What Should Be Unbanned? | The Command Zone 635 | MTG EDH Magic Gathering Commander

[@commandcast]

Which of our conclusions do you disagree with? What cards would you take off the ban list if given the chance?

[@OwynDahn-ps4wr]

Fastbond. I'm insane, and I love it...

[@AwesomeSocialDancing]

Leovold should stay banned. I'm sure there are some evil people out right now trying to figure out how to empty everyone's hand on turn 1 or 2. Nobody wants that in the format.

[@kiprockwood5232]

Braids isnt a problem in 99.. unless it's in your opening hand and can be ramped out on turn 1. The same argument can be used for any card. Channel is too strong can end game on turn 1. Orrrr, it's 1/99 and yu never see it. Might as well unban it. The rationalization of most bans is, it's too powerful early in game. Many of them later in game aren't nearly as bad. Wanna ban advantage cards? Get rid of smothering tithe

[@jor-elmasterofscheduling2002]

​@AwesomeSocialDancing especially now with flair of cultivation, it's very easy to get them out turn 2 and play windfall/dark deal/ or timetwister on curve.

[@Ratchetfan321]

Unbanning Lotus or Crypt just puts you on the side that death threats get results. Also encourages and supports more use of threats to get cards banned/unbanned. Terrible for the Command Zone to support.

[@NerdHerder545]

You can tell Jimmy is a professional actor because he was able to say that there would be thoughtful discussion in the comments with such a straight face.

[@ChristopherSmithGPlus]

Nailed it.

[@thetogtube2]

😂😂😂😂

[@TerryTags]

Maybe we should have a thoughtful discussion to prove the exception to the rule?

[@sreyn237]

yeah honestly, they know exactly what they're posting.

[@MTG69]

Or a professional poker player...

[@rorykearney8577]

I think you all should do a Game Knights with Rule 0, with those cards you think should be un-banned, make a deck around them and see.

[@brittonstewart3577]

I could see them doing an extra turns based on that but i don't know about game knights

[@raulgabagool]

Maybe an extra turns episode, since GK is a WOTC sponsored thing. The extra turns series could be the perfect place to showcase a couple of these episodes. Good idea

[@regealpennyworth1]

@@brittonstewart3577the problem is they wouldn’t build the decks strong enough to take advantage of some of these commanders, like flash is banned for a reason and it does a similar thing to dockside

[@corsariosandrorect5238]

When Nadu was relase in my group do a experiment with him so we can see how powerful is. 4 players with Nadu as comander. When the frist one put Nadu, the sroud boots and another creature in play, well... 3 cretures more later, 4 land drops and 10 cards draw later we make the decision to ban Nadu before wizards do.

[@BizkVizc]

10 min video?

[@BalderTray]

Disagree on Iona. Played against mono colored decks, it's basically a card saying "You can't play anymore. You're grounded." It feels more like a punishment than a wincon.

[@johnparkin7872]

Iona can't be in the format with Painter's Servant, same as Flash and Protean Hulk. One or the other, never both.

[@Cangaroombi]

​@@johnparkin7872 Iona and Painter Servant is a wincon, it's fine. There are easier 2 cards combo. The problem is Iona alone, how punishing she is against monocolored decks, which are already disadvantaged. And the fact that the rest of the table maybe won't be interested in removing her. So you are locked, doing nothing, in the hope of finding your colorless removal or of another player casting a wrath.

[@dikkedon1124]

Same with Biorhythm.. some people play very creature light decks and just insta lose the game... that's why it got banned in the first place, not because it was even too broken to begin with.. Very weird they didn't mention something so obvious.

[@usof75756]

Exactly there's a big difference between I have protection from you and you can't play the game.

[@JovialRoger]

I initially thought that the casualness with which most of the Command Zone hosts talk about avoiding problematic Commanders like Braids, Leovold, or Tergrid might have come from the privilege's of their celebrity within the community, but after considering it, it might be more likely to be from their living in a large city. I live in a decent sized city and regularly the choice I have to make if an opponent brings out a commander I don't want to play against isn't "Play against this or play at a different table" it's "Play against this or don't play magic tonight."

