Top 10 Cards That Were Banned (Or Restricted) For Weird Reasons in MTG

[@TheChayxxx]

Wizards- Bans Yorion because it could be “problematic” to shuffle 80 cards Also Wizards- Supports a 100 card format

[@puffer_frog]

Fun fact about Shahrazad: Shahrazad was written as the narrator the 1001 arabian nights. The story goes that she was the King''s wife but commited adultery against him and was sentenced to death. However, the king allowed her one more night to live and spend time together. And in this time, Shahrazad told him a story that was so interesting he listened to her till dawn, to which she stopped as there was no time to continue the story. And so, the king allowed her another day to live and in the next night, she would continue her tale but with increasingly exciting stories and ending them in the same cliffhanger way which the king continued allowing her to live to tell her tales for a 1001 nights. Kind of reflects the card, which the player is doing what she does - delaying the inevitable

[@tcoren1]

She wasn't actually the original wife of the king, at least in the version I read. The king executes his wife, then declares that each day he will marry a new woman and execute her the next morning (since he no longer trusted women). This goes on for a while until the scheherezade, the daughter of the wazir tasked with providing the wives, volunteers herself as the next bride

[@tychoMX]

Major flavour win, awful game mechanic.

[@cuttlefish6839]

@@tychoMX I like the mechanic but yeah its not a healthy card unless your play group are all on board

[@arachnofiend2859]

@@cuttlefish6839 I can't imagine what group would be on board with it outside of a group that is going for the record for longest game of cards played

[@TheGreaterGrog]

Way back in the 90s, I saw a local tournament where both players had a copy of Shahrazad in their deck. Both played it in the same game, so there was an 'empty' game, and the first subgame next to it, and then a second subgame next to that. I think they had only gotten back to the 1st subgame with time was called. I also appalled all my friends at college with the worst combo in magic: "Panoptic Mirror, imprinting Shahrazad".

[@donutthepop5297]

As a yugioh player, having the card game makers just ban a bad strategy because it’s unfun is something I want to preach to Konami

[@IEpixlyFail]

Dont like playing against mystic mine?

[@hehehenyxnyxnyx]

@@IEpixlyFail Play OCG lmao

[@hehehenyxnyxnyx]

They banned self-destruct button because it's an abuseable stall decks, that they can retry the game until either the playe rans out of game or you succeed using a slow OTK card.

[@IEpixlyFail]

@Nyx Assassin I dont really enjoy playing yugioh that much, just like seeing how much more broken it is than mtg lol

[@akiradkcn]

Eh... some of these MtG bans for me looks like WoTC is even worse than Konami at balancing the game....

[@jml6263]

Sharazad might be the best example of a major flavor win making a card totally unplayable lol

[@gamer31111]

i don't know man, there's a few stall decks that i can think of in modern and legacy that would kill to have 4 copies specifically to get the best theoretical opener. Then you run Echo of Eons with some graveyard recursion and you're golden.

[@laytonjr6601]

Sharazad is terrible if you want to win the game, but the potential for stalling and playing the clock is insane. Without any copy or recursion effect, if you manage to cast every copy in your deck every subgame you'll have to play 16 games in total 4 3 2 1 0 3 2 1 0 2 1 0 1 0 0 2 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0

[@simonteesdale9752]

Note on Lurrus: It only restricts permanent spells (for some reason) so you can still play expensive instants and sorceries with Lurrus as your commander. This lead to a lot of legacy decks making no changes whatsoever and just adding it, while still playing force of will.

[@GiganticPawUnit]

One really important thing about Familiar is the fact that "sacrifice a creature" is part of the Oven's cost, not the effect. Costs don't go on the stack - they resolve instantly. So if you use a removal spell on the cat, its controller can just sacrifice it to the Oven and you can't respond. So the easiest way you'd shut down this combo - exiling the cat - doesn't work, because it's never going to be on the battlefield with the oven tapped. The claim that it generated too many triggers and made people pass priority too often on Arena seems like BS, though. There are SO MANY cards and combos that cause that kind of thing. The thing that really needs fixing on Arena is how auto-pass works. They just need a button or keyboard shortcut that lets you pass until the end of the phase no matter what happens, or something like that.

[@TheTundraTerror]

The idea that you basically yeet your cat into the oven after someone says you're not allowed to have it is horrific and hilarious to me.

[@HS_Gomikubi]

It's worth noting that the cat's own templating also doubles as protection the other way around, rendering it all but effectively impervious to effects attempting to exile it from the owner's graveyard due to the 0 mana activation cost and instant speed capacity to return to the battlefield. Unless the cat player somehow literally only has one food token to sac and the opponent is ready with a spell in response on the spot, cards like Cling to Dust or Soul-Guide lantern that were literally intended to function as countermeasures against graveyard strategies in the same standard format were unlikely to succeed at stopping a Cauldron Familiar in all but the most ideal circumstances.

[@algotkristoffersson15]

What happend to “as an additional cost to…”? tapping and mana payment (both represent symbolically) as well as pay x life (because it says pay) make sense as parts of cost, other things don’t and therefor realy should have that written to be easier for new players to understand. So it would be for the oven: [tap symbol] as an additional cost to activating this ability sacrefice a creature. Create a food token, if the creatures toughness was at least 4 create two of those tokens instead.

[@GiganticPawUnit]

@@algotkristoffersson15 An "additional cost" doesn't go on the stack either, so that wouldn't change the fact that the cat being sacrificed is faster than anything the opponent can do.

[@algotkristoffersson15]

@@GiganticPawUnit no but it would make it easier to tell that that is the case, scince it being a cost wouldn’t be hidden behind a single, easy for new players to miss symbol but rather spelled out clearly, meaning understanding it just requires knowledge of the basic rules, rather than also a easy once you learn it but difficult to learn formatting guideline.

[@otakubullfrog1665]

This made me think of the story about the play-tester who prevented Time Walk from being printed with the wording "opponent loses next turn" because he pointed out how else that could be interpreted.

[@RGC_animation]

? I don't get it.

[@otakubullfrog1665]

@@RGC_animation "Loses" can also mean loses the game.

[@1993Delicious]

@@RGC_animation time walk: take an extra turn after this one. There are also other wordings you could use. Your opponent skips their next turn. But you could write it as "your opponent loses (their) next turn. That would mean some guy in some tournament would argue that he understands it not as" you get an extra turn" but "your opponent loses the game"

[@dark_rit]

Target player loses next turn can just mean the game itself since this was 1993, there wasn't a way to clarify wording like that at the time. Take an extra turn is understood because both players take turns back and forth normally.

