These Four Cards Just Got Banned in EDH | EDHREC Room | Commander | Magic: the Gathering

[@nathanstruble8587]

I think the price of these cards was the only real component that kept circulation low (if you could even say it was low). However, if a player pulled a crypt from a pack it is almost assured they would jam it first thing in their favorite deck. As a player base on average we just don’t have the restraint necessary to keep things off the ban list

[@EDHRECast]

Yep.

[@heliobarbosa3525]

So what? That deck probably has a Sol Ring already. 1/99 versus 2/99 isn't a big deal in a casual deck. Edit: if you had an expensive commander and your deck didn't depend on it. Run 2 cheap partners instead of needing lotus, the deck now has 98 cards, problem solved. Math is the same, but now you now 5 random people can nuke the value of their collection if they so choose and their decisions are arbitrary, considering they banned mana crypt and didn't ban sol ring.

[@Shawn-f3x]

2/99 isn’t the problem. People coming to the LGS w/ decks that consistently contain the *entire* cEDH Fast Mana package and calling them 7s is. The more you’ve got, the more often you draw a 2-fast-mana-minimum start. I’m sure you regularly see the Land > Sol Ring > Arcane Signet start. When those 2 + a Signet or 2 are the end of it, it’s pretty rare to see those 6-8 mana T2s. Add Mana Crypt, Mox Diamond, and Mox Opal (The latter getting a lot harder to play T1 w/ less 0-1 cost rocks) to that, and it’s fairly probable one of those games will have a blowout start. Against 3 Battlecruiser 6.5-7s.

[@PiApproximate]

@@heliobarbosa3525 show me on the stuffy doll where the RC touched you? i had all these ban cards other then nadu, and i am a cEDH player i am happy to see the format shake up this will cause, this is not a bad thing this just makes the format more dynamic now i don't have the put these 3 cards in all my decks, also i have to reconsider my counter plays to others running this that now they can't, i have to change more then just 3 cards, and that is awesome!

[@nathanstruble8587]

@@heliobarbosa3525 1/99 -> 2/98 literally more than doubles the likelihood... I am sorry but if you think the swingy nature of a Sol Ring is bad then there is no world where the math supports you being against this ban. unless you lost money, which is valid, but really not the point of my comment

[@thetrinketmage]

Funny how Nadu got changed to be "better in EDH" then got banned there and messed up modern for a while

[@EDHRECast]

A book could be written on the trainwreck that was Nadu from start to finish.

[@Phoenix_9624]

nadu was designed with commander in mind, and somehow got banned in every format including commander

[@justagoose7741]

@@Phoenix_9624 I'm not sure they had anything in mind other than "push, print, profit!" when they designed Nadu. There was no reason to rush it other than sell, and it was a clear mistake.

[@Ridelith]

Hey at least it's a fine legacy card

[@enoesiw]

​@@Phoenix_9624 I don't believe for a second that the final iteration of Nadu was designed with Commander in mind, no matter what was said.

[@ashking4434]

I have a lot of respect and appreciation for this Channel when it comes to giving feedback on topics like this. Thank you EDHcast for being professional. It’s refreshing to hear. I hope to see more people discuss this topic and further topics with the same level headedness.

[@EDHRECast]

Thanks a ton, that means a lot.

[@patrouski]

I always REALLY appreciate how patiently and politely you guys rebuttal all of the seemingly overwhelming amounts of negativity online. A little reminder there is a silent majority of many people like myself who watch and enjoy your content everyday but don't often leave comments. Much love to the EDHREC crew!

[@heliobarbosa3525]

I didn't see a "Sol Ring not banned" decent rebuttal yet. Also, they didn't address the lack of warning in the Crypt and Lotus bans.

[@EDHRECast]

Thanks much @patrouski

[@Srynan]

Nitpicking nerds put out a quick video, followed by a poll yesterday. The comments read like the world is about to end. The poll is about a 1/3rd to 2/3rds in favour of those bans. Seems like the people who cry the loudest in this case are not the majority.

[@devinsdsm]

My thoughts exactly!!! I appreciate the level headed take on this, and assuming the RC has the overall best interest of this format in mind. These are people who love this game, and I'm sure this wasn't a decision they took lightly.

[@Scrut89]

What makes the recent ban feel worse than it should, is the fact that Crypt and Lotus were banned seemingly without warning. Dockside has been on the RC's watch list for years and they've said as much. Nadu was a no brainer. But Crypt and Lotus, we've had no mention of them being looked at as problematic.

[@joshholmes1372]

Wizards wouldn't have let those stand whiel they were pushing reprint sets

[@ApexZer0]

​@@joshholmes1372 the Rac and wotc are two different things

[@EDHRECast]

The argument was that the game changed around Crypt and Lotus, i.e. the cards you can ramp out today with them are much stronger than the ones you could ramp out in 2015. That said, we get how it's frustrating to feel this came out of nowhere.

[@davidarbour2683]

You could also have 8 mana pump up on mono green turn 3. But nobody seem to see it.

[@Scrut89]

@@EDHRECast I totally agree that with the power creep of cards, what these cards were allowing you to do sooner and sooner was more impactful. Again, I feel like most people wouldn't be as divided on this if the RC had announced to the players over a year ago (per Jim's tweet) when they had told WoTC that they had been discussing Crypt and Lotus and were keeping an eye on them.

[@JediRevan1207]

I do feel that the majority of people who paid the price of the ban were not the ones causing the issue. It’s is just unfortunate that to deal with the people who play these cards in a casual environment and say the deck is a “6-7” is by removing use of the cards for everyone

[@SirSwash]

These cards can be used in casual without breaking it

[@gabecastillo1634]

Half of the people who pub stomped with these cards anyway had them proxied, this hurts invested players and not invested in terms of just money but time as well, I can’t imagine trading a ton of mid tier staples for a lotus or crypt as a newer or invested player and getting shit on by the rc

[@patterofheads256]

@@gabecastillo1634 Half? closer to 80% Because if they proxy the Crypt, they also proxy their force, force and fierce. It's on you if you don't have a more powerful deck handy to combat a higher level player sitting at the table, and it's also on you if you don't run one mana white spells that will exile the commander that they spend 5 cards to cast early.

[@RutherRendommeleigh]

I partially blame Sol Ring for "teaching" casual players to put fast mana into their low-mid power decks. Especially if their only format is Commander, they might not know better. That being said, banning four cards isn't going to stop shitty players from being shitty. If they're willing to play Crypt to fuck over newbies, they're also willing to pick up Metalworker. I'm in a pod that plays 8-9s a lot of the time, with all the fast mana, and we have a lot fewer non-games than with precons. If anything, it's two card combos that lead to unfun games.

[@steadfastideal]

I also think this is a warning shot to WoTC. I was thinking Mana Crypt caught a stray, but when you guys pointed out Wizards reprinted it to specifically create a chase card situation for commander players, I agree with it now. We're in a unique position as commander players in that our governing body doesn't technically answer to the all powerful shareholders that force designers to push out these broken awful card designs in order to drive sales. If the trend is for WoTC to recklessly print messed up designs in order to push the dollar values up, I'm ok with the RC sniping those in order to tell them "it's our format not yours"

[@controlaltdeleteish]

If WoTc wanted they could dissavow the recent rulings and put them in their place. You seen what they did to the judges especially if it messes with $ flow

[@ShadowspawnVII]

WOTC could shut down the RC. It's their intellectual property.

[@ShadowspawnVII]

​@controlaltdeleteish exactly, if enough people decide they aren't going to buy packs/boxes for risk that the big chase cards will be banned hurting WOTC money flow. WOTC should take over.

[@steadfastideal]

​@@controlaltdeleteishseeing as they reposted it on the official WoTC page, it seems like they don't particularly feel like putting anyone "in their place", except maybe those of you who've been taking these cards to the casual pods at your LGS.

[@steadfastideal]

​@@ShadowspawnVIII'm confused, are you saying that if WoTC is producing so many overpowered cash-grab cards, which everyone acknowledges are op because they assume they'll be banned, that the solution for the health of the format is to remove the governing body doing the banning?

[@Haradin13]

My biggest issue is that for years they've been using the excuse of rule 0 to not ban them. To the point that this summer I finally felt comfortable enough to buy into a significant portion of a cEDH list, including the Jeweled Lotus. It feels like the RC pulled the rug out from under me. At this point I'm not going to get into the cEDH format and at least I can trade off the other cards, but that hit from the lotus hurts considering it's useless everywhere else.

[@dennisvogel5982]

get into the format - just do not give them money. the format is great and so much better than 99% of casual games could ever be since basically everyone at the table plays a different game. CEDH players usually let you proxy as much as you want and will welcome everybody to try it out

[@DickCheneyXX]

We all need to disregard the RC, make them irrelevant.

[@ronelm2000]

Honestly.... Rule 0 was a mistake.

[@Haradin13]

@@ronelm2000 I don't think it's a mistake in and of itself. I think it's a mistake for the RC to use it as a scapegoat for so long then blindside us like this.

[@ronelm2000]

@@Haradin13 that's a fair take. Tho, the thing is that the fact that Rule 0 basically allowed stores and playgroups to fragment the list so much so that it honestly makes it unapproachable for me, making it so that participating in another playgroup is basically a 50:50 of "oh you need high-powered stuff" to "oh you need to take out your MLDs". It's the primary reason I don't play EDH outside a playgroup at all.