[@AsatLujan]

As a person who's lived in the city their entire life myself, this is such a different opinion I would have never thought about, and it's so very true. Analogously, this also happens to people whose social skills are not too great to avoid troublesome tables, even in a big city.

[@Metherel]

"some of us magic players dont have more pods available, so ban more cards on our behalf"

[@commandcast]

@@Metherel This is a very reasonable critique!

[@TheTrooper424]

I live on the outskirts of a town of 50k people. There are are atleast four magic shops I can drive to within 30 minutes of my house. Each shop has their own culture. One more casual, one more degenerate, etc. Get to know people and it removes the majority of the issues you are talking about. Most people will swap decks if asked nicely

[@Metherel]

@@commandcast Having the players who dont have as much player/pod variety available to them wanting to sculpt the ban list to support their personal idea of fun actually seems rather unreasonable to me

[@callummcwhirter7226]

Have to agree with a lot of the sentiment in the comments. People have this ideal that you can just wave your hand and rule zero away unfun or ridiculous combos etc... but it very rarely works in person. Rule zero is genuinely a terrible way of doing this and seems to exist as a way to justify not banning things, when it should really exist as a reason TO ban things. Further, newer players have next to no idea what they dont want to play against, especially because Commander is an eternal format. If cards immediately ruin the gameplay experience, have a massive power disparity, combo with loads of cards to make game ending plays very early and very consistently etc... they should be banned by default and you should have to Rule Zero argue why you should be allowed to play the card which is too powerful/completely unfun (i.e. its a combo piece but you're running it for a different reason or some such). This is much more for the casual commander experience rather than cEDH. On another note, a better way of describing deck power (which is being discussed currently) could go a long way to improving this regardless. It has to be a system that describes the entire deck rather than the system suggested of 'if any card of this level is in the deck the deck is of that level' - a ridiculous system which is not even slightly helpful and the only reason it would exist is so that Wizards can market their Commander precons as all equally powerful etc... because they all have at least one good card within them.

[@shikarymtg]

Bans will never stop pubstomping, which is what you are complaining about. Do you think it's hard to build a deck that can destroy a table of precons? do you think it requires me having Iona or recurring nightmare? Lol, I wouldn't even choose any of the cards on this banlist if I wanted to win that hard. I don't want to research it too much, but I'm pretty sure if I limited myself to uncommons I could still pull that off pretty consistently thanks to combos.. so how many cards do you want to ban exactly?

[@fredjohnson6693]

Sounds like you want everyone to play only the cards you like. So all other people who enjoy cEDH or high power will be relegated to your power preference. Doesn’t seem like you’re looking out for the format as a whole.

[@callummcwhirter7226]

@@fredjohnson6693 there's a massive difference between 'cards I don't like' and 'having any semblance of reasonable balance'. I think as a community we hold onto this ideal of rule 0 being the fix all, but in reality it doesn't work in the slightest, we can't help ourselves but play the cards which make the game utterly dull and uninteresting, are obviously way too powerful etc... I'm saying the hands off approach works in theory but not in practice.

[@msweet1992]

100% agree with this. it feels Way better to rule 0 in cards than remove them. Played a game yesterday and the guy next to me was playing rakdos demons/devils and went "Oh I have grisslebrand in the 99. Didn't realize he was banned but I'll remove him if I draw him." we just said to keep it in. On the other hand if grisslebrand wasn't banned and I had to deal with that big chonker dropping onto the table real early I might have been a little salty presuming he had other high threat cards like that in our more jank focused pod.

[@jonlamoreaux2228]

​@@callummcwhirter7226your arguments are all based on what you think are interesting or uninteresting cards. Also making a blanket statement about rule zero not ever working further shows your argument is coming from your feelings, and your own inability to come to adult compromises with the people you play with. As far as new players coming to the format, I always want more possible opponents so I can jam as many games as possible, and have never myself, nor witnessed anyone else, try to play anything other than precons, or decks we built ourselves that we have explained and loaned to said new players, because we want them to want to come back and play again.