[@lord_wyran]

My friend and I played a game with shaharazad legal and I played it in my storm deck. This was maybe 10 years ago and were still resolving the minigames to this day.

[@cuttlefish6839]

Yeah we have it legal too we accidentally played a mirror matches once and we had to draw the game it got so bad since the purpose was too copy it as much as possible and with 4 allowed its inception. Love that card and the set. Wish it got reprinted but sadly the reserved list is a cancer to the game

[@lord_wyran]

@@cuttlefish6839 we've kept the game going out of friendly spite for the most part. We've each gone out and bought extra copies of cards because the ones we have are in those decks and neither of us will concede

[@MABfan11]

did you both play storm decks with shaharazad in them?

[@cuttlefish6839]

@@lord_wyran you guys are monsters lmao I wonder how many more years that game will take to resolve

[@lord_wyran]

@@MABfan11 no just me, but i can recycle it when I get back to a layer that has it in my graveyard. (Also I was heavily exaggerating, the game only lasted a month, but we did have to buy replacements for cards that were locked in the shaharazad decks.)

[@Folfire]

Chaos Orb was banned for using the imperial system.

[@Bobhope99]

You mean the official system of the moon and Mars? Earth is the only body in the solar system that uses metric.

[@markusspecht5041]

Neither mars nor moon use the imperial system right now cause there’s no one there.

[@gaugea]

@@markusspecht5041 according to YOU 😒

[@DeeJy33]

these replies are cooked, what are youse even on about

[@Bobhope99]

The only people who have been to or sent things to another body in the solar system did it with imperial measurements. When metric puts something on another planet, then maybe it should try to pretend it is the better system.

[@Phazonfarmer]

Fun fact about Cauldron Familiar: It actually got sort-of-unbanned in Arena when they rolled out their Alchemy format. This format is specifically meant for Arena, and is filled with effects that would require an impartial mediator to oversee the match, such as adding a permanent +1/+1 to a random card in your hand without revealing it to your opponent. Additionally, many cards also got changes to make them more powerful and easier to use, while many others received changes meant to rein them in. In Familiar's case, it got an extra line of text that reads "This creature cannot block". While it still sees play in sacrifice-focused decks, its inability to chump-block huge threats means it's far from the powerhouse it used to be.

[@daltonsmith7640]

Alchemy sucks

[@bisonsama321]

Alchemy’s fine, you can just *not* play it, like 90% or MTGA’s playerbase. A few Alchemy cards are just right for Singleton formats, that’s about as valuable as they can get for me. But Alchemy changes affecting Historic (even worse, Historic Brawl), is the stupidest, most absurd and uncalled for thing on Arena. Meathook Massacre is banned in standard, but you can still run it to its full potential in Standard Brawl. Yet, thanks to Alchemy, Meathook is nerfed to the ground in Historic Brawl, while the format is much more powerful than Standard Brawl…

[@Conradd23]

@@bisonsama321 cauldron familiar was never a part of Alchemy. Alchemy came out after it had already rotated out of Standard. They made that change specifically to nerf it in Historic.

[@kateslate3228]

We don't talk about the fake cards.

[@yeasstt]

@@bisonsama321 Oracle of the Alpha also just released and is digital only. That card should stay in Alchemy and not bring Time Walk into historic

[@haslittle8078]

Krark Clan Ironworks was banned because most players don't actually know the proper procedure for paying costs. The minutia of those rules is difficult to explain to a casual player, so high level combo players look like they're just cheating. This is a problem for ALL mana abilities that involve moving cards around, but Krark Clan Ironworks was singled out because it was part of a top tier combo deck that became WAY more consistent when you knew exactly how to exploit the paying of costs and how it interacts with sacrificing permanents to pay them.

[@tinfoilslacks3750]

KCI feels like exactly the kind of card sims and CCGs were built for, and who's Cardinal sin was being in a physical TCG

[@armitroner]

I'd love for you to do a video on the Four Horseman deck. It is a deck where all the cards are legal, but the deck can not actually be played without suffering slow play violations. It uses a non-deterministic combo and thus can't be shortcutted.

[@TheThiccestChungus]

Can you link the deck?

[@calemr]

@@TheThiccestChungus It's a combo, so there's various tweaks that can be made to a deck that runs it, but it works like this: Basalt Monolith (Taps for 3 mana, has "3: Untap")+ Mesmeric Orb (When you Untap a card, mill 1), lets you mill infinitely at will. Emrakul, who, if it hits your graveyard, you shuffle your graveyard back into your library, so you don't mill out trying to get the combo. Then, you have to mill until you get 4 Narcomebas (A creature that, when milled, goes to the battlefield) Then, before you hit an Emrakul, mill: 1 dread return (Sorcery that, when in your graveyard, can be played by sacrificing 3 creatures, and puts a creature from the graveyard to the battlefield), 1 Sharuum the Hegemon (A creature that, on entering the battlefield, puts an artifact from graveyard to battlefield), and 1 Blasting Station (An artifact with "Tap, sac a creature: 1 damage to a target", and when a creature enters the battlefield, you Untap it). If you mill your Emrakul, you have to start this step again. With those 3 all in grave, Sac 3 Narcos to cast Dread Return to get Sharuum, which gets Blasting Station. Sac 4th Narco and Tap Blasting, deal 1 damage to your opponent, use Basalt+Mesmeric to mill until you hit Emrakul, shuffle grave back into library. Mill to get a Narco, Narco enters, untaps Blasting. Repeat, randomly milling an Emrakul so you don't mill out during this process, over and over until you've pinged your opponent for their entire life total. It takes Forever, and since it's randomized when you'll hit an Emrakul, it can't officially be declared a determined loop, so has to be manually played through every time. The Horsemen are the 4 Narcomebas, BTW.

[@karrotlord]

@@calemr Good time for the saying "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."

[@calemr]

@@karrotlord It effectively, Eventually, wins the game if you just get a 2 and 3 cost artifact into play. So there's definitely incentive, a 2 card instant win in colorless. Get the right rituals or Mana rocks and you could do it turn one.

[@Jesin00]

The Four Horsemen combo is a fun example of a counterintuitive situation in probability theory where a 100% chance is not a guarantee. With unbounded time to play the game, your probability of winning once the mill loop starts becomes 100%, but there still are possible sequences of shuffles that do not win you the game. They're just 0% of the infinite possibility space because a smaller infinity divided by a larger infinity can become 0.