[@MrCrimsonCobra]

I think the issue I have with this banning is not perse the cards that are being banned but the lack of forecast letting players know they are being looked at. I think how they handled dockside ban is fine (even though I love the card and own it) because they have been saying hey we are monitoring it versus the other expensive cards where they pull the rug essentially. Give players a warning you are watching those and that will help alleviate some pains of card prices dropping

[@EDHRECast]

Yeah, more communication is always a plus.

[@Arctanis-vt3hl]

You wouldn't have been able to sell them either way. Who's going to buy a card that's being looked at for a ban.

[@dhantefranklin336]

​@@Arctanis-vt3hlCorrect.

[@MomirsLabTech]

​@@Arctanis-vt3hlask all of the vendors who have been buying dockside for the past year no questions asked

[@shorewall]

@@Arctanis-vt3hl For real, it would be like a stock market crash. Someone would be left holding the bag.

[@robertglover2676]

You hit it on the head. People kept dumping them in lower power pods and played stupid. I feel bad for the collectors regarding value, but I am definitely over seeing them where they shouldn't have been.

[@EDHRECast]

(Dana here) My theory is that the fact that they kept getting reprinted made it easy for folks to just blind jam them into a deck where they weren't appropriate in a way you really can't with say Mox Diamond or Grim Monolith.

[@AdoreHorror]

@dana, I'd be fine with banning those too tho - I'm still not pro RC but they regained my trust today

[@chasm9557]

I agree. I've been against Jeweled Lotus since I played a game where someone decided to bring a deck worth more than the rest of the table combined and played a turn 1 Sol Ring and Greaves into a turn 2 Aclazotz. That sort of degeneracy doesn't belong in a casual pod where people are just there to have a beer and talk over a game.

[@endersblade]

1 - This is a GAME, not a retirement fund. I don't care one iota about people who are worried about the prices tanking. 2 - This is a welcome ban list, and I hope this encourages them to do MORE. This format needs to slow the hell down. 3 - This is also entirely dependent on the players...just because someone claiming to be the rules committee says this is so, it isn't official, and people don't have to adhere by it. Granted, that has always been the case, so nothing along those lines is really changing.

[@CarpetSnakes]

@@EDHRECastMonolith/Vault with Voltaic Key is my standard

[@dobosmoez6968]

The main problem is the blind siding (jeweled lotus and crypt) the rules committee basically never mentioned these cards were even on ban watch or being scrutinized. Dockside was definitely mentioned multiple times in commander committee updates, and Nadu was a given. The other two were basically out of no where..

[@EDHRECast]

Being upset this seemed to come out of nowhere is totally understandable.

[@heliobarbosa3525]

Mana Crypt is even worse because it shows the absence of scrutinizing, judging by the Sol Ring paragraph. 2/99? = OMG, casual commander is ruined! 1/99 fast mana? = the soul of the game...

[@dobosmoez6968]

@@EDHRECast For real. Being more transparent about being on a watch list would have given people two choices either the opportunity to think about offloading riskier cards or keep playing them knowing full well a ban could happen. I've definitely gotten rid of riskier cards in other formats specifically because Wizards mentioned they were watching them closely..

[@dobosmoez6968]

@@heliobarbosa3525 couldn't agree more, in all honesty though Sol ring being in precons is the main reason for not banning. Could open up Wizards to legal issues as precons are supposed to be playable out of the box..

[@robertconlon]

@@heliobarbosa3525 100% because WotC knew and forced them to not ban Sol Ring. Obligatory Edit: OR they knew banning Sol ring would bring WotC down on them.

[@The_Indubitabler]

As someone who has only ever played cEDH, I sympathize with the negative experiences that casual players have with pubstompers and higher-power cards like these showing up at lower-power tables. I just think that it's unfortunate that cards which are staples in my side of the format, and are necessary for a number of decks to even compete or function (especially for decks that are outside of the top 5), are banned because of what boils down to poor Rule 0 communication. It's not like pubstompers have a shortage of powerful cards to bring to casual tables, so I'm not sure where we draw the line here. Sure, I get the argument that EDH is fundamentally a casual format, but I don't see where the logic ends in this case. Mana vault, Sol Ring, Dark Ritual, Jeska's Will, Culling the Weak, Ancient Tomb, Gaea's Cradle, Smothering Tithe, and so many other cards are capable of generating a tremendous amount of mana early in the game. By the reasoning behind this ban, are those all going to be banned next? Why is this a matter of adjusting the entire format, when these are only problematic if there is an inadequate Rule 0 conversation? I'm happy to see Nadu gone, and tbh I'd be interested to see what a post-Dockside format looks like (I play Sisay, so this would actually hurt me quite a bit), but the crypt and lotus bans are really sad to see. Lotus is necessary for higher cmc commanders to even have a chance to make an impact before the game ends. Crypt, and fast mana in general, are just as much part of the core identity of cEDH as Sol Ring is to Commander - the subreddit literally has a crypt as its picture - and in a meta-game where Orcish Bowmasters, Treasonous Ogre, Sylvan Library, K'rrik, Necropotence, & Bolas' Citadel are major threats, the crypt damage is actually quite significant. I've both lost & won tournament games because of a crypt flip in upkeep, or top decked a crypt to give me just enough mana to get back into the game after missing a few land drops, and those are exciting things that are just completely gone now. Hopefully the cEDH community can finally stop cutting off its nose to spite its face and band together to make an RC of their own, or maybe WotC will get involved if the financial hit is enough for them to step in. For the record, I proxy almost everything and didn't own any of these cards, so my disagreement is strictly based on the gameplay repercussions. I want casual players to have awesome, fun game experiences with friends and strangers. I just find it super upsetting that they feel the need to do so by forcing us to either self-regulate, fracturing from the rest of the community, or just sigh and accept that our game preferences just don't have a home here anymore.

[@ryantomczak2248]

As a fellow cEDH player I could not agree more with your statement. These bannings have completely destroyed certain decks. Korvold, Niv Mizzet, etc are nigh unplayable at a tournament level now. I hope that going forward we can see more deck brewing, but in the mean time I need to adjust my decks. I think I will swap sticker goblin for dockside in Tymna / Rograkh. He can still work with cloudstone curio loops to make infinite mana.

[@dennisvogel5982]

Yes this is the biggest drawback - i think they have casuals in mind with these bans but really hurt the people on the cedh side - and i fear this will not stop the problem players have on the casual site at all - like i fear the pub stomp timmys will just turn up with a cradle and a mana vault now and do the same thing. Rule 0 in general is a concept that does not work because a fundamental design of a card game is that all players use the same card pool - and if people sit together and one shows up with a standard deck, and the other with a modern deck, they will most likely have a bad time - thats why formats exist and the cardpool of edh is all cards printed with the banlist as exception and everything else is a personal deal between players. And personal deals are vague and cannot be enforced in any way. I think thats why we like cedh, the cardpool is clear, the goal is clear, we just sit down and play =) get 3 Matches in 2 hours done, have a good time and leave

[@EDHRECast]

cEDH is absolutely dealing with the fallout of actions that are not their fault. I'm not sure if there's a better solution, but we can at least acknowledge that reality.

[@nodekapunk]

@@EDHRECastit’s called, people eventually learn not to play with the pubstompers at their lgs. The problem usually resolves itself

[@TheWowdrew]

The only ban I'm a bit iffy on is jeweled lotus. It would make more sense according to their logic if it was a mox.

[@LegendaryMaeve]

The secondary market is extremely predatory on commander which is supposed to be a casual format. The fact that commander has such a sway on these collectors pieces has been too egregious and I hope this banning shows that cardboard shouldn't be this expensive. Yes, it sucks to lose a bunch of money after buying these cards, but cards need to be reprinted more so that things like this don't happen. Things like masterpieces should be printed for the high money collectors items. But there should be a higher number of printings for actual play pieces.

[@heliobarbosa3525]

It shows that it isn't worth to spend money in mtg since you can use proxies to play casually. I'm considering to sell 99% of my collection, I don't plan to stop playing

[@nightmarebananaful]

@@heliobarbosa3525 I doubt it shows anything like that, since people have and will still treat Magic cards as an investment portfolio. But I agree, don't let money stand between you and a fun mtg game, print them cards or hop on your preferred online sim

[@dennisvogel5982]

but it sends the wrong message - putting these cards into commander precons would be the right one

[@VexylObby]

If someone spends a LOT of money on a card, they should know the risk. Nobody should have to spend a lot of money to have fun or win.

[@VexylObby]

@@heliobarbosa3525 Why hasn't most people? I did like 4 years ago. Never looked back.

[@broodwarjc1517]

Jeweled Lotus gets stronger and stronger as WotC as started pushing 4-5 mana commanders over the 7 drops of 2011-2013. These new commanders are usually made to generate more and more card advantage and easily draw you cards to negate the disadvantage of running Lotus that can only cast your commander.

[@ghaleon7]

Honestly my play group doesn't give a crap about the RC and their bans so this doesn't hit me personally, but I feel bad for those that pulled a copy of one of these or bought a copy just a few days ago for those prices. Hopefully the people who got burned by this will realize it's not worth spending that much money on cardboard and start proxying everything. Why bother buying any powerful new cards when they could be banned within a few months? Just spend some change and print out a copy on your printer or spend a bit more (though still far less than the average price of a lot of cards) and get your proxies printed at higher quality.

[@clm45320]

I have a friend who just finished a Nadu deck and he loves it. I already told him he can keep playing it, I don’t care.

[@blaaaarrrrgMTG]

I have no problem with expensive cards being banned, what I have a problem with is that it's so unexpected. NOBODY was even close to expecting this, most of us didn't know an announcement was coming.

[@EDHRECast]

Yeah, that's valid.

[@travis_approved]

I totally agree. Jake and Joel put it really well. The gameplay might be better but I find it very irresponsible for them to put 3 of these 4 cards as premium chase cards in ludicrously expensive boxes just to rug pull the people who paid for them

[@brockkron3218]

There's also talk of "insider trading" that the people who knew about the bans ahead of time dumping the cards.

[@EDHRECast]

@@travis_approved That's not really the RC's fault though. They can't control what and when WotC reprints stuff and where they put it.

[@derrickpaulson3093]

I bet the RC sold their copies beforehand though. Total BS.

[@jasonritner9662]

Jeweled Lotus is probably the only one I'm not on board with. I get why, but it feels like a bit of an over correct. They probably could have waited to see how the mana crypt ban played out first before pulling the lotus. But, that's just my uneducated opinion. So... *shrug*

[@jemm113]

No I definitely agree. Crypt is a problem in low-power pods due to it being permanent mana. JLO was simply a ritual for commanders only. And if a pod cannot handle a single ritual then the pod is made up of bad players that refuse to run interaction.

[@EDHRECast]

It's the one we were least on board with for sure.

[@siukong]

I can see the logic of that take. But I can also see the devils-advocate logic of not wanting to ban just Crypt, then have players flock to Lotus as a replacement for 3 or 6 months until a second decision/correction could come out, resulting in even MORE people pissed off.

[@patterofheads256]

@@siukong Lotus/Crypt have completely different functions.

[@josephhawkins7974]

I likely would've chosen Mana Vault over Jeweled Lotus, as it was what I immediately figured people would rush to use, and the price climb we've seen on it seems to be bearing that out. That being said, I think lotus was a very reasonable ban because some of the commanders it can get out super early are problematic when they have rough ward costs or other things that impede interaction when they show up 3+ turns early.

[@Ehatcher11]

My humble opinion is this… there were three cards banned with combined value of close to $400 in their base printing that were all recently printed/reprinted. These cards were chase cards. These cards were printed with super unique treatments. These cards were pushed to sell packs. That’s the MAIN reason people are mad. People feel deceived. I’m not commenting on the rules committee because they literally have no bearing on what gets printed. No one cared when hullbreacher was banned. It wasn’t expensive. If they would have banned sol ring…no one would have cared.

[@Arctanis-vt3hl]

THat' s the problem. Stop thinking that your collection is always going to be worth something. Just buy to play. Value is a bonus.

[@Ehatcher11]

Agreed. I own none of the banned cards. It doesn’t affect me… but I can see why people are mad.

[@25_Cats_in_a_Trenchcoat]

Hullbreacher was the other chase from the og set if I remember correctly. Now both my pulls from that box banned 😅 is what it is.

[@YoungLiam74]

@@Arctanis-vt3hl Funny, i bought a crypt to play last thursday and it came Monday night after the banning. So not only is the price nuked but i can't even play the card.

[@Sandovian]

PROXY EVERYTHING. Everyone's new commander budget should be the cost of printer ink and an mpcfill order

[@CasualKing21]

I can pick up Crypt, Lotus and Dockside for Canadian Highlander now! Lotus will be my proxy Black Lotus

[@EDHRECast]

They're pretty solid pickups for cube as well.

[@NuSocTheKelDor]

​@@EDHRECastmy first thought as well.

[@mikepetrangelo5396]

To your point on cedh, it homogenizes the format way more. Not that expensive commanders were tearing up the tournaments lately but now expensive commanders are unvialble. Tivet, atraxa, etali, korvold, and kenrith are all dead decks now.

[@NyahBoyOwO]

Tivith and Kenrith are alright, the other three are dead, same with Magda. Probably this will make Kinnan a top deck and Yuriko back to being top deck, basically this cemented Thassas demonic as top combos because the decks that run underworld breach usually do loops with the mana crypt and dockside. It is awful

[@mikepetrangelo5396]

@NyahBoyOwO breach lines are still safe with LED and lotus pedal. Magda is still viable but it's substantially weaker now.

[@eba8938]

I ran Tivit without crypt or lotus and it was a solid deck. My Korvold deck is 100% screwed by this though lol.

[@jeffnosdivad3080]

"cEDH should have their own RC" Ok, i agree. What do players that aren't cEDH players but certainly not casual do?

[@Lazydino59]

My tin foil hat theory is that these bans are due to the cEDH rules committee forming, and the RC was like “ah shucks we got to actually monitor the format now before they fire us”.

[@Russian_engineer_bmstu]

​​@@Lazydino59 haven't cedh rc died already?

[@zanderfus2723]

What literally everyone misses is that all cedh players will move to the new casual format because they are about optimizing the current format and not about playing competitve 4 player

[@EDHRECast]

@@Lazydino59 Jim commented that these bans have been in the pipe for probably a year.

[@ryandavidson3610]

@@EDHRECast and that’s another issue, absolute radio silence on these cards suddenly being on the radar, where is the communication? I think the main issue with these bans, if you think there is one, is that people have been absolutely blindsided by it. The RC’s last announcement about dockside was (paraphrasing) ‘the card is only as good as the pod allows it to be, so we aren’t banning it rn’ and this decision reverses that logic on its head.

[@Marcosomos]

The only real error in all of this is in wotc's part, they should have reprinted this cards more until they weren't worth more than 30$. Then nobody would have really cared about the financial hit that much.

[@martinheraud1744]

Facts!

[@mightyone3737]

The issue with mass printing problematic cards is that having more of a bad thing makes the whole worse, and can stifle player interest when they can't find pods without Mana Crypt because WotC printed it down to $20. Sure it'd help when they DID get around to banning them, but the game might lose thousands of players due to how crappy the game was for the years it would take to 'fairly' tank Mana Crypt.

[@CanadaJarod]

​@@mightyone3737isn't sol ring an argument against this?

[@Marcosomos]

@@mightyone3737 I believe it would be preferable still instead of buying a 200$ card 2 days ago and get screwed

[@elladan23]

THey did it at purpose, thats the reason they were mythic.

[@theautisticguitarist7560]

I literally didnt realise until today that nadus ability triggers only twice PER CREATURE. HOW THE HELL DID ANYONE THAT THINK THAT WAS OKAY???

[@kaicrutcher1313]

I don't have a link to who said what and where, but I believe it was said that the final iteration of Nadu wasn't play tested.

[@tobiaskroger7102]

@@kaicrutcher1313 Its in this video at 6:38

[@cleanaccount9991]

@@kaicrutcher1313in the article talking about Nadu’s banning, the leader of MH3 literally said it wasn’t tested because it was a last second decision. Nadu was made for commander and originally let you play stuff with flash and the trigger only worked from opponents but it didn’t work and they changed the design

[@AstoranSolaire]

@@cleanaccount9991 It's not even that it didn't work, the feedback from the commander players they consulted with said that giving flash to all your permanents was too good... so they made it better and didn't test it. Dumbest shit ever.

[@ChromeCrown]

dont sell something that u know will be banned this should be illegal

[@78-h]

This might kill chase staples in upcoming sets. If there's a Anime Sheoldred, or a Gilded Foil Mana Vault in an upcoming collector box, it's going to be looked at with a lot more caution than before. It's way scarier to bling out your deck with alt variants than it is to just pick up a cheap base printing, and maybe proxy a fun art.

[@derrickpaulson3093]

this is similar to my new fear--is my mana vault safe? I was going to pick up a Serra's Sanctum, but not now with this BS. Too scary.

[@ryandavidson3610]

@@derrickpaulson3093I honestly feel like it’s time for me to sell my collection, at least the expensive stuff, and just proxy everything. The stability we once knew is gone imo and given their reasoning for these cards, I expect more to follow suit such as rhystic study or bow masters, and I for one no longer feel comfortable taking that chance, even though I didn’t own these specific cards.

[@andreabasso9278]

​@@derrickpaulson3093if enough people reason like you, prices will drop enough for the gamble to be worth it

[@KolossusB]

@@derrickpaulson3093 Unless you're playing at sanctioned events, just divest and replace with proxies. If you're just playing casual game it's really only about hanging out and playing. As long as you're not taking the proxying to an extreme to have all your decks operating as 10's across the board and oppressing everyones ability to just play magic there really isn't any issue.

[@leadpaintchips9461]

I think it's going to have the opposite effect. The speculators aren't going to be hoovering all of them up and trying to flip them at outrageous prices, because people aren't going to be buying them en masse at those prices. The only reason why the secondary market is the way that it is, is because people are willing to pay those prices. This'll allow more people who want to bling out their deck because they think the cards look cool to do so, even though it'll put a damper on those who just want to flex wealth.

[@kfunky209]

Love Matt's and Joey's comment on the duality of the masses, like you can't have your cake and eat it to

[@nharviala]

I really feel like the Nadu ban is less about the combo and power level (not saying it's not nuts, it absolutely is), but it feels more like a hit to the cards that are clearly designed for Commander, outside of Commander-specific sets. The description for Nadu said they were designing an EDH-specific card, something that upset a fair amount of people, this hit feels like the RC telling WotC to stop the specific designs moreso than power level. If they'd hit a card for non-deterministic combos, they'd also ban Gitrog Monster.

[@krazykilper]

Does anyone else believe there was a good chunk of insider trading going on with this ban? Look at the sale history on various websites.

[@Josh-sn3gk]

It’s definitely got something to do with it.

[@ShadowspawnVII]

Yes

[@TheForeverRanger]

Oh I have zero doubt. Is it scummy? Yes but not illegal.

[@VexylObby]

Only the conspiracy theorists.

[@BenStanton-f1g]

Look at the large online card shops dropping Mana Crypt and Jeweled Lotus from their buy lists back in August

[@nathanvieths5108]

Imagine pulling Mana Crypt, or Jeweled Lotus from one of the three collectors packs in your festival in a box and then a day later this happens.

[@sleepyracoon4811]

I'm sure it has already been said but I really appreciate the conversation you three had around those bans and how civil it was. I got really upset yesterday, not because of the bans but from the reactions of some people in my playgroup... It soured my mood a lot and hearing you three talk about helped a bit. A big thank you to all the EDHrec cast, you're good beans 💜

[@romanmccoy5074]

I have never once bought a card worrying about what the value will be later for resale.

[@Arctanis-vt3hl]

Doing it the right way.

[@paulravelli3953]

Here’s the thing, if they reprinted mana crypt into the dirt where it’s 5 dollars, that’s one thing. I’ve lost my value but I can still PLAY the card. I had 2 Docksides, a jeweled lotus and a mana crypt and now I’m out 400-500 dollars and can’t even play the cards…

[@bfw6971]

Really? Do you buy cards or proxy? Do you have a collection worth more than a stick of gum?

[@leadpaintchips9461]

@@bfw6971 Or, they don't plan on ever selling their collection?

[@EDHRECast]

We usually don't either, but we get how that's not universal.

[@EdBurke37]

Nadi needed to be banned for the same reason Paradox Engine needed to be banned, it can be put into any deck that could play it and make every turn last 20 minutes but still not win the game.

[@EDHRECast]

Very much this.

[@michaelhuerta7469]

That bird was just a plain mistake all the way around, simic NEEDS a much better identity than asshole turn management value train

[@theautisticguitarist7560]

So... every simic deck ever made ever.

[@chrisperrell2843]

There are loads of durdle, massive long turns and don't win commanders out there, but they didn't get banned, people just realised they are miserable to play against and didn't bring them to the pod unless the other people were up for the experience. Any Izzet storm commander can have exactly the same long turn (plus extra turns) that ends up being just as annoying to sit through

[@Hemlocker]

@@theautisticguitarist7560 Nadu does this on a completely different level than any other simic commander

[@victormanjarinsala2253]

2023 RC: Yo! We gonna ban crypt and JL. 2023 WoTC: The hell you are! We're reprinting them now, we need to sell these packs. Give it a year at least. 1 year later...

[@kritikverloren1814]

cause they are lying every time since decades

[@MinstrelSauce]

Just proves RC are hacks and not needed

[@gnomersy1087]

Great news. Super glad for all these going. I don't think any of them made the format better. Really happy to see the RC taking steps to curate the format and hope to see more! I feel for the people who lose some money here but investing is a risk if you don't want to take that risk in your games that's okay. I also don't like that risk which is why my cards are not investments to me. They're toys and I've always assumed they are worthless outside of maybe playing with them.

[@CHEFPKR]

I've seen JL, Dockside and Crypt slapped into so many decks. Running red? 0 downside to having Dockside. It immediately powers up the deck for no downside or needing to build around it. It sucks that a card like JL is just a dead card now,but it was becoming a problem to see those cards in every deck you built.

[@Trainwreck12315]

These 3 cards basically made commander into ~90 card format. Given Sol Ring and Arcane Signet are like that too, but ~a buck for 2 cards that are in every deck is a much better minimum line for deckbuilding than 400

[@EDHRECast]

Yeah, there's a weird problem with these three cards and their price; if they're cheap, then everyone jams them into every deck, and that sucks. If they're $100 then only some people can afford them, and that also sucks.

[@electrichumbug]

I commented on the previous video saying that for me the lack of action/communication was a problem so it's only fair that I comment here also. It's good to see that they were actually working on things. Sure this was contentious and upset people - but their position is a difficult one where both when they do and when they don't they get flack. My opinion on the bans not withstanding I have more respect for them now than I had for them on my last comment. Also much respect to your team and how level headed you lot always approach things also - great video as always :)

[@adoo765]

I think lotus and nadu were a message to R&D, for the sake of other formats, and Crypt and dockside were a message to the wallet milking department

[@RibusPQR]

Let's hope so.

[@mbioman]

Banning cards in the most played format of the game, just feels bad. This is especially true when EDH is lauded as an eternal singleton casual format. The goal should be to enable players to play with as many of the cards in Magic’s history as possible. Decisions to ban cards seem to be based on spurious evidence based proclamations. Where is the evidence that any of these cards are oppressive, taking over games or even the format? There isn’t any concrete evidence. I will agree that there’s plenty of anecdotal and hypothetical experiences, but these aren’t all that convincing. Yes, there are games where a player dumps their hand by turn two and seemingly winning the game, while the player next to them is sitting on two manna and still 7 uncastable cards in hand. It’s the variance of the game. This start doesn’t mean the first player wins. I don’t think I’ve ever seen analysis that shows the percentage of games won when a player plays mana crypt or even solo ring turn 1 or 2. Dockside can generate a ton of mana or enter and do nothing. The evidence to draw these types of conclusions just doesn’t exist for a casual format like EDH. This isn’t tournament magic where there are deck lists and plenty of recorded games to analyze both in person and online. Another concern is the disconnect between WOTC and the EDH Rules committee. One group is pushing commander projects left and right. Mana crypt was a fringe old card that was rarely played in EDH until WOTC printed it and then sold it as a chase commander card. It certainly wasn’t targeted to the minuscule vintage magic crowd, the other format where it sees play. However as a casual vintage player, I do appreciate the reprint. Dockside Extortionist was in a precon deck in 2019 and then pushed out is subsequent sets again targeted at EDH players. Jeweled lotus really only functions in EDH and was made for the same and isn’t really helpful in a lot of EDH decks. WOTC would keep selling these cards if there wasn’t demand for them. On the other hand the Rules Committee is cryptic on its decisions which are made without much evidence. I don’t consider deck lists on a few select sites evidence. Those don’t reflect the countless games being played at kitchen tables, living room floors, corner cafes, campus classrooms, or the local game store. Do these newly banned cards show up? Sure. Are they oppressive? They can be. But so can a LOT of other cards that aren’t banned. One group is pushing cards to players generating excitement and pushing the limits of power and gameplay. The other is trying to rein in out of control gameplay and improve the player experience. One group is driving their decisions with concrete evidence and the other is not. This week the world is seeing the effects of this disconnect. Let players play with their cards. We can police our own gameplay pretty effectively, if given the opportunity to do so. I’d rather see fewer bans and more discussion about managing gameplay, deck construction, and game enhancements (planechase, cube, archenemy, etc).

[@Z-S-H]

speaking as a dockside player... i have no issues with these bans they needed to go

[@JRe63]

I only don't agree on Jeweled Lotus.

[@MalevolentMantis]

Honestly, with the sudden erasure of half a grand worth of my collection, I'm just not going to trust either the Rules Committee or Wizards themselves not to uphold the legality of chase cards. After buying boxes of Ixalan Collectors for Crypts and Commander Masters for Lotuses, having no warning or communication beforehand of even an announcement, I'm tapping out. I'm just going to sell any and all staples I have still and proxy everything. I don't have confidence anymore that I can play the cards I paid hard earned money for and it's a shameful betrayal. Wizards will not get a single cent from me going forward

[@OmnomnomPancake]

You bought boxes and boxes of cards for rare pieces of cardboard. You bought into an insanity, justified it as an investment. Hopefully you'll learn with your life moving forward. Don't spend thousands of dollars on this. Go donate it to charitable causes. 'Shameful betryal'? Your spending habits betray your degeneracy.

[@nightmarebananaful]

Good on ya, I hope you find that the game can still be fun even if you don't dump tons of money into it. Also this is a game , not an investment portfolio

[@damonlouis6536]

Byyyy, Felicia

[@Celsior_Lux]

I'll be doing the same. I will not be notifying anyone that my entire deck is now proxies. If others want to pay the absurd price for cardboard that's their choice but I won't be limiting my use of proxies for other players or for their experience.

[@MalevolentMantis]

@@nightmarebananaful It is a game, I wasn't banking my Kid's tuition on it or anything, but if I put in 200 bucks on a card I want to get that value out of a game piece, as there's no guarantee that I'll be able to play the cards I pay for, I'm just not going to pay for it anymore. I have other hobbies where could put that money into instead of just burning it on MTG. Probably for the best anyways

[@Frank-py3hk]

The complaints seem to be voiced by those who lost value on pieces of cardboard. I've heard no one rally against the bans based on merit.

[@ShainZHickok]

I am definitely okay with all of these being banned. It sucks to lose the value of them in several of my decks, but as someone who normally plays at a higher level casual pod, we didn't really need these, and on the rare occasion that a less experienced player, or willfully lower powered deck joined our group it really feels like punching down if you play them, and feels like forced restriction if you won't play them in that game. Ultimately, I don't think I've seen a better reason for cEDH and EDH to fully have their own formats/ban lists. Yes, obviously part of the appeal to EDH in general is that you can just bring a deck and play, but that was also 2013. Things HAVE changed since then and we have to accept that there *are* differing degrees of EDH play, worthy of having their own format. Furthermore, even if we set EDH and cEDH as their own format, rule 0 fully allows us to play them interchangeably.

[@jemm113]

Plus I see it as this: cEDH can become Legacy EDH with its own ban list. It caters to the competitive environment but you can still play casual or tier 2 and below decks if you want. Commander can stay as it’s own format, cut out all the cards people complain are too cEDH, and a new Competitive Commander (CC? CompCom? Compander? 😂) can be its own thing too once the dust settles. This will also help stores run more casual commander tournaments by the CRC capping the power level.

[@lightfut]

I'm totally with Matt on the "there's no best time to ban cards" sort of take. It's never going to be perfect, so you just gotta do the thing and let it ride

[@shorewall]

They could be like WOTC and never ban anything so that Standard dies and everyone goes over to Commander.

[@andresarancio6696]

A couple pointers that the RC didn't mention on Jeweled Lotus in particular that is extremely relevant, in my opinion, and am happy you guys mentioned here: - It is an artifact, a permanent, a recurrable piece of synergy and combo piece that puts it way above a random ritual - It supports unhealthy play patterns of allowing hyper oppressive pub stompers to rush in and create no-games early on - It is a future proofing nightmare. As commanders get stronger over time, and we have more efficient, more powerful commanders that generate a lot of value, it becomes increasingly difficult to interact with them early on to avoid having them snowball into a win. Crypt and Dockside are obscene cards that quickly become game warping. I haven't seen a single game where these cards being played do not shape the entire session with how powerful they are. And the fact people are playing them often (Dockside usually with the pretense of "it's a pirate!" or "it's a goblin!" even when the card is light years ahead of the rest of the deck's power level, Crypt on the grounds of "my commander is expensive!", even if that is the balancing factor of the card) means they are not just hated by the casual playerbase but also that they cause repetitive unfun games where the outcome is determined by a card that is priced out of most people's budget. I am sad for the loss of value stores had, but, being honest, this is good for the format.

[@fatedcypress9222]

This only reinforces my belief in proxies for casual commander games. I’ve been playing with all of these cards, and I lost about $40 in value. There is absolutely no reason casual players should be spending a small fortune on artificially inflated cards (not these in particular) that just happen to synergize well with their deck.

[@rakino4418]

Absolutely. Unless you're rolling in cash buying $100+ cards to play a casual game with your buddies at the lgs is just bizzare behaviour

[@magnusprime962]

I don’t personally feel comfortable making value judgements about the RC, as the main thing I’ve learned in two years as a Magic player is that the game is ridiculously complex and difficult to manage. That said, I agree with the growing sentiment that cEDH needs its own separate banlist. It’s clearly a different crowd with different goals, and its banlist should reflect that.

[@patterofheads256]

Magic player since 1997 here. Printing Jeweled lotus as the flagship of the first premium commander set and reprinting it for what was both the third ultra premium set and the third premium commander set then banning it immediately as the sale of boxes slowed down is the worst, most scummiest thing that WotC (who is the ultimate decider of every ban of the RC) has ever done, including chronicles, combo winter, affinity and Magic 30.

[@unfrogettable9495]

The price of these cards has nothing to do with the game, anyone who is upset solely because of card value is not a magic player, they are a stock broker larping as a magic player.

[@patterofheads256]

*Collectable* card game.

[@hugmonger]

Dana:"The crypt ban shocked me" Dana flipping tails on his crypt

[@weeklyweeks7545]

Some people know the price of everything and the value of nothing. As someone who plays commander mostly with strangers, I value having rules for magics largest and most popular format because that makes for better commander games. If you want to play these cards that were banned, discuss in your rule 0 conversations with your play group. I just hope this decision influences WotC design decisions moving forward - stop printing fast mana!

[@Nvr2Busy]

I understand you comment but my problem is the rule 0. If you are telling others to rule 0 to play the cards we want to play then why hasn't anyone else done the same fro the cards they don't want to play against? The question works both ways even if its a group of strangers playing together the conversation can still be had. It shows rule 0 is more so used now to reinforce an argument than actually what it's intended use was and that's to have a conversation and reinforce the format at the table.

[@Alwayz114]

@@Nvr2Busy imo it's much easier to go in with an expectation that something IS NOT allowed and asking for it to be allowed, then the other way around. If I bring a deck with an illegal card, I have an expectation that it won't be allowed and have a plan for if the play group is not ok with it. However if I walk into a group and they have banned a normally acceptable card, I need to unexpectedly have a replacement card/deck/plan based around that.

[@shonmatthew]

I'm personally a fan of opponents doing 'cool stuff' so it seems weird ban wise to cut off these cards.

[@Nvr2Busy]

@@Alwayz114 I get that too. It is easier to come with that already established idea of what happening when you sit down at a table and shuffle up. Imo though before the ban everyone could have done the same thing. Plan for cards in your meta to appear and adjust your decks accordingly. That's also where rule 0 comes in. If we are being told to rule 0 by others but at the same time being told its easier to not do that and just play then nothing really matters. The problem will never be solved no matter what bans the RC puts in place. To me that makes a format not fun. We are having a group of people we don't even play with regulate our tables.

[@Alwayz114]

@@Nvr2Busy I suppose that's just a difference of opinion then. I think the rules setting a shared baseline to then move from is where a healthy "rule 0" would be. How a standard no-fuss game should be less reliant on fast mana, but if you want to play those, just check in with the table. Rather than sitting down, saying "Casual, typical rules?" and then someone slamming Mana Crypt turn 1 and calling it casual haha. I've been told by several people in the past day that "Mana Crypt isn't a casual card, no one has it in casual decks" when yes, they do, and I've had to have this awkward discussion of expectation with people before. Now, that understanding is baseline. But if someone asks nicely I'd be down to adjust my expectation for this specific game and go for it Whether you think the efficacy of the bans is good or not, I do think at a general conceptual level that Bans have a place on top of Rule 0, and are not exclusive with one another, and neither should shoulder the entire burden of managing experiences.

[@b2falcon]

I appreciate this discourse and how constructive it is. Bands are just a natural part of magic in general, it's not perfect but it is needed.

[@ocirMZ]

Comparing jeweled lotus to dark ritual at 14:40 shows how crazy that card is. Even ignoring the permanent vs spell, it gets 50% more mana, and you can use it for a color you didn't play a land for

[@the_knut]

It's a black lotus. 100%

[@KH-tu3no]

Also, there is a bazillion easy ways to put a 0 mana artifact back from the graveyard to the battlefield.

[@theg3843]

Thinking about the possibility for the community to self regulate and be cohesive on la large scale. What if a commonplace site like edhrec hosted voting for a banlist/unbanlist (every 6 months or so) like it already does for salt scores?

[@JustinNovack]

Lutri did nothing wrong!! Let him in the 99!

[@heliobarbosa3525]

People are engaged, they troll, they spend money to do those things. The costs to keep it bot-free would escalate fast. It shouldn't be their burden tbh.

[@VexylObby]

These bans alone show how the community cannot be trusted to help themselves. It is the wild west of tabletop games, and needs moderation.

[@maxmazzel]

Absolutely loooove these bans. No more running into pubstompers. It's happened to me too often. cEDH should have a separate banlist. Were these can be played still.

[@DuckDuckGoose13]

Happy to see the bans for casual commander, and the CRC's decision reinforces my belief that cEDH needs their own ban list (namely no bans whatsoever).

[@EDHRECast]

This could be the push to make that happen. It wouldn't surprise us.

[@lMchMyersl]

Hey mate, have you played no ban list (NBL)? There have been some tourneys here and there. I don't think it would help cedh too much. Quite often somebody will go in, lose 3 matches before having a turn and get a bye. Aka not playing the whole night.

[@VitalSyntax]

I agree, except I think CEDH still needs the following bans: lotus, moxen, time walk, recal, tinker, time vault, flash, karakas, and consiracy/dexterity/ante/sharazad.

[@DiabloTommaso]

Nope nope nope. You shuold not be happy. Engineering banns after massive reprints is a plaque for the game. Crc showed once again how untrustwhorty they are

[@FatstaxMTG]

Naa we had oathbreaker and like 2 people play that format.

[@zackerymorris8268]

I'm glad I'm not the only one sensing the "we got our eyes on you WotC" because for me it's the Nadu and Jeweled Lotus and Dockside as a trio being banned that got me onto that thought

[@garrettolson8584]

I’ve had a lot more miserable experiences with cards like rhystic study, mana tithe, and farewell than any game with mana crypt.

[@emils1615]

This, rystic and thide needs to go.

[@RibusPQR]

Did you mean Smothering Tithe, because I don't think Mana Tithe is a problem card.

[@EDHRECast]

We're not gonna defend any of those cards, and would probably be fine with them being gone too.

[@ghaleon7]

They'll be on the chopping block next most likely. At least rhystic and tithe since they're "auto includes" and the RC seems to target anything like that.

[@chunkyrunky2366]

I have dockside in my Ziatora deck with one of my win cons being treasures but in my pod unless my friend was playing daretti I might of made 4 treasures and that is if it ever showed up.

[@UnhappySalesman]

Im happy to see these bans, even as an owner of these cards. It sucks to lose value, but I greatly prioritize the health of the format over the money lost. Im looking forward to see what the future holds for edh.

[@RagdorUltron]

I like the bans. If we are going to have a rules committee they need to be doing things to try and help everyone have better games. I do think sol ring needs to be banned as well but by doing so would make all unbought and stock precons illegal decks. It does hurt if you own many copies of these cards.

[@jacobcooper7257]

These were chase cards in sets targeted towards commander players

[@EDHRECast]

True, but that's not the RC's fault. It absolutely is unfortunate though.

[@ryandavidson3610]

@@EDHRECastplayers losing the value of these cards is absolutely entirely on them though The RC I mean

[@EDHRECast]

@@ryandavidson3610 I guess, but we're not sure that should be a factor in the decision. We're not saying it's not unfortunate but it's not a reason not to ban a problem card.

[@ryandavidson3610]

@@EDHRECast I didn’t say it should, just that people are allowed to be reasonable upset at the people responsible for this banning, aka the people in charge of the decision

[@ryandavidson3610]

@@EDHRECast I absolutely agree with the bans from a casual perspective, I just really hate how out of nowhere this decision was, I really miss the communicative nature of the RC with Sheldon. As much as people disagreed with him on occasion, at least he would communicate what was happening, not just drop a bombshell and leave the community to pick up the pieces.

[@themantheycallmike]

The Jeweled Lotus ban makes me sad because I was only ever running it in Commander Decks that had a really bad commander (Ramses Overdark for example) to potentially bridge some of the pain of getting them out. I get why it went if Crypt did though.

[@mf2943]

Its really a shock to see these cards banned after so long. Especially since Dockside and Jeweled Lotus are part of the game for so long and were always only commented on as "rule 0 it". Personally i am quite hard hit, own 6 copies of each (except Nadu), 4 are currently in decks and that banning cost me like 1600 Euro so far. Not gonna lie, it is only a problem if you dont talk about the decks before starting a game. They should have banned these cards when they were released, like Hullbreacher. They arent suddenly broken because of some new tech. Its been like this for years and years

[@malmasterson3890]

Agreed, the real problem is these bans are years too late.

[@jasonwhisnant5457]

Uh, what's your definition of "so long"? Jeweled Lotus is only 4 years old. Dockside 5 and Mana Crypt 25 or something?

[@Sicktoid]

I do agree with RC's justification that that these cards had gotten better over time though. The power level of (legendary creature) cards has skyrocketed during the recent years, making these cards more and more unhealthy for the format and they were only going to get worse going forward. I was in the boat where these cards weren't a huge menace in my play circles, since most people are poor students or just very casual MTG players, but these cards would still show up to ruin games often enough. Just last week, I had a game where a newbie sat down to play game with an unmodded precon, only to have one guy open with T1 Sol Ring+Signet and the other guy start with Jeweled Lotus into commander. Now, I'd be surprised if I ever see that person again. I probably wouldn't come back after that kind of experience. The bans, from my perspective, are the best thing that has happened to the format in years. Wish they had axed more cards if I'm completely honest. Sorry about your monetary loss though. It sucks that the potential of losing such large sums of money has become a part of this hobby 😦

[@EDHRECast]

@sicktoid said it, but I'll reiterate that the problem was the cards you could ramp out with them got better. Think of all the cards that weren't good until Dredge made them good. Not a perfect analogy, but close enough.

[@mf2943]

@@EDHRECast While i do see that legendary creatures got better, my decks arent just creatures printed in the past 2-3 years. A lot of stuff is older. Looking at my decks which have these cards in it, Purphoros Goblins, Syr Gwyn Knight Tribal, Locust God and Korvold Treasure Tribal, only 1 deck has a substantial amount of "new" cards - which is Korvold - because there is so much good treasure stuff. All the other ones have only a minor amount of cards in them. My best guess is that these half a million decks with Mana Crypt in them probably also dont have that much "new" stuff in there :)

[@Spencer4686]

I wonder what data was used to look into this as most established/reasonable players will have rule 0 power level discussions. So these strong cards don't bleed into lower power level games. But like you said with crypt and lotus being opened in recent packs maybe they were warping the lower power levels more than we think. So much to unpack and it's all still so raw people will forever argue over these cards like they do with all the banned cards. 😅 Anyways nice to see a calm perspective on it all keep up the great work 👌👍

[@s.dalner7245]

From a balance/gameplay perspective, I've wanted three of the four of these cards out of the format for a while (I've been confident that people would self-police Nadu, but your mileage may vary). I can't find it in myself to wholeheartedly support this outrage that has been ignited. I'm honestly a bit puzzled, that there have been this persistent complaint over the last half a decade that the format is growing too fast and too powerful - yet, when the RC actually steps in and makes a move towards helping that problem, now it's suddenly a scam? Yes, many collections have lost 100s or 1000s of dollars in value. And yes, they probably shouldn't have waited this long to ban them. But, if you insist on playing this game like the stock market, you will have to accept that you could lose parts of your investment. At the end of the day, the RC chose to prioritize the gameplay over the collectors who see this game as a financial investment, regardless of how you might feel about the individual cards.

[@TheRedKnightOfPain]

Going back to when commander legends release, I remember Josh from the Commandzone discussing and stating that certain cards like hull breacher and jeweled lotus should not be made when WOTC had them come in to play test very early on. Additionally one pf the comments on lotus was that it would cause a non game bc someone will jet ahead and make the game a non game or they get beaten down and going draw go because they kept a crap hand. As someone who has a jeweled lotus, I stuck it into my fastest deck that is deliberately built to try and be a cEDH deck, that deck will be fine, its 1 card, I'll find and stick something else degenerate or ridiculously powerful in there. I'll live, the sky ain't falling.

[@johnathanrhoades7751]

Really happy with all of these bans personally! I wish they had done this 5 years ago. But I am sorry for the value lost to players. But WotC should not have let them get that expensive in the first place. I do wonder if some changes in the RC with Sheldon’s death and all lead us here.

[@EDHRECast]

Some folks took a real bath on this, and that's really unfortunate.

[@williammorales3362]

Funny how the paragraph explaining the reason behind the jeweled lotus ban was indirectly talking about Voja 😂 dang wolf took our jewel away

[@sifem2789]

Bird is gone. All has been restored.

[@dustinmartin648]

On the topic of Jewelwed Lotus and Crypt. They're both 0 cmc artifacts that produce 2 or more mana (without an egregious downside like LED). Which is why i think the other fast mana pieces and sol ring will never be hit. All other things that produce more than 1 mana have costs, and all other free artifacts produce only 1 mana, again, aside from LED.

[@duckhuntdynasty6562]

By, by, fast mana by, Sailed my ship to the dockside but the extortionist died And the good old boys with lotus and crypt all sighed, singing This is the day fast mana died.

[@SolvableMattB]

glad to see an actually positive discussion on the topic.

[@FluffiestHamster]

I have one copy of Dockside from buying the precon back then. I had already removed it from my deck because it just didn’t fit my play style or my groups meta. I have 1 copy of mana crypt that again, was removed from a deck because it was a feels bad for people when I dropped it. So I’m not even using them, and I’m not really hurting financially from this and I still think these bans don’t make any sense. For tournament play? I suppose it makes sense. For local “rule 0” games it makes zero sense to me and these cards were not dominating any games I played except with online players who were min maxxing their games but “not playing cedh”. These bans feel more like personal bias than any of the bans before and it highlights the problems with the way the commander format is being handled by WOTC.

[@austinhite2684]

100% agreement

[@bassrhythms]

Clearly haven’t played against “casual” dockside extortionist wincons or early game commander into a win next turn that people still claim to be “mid power” in rule 0 discussions

[@FluffiestHamster]

@@bassrhythms No it’s definitely happened, and I just don’t play with those people. A ban list only makes sense when curating a competitive environment for tournaments or similar scenarios. Commander is not really that, and these bans will not have a noticeable impact on the type of person you describe showing up in pods. It’s an inherent problem with the social aspect of commander. People just need to get more comfortable with politely saying Good Game and moving on and if it comes up explaining why you don’t want to play with someone. If you do that and they get angry that is a problem they need to work out.

[@calesmart435]

@@bassrhythms I hear you, but those same people playing a "casual" deck are going to still do other things to be menaces to casual pods.

[@patterofheads256]

If your play group's decks are so bad that having a single card upsets the power balance in a 4 player FFA game, you really need to sit down and learn how to build better decks. Casual doesn't mean crap, you can have well tuned decks that are a far cry from cEDH.

[@JB-101-gtg]

As I was thinking about it, perhaps there should be an actual scoring mechanism for decks vs a banning list. Maybe fast mana is good in some decks but bad in others. Scoring would suck at first, but over time it would balance itself out. So perhaps a scoring list or tool would be useful where the scoring changes over time based on the releases. This would help everyone to "have the balance conversation" more quickly and new players joining play groups could "deck check" themselves a little easier. Possibly also help LGSs promote the level of play they want in their stores.

[@travisdunnell1160]

I feel a little Betrayed by the RC tbh. they have been talking about banning dockside for a while so it wasn't a surprise. Nadu not a surprise. but to ban 2 cards that were the top pull from 2 recent sets without even a hint has me wanting to sell any card I have with value and Proxy good cards I want for my decks. The RC has probably been talking about these for a long time too. If they are going to ban cards without considering their value then what's next? Rhystic study? Smothering Tithe? I now have no confidence in buying MTG sealed because the price is to high and the value keeps getting lower.

[@EDHRECast]

We completely get folks upset that they feel caught by surprise.

[@Arctanis-vt3hl]

But here's the thing - how can they give anyone a hint without getting the same result. Once a shop finds out a card is in consideration, they will stop buying it. You won't be able to sell the card either way.

[@markos50100]

Rhystic study and smothering tithe are fully banned in my play group as well. And frankly, these bans are deserved and don't affect my playgroup as we all sold our copies because we never play with them an we wanted to use the money to make other decks. And if they ban smothering and rhystic too, we'll be fine as well.

[@dylanpowell147]

​@Arctanis-vt3hl the alternative is a player base that has been defrauded by the game something that will kill the game we love and will result and a greater harm to lgs as set will start to sit on shelves with worthless chase cards

[@FrostyTheSwoleman]

2 recent sets!? Bro lost caverns of ixilan came out almost a FULL YEAR ago. The other card one was reprented in double masters like 2 years ago in 2022 how are acting like these got printed a couple or months ago or something. Card value should not be taking into consideration when talking about what to ban for the health of the game/format... like in fact a lot of time the expensive cards are the ones being looked at to be hit because they are usually expesive for a reason.

[@AlthalusKanemtg]

I said to my playgroup that theu should have banned the cheapest one of these first with the clear statement of "this is the first ban of a sequence of bans in which faster games are not the intention of commander games" It hopefully would have hinted towards the bigger value cards that people could have chosen to offload.

[@shorewall]

The way the banlist works, people stock up on effects similar to banned cards. If they ban a card, everyone goes to the next similar card. They don't see it as a warning. RC needed to send a message.

[@popmayhem]

I had a Dockside in a janky Mayel the Anima deck. I opened it up when I purchased a some premium product. Kind of bummed because this card getting banned washed away a decent amount of the value of my purchase. Probably going to stay away from premium product from now on.

[@justins6134]

I feel the same way. Have a a themberchaud deck that kinda relied on dockside to have somewhat of a chance to survive after a board wipe. Now my fun, but not particularly good deck is significantly worse, and they have killed the value of what is by far my most expensive card.

[@sasorispupet]

Kinda how i feel. I opened a box of some such years ago, might have been the OG commander masters and got a mana crypt. I know exactly what deck it’s in and im just like “oh…” now.

[@patterofheads256]

@@sasorispupet Double Masters.

[@Manifibell]

WIsh Lutri was allowed as just a card though. It is cool art and a nice type for a spellslinger deck.

[@thewheelsman29]

For what it's worth, my friend played exclusively cEDH with Sauron as his commander and he has already said that his deck is no longer viable in the format because his commander is too expensive now and dockside loops were how he afforded most of his lines. cEDH isn't dead but a lot of higher cost commanders are.

[@VexylObby]

In that kind of situation, it breed creativity and diverses to other options now.

[@zacharyklewin3603]

Jeweled lotus was definitely more format warping than mana crypt. Mana crypt was a neutral card that could be used in literally every deck. Only some decks can get the full value of jeweled lotus. And it really is powerful enough of an effect that it makes decks that can fully utilize it strictly better than the ones that can't. I think both are fine to be banned, but jeweled lotus being banned is actually important for the format's varience

[@opposite342]

I'd argue that if something is available to be used by every deck efficiently, that's more broken and inhibits creativity. The RC decided to nuke things of this matter to set precedent, but they were just scared to ban Sol ring.

[@zacharyklewin3603]

@opposite342 I fully agree that mana crypt subverts deck creativity, and I'm not arguing against mana crypt's ban at all. I just think it's more of a neutral ban in that it doesn't change which decks are better or worse relative to every other deck because it goes in every deck anyway. Whereas Jlo was one of the cards that actually defined which commanders were the best by simply being the ones that could fully utilize it. I was only bringing it up because they mentioned in the pod that they didn't think Jlo was as offensive to the format, which I personally disagree with

[@killakobra]

What bothers me is they waited so long to ban these cards, thousands of people bought them and are now getting hit with at least a 50% deflation in their value. If they were going to ban them they should have banned them years ago. Plus the fact that they acknowledged that they talked to wotc over a year in advance about the bands and they got reprinted within the last year and the cards had sales spikes right before the bans feels like a level of market manipulation.

[@VexylObby]

People should not spend so much money on single cards, take money risks like that, nor make conjecture about things without sources.

[@killakobra]

@@VexylObby they outright admitted to talking to wotc about the bans well in advance. Plus there have been KZbinrs saying they had leaks of the ban ahead of time as a warning.

[@patterofheads256]

@@VexylObby It's not supposed to be a risk. This whole "game pieces" nonsense is a lie. It's a *collectable* card game. Always has been.

[@VexylObby]

@@patterofheads256 Not to this degree. It has EVOLVED into an investment game. And because the gameplay aspect of that is still at play, it is too much of a risky investment. This is a game first, and money opportunity later. Those that invest need to understand that.

[@VexylObby]

@@killakobra They did not admit anything about an outright ban on specific cards. Only that they dislike the card design of fast mana, as they knew it would alter markets if they talk about specifics. That is their statement. Any other claim that they knew and sold before announcement is pure conjecture.

[@jumpskare1344]

I don't have a ton of skin in this game. I played Dockside a while back and my playgroup uses a Jeweled Lotus or two, but past that, I've only seen these cards a handful of times where I play. The thing for me is that just as rule 0 conversations can prevent certain cards from being played, so too can they allow. I have no intention of forcing those in my playgroup to give up their Jeweled Lotus' when they are using it once off for their 8 mana commander after it's been killed and countered twice. Just talk it out with those you play with and be willing to compromise so everyone can enjoy the game.

[@chrisfisher8422]

Actually the cEDH meta was absolutely condensed because so many of the T2 decks are Dockside dependent. So you were a bit over your skis on discussing its impact. Yes, it will not cease to exist, and yes it is negatively affected to a considerable degree. What i’d like to know, and what no one can explain is why there isn’t room for these cards to exist in what should be an inclusive environment. The RC is clearly moving towards being purposely exclusionary towards players who prefer more explosive starts and shorter games.

[@EDHRECast]

It's not so much that there isn't room for these cards to exist so much as it is people were running them in places they shouldn't have been running them despite a pre-game conversation. That isn't true of something like LED or Diamond, which is why those card remains legal despite being gonzo good.

[@derrickpaulson3093]

Everything leads to having two formats. So what if EDH started cedh. They can exist as seperate entities in the way PDH (pauper EDH) has their own ban list. I like to play both competitive cutthroat decks and mid-range casual and have desired for a long while to have a different ban list for both.

[@chrisfisher8422]

@@EDHRECast Thanks for the response. I suppose my follow up question would be “so?” Is this happening at the odd LGS justification to remove the cards from the entire player base’s pool? Should the RC really be getting into the business of policing bad player behavior? Can they even successfully do so?

[@heliobarbosa3525]

@@EDHRECast What is stopping people from Ad Nauseam Thoracle people into oblivion in the same tables? That is playing whack-a-mole, pubstompers will pubstomp. And you don't get to ban out of the blue a few of the most expensive cards in the format that can be reprinted in a day and age where precons have infinity combos. After discussing the dockside ban for years, they decided to ban it after the dust settled, while banning Crypt and Jeweled Lotus out of nowhere. Why Sol Ring belongs in a casual table and Mana Crypt doesn't? Just because of the price? Because if you are playing battlecruiser, Sol Ring might actually be better (the life loss adds up, the 1 cost is negligible).

[@EDHRECast]

@@heliobarbosa3525 We don't know what stops Ad Naus/Thoracle from popping up as much at casual tables, but for whatever reason they don't, or at least haven't so far at a rate enough that the RC thinks they need to be banned.

[@Sparrow141420]

I'm psyched, it doesn't affect my decks at all and I might be able to snag a media promo MC for my collection at a reasonable price. I've wanted that card for like 25 years, and have no problem proxying duels but never proxied MC.

[@Ekineko]

What bothers me is the precedence this set for any store and buyer on a high value card or in general the value of the cards, while yeah I agree is a game and it should be a game it does leave a very fearful feeling on people on buying anything over a certain dollar if they can simple sniff it out, jewel is basically useless the others can still see some play.

[@dakotanielsen9073]

100% agree. Why collect cards or put money into your decks if the rules committee can just out of the blue decide "we think that these cards should go" like 5, or 10 years after they have been heavily established into the format.

[@EDHRECast]

@@dakotanielsen9073 That's true of every Magic format though. And we're not so sure it was arbitrary, either. These cards have been issues for years, and talked about as such. We were surprised it came to a head now, but the fact that these cards were problems wasn't unknown.

[@JacobBiaggi]

​@@EDHRECast while it is true in other formats as well, it's impossible to deny that commander is the driving force for a majority of the monetary value of cards at this point in time. I'm pretty neutral on all the bans, but what I'm not neutral on is the lack of communication before this decision was made. There should have been an announcement that these cards were in discussion for a possible ban in the near future, and then game stores could have stopped buying them and players who were interested in buying could have weighed that risk and adjusted their decisions based on that knowledge of a possible ban. Doing this with no notice (other than dockside, which has been mentioned as being on a watch list for a while) is just unacceptable in my opinion. I didn't really have a strong opinion on the RC before this, but this has caused me to lose any faith in their ability to manage the format in a way that is best for the players of said format.

[@heliobarbosa3525]

@@EDHRECast Not really. Other formats are less proxy friendly and more competitive focused.

[@EDHRECast]

@@JacobBiaggi Yeah, we get why it's frustrating. We're not sure there's an elegant solution that doesn't cause other problems, but it absolutely sucked to feel like a rug got yanked yesterday.

[@CheessusRiced]

I happened to pack a Borderless Foil Dockside and a normal JL. Mostly indifferent on these bans. However, it does leave a bad taste that these bans were over a year in the works. Especially when most of these cards were reprinted as CHASE cards in PREMIER SETS

[@MrSkitsoduck]

shocked to see crypt go

[@dongdoodler]

It makes sense, these cards are all but ruled out in any normal game. Imo this is probably to push people away from extremely strong staples/wizards making these obviously too strong cards

[@EDHRECast]

Not power-wise, but because of the length of time that it had sat around safe. That said, we get the logic that powering out a four drop printed in the last couple years is a different deal than powering out a four drop printed in 2015.

[@VexylObby]

Really? I am shocked it was allowed in the first place.

[@ryanmorath3305]

It’s not that people are upset that the cards were banned, I think in general people agree that these cars deserve it. The issue isn’t timing the RC allowed so much times pass with these cards and circulation and use that the prices climbed to such extravagant height, and then when they band them people that had already, bid the bullet and invested money in these game pieces are now at a loss of hundreds or in some cases of multiple copies thousands of dollars

[@austinhite2684]

I think the biggest problem with these bans is with the exception of Nadu, the other 3 were just cards that were very good. In the right groups they were a ton of fun to play. If people want to not play with strong cards that’s perfectly within their right, but why make that a universal decision. Banning cards like those 3 for the sake of “high power in causal games” flies in the face of rule zero. It is absolutely easier in the rule zero conversation to state not wanting to play against certain cards rather than requesting to allow banned cards. This decision is an overstep of the rc and bad for the way it enforces only one way to play.

[@johnathanrhoades7751]

Rule 0 does not work with strangers at an LGS. Or at least it never has for me. It works great with friends, but randos at an LGS needs a baseline to make exceptions to and I’m much more comfortable with the new baseline personally.

[@austinhite2684]

@@johnathanrhoades7751 I honestly 100% empathize with that view point and I think it’s perfectly valid. My issue with it is that I don’t think that an rc which should represent the whole hobby caters towards that specific style of play. I personally love playing low powered decks just as much as high powered, but I disagree with the notion that because I enjoy lower powered everyone else should be forced to as well. A decision made in favor is casual, slow play (which was stated in the announcement) doesn’t accurately reflect the entire hobby, just a portion of it.

[@johnathanrhoades7751]

@@austinhite2684 I can see that. I do think mature people can and should build decks with those cards have a rule 0 conversation and have fun. Just like before mature people could have a rule 0 conversation and exclude those cards. But I personally am very happy to have a baseline without those cards.

[@nwoizaakgoldmann4519]

Exactly. I have Dockside and a Mana Crypt and we are playing just with friends and i have ask them anytime, if it would be ok to play them. And yes the cards are very good but in most games it makes no difference

[@bassrhythms]

Lot of players who run those banned cards either literally dont have decks without them or just won’t care and play them anyways. You’ve definitely run across players who says they’re running mid-high power level and they win turn 3-5

[@noahjaffe3094]

Great video! Thanks as always for your measured and compassionate takes. How do you guys feel about the sol ring question? I would like it banned for gameplay reasons (seeing a new player keep a one land + sol ring hand only to simultaneously miss subsequent land drops AND get dunked on by the other three players is tough) but I do see the argument of it being in every precon and that being confusing, so I've just taken it out of all my decks.

[@arlobaker2422]

Mana crypt went from around $200 to around $75 If you only account for the manacrypts listed in EDHREC decks then that is a loss of $62,906,375 to the community. Let alone the ones in LGS's and binders and decks that just aren't registered to EDHREC

[@Arctanis-vt3hl]

You aren't entitled to value for your collection. Once upon a time, Mana Crypt was $50. It was even cheaper before that. These cards were never supposed to be this expensive.

[@Dtoszi]

Nice

[@GabrielRodriguez-mb1gk]

⁠@@Arctanis-vt3hlsure but millions lost across a community based of the opinion off a small group of people in the rules commity is wild. RC should recommend bans and the community get to vote to ban.

[@GabrielRodriguez-mb1gk]

This excludes LGS now bag holding sealed products that are now no where near the cost they were forced to buy them for.

[@arlobaker2422]

@@Arctanis-vt3hl There are a lot of things people aren't entitled to that they'd be upset if all of a sudden it was ripped from them. And justifiably so.

[@Ginger0616]

I think its a great thing I'm tried of running into them when I'm supposed to be playing slightly upgraded precons

[@Larkinzzz]

Casual Rules committee: bans problematic cards in casual. cEDH players: how dare you!

[@Kuro-Shogun]

There just needs to be a CEDH league/banlist where these cards can fully exist. A list of cards that set CEDH aside allows for an instant "Rule 0" understanding of the format you'll be playing in.

[@shorewall]

I don't know why they don't. Rather complain than just use rule Zero.

[@deswide]

Appreciate the insights and discussion. Only wish you guys could've talked a bit more about the Sol Ring situation instead of just giving it the "iconic" argument, because personally (and for many other people) it doesn't seem like a sufficient argument to keep it legal.

[@nathansanchez51]

Every precon becomes unplayable seems to be a decent argument.

[@EDHRECast]

(Dana here) I'll give you my argument; Sol Ring is a weird little historic bit of spice that makes Commander unique. It's a dream everyone can live since it's easy to find and cheap, and it adds some variety to games, kinda like how Fenway Park has the Green Monster or how Tiger Stadium has a flag pole in play in center field. Once you add a bunch of weird obstacles to the play space things get clowny, but one is interesting. Is that an argument to keep it legal? Maybe it's not one that convinces you, but it's one that works for me.

[@deswide]

@@EDHRECast Those comparisons are a bit too American for me but I completely understand 🤣 I'm definitely on the minority when it comes to it, and if it were for me, just ban all the more "egregious" fast mana despite its availability, Vault, Moxes, etc., and that just includes SR on the way. I think Commander itself is already so unique on its core that losing Sol Ring wouldn't change how the format plays on that chance a player or two draw it, but I do understand how it's almost unique to the format. Really appreciate the response!

[@darktigre2686]

@@nathansanchez51 yeah i don't think wizards would be happy to have every box for commander suddenly made invalid and even more for new players being told you need to change 1 card before being able to play when they might not even own sleeves

[@deswide]

@@darktigre2686 From past situations like this, pre-constructed decks with illegal cards on them are "legal" as long as you're playing them as is, if you change even one card, then you have to take out the illegal card. I understand it's a logistic nightmare to communicate this and stuff, but I don't know.

[@CaptainNemo5814]

Take Sol Ring as an example of what happens when a card is VERY powerful AND accessible... it goes in every deck. The price of these cards is the only thing that kept them from being in every deck. If everyone has the same cards in every deck, its not interesting anymore.

[@titanlord2000]

I think these are good bans, but what upset me the most about it is not the bans themselves, but the reaction from players and some content creators complaining about not being allowed to play their expensive cards and losing a lot of money. Look, I am sorry you lost money, that sucks, but the price point for crypt, dockside, and lotus were prohibitive to players trying to get into the game. Not every store, nor every group/pod, is proxy friendly. Not everyone can afford these pricy cards. It comes off as a bit selfish to complain about the bans because of the price of the cards. When you buy a card, any card, in a TCG, you accept the risk that cards sometimes get banned. If you spend a lot of money on arguably 3 of the 10 most powerful cards in the format, and they get banned, you accepted that risk when you bought them. Good riddance I say. These cards only existed to do degenerate things and outside of CEDH only made games at a given table worse.

[@SirSwash]

I don't accept the risk the cards will be banned. I will just ignore the rc moving forward. No risk, done.

[@samyoung5895]

I JUST bought my first Jewelled Lotus for my birthday at the end of last month for my Niv-Mizzet, Parun too!

[@brucanthwood]

I proxy these expensive cards, and played them to help prop up my weaker commanders or who are often over costed compared to newer commanders. I worry that hacking off our access to these cards will whittle down what commanders people are willing to get creative with.

[@ChadForquer]

First video I watched this morning was from someone who just invited in MTG. It was definitely a sky is falling video basically saying to put all your cards in the trash. Nice to hear truth from players.

[@MomirsLabTech]

13:00 why does the cast refuse to acknowledge that the deckbuilding sites that edhrec scrapes from also include cedh decklists? A lot of cedh players create individual versioned lists when testing/create an entirely new decklist page for distribution to TOs for a single tournament, which would skew the representation of these cards in casual decks. Or what about the fact that not every list online is even built/played in paper? These stats cannot reliably be used when discussing the "casual" commander format and the experience casual players are having. These are vibes based guesses at best.

[@EDHRECast]

We've literally done shows on just that topic so we're not sure what lack of acknowledgement you're talking about.

[@MomirsLabTech]

​@@EDHRECast that seems like a relevant point to make in this video when discussing inclusion percentages for those who may not have not seen every episode you've made.

[@johnevans6629]

I glad to see dockside and nadu as well a jeweled lotus but mana crypt doesn’t see play in causal. This is why a cedh RC is needed

[@Grooveworthy]

High-power non-cEDH casual is still definitely a thing. I've never played cEDH and I've seen tons of mana crypts.