[@jaredgoldberg5431]

I don't know that I understand the metrics being evaluated here. Many reasons given in the video are "People shouldn't play it because it isn't fun to sit across from, but it shouldn't be banned, because the first time you play this card people will point out that it isn't fun, or you'll feel it yourself, and then you'll stop". Well... if the good result to achieve is that people don't play unfun cards like Iona, why unban them? What benefit does that create?

[@ElPanadero18]

100% agree.

[@lVideoWatcherl]

There seems to be a prevalent and _very_ weird sense among mtg 'commentators' that bans are the worst thing for the format, and as many cards as possible should be unbanned - while, at the same time, as you said yourself, generally most people don't want to see a _huge_ number of cards on their game table, and effectively a great amount of them has been ruled out by rule 0. So why not _invert_ that expectation and work the other way around? Make clear, actually _define_ the format by bans. Set what is a clear boundary for cards. Then let players figure out if they want to rule 0 cards _into_ play.

[@ShalomZakie]

I think what's important to remember is that the ban list currently rules all play levels of edh. So from competitive to extremely casual all have to be regulated with the ban list. Iona is fun in high level, horrible in casual and totally unplayable in competitive. Paradox is very strong at every level of play. I think what commentators are trying to say is don't go pubstomping because that's not fun for anyone

[@INTstincts]

I think Iona is the biggest one I disagree with... yeah, it's a 9-mana angel, but there's a fundamental difference between it and other big angels like Avacyn and Serra's Emissary -- the latter are win-cons for your deck, and do powerful stuff for you, but still leave room for interaction and gameplay. Iona is not a wincon, it points to one player and says "you're not allowed to play the game anymore". Like sure, giving yourself and your creatures protection from a card type of your choice is strong... but it still allows your opponents to find something else to deal with the board, or if they can't deal with you, at least to continue playing cards to affect their other opponents or build their own board. Same with Avacyn, making all your permanents indestructible is very strong, but exile effects like Swords and Farewell still exist, and if you can go wider than them or go taller with trample, you can still interact with them meaningfully. Meanwhile, if you play Iona against a mono-color deck, they are literally just sitting there not playing magic anymore. And nobody else at the table is incentivized to help deal with that problem, since they are either benefitting from it (because one of their opponents was just neutralized), or are equally shut down and limited in how they can even try to deal with it in the first place. The best thing to do if somebody plays Iona and picks your color is just scoop and go find another table, which is a pretty big sign that it's not a healthy card for the format

[@DuxBellorum13]

I actually played games back when Iona was unbanned. The player playing buried alive and reanimating Iona turn 3 had a great time.. my mono black deck being locked out of the game did not.

[@godsiresfollower7987]

had in a painter servant and now it no one can't play but me so yeah not a great card to unban

[@Mathewu_]

I had a similar experience with iona, kaalia player dropped her on turn 5 nothing crazy, but that was my game over.

[@Metherel]

just dont play a mono coloured deck into a deck that runs iona easy peasy ??? "Hey anybody running iona in their decks? I wanna play my mono coloured list" how hard was that?

[@Mathewu_]

@Metherel back then I was still quite new to edh, I didn't even know it was a question to ask.

[@jessereset10]

There should be an Extra Turns episode where you each build decks that include cards on your levels 3 and 4 just to see what happens

[@octopusbrain6511]

The only problem with this is they may not be drawn if they are not the commander, and some people will just skip through the details of the opening sections of the video and maybe confused

[@kyleh.7002]

49:31 Having played with and against Golos for a few years, the issue was that Golos was always the problem. After ramping up to five, commander tax is subsidized with it’s ETB so, even if we immediately removed it, as long as the Golos player has their next land drop in hand then it’s right back in play next turn. If Golos did stick on the battlefield then the deck is usually designed to abuse the activated ability or, if it isn’t designed that way, it still has extra lands in play to enable it to cast big or multiple spells. Just didn’t make for fun games as we felt like we were dealing with the same problem over and over again.