[@boyo7918]

Another thing with ante cards: If they weren't banned, you could theoretically put a full playset of all 9 ante cards in a deck. Then, the rules text says you remove them from the deck before playing, meaning you straight up have a 24 card deck.

[@fernandobanda5734]

This was never true. "Remove them from your deck" was an indication that you shouldn't play with the game without ante, not a permission or effect to remove them after presenting your deck.

[@Casey0706]

"Before playing"

[@werefrogofassyria6609]

Simple way around that, play begins as you present your deck. Thus, they won't be there when you present your deck.

[@mattm7798]

Oh wow...imagine 8 mountains and 16 lightning bolt effects.

[@dizzyblizzy2806]

@@werefrogofassyria6609 ergo when you present the deck it will not be a legal deck. There is no way to use ante cards to get around the deck minimum

[@hexsaver420]

11:38 In the version of the urban legend I heard, the judge sidestepped the ruling entirely by disqualifying the first player for having a 59-card deck.

[@calemr]

Logically, it's marking your card.

[@deeterful]

In a version I heard, he got DQed for playing a marked card.

[@kralik394]

Lol the version i heard was the guy got DQd for illegally modifying his deck.

[@MrZerodaim]

You can actually loop Shahrazad infinitely, leading to subgames within subgames within subgames [...] In the context of a subgame, all cards that are part of the main game are considered outside of the game, which means that if you play Shahrazad, you can use a Wish card (cards that take card from outside the game - usually meaning your sideboard - and puts them into your hand) to take cards from the main game into the subgame. This adds to the existing logistics nightmare of tracking the state of the main game (like damage, the stack, etc), but most notably this lets you grab the one card currently resolving in the main game: Shahrazad itself! With a bit of creative deckbuilding to keep lands and wishes in your library through the loop, you can keep starting subgames over and over...

[@seandun7083]

You do need to worry about your library running out of cards as more and more are trapped in the layers above, but assuming you can loop wishes indefinitely, that might be okay. What part of the main game can wishes take cards from? Hand, library, battlefield, graveyard, stack?

[@TheJacklikesvideos]

you cannot loop indefinitely because you will leave non-zero cards behind and your deck is finite and there are not the options to pull more cards from the last game as you are playing in the current game.

[@seandun7083]

@@TheJacklikesvideos I assume using leyline of anticipation/omniscience shenanigans there is a way to shape the gamestate so that a copy of Shahrazad is on the stack and all your cards are shuffled into your library, but that would be difficult to pull off indefinite subgames in a row unless your opponent is cooperating. You might also need to shuffle in their stuff too to prevent them from milling out. Now I'm curious if you can mill out during the first time state based actions are checked if your starting deck has less than 7 cards, or if you don't until your first draw step.

[@MrZerodaim]

@@seandun7083 You don't need to worry too much about running out of cards yourself, you can just wish for the cards from the subgame to the subsubgame first, then shuffle them into the deck in some way. Or use lands that sacrifice themselves for mana + elixir or immortality to shuffle. However your opponent will likely end up with too few cards to draw an opening hand and lose the subgames as they start. When you're in the subgame, there is no concept of "main game" nor "zones outside the game". All those cards are treated just like your sideboard: outside the game. You can wish for a card from anywhere in the main game - except library, since it's part of the subgame - and that of course includes the stack ! Though let's be honest, should you manage to pull off such a loop, the opponent would just concede all subgames and lose half their life in the main game, skipping all the nonsense.

[@seandun7083]

@@MrZerodaim I forgot that the main game library would be of course in your sub game library. I am curious how it works with face down exiled cards from the main game (for example if you're opponent casts Gonti). I have been digging in the rules and haven't been able to find anything clarifying that beyond just "stuff in the main game is outside the subgame". There is a concept of the main game in the subgame, but it only really matters for defining rules and for any effects of the card that created the subgame (like the life lots from Shahrazad upon resolution) but it is all outside the game, which I assume is what you were trying to say. I'm honestly surprised that they actually flushed out the rules as much as they did for a mechanic that is banned everywhere outside of unsets. Pro tip: if you are playing one of the silver bordered sub game cards and expect your opponents to play them too, Ass Whuppin' should be able to function to destroy stuff in the main game.

[@SomeGuy712x]

When you were discussing Orcish Oriflamme, I'm surprised you didn't mention the more recent Goblin Oriflamme at all, which is the same thing, but costs 1R instead of 3R, making it functionally identical to the original Alpha misprint of Orcish Oriflamme. (15:02) LOL at you first showing the expected Fork for copying Shahrazad, and then immediately saying and showing the much newer Thousand-Year Storm.

[@Xhadp]

Honorable mention should go to Tibalt's Trickery which I talked about in your previous video where you mentioned about its ban, it wasn't banned due to its problematic win rate or effect. In fact it was pretty balanced in terms of win rate, it was banned cause its effect was so one-sided and usually meant an auto win for a deck that solely relied on the card to win the game if they got its effect off against yourself. Another honorable mention would be the cards that wizards said they can't talk about and don't want present at any event, that were made in an era of a different age that talked about slavery or other depictions of cruel acts that are not seen as favorable and offensive to some players. Quite a weird ban that literally meets the definition of weird.

[@QuantemDeconstructor]

Ah, the incredibly perplexing nature of how they thought it was ok to print Invoke Prejudice

[@xXSamir44Xx]

@@QuantemDeconstructor I still don't see why that's a problem. We have cards called "Murder" and planeswalkers, as cards, that committed all kinds of atrocities, including genocide. It's a card game. Separating it from reality isn't that hard.

[@QuantemDeconstructor]

@@xXSamir44Xx I mean those cards do depict horrible things but Invoke Prejudice was literally racism put into a card, down to having Klansmen-esque figures representing it

[@AirRideMaster]

@@QuantemDeconstructor of note to add onto Invoke Prejudice, it was illustrated by an actual Neo-Nazi. Same reason they haven't reused their art on any reprints, and they took certain cards out of 30th edition and the Lost Legends subset.

[@QuantemDeconstructor]

@@AirRideMaster yeah it's subject matter that hits too close to home, also holy shit

[@KBgamer2010]

Shahrazad is at its funniest when you storm it with Thousand-Year Storm

[@Liliana_the_ghost_cat]

Oh goodness O-O

[@superbaas8822]

Some people just want to watch the world burn

[@KBgamer2010]

@@superbaas8822 exactly

[@pr0igy786]

Personally, I prefer Eye of the Storm or Hive Mind in multiplayer... but why not all 3?

[@muchograndeyolatengo]

There's a couple of them I didn't know about. I was expecting Second Sunrise in there as well. Just for the story of Kibler writing "F6" on a piece of paper and then going out to get something to eat while the Eggs player was going off in a tournament ("F6" was the short cut on MtGO for parsing all priorities). That deck was an absolute nightmare to play against.

[@kennydarmawan13]

15:57 And even then, the un-set subgame cards all start with very low life totals. This means it's actually a lot more fun to do so and not as much of a slog as Shahrazad. The fact you don't even have to play seriously makes it more fun. Speaking of which, hope to see the top 10 un-set/acorn-stamped/silver-bordered cards that would be VERY overpowered in a normal game, excluding the eternal-legal ones.

[@enlongjones2394]

And seeing as it’s a red spell, that sub game is likely to end really fast with a lightning bolt or something.

[@kennydarmawan13]

@@enlongjones2394 Yup. Very fast. For certain, I hope a new un-set makes a new subgame card for white.

[@espio87]

I regard The Countdown is at One as the only subgame card that WoTC could make legal and people wouldn't complain because of how fast the outcome is. They would complain about the subgame being too fast. xD

[@highlordfenrir]

Fun fact about Divine Intervention: This card can cause some wacky outcomes in the Emperor format due to its "spell range" rules, which are cited in DI's Oracle rulings. You can have a win, loss, and draw all in the same game.

[@kennydarmawan13]

Regarding Orcish Oriflamme, it would be later power-crept by Goblin Oriflamme for Modern Horizons, which had that card's misprint cost as its actual cost. And since it's made in modern Magic, it's clear the card is fine at that power level.

[@drjohnwooberg]

It’s a little weird that they thought the misprinted Oriflamme was too strong when Bad Moon, Crusade, and Lord of Atlantis were all also in Alpha. Maybe it’s because the other cards are symmetrical and require you to build around them a little more?

[@kennydarmawan13]

@@drjohnwooberg different thoughts back then. Thought creatures were too good. Now, some of them were too good.

[@pakeshde7518]

The chaos orb story was a early gencon from back in the day. I remember it and being paid to scout other players decks, make notes, then hustle back to my friend to give heads up on who had what hot cards. That was also when the great star trek power incident happened and a chair went out a window.. ahh those crazy days.

[@thanhavictus]

So when a player ripped up his chaos orb, was he allowed to put a new one in?

[@pakeshde7518]

@@thanhavictus I.. have NO idea to be honest it was that long ago alas. I just remember the crapstorm when he did it and folks were just gobsmacked about it.

[@darianleyer5777]

Divine Intervention is a good loophole for Platinum Angel.

[@leodewald1087]

I remember that Zodiac Dragon had a similar issue like the one Rukh Egg had.

[@Moroklumpen]

I can't for the life of me remember which specific card it was (I wonder if it might have been Dream Halls), but here's a good one you missed: Legacy used to be called Classic-Restricted, and it didn't have its own ban list; its card pool overlapped with Vintage except that everything on the restricted list was also banned. At some point, one particular card was deemed problematically overpowered in the format, but because C-R didn't have a separate ban list, the card had to be restricted in Vintage, a format where it caused zero problems. At this point it became clear that the single shared list approach was causing undesirable weirdness, so it was scrapped, C-R got its very own ban list and was later renamed Legacy.

[@MrBunt]

I think it was Earthcraft, that card never did anything to my knowledge in T1, but was banned for T1.5

[@Moroklumpen]

@@MrBunt That sounds very likely, yes.

[@dark_rit]

I was under the impression that legacy before it split off to have it's own banlist was just called Type 1.5 unless that was changed from classic restricted in the 90's at some point. It was rather silly when it was type 1 and type 1.5 though and the banlist for 1.5 was completely based on what was legal in vintage as a 4 of.

[@MrBunt]

@@dark_rit There were always the "short names" and the "longer names" for formats... So T1 as Classic, T1.5 as Classic-Restricted, T2 as Standard, T1.x as Extended (which was weird, as it also was a rotating format) Yes, the banlist was completely based on what was legal in vintage, however the decision to restrict sth in T1 was also based on how the card was impacting T1.5 (althought at least in my region, there were almost no T1.5 events anyways. I think in total, I played 2 events in that format before Legacy was created. T1 was way more popular, even for people who did not own P9; usually there were extra prizes for the best non-powered decks)

[@Varooooooom]

I love the idea of Shahrazad so much. As a former Yu-Gi-Oh player, that game didn’t have nearly as much fun getting impractical and whacky with card effects as MTG did.

[@fernandobanda5734]

I loved Convulsion of Nature back in the day. :)

[@Varooooooom]

@@fernandobanda5734 I remember that card making me super hopeful that the game would do more fun, niche antics someday. Sigh 🥲

[@SlayerFan961]

It's ironic how MtG can send you to the Shadow Realm in a much more practical way than YGO ever could (Frankie Peanuts).

[@melvinshine9841]

That Lurrus card being so busted it gets banned from a format made for cards that are too busted to be played anywhere else is hilarious. It's also kind of funny that even though I don't play Magic, I can just look at some of the art for the cards and tell if they're really old or not. Wow, now I'm imagining someone using a banquet hall table so they can have their cards three feet apart from each just to play around Chaos Orb.

[@drjohnwooberg]

When it started, Magic was made by a company run out a guy’s garage, so they didn’t have much art direction and couldn’t pay their artists much. I heard that in the early days they got $50 in cash plus $50 in stock per piece, and they retained the copyright to their work. Since they weren’t getting paid all that much, artists weren’t always bringing their A game in those early sets. Ironically, for many of those artists, these are probably the best known pieces they’ve ever done.

[@fernandobanda5734]

@@drjohnwooberg I know two fun stories about early Magic art. Stasis was apparently a gift/favor from a Richard Garfield's aunt. It was free, I'm not sure if out of necessity or just as a way to feature her. Word of Command was painted by Jesper Myrfors, who directed Magic art for many years after. He painted a black background to use for an illustration, then drew two eyes as a joke. He wasn't planning on actually presenting that but Richard liked it and so it went to that card.

[@drjohnwooberg]

@@fernandobanda5734 Lol. I didn’t know that about either of those. I knew Birds of Paradise was originally supposed to be Volcanic Island, but the bird was more prominent in the art, so it became a creature card.

[@Trip_Fontaine]

@@fernandobanda5734 I always liked the Stasis art. I think it invokes the work of some of the Surrealists and really gives you the sense that something weird is happening. The card was so annoying though. The Stasis deck was my first exposure to an "unfair" deck that wasn't even attempting to play the game in a normal way, and I hated it, lol.

