friend

[@jasonkorf7700]

It's deceiving you, he won that game.

[@k9commander]

@@jasonkorf7700 My memory is that he used it to recover/stabilize, not to win. Other players got to play their turns. He won with something else.

[@jasonkorf7700]

The game is the first Extra Turns. He used it to try to stabilize against Jimmy, but won on his second turn because he had an Emrakul and Ulamog out and Jimmy conceding because he saw the writing on the wall and had no outs.

[@KevinCockerline]

The free braids part did get me thinking though. My biggest problem with commander is that the social contract promotes resource abundance but doesn't permit lots of resource denial. Someone playing Green wants to get 6 extra lands into play with landfall triggers? Sure! Someone playing white or black wants to make everyone sacrifice stuff or destroy lands? Bad. Considering how good some colors are at generating resource / mana advantage, I dislike this form of abusing the social contract.

[@dashkatae]

The problem with Braids isn't that though, it's that she basically shuts down everyone else from playing magic if she gets online early. It's just not a fun way to play magic, watching everyone draw and pass the turn while the Braids player sacs a land and replays the land with Crucible of Worlds or sacs a bitterblossom or Dreadhorde Invasion token while still building their board presence. And even if you remove Braids, they just recast it due to their better board state than any other player and everyone is in the same boat again. Braids in the 99 would be fine, Braids as a commander leads to degenerate decklists that lock everyone out of the game as early as turn 1. Swamp, dark ritual, sol ring or mana crypt or mox, Braids. Turn two, sac swamp, play swamp, play enabler. Now the game is every other player drawing, playing nothing until they have something they can do, and the Braids player playing magic.

[@AllegoryGar]

Josh Lee Kwai said he was strongly against the Iona ban??? Who’s the author and why did they say it was “unanimous” smh

[@MakeVarahHappen]

cEDH actually has a regular charity tournament called Marchesa that's newcomer friendly. Or at least it did, not sure if it's still going on.

[@logansanchez7998]

It happened this year using Cockatrice if I'm not mistaken

[@DrMonty-ng5fo]

I disagree with the logic of unbanning cards because something else is worse. Just because Expropriate is better then Coalition Victory doesn't mean that Coalition Victory is fair or fun. I would rather then just ban Expropriate rather then unban coalition victory. Also, as a CEDH player, rule 0-ing a card really does go against the spirit of the format. To make matters worse, you would also have to change a massive chunk of your deck if you're going to change wincons.

[@vonhousin4179]

31:01 i heard seth say "but gristlebrand is a big tiddy demon" at first and had to rewind to make sure thats what he actually said lmao

[@jamessheffield9091]

There's already some general rule 0s in cEDH; Proxies are fine, no king-making, spite plays are frowned upon unless they benefit you - but otherwise there's no salt at the table and any strategy is a valid one. Rule 0-ing out a card could be an interesting experiment to see how the format evolves, but ultimately I'd prefer the ban lists to remain aligned as it's easier to encourage EDH players to give cEDH a try (there's already a competitive EDH format called Conquest which bans all reserve list cards, fetchlands and some other cards to make it more accessible and make 4 or 5 colour decks less powerful - it's not something my playgroup is interested in). The cEDH meta is as diverse as I've known it to be right now, so much so that I'm usually the only Consult Oracle player at the table - and I'm usually shut down by a Cephalid Coliseum with someone holding up UG (Crop Rotation for the Coliseum).

[@Qazplm601MC]

I was so excited to hear the discussion on Rofellos and Emrakul this week, I’d been waiting for it since the last episode! Then they got completely glossed over in 10 seconds, dreams crushed.

[@FixerFour]

Rofellos definitely needs to stay banned

[@eusouzoom]

What discussion? There's no need to discussion on those lol

[@ich3730]

@@eusouzoom i mean, emrakul is busted but not that much compared to the BS thats legal. For LESS then 15 mana i can cast expropriate and fork, winning the game most likely. Or i could spend only 10 mana to do the sanguine blood combo and win instantly. Emrakul can bash into 1 player, then gets removed

[@eusouzoom]

@@ich3730 so nothing needs to be banned? Let the beast run loose? Or ban everything that wins? You are talking about two cards combos. This is one card that makes one opponent miserable. Sure it could be played "safely". Rule 0 it on your playgroup. The banlist is weird but the line has to be drawn somewhere.