[@tyoates33]

cEDH enjoyer here: The problem with flash is that you can actually win with it as early as the first upkeep of the game. It kind of relies on having a "god hand" but it's possible. 1: pregame actions - begin with gemstone caverns on the battlefield 2: first upkeep (even an opponent's!) - exile elvish or simian spirit guide for a mana tap caverns for blue cast flash put protean hulk in hulk dies put thassa's oracle, cephalid illusionist, and nomads en-kor into play with thoracle trigger on the stack activate nomads en-kor targeting cephalid infinite times to mill your library win Even with out that perfect hand it was extremely common for games to end on turn one

[@WarFan40k]

yeah, t0 wins and winning at instant speed for 2 mana at any point after were fucking Brutal. Even now Borne Upon a Wind is very popular for winning at instant speed requiring so much more investment and is still very powerful. It was a miracle Flash got banned in the first place, no reason it should come off the banlist.

[@Kallistosprom]

Yep keep flash banned please.

[@F3A5T]

same with dockside, it made cEDH boring with most decks doing the same thing

[@hahahafunniness]

​@@F3A5Timagine cEDH players agreeing to a ban list for their format. Crazy idea, I know.

[@AutumnMacGregor]

Another issue with Flash Hulk is that it wins through most stax effects, including things like Rule of Law. You don't cast the Hulk, so there are very few ways to preemptively stop the win other than countering the Flash or a Stifle effect.

[@shadowninja1337]

It feels like several points in the discussion were basically "Yeah, playing against this commander is horrible, but I don't think it should be banned, so if someone is playing them just don't play against that commander." I don't feel like that's a great way to manage a banlist and is leaning too heavily on Rule 0. I think this could be a good use-case for Banned As Commander. Like we unban these cards, but don't let them come into the Command Zone which makes them much easier to permanently remove in a game and much less consistently available. Like put Braids, Erayo, Iona, Leovold, Golos, and Rofellos as Banned only as a Commander and legal in the 99 and I think a lot of their problems abate.

[@andreashuber8414]

This how it's done in Duel-Commander and it works quite well. And thus they are really fast to ban problematic commanders while you can still play them in the 99.

[@thatepicwizardguy]

I'll be honest here. Generally agree except in Iona's case. She is WAYYY more egregious in the 99 because you can cheat her out FAST. If I'm playing monocolor and see Iona in the command zone I'm gonna spend all my opportunities to gun you down before you cast it. Not a fun play pattern but way less of a problem than black-white binning her turn 1, reanimating her turn 2 and potentially locking out A LOT of the table. Braids, Erayo, Leovold, Golos, and Rofellos should only be banned as commanders. griselbrand shouldnt be banned at all since there's just stronger things to do. prophet of kruphix also probably just fine to unban these days. the new bracket system seems like itll also just throw a card like kruphix into tier 4 and solve the issue of where you're playing it easily... but yeah totally agree the "banned as commander" idea should probably be a thing for those cards. it's really the only time they're super BS. even if rofellos is in your opening hand once he's dead that's kind of it if he's not a commander.

[@Hemlocker]

You didn't explain WHY you think that "don't play against that commander" wouldn't work.

[@toxic_cowZ]

i think Iona is a 1 and should never ever see the light of day in commander that thing gets cheated out and its not even like "oh that player just wins the game" its just "oh now i just have to watch everyone else play the game because his card says i cant play"

[@jabowa]

I agree, Iona literally shuts off entire decks, and it promotes only multi-colour play, which means it needs to stay banned

[@darrinsisneros832]

I feel like so many of the critiques cane down to “I’ve never played with the card, but I don’t see how it could be so bad.” So many of them ended up banned because Wizards couldn’t see how toxic they were either. Golos doesn’t just ramp you/cut commander tax, but also lets you circumvent mana costs. It’s total combination that’s not great. Gifts Ungiven isn’t powerful because it lets you search for four cards. It’s powerful because it lets you put two cards of your choice into the graveyard at instant speed.