[@matthewkeeling886]

With Shaharazad, if both players are playing 4 and 4 Forks you could, with the cards of the time, potentially end up in 8 layers of sub-games (with 1 sub-game suspended for each ready to start immediately upon the last finishing) and that does not even count the primary game. Not to mention that the ones activated within a sub-game are shuffled back into the deck at the end of it, so you potentially have to finish an absolutely colossal number of games before you finally get all of them into the graveyard within the original game, oh, and there is at least one card (Regrowth) around at the time that allows them to be pulled out of the graveyard... Yah, banning this one was probably inevitable.

[@RGC_animation]

If you have cards that bring cards back from the graveyard, it can be much worse.

[@matthewkeeling886]

@@RGC_animation I was noting that this is the maximum simultaneous number, cards on the stack don't carry over to the sub-games so 8 activations (with 8 more ready to immediately resolve in suspended games) is the maximum depth of a single chain of activations (with cards of the time, more might be possible now), but even more activations later in each game is still very possible. Even in Arabian Knights at least 24 activations in the main game are possible with Fork and Regrowth (with the number falling off with each sub-game in a stack and with each non-Fork generated activation), just not all as an onion of simultaneous sub-sub-games.

[@coreyyates3385]

Divine Intervention was basically made for ante. You don't want your card going to your friend so you draw the game and keep your card

[@felipevasconcello8164]

I'd love to see a video about slivers or a series about top decks on world tournaments in magic history, I enjoy this channel a lot and already have seen all your videos.

[@Jocken333]

Not sure if "weird" but Invoke Prejudice (along with several other cards) was banned for an at least very unusual/unique reason: the art/name is offensive (and it really is in case anyone was wondering)

[@carltwigg6519]

Wild story really Crazy what totally expected results happen when you're a Nazi

[@MinorDemon666]

While I can understand if some cards were banned due to racial sensitivity, such as Invoke Prejudice, or Crusades, or Cleanse... I'm not so sure about the Stone-Throwing Devils, which were referenced in non-Christian stories, too, and needn't have been strictly biblical. There were also cards where images were either removed or changed due to complaints of insensitivity, such as the burning star behind Unholy Strength being removed between Revised and Fourth Edition, or the esophogus in the LIving Wall being the end of complaints because it was seen by some as a phalic symbol.

[@MforMovesets]

I just checked that list again and I assume it was banned simply for reference of stoning someone. Its the most confusing entry, thats the only reason coming to my mind. What about Appetto Dredging though which clearly shows Phage draining the swamp? 🥴

[@kennydarmawan13]

10:51 Just a second is a riff of split second. As split second prevents a player from casting or activating, just a second prevents players from physically moving a card.

[@Illia5]

Nexus of Fate got banned specifically on arena because people made games go on infinitely against streamers, and Wizards can't program a timer to prevent it. :(

[@fernandobanda5734]

Lol

[@bladeworkzgames]

Adding to the companions banned for weird reasons. Lutri, the Spellchaser was banned in Commander the day it was spoiled because it's companion restriction is just the normal rules of Commander.

[@rajamicitrenti1374]

Earlier this year, I went back and started playing that old 1997 MtG PC game from Microprose and discovered the wonders of Contract from Below. Might actually be stronger than Black Lotus.

[@RGC_animation]

Magic can have such a controlled game state that just resetting your hand can be detrimental.

[@DeltaDemon1]

A long time ago at the dawn of Magic before we had official tournament rules, I played in a few weekly tournaments at my university gaming club. Some of the rules was minimum 40 cards with a sideboard of 8 cards, max 4 of any one type, no ante but the ante cards were not technically banned. So I put in 3 sets of 4 ante cards (so 12 cards total) that said to remove them if you are not playing for ante. According to the rulings of the judges, this did not make my deck illegal as I started with 40 cards. So I could reduce my deck size from 40 to 28 which meant my game winning combo was that much more available earlier. I had traded for ante cards easily because they were considered worthless because nobody played for ante. I had also had the foresight to trade for much more ante cards than I needed essentially creating a shortage of the cards once people realized how good they were in tournament. I promptly traded my spares away for what, at the time, were really good cards after my first tournament win. That lasted two tournaments until the ante cards were banned altogether.

[@LagunaCrale]

Missed an opportunity to include Lutri! Who was banned for two rule changes to the commander format. The first came long before his time, when the rules council decided that we couldn't have separated "banned as" lists (banned as commander/banned in the 99). The second came with Lutri, where they changed the rules to allow cards to wish for /themselves/ but not others. So, it can't be "banned as companion", and it's too good as "wish for itself if you are playing Singleton". A combination leaving magic's first and only legendary otter banned in the only format he ever had a shot in.

[@EmmyPupcake]

I'm pretty sure Lutri was banned in Commander before Ikoria was even released, too.

[@donaldwiggins9890]

I had an Orcish Oriflamme/Kobold deck back on the day.

[@misslaylafortune9276]

As a Yu-Gi-Oh player, these ban reasons are so wild. I can't imagine Konami banning a card because it was annoying in sims or incites gambling lol

[@Z4ifir]

Conquistador of the Golden Land limited to 1 in Master Duel comes to mind as a very strange not quite ban to Hit Eldlich. For gambling cards to be banned they need to exist in the first place. If they had printed some, they would've had to ban them later too.

[@BinaryHedgehog1]

Be careful about that language there, “gamble card” actually has a meaning in YuGiOh, which is any card with an effect that has an outcome determined by a coin flip or die roll (d6)

[@xXSamir44Xx]

Instead Konami bans cards to sell new sets.

[@SlayerFan961]

Wait until you hear about Frankie Peanuts, which already helped players sent their own opponents to the Shadow Realm (read - kill themselves or be disqualified due to breaking the game rules) much better than YGO ever did.

[@stomon2670]

Cauldron familiar with witches oven was such a fun broken deck before it got banned in standard. Also scute swarm breaks arena wayyy worse when you have it trigger 150+ times.

[@michaelwoller6450]

Consistently high quality videos on frequent output. Impressive

[@derekiden448]

The secret text of Shahrazad is WW all opponents lose half their life rounded down. It's never a time sink unless an opponent decides for it to be, they can just concede the subgame.

[@hobez64]

Also a shout-out to cards like Invoke Prejudice and Cleanse. Banned from everywhere because, well, the names speak for themselves, and the art and text just makes it even worse

[@Zeralop]

Banned because of the woke indoctrination of the west then

[@fernandobanda5734]

While some of the banned cards have questionable names, art and concept, a lot is just context and interpretation. Cleanse in my opinion is the most innocent and did absolutely nothing wrong.

[@maxmercurythemm827]

Banned because some people cannot separate fantasy from reality. Those people would rather forget history than learn from it. (PS: A reply above my own got banned so KZbin is still silencing some opinions, I expect.) (PPS: And now it's deleted. Beautiful going, KZbin.)

[@acksawblack]

Funniest one is the crusade card. There is a much more graphic and horrendous card called something like goblin crusade and it’s art depicts a gutted goblin crucified being used as a banner by soldiers yet it’s not banned

[@OverlyCriticalAnime]

@@acksawblack Also they never banned another card after because of said reasons. It really comes off as a virtual signal.

[@Chillax_Bro1]

Another good addition to the list would be the number of cards that have been temporarily banned because of glitches on MTGO like the one that causes peoples games to crash (I forget the actual card)

[@NerdByAnyOtherName]

The Aetherworks Marvel ban actually reminds me a lot of how FTKs (First Turn Kills, turn 0 you find some way to kill your opponent before they even get a turn, most often with repeatable burn effects) are treated in Yu-Gi-Oh, probably one of the most consistent FTKs in YGO history is Frog FTK which had maybe at most a 15%-20% win rate (at least on turn 0, this was popular and subsequently banned before YGO became the hyperspeed combofest it is today and so often could afford to stall and wait to get off the combo) but it and all other FTKs that got anywhere close to that win rate have been banned because of the exact reason you mentioned, their win rate is really low against the meta at the time but auto-losing 10% of the time is incredibly unfun and uninteresting

[@SurrealSam5808]

Sensei's diving top was banned due to it dragging out games in legacy and causing a bunch of draws in tournaments. It was activated 2+ times per turn and could take quite a while to resolve the effect each time.

[@Folfire]

Arabian Nights Rukh Egg: *Exists* YGO players: I see nothing wrong with this card.

[@fernandobanda5734]

Old wording Sangan and Witch of the Black Forest flashbacks

[@silent7159]

@@fernandobanda5734 OG Relinquished

[@grahamoliver1470]

@@fernandobanda5734 flashbacks to the yata lock days

[@FranciscoJG]

@@fernandobanda5734 they still had to be on field though...

[@fernandobanda5734]

@@FranciscoJG No, that was my point. Sangan and Witch didn't specify "from the field" and were played like that for some time in Japan before errata. They were used with Graceful Charity to search up Exodia pieces.

[@jenniferwilliams9612]

That contract from below image looks like the Summer Magic version of the card. That is an interesting choice to include in the video.

[@TP_Rockstar]

I'm also going to mention a weird ban for a weird reason: Bridge from Below was banned because Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis was to powerful. A card that had seen very little serious play in modern, only played in a low tier niche deck got banned because one of the most powerful creatures to be legal in the modern format was printed. Yes, I'm still salty about that. And no, I will not yield until this atrocious mistake is fixed by WotC.

[@nachoneitzscheese]

Rukh Egg with original text being considered way too powerful is retroactively hilarious to me since I've recently gotten back into Yugioh, where it's fairly common for cards to have effects that trigger when sent to the graveyard without specifying where from. When I saw how the Tearlaments deck worked, those cards instantly read to me as terrifyingly powerful since I'm used to Magic where that sort of effect is thankfully quite rare.

[@ryanparker260]

Magic: Commander, the 100 card format, is our most popular format, and people love it! Also Magic: 80 cards is too many for the tiny baby hands of anyone playing magic. There's no way anyone could reasonable shuffle more than 60 cards, so we banned yorion.

[@porytal6390]

Fun fact about Orcish Oriflamme: As an homage to the misprint, they printed a card named “Goblin Oriflamme” in modern horizons 1, which is identical to the misprinted orcish oriflamme.

[@tefnutofhoney2832]

The invoke prejudice gang are weird for being the only example of cards getting banned for non mechanical reasons. The only one that would be half decent is invoke itself but even its just an overcosted color-hosing effect

[@SyckestBlah]

7:34 Reminds me of a deck I used to love to play way, way back: It was a GUB monstrosity with all kinds of things going on, Golgari Grave Troll for a fat beater and Battle of Wits as an alternate finisher are just two things. The deck was 300 cards. And I actually, although very troublesome, managed to shuffle all of the deck by hand in one go.

[@BuckeyeNut123]

Ring of Ma'ruf: 5: Instead of drawing a card from the top of your library, select one of your cards from outside the game. This card can be any card you have that you’re not using in your deck or that for some reason has left the game. Ring of Ma’rûf is removed from the game entirely after use. Very handy when you have a massive collection to draw from. Eventually, the card's ability was limited to your Sideboard.

[@Silverlightlive]

Rukh Egg was banned because at the time, there were no play or draw rules. So you could simply draw your 8, discard to 7, throw the Rukh away, and boom. You've got a big nasty flyer to start turn 2 with. The Bazaar was barely worth anything because people were looking for the Library of Alexandria, and discard strategies didn't start to get explored until 1995/1996.

[@XYGamingRemedyG]

That guy ripping and sprinkling his chaos orb is absolutely legendary...

[@leefisher6366]

Divine Intervention: Don't forget that in those days, playing for Ante was a thing. If you weren't going to win the game, and didn't want to lose your ante card, a draw is the only viable option.

[@sandwichboy1268]

shoutout to all the cards banned like last year for being offensive, which unironically gave the cards more attention than they'd seen in years (because they're unplayably bad)

[@gilliganallmighty3]

I used to run a Shaharizad deck, i built on a dare, in my casual group. One game I put 8 copies of Shaharizad on the stack. We played played it out. The game took 7 hours.

[@CharuzuAutomatonArtificer]

As someone who has played against cauldron familiar/witches oven... I'm glad it's banned

[@windhelmguard5295]

the yorion ban makes perfect sense to me. remember the deck limit in magic is as many as you can shuffle, which means that someone who can't shuffle an eighty card deck, would just be banned from playing it. like i'm six foot five and my hands are barely large enough to shuffle a commander deck with sleeves on the cards, my nephew can barely manage a sixty card deck.

[@MrNotBot]

It would have made sense if they banned it across the board, but banning it only in modern tells me they wanted to reduce the power level of yorion elementals without actually affecting the price of MH2 incarnations. MH2 is still in print as far as I know. Also, an 80-card deck is about the same height as a double sleeved 60-card deck.

[@Nanaki404]

Sensei's Divining Top was banned in part because it made turns longer, by giving the player more choices overall, and leading to longer decision-making throughout the entire game (especially since it's almost impossible to destroy)

[@irkhalu5514]

Hirumared?! Awesome! Now I get my favorite lore and weird trivia master for my other addiction too

[@rajamicitrenti1374]

It still surprises me that Shaharizad was not included in the ante card ban, since it does reference the mechanic.

[@ymmijx6061]

not in the current erata, it's not like it antes cards, that was just part of the rules back then

[@joanaguayoplanell4912]

I just noticed. Technically the entire subgame happens during the turn you activate Shahrazad... Gods. EDIT: for those unaware, there is a mechanic in Magic called Storm, wich copies the spell that has it on cast, as many times as spells you have used that turn, and every spell used during the subgames count as being casted on the turn Shahrazad is activated. It's trivial to get literally infinite subgames from that interaction. Also shoutouts to Floral Spuzzum, wich in it's original incarnation, required THE CARD ITSELF to somehow decide wether or not it wanted to activate it's effects. Since unfortunately sentient cards aren't a thing yet in real life, it was eventually fixed to require the PLAYER that activated it to decide instead.

[@n__neen]

yeah it's part of a spell resolving so that is when it's happening

[@joanaguayoplanell4912]

@@n__neen Point is, imagine resolving a Storm card AFTER the subgame ends

[@Absurdated]

@@joanaguayoplanell4912 This particular issue wouldn't be a problem. Rule 725.1b states that no effects in the subgame (including number of spells played) may have an effect on the main game unless the effect that created the subgame says so.

[@joshbunton6424]

I'm glad you mentioned the chaos orb story it was a very smart play if it was true

[@theangrycolossal]

Another thing with Shahrazad is that it has some very wild and confusing interactions when you start adding in cards that interact with 'cards outside the game' like Burning Wish, basically twisting the game logic into knots and creating a theoretical nightmare for judges I imagine another reason that Chaos Orb/Falling Star is banned is that a popular way to play Legacy/Vintage is through the MTG Online client and how do you replicate that card effect in digital?

[@henke37]

Just tear up the card virtually, duh. It's not like physics systems are a new thing.

[@calemr]

Official rules, Btw: Yes, the Scheherazade in your original game IS outside your subgame. Which, yeah, mechanical nightmare.

[@QuantemDeconstructor]

@@calemr Why is "Asmoranimardicadaistinaculdacar" easier to type than "Shahrazad" anyway?

[@fernandobanda5734]

Legacy and Vintage in paper and digital are not completely in sync anyway, though. There are many old cards that aren't there because they are obnoxious to program and not relevant to the metagame.

[@calemr]

@@QuantemDeconstructor Because one is an original name, the other is a misspelling of an already existent name that's historically relevant enough that it's even in my phone's autocorrect.

[@astuteanansi4935]

"Day 6 The Magic game continues. Though I vowed long ago to never concede a game, the need for food and water is overcoming me. I check my opponent's graveyard again. Maybe he has an extra Healing Salve, and is playing an illegally constructed deck? No such luck. His Moat holds back my creatures, and walls of counterspells keep me from dealing with it. I've tried to deck myself several times, but he seems to always have a Timetwister right on time. Each time I come close to breaking through, another wall is in my path, and he punishes me by playing another Shahrazad. Even when I manage to beat him in the subgame, it's a shallow victory, because this true game continues. I cannot go on, but paradoxically cannot surrender. It is what he wants. After this long, I cannot allow him to win. I draw my card for turn, and sigh." -Kryptnyt

[@torinnbalasar6774]

I used to play a golgari cat oven deck on arena while it was still in standard. Never even realized it got banned, probably because I didn't play much after a while. But I also remember briefly coming back to the game after it rotated out, and it was still legal in historic, which I don't remember if the format even existed before my first hiatus. I haven't touched it again since, long time even before alchemy, which I will never play because screw having to relearn effects of existing cards when they get rebalanced.

[@hamishfox]

In the very early days of magic there wasn't a rule stating a maximum number of copies of cards you could play in a deck, and one strategy was to play a deck entirely full of balances and mox pearls, leading to some pretty silly games. As a result you, could argue, every card was restricted to a maximum of 4 copies excluding basic lands. Pretty weird to think about these days.

[@jasonslade6259]

There was also a deck from that time that was only copies of Channel and Fireball along with mox+lotus+ancestral recall. It was rare that the deck didn't kill on turn 1, in a time when Force of Will didn't exist yet.

[@hamishfox]

@@jasonslade6259 and that's where the name for the popular website Channel Fireball comes from! I will cast lightning bolt in response though...

[@hamishfox]

@@jasonslade6259 there was also a mono blue deck based around drawing a ton of cards with braingeyser, hurkyl's recalling for a bunch more mana, and then milling out the opponents entire deck with another braingeyser

[@alicetheaxolotl]

WotC: "Shuffling 80 cards is too hard, so we're gonna ban Yorion" Commander players:🤨

[@simonteesdale9752]

Modern Yorion decks run upwards of 20 fetchlands. They often shuffle every turn. Add to that the fact that in tournaments, you are required to present your deck so your opponent can also shuffle or cut it every time you shuffle your deck, and it definitely slows things down. (Also tournaments have to complete 3 games in 50 minutes) Oh, and Yorion was also causing other issues already: - Yorion decks often homogenized into value piles. - When Yorion was actually played, it led to unfun gamestates (sometimes involving flickerwisp to keep looping it).

[@josephwodarczyk977]

Dude I have giant spider hands and struggle with my decks. Kids would be terrible.

[@zanis_summers8284]

I love how the cards with bad art or names weren’t mentioned when they were literally banned for reasons outside of the game.

[@RGC_animation]

There's a funny one which the effect is "Destroy all black creatures", you can probably guess why it was banned.

[@AllThingsEntertaining]

I honestly love it when upstart card games take random broken effects and print them on cards regardless of how stupid it might be. Something like Chaos Orb or Shahrazad in Magic and stuff like Fiber Jar and Victory Dragon in Yugioh are pretty good reasons to play card games.

[@mikepaul5332]

I still have my deck with 4 Shahrazad (with Panoptic Mirrors and other copy effects) and a Divine Intervention. Also ran a bunch of effects to remove cards from the game, as at the time I made it, cards removed in the sub game stayed removed.

[@drewskiwest5284]

oh man i really enjoyed war oracle aswell the cat/witch's oven combo xD

[@sagacious03]

It's tragic how many cards WotC bans in the name of "fun" or "accessibility" or "expediency". Anyway, neat analysis video! Thanks for uploading!

[@fernandobanda5734]

Fun shouldn't be a relevant factor?

[@ewoknips5154]

I remember Inquest (I think that was the name of the magazine) came with a chaos orb that was the size of a magazine one month so of course I bought it and the next day at school I had a proxy chaos orb in my deck. Played it and pulled out the super-sized chaos orb and you should have seen the looks on my buddy's face lol

[@joeldykman7591]

So a little fact about cards causing draws: Though there aren't any cards printed in recent magic that cause a draw directly, there are cards that interact with other cards that cause what's called an involuntary infinite. The example that comes to mind for me is the creature Polyraptor, and the enchantment Aether Flash. Aether Flash causes 2 damage to any creature that enters the battlefield where Polyraptor has an ability that whenever its dealt damage it creates a token copy of itself. So what happens is that when polyraptor etb's with aether flash active it immediately takes 2 damage and makes a copy which itself has the mechanic to clone itself, creating an infinite loop. The problem here is that neither cards effects are optional abilities, they must happen so unless someone can remove either card with an instant speed spell/effect, there is no resolving the stack ever, thus by rules the game ends in a draw.

[@alexbrangan2885]

I'm surprised you didn't mention Yorion's utility as pitch fodder for a free Solitude or Force of Negation. Ironically, the change to the companion rule that nerfed Lurrus in Vintage may have made Yorion stronger in Modern.

[@coreyroberson4550]

All that about Orcish Oriflamme, but no mention of Goblin Oriflamme, which is a straight-up power creep version that really does cost 1R. Also, I used to joke with my friends about building a deck with 4 Shahrazads, 4 Karn Liberated, and 1 Divine Intervention to make the most soul-crushing play sequence ever of subgame, subgame, restart the game, subgame, draw.

[@9adam4]

Ante was a neat idea, because it acted as kind of like chess ratings: if your cards were much better than your opponent's cards, then you would likely be anteing a more valuable card as well. But in practice, it's impractical and not fun.

[@illusioncity]

I used to have Contract from Below. One of my first rares when I started playing back in Revised. Traded a long time ago since I would never use it. lol

[@TheWolfDawg]

The companion mechanic is literally going to haunt WotC for the rest of eternity. I wonder if it will eventually become the second mechanic to receive an 11 on the storm scale? (It's at a 9 right now)

[@fernandobanda5734]

The nerf has solved basically every problem with it. The deck restrictions weren't harsh enough in some cases, but add 3 mana to it and you're good.

[@BrotherAlpha]

15:00 ... I've been since Alpha and I once played a subgame of Shahrazad in a subgame of Shahrazad. The card was banned in our local play group that day.

[@HazhMcMoor]

Video on the few Vintage Bans sounds cool. Not even ygo ever ban something in traditional format o think.

[@fernandobanda5734]

The only bans are: -Ante cards -Dexterity cards -Shahrazad (the only subgame card) -Conspiracy cards: These were created for a specific Limited format and don't really work in Constructed because they have zero opportunity cost. -Cards that were banned recently for having offensive names or art Lurrus is the only card to ever have been banned for power reasons, that's why it was a big deal. After the companion nerf, it's now legal again.

[@800mls]

Yorion being ban definitely was also power level related for modern.

[@Dominator150395]

I'm curious, what were you supposed to do with the cards that were already on the field when Shaharazad was played? Were you supposed to leave them there, or stack them up and put them aside? Depending on the answer, table space might have been a bigger concern than time for tournament organizers/card shop staff.

[@jasonslade6259]

They stay in the main game so yes table space becomes a problem pretty quickly. And even worse - cards like Living Wish and Burning Wish can pull cards from the main game into the sub game, creating a huge headache for remembering what was where (you have to put everything back once the sub game is over). And yes this includes using Burning Wish during the sub-game to grab the copy of Shahrazad that is currently on the stack in the main game waiting to resolve.

[@auzziully4538]

You should make a video to explain the most convoluted magic play ever- and use every card ever created. :O

[@fugitiveunknown7806]

Our FLGS had one employee who had a deck in the early years in case anyone every offered to play for ante, allowed to be dusted off only for someone who the owner never wanted to walk into the store again. It contained 4 Scheherazade (groan) and every ante card, and was around a 120 card deck. The concept was simply to cause your opponent to ante more cards than they had in their deck, with 4 ways of creating games within games. It didn't actually set him back that much at the time since no one actually liked ante and would never play it. As far as I know it was only used in test games as a joke though, it was never actually used to steal someone's deck, just a demonstration of why ante was a terrible idea.

[@songarakram]

I do love the flavor of Shahrazad. In the story "One Thousand and One Nights", she's a story teller. So the second "sub-game" is a story being told by her.

[@MinorDemon666]

In 1998, while judging a Type-1 (Vintage) tournament, one of the players managed to cast Shahrazad three times during the same game. We had to wait the extra eighty for this table to finish before we could continue with the tournament. Pretty annoying. Fortunately, the storyteller deck (we called it) didn't continute onto the quarterfinals. Nevertheless, the card was also in my "Bad Karma" deck for the longest time also strictly for pissing people off... I can totally see why it needed to be banned.

[@mbarker_lng]

If it wasnt banned due to ante, Contract from Below would have a compelling case for most powerful card ever printed. Forget Ancestral Recall- this one allows you to draw a new hand for just 1 mana. Having to ante a card would be meaningless since you were not likely to lose after resolving it.

[@jasona1000]

1:49 i hated that stupid cat

[@sammin101]

At first I read the title as “top 10 CATS that were banned” but this is good too

[@Scott_McKewl]

So does Divine Intervention still work if you have a Platinum Angel on the field?

[@Ouja]

I own a copy of Sharazad. I actually have it in a low powered 5 color deck that my pod uses strictly to test the effectiveness of a deck under duress. It has no real wincons other than beatdown from an artifact that can turn into a big creature every turn, and Disintegrate. It fields no other threats aside from potentially crippling an opponents strategy by exiling cards during the subgame. This forces you to play the deck being tested in ways other than its primary strategy.

[@GreatgoatonFire]

Video idea: Talk about all then Companions and why some basically are never played and some are banned.

[@tychoMX]

excellent idea. That's one mechanic that is so hard to balance because it removes the consistency issues entirely - which is kind of a biggie for a random game!

[@xXSamir44Xx]

That would be a short video. Some companions don't have requirements that completely destroy your deck's consistency, so they see play. All the others don't.

[@griffalo1013]

Oh God, it never even occurred to me what would happen with four copies of Shahrazad in a deck, let alone copying shenanigans...