[@bedwarssweat6205]

The issue with allowing 8 mana win the game is that it completely hoses non blue decks as they're the only ones that can interact with it. In constructed it seems fair that an 8 mana card wins the game but in commander games it's just not hard to do making it easy to win. Coalition victory makes sense to unban as you need a real boardstate. However, biorhythm seems way too easy to make work

[@MTGGoldfishCommander]

Non-blue decks can interact with Coalition Victory with creature removal.

[@rexone9564]

8 mana sorcerers SHOULD win the game. I seldom have lost after resolving an expropriate.

[@WUBRGer_King]

I think with Golos, Victory definitely needs to stay banned. Before Golos I could see a sound argument for keeping it.

[@ExKiwi-yw8er]

@@WUBRGer_King how often do you have creatures of each color in golos though? the funniest part of coalition victory is that most 5c commanders aren't actually 5c anymore, you're basically playing it in reaper king, slivers and niv mizzet, but they have better things to do. i still hate the card though, and i never want it played against me.

[@ComfyDents]

Expropriate is 9 mana and basically wins the game. Just without anything else needed.

[@SylphIcilio]

The issue with Primordial (it came out shortly after I started playing) is that it would normally just be reanimated on turn 2/3, and jump the controller to turn 7, and then get put on repeat. It didn't win the game, it just locked the rest of the table out for no reason.

[@thatoneguyshawn]

Iona was banned because painter's servant was unbanned. The combo is painter's servant turns everything whatever color, iona comes in and names that color so it locks everyone out and nobody can play anything

[@kevin_Masters]

But it still wouldn't be a problem. You need at least 3 cards to cheese it out or it cost 11 mana. In both cases fair magic for a win

[@RecoveringSpartan]

Erayo still counters Krosan grip since it's a trigger right?

[@SmartAlec1]

Richard would see a 1 mana instant that says "you win lol" and he'd be like "It's fine to unban given what they've printed in the past few years."

[@ich3730]

"handguns are legal, why not unban rocket launchers?"

[@hunterthorne4671]

I said it in the last video, and I'll say it again. The argument "a card similar to this one isn't banned, therefore this card shouldn't be banned" is a stupid argument, and seems to be the only argument you give as to why a card shouldn't be banned. Talk about the card in question, not other cards similar to it. I personally think more cards should be banned, rather than the other way around. So that if you have a playgroup that is okay with it, then you can play your banned cards. But if you join a new group for commander and they pull out expropriate, that probably won't be fun for many people, even though it's not banned.

[@YouandWhoseArmy]

Really a shame there doesn't seem to be a single voice on this show with this opinion. It's an extremely smart take completely overlooked. Your few sentences destroyed the whole video.

[@Bluejayount1]

How the hell was Seth the one that got laissez-faire correct?

[@Kryptnyt]

It's important to his video-related investments

[@Volvary]

He didn't. Tomer was right but didn't want to pronounce the last syllable.

[@yubeeeep]

When talking about gifts ungiven the closest similarity that comes to mind is intuition and thats not banned surprisingly

[@michelangeloiacovella913]

intuition is way stronger than gifts

[@metalking837]

@@michelangeloiacovella913 How is Intuition better than gifts? Gifts is 1 more mana for instant speed and gets you 2 cards.