[@51gunner]

Golos plays the entire game for you. It's Golos: The Gathering if the Golos deck wants it to be. He's your ramp, color-fixing, and maybe your card draw and win condition. It's plausibly the last thing you put mana into for a game.

[@sebastianci5271]

This honestly, yeah some can be unbanned but is the game better after the unbanning?

[@spacepawdyssey4288]

One thing not mentioned about Golos that was HUGE was that it was ANY land. That's what really pushed it over the edge. Field of the Dead was a big one.

[@semperignotus]

Hear me out, Shaharazad under Panoptic Mirror

[@commandcast]

Now you're talking.

[@AzyxA]

Yessss

[@Brainlessman]

Take it one step further shazrazad imprinted with isochron scepter

[@zarathos888]

The only challenge would be running out of tables for each sharazad game.

[@semperignotus]

@@zarathos888 well since the new game starts only using the library, you can’t inception the card this way. You’d just keep using the same second table slot.

[@manasplained]

I don't want to come off as rude I hope you understand that this comes from a place of respect I've always understood the banlist as setting a bar for expectations for people going to a FNM or commander night at a game store and playing games with strangers. A lot of the cards you are saying you think could or should come off the banlist would or could make that experience worse. I don't understand these: How is Iona a win con it just stops a person from playing while Griselbrand is actually a win con Leovold is Hullbreacher in the command zone but swap mana for card draw Biorhythmn 8 mana win con* coalition victory 8 mana win con Griselbrand 8 mana win con Also you've said before that you have your own house banlist and mana crypt is on it so that feels very weird "You can just remove it" that is not a fair statement because you are also calling for the unban of cards that you can't remove in Iona Yawgmoth's Bargin is stronger then Griselbrand. 2 less black mana, 1 card 1 life and as an enchantment its harder to remove. This is definitely more up for debate but that's how I see it. "People aren't really gonna play it" so why take it off the list if not many people want to or will play it and the card is problematic? You said that 3 mana Narset as a commander would be miserable but that's what Leovold is in 3 colors Also you said that if people have a high powered pod they should be allowed to play these cards. They can. If you are in a pod with friends its very easy for your group to have your own banlist. Like I mentioned earlier you have a house banlist for Game Knights. Maybe I grossly misunderstand what the banlist is about but as I stated I've always understood the banlist as setting a bar for expectations for people going to a FNM or commander night at a game store. This feels very out of touch and i hope you can see where I'm coming from also it feels weird not having josh in the video and I feel like this podcast could have been better if you had more people on to talk. For anyone that read this thank you so much and have fun

[@davidarbour2683]

well done you speaking FACT !!!!!

[@dougfile6644]

Very well said. You have basically covered all the issues I had, and said it better than I could have.

[@TehKorwinMikke]

I will have fun :) thank you for your comment and for thanking me.

[@thatepicwizardguy]

Yup. Pretty much. I said in my own comment a lot of things have been power crept already like Griselbrand and dont really belong on the ban list and stuff thats an 8 mana wincon seems beyond fair

[@D4rkRitu4l]

I mostly agree with your comment with the exception of Yawgmoth's Bargain beeing stronger than Griselbrand, due to the prominence and aggressive mana costs of entomb-like and reanimation effects.

[@crawdaddy1234]

37:36 I am one of those people who would really love to play with Fastbond… and because of that, I know it should stay banned.

[@raiserofchickens]

I would love to play Fastbond...but I would use it to play Strip Mine out of my graveyard until noone else had any lands ever. Shenanigans like that is why I agree with it being banned.

[@crawdaddy1234]

@@raiserofchickens I’m pretty sure that Life from the Loam is among the 10 cards I’ve cast most in my life. Number one is probably Swords to Plowshares. 😂

[@Mel-be6mg]

Yeah I wish people would evaluate bans by asking themselves, "would I be okay if everyone ELSE got to do this to ME, but I was barred from ever playing with it myself?" We should want the people in charge of bans to be neutral umpires who decide the playing field for everyone, not just for their own preferences, and that requires a certain mindset that de-centers or removes one's own perspective in favor of a larger perspective.

[@InvisibleYogurt]

Flash being unbanned makes Oracle even more obnoxious

[@F3A5T]

at this point I want oracle banned

[@alexanderwaller7354]

I think just ban Demonic Consultation. Everybody Lives is also comedic new tech against Thoracle.

[@ross7499]

​@alexanderwaller7354 you are aware it also combos with tainted pact, yes?

[@HighlanderBrasileiroMTG]

​@@F3A5TBan oracle commander need this.

[@alexanderwaller7354]

@@ross7499 Yep, but take out one first to see if it solves the problem without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Tainted Pact is slower (which matters) and taking it down from two combos to one makes it less consistent. Finally, Blood Moon guaranteed to wreck your mana base if you run just 1 basic.

[@boopmcdoop7841]

Nah. You can't compare Sylvan Primordial to Terastodon. You flicker terastodon without a plan for those elephants and you can start to have a real problem. You flicker Sylvan Primordial a couple times and you set your opponents back X turns while ramping ahead 3X.

[@worstcaseofcrabsever5510]

I agree. Sylvan Primordial is one of my favorite cards. Terastadon is one of those cards that is good in a 1v1 , but not so much in a 4 person game. The card advantage is insane destroy 3 cards get 3 forest so thats a 6 for one. If they unbanned Sylvan Primordial, I'd be the first one to abuse the hell out of it. Blink it, copy it ect. Best keep it banned and not have to be driven to tears by hacks like me relentlessly playing it in your pod.

[@boopmcdoop7841]

@worstcaseofcrabsever5510 it just felt like an uninformed take. They were talking about it through the lens of casting them for their mana cost. That's not why primordial was banned. It was banned because you reanimate it, clone it and flicker it. Suddenly your opponents are in the stone age and you pulled damn near every forest out of your deck.

[@danacoleman4007]

The way I see it, there are so many inconsistencies and incongruities in this conversation that it was almost pointless.

[@Xxitzinstinctxx]

This is so true lol

[@ChunderThunder1]

Leovold in the command zone: completely fine Narset Parter of Veils in the command zone: this would break the game lol

[@MTGarymugger]

They failed to talk about the activated ability of Golos!!!! You make infinite mana with a I win the game sitting in your command zone anytime you want is nuts. And unless the LGS I play at with 70+ players a week is just a very competitive meta; infinite mana combos were common. The fact you could play a 5 color good stuff pile with a win-con on a stick was why it was banned. This is coming from a guy who had a very good 5 color golos deck that lost interest in the format after this was banned. In super casual games where sol ring is the most powerful card you play this is fine. But in anything that is kinda "try harding" this card is nuts. Even if you don't play infinite combos a late game play 3 free spells a turn is still a very strong effect.

[@HighlanderBrasileiroMTG]

I play Golos too and he us insane as commander ir should never be unbanned.

[@andrewbays494]

i play him with the find a land card part removed as a rule 0. he feels much more reasonable that way. Kenrith still exists and does the same thing in the zone if not better.

[@robertmonroe7930]

I hard disagree. Kenrith, sisay, and najeela all do that but better.

[@HighlanderBrasileiroMTG]

@@robertmonroe7930 Golos is far more powerfull because of this he is banned and the others no

[@wolframflorian]

Now that we know, that Rachel is on the newly built Commander Panel, this video has become even more interesting. 🤔

[@HK47ms]

I think a lot of these proposed changes hinge on the perceived function of the ban-list, and has big implications for what should be done with it. The Sheldon-led RC, I think, focused more on "sign posting" and "communicating about the culture of commander" through its bans compared to other groups. I think the current Command Zone discussion leans more on the "mechanical" function of cards within the culture(s) of commander, and