[@michelangeloiacovella913]

@@metalking837 it's way easier to get non deterministic piles and win with intuition and 1 less mana is a BIG deal if you are playing at an high power level. Also not giving your opponents any choice Is extremely better than giving them a small choice. Also intuition is an instant too

[@drpibisback7680]

@@michelangeloiacovella913 With Gifts Ungiven, you can always fail to find one card and just play it as Intuition if you want to use a winning Intuition Pile, plus Gifts can create more piles total because of the four card ones or graveyard-based two card piles. The only upside is that Intuition costs one less, which is fairly small in a format with so much fast mana. I'm not sure how the argument about giving your opponent fewer options comes into play, seeing as Intuition and Gifts both make your opponent choose (they're also both Instants). Any deck that wants to play Intuition would play Gifts as Intuition #2 at minimum.

[@mattdeters8306]

Our cEDH group Rule Zeroes things off of the ban list, not onto them.

[@ShoutaFuwano]

Kind of wild to see how little some of them understand the rules of Magic while discussing Recurring Nightmare.

[@noahz42]

If cedh had its own ban list, they'd just play normal edh to play with the cards, cedh is edh

[@johnrecordjr.9420]

I think one thing the discussion should turn to when it comes to thassas oracle is the fact that it doesn’t just impact cedh play. Thassas Oracle sees play in any blue+ self mill plan and most tuned combo decks. I would argue that as a more casual player, it has completely invalidated games on my level as well. Oh well I drew a card that will mill most or all of my deck, guess I will just thassa Oracle and win. If biorhythm is going to stay on the banned list for completely invalidating games at 8 mana, why is thassa Oracle allowed to do it for two mana?

[@john4151]

can confirm i see thassa+consultation regularly at my regular casual location lol

[@ich3730]

@James Black reminder that "casual" doesnt mean "plays shit decks"

[@selkokieli843]

Everyone is a lovely person but I thought I'd hear more than "there's this and that now so it's fine" and "propably someone on the rc just got salty"

[@Eclipse8502]

Did they miss talking about Paradox engine?

[@jackdoherty762]

You guys should have a cEDH player on at some point just to have a discussion about why they don’t want to be considered a separate format with its own ban list and everything. I’m sure someone like Ryan from playing with power or something would be very happy to get on and talk to you guys

[@LouisKing995]

Why though ? The play philosophy is totally different ? Or is it a fear that the format would die if it got its own sub-category ?

[@juliofranciscogomezstoppel1860]

@@LouisKing995 I assume is the bragging rights of calling everyone else casuals while rubbing their wallets to their faces. This exact same thing happend with Legacy when initially released, because it rendered useless all the P9 cards. It turns out, it was the most popular version by far, and for almost a decade, the most competitive format by a longshot, breaking attending records of GPs all the time. Commander is in the brink of splitting in two, and i think WOTC will take complete control over the new multiplayer format.

[@SuperOwei]

Regarding the closing statements: I think Commander would be healthier, more versatile, simply better if there wasn't product specifically printed to the format.

[@ResidentEyebrowAppreciator]

100%

[@jjvh500]

I am amazed at how Richard constantly has horrible hot takes. He definitely missed the part of the rules committee saying "We ban representatives of an unfun playstyle, not the whole style." But he also just subscribes to the idea that "They don't ban everything so why ban anything" and that is crazy to me... and why is he thinking to balance around cEDH Also how is Seth the only one that sees the difference between "8 mana spell that generates insane advantage" and "8 mana spell that literally wins the game"

[@ryanc3201]

Agreed, Richard regularly seems to have the worst takes on things

[@totakekeslider3835]

@@ryanc3201 I dunno, Crim's obsessive green hate can be equally as nauseating. I suppose he's at least consistent with it.

[@Simon-ow6td]

The one thing I learned from this podcast is that, for how much I disagree with the rules-committee, I am happy these guys are not on it.

[@jasonw3479]

Love you guys, but watching these last 2 podcasts made me realize I'm glad you guys aren't on the committee that decides these things, 😆.

[@samuelswinamer4939]

I think this shows that the RC is probably a very similar random group of people playing lol

[@Jug_or_not]

Yeah some of the things they said were wild

[@MisshuVRC]

What about 3 mana gifts that is legal in the format but like $300

[@Dayyyjoey26]

Terrastadon gives your opponents elephants sylvan primordial gives you lands. Not even close on the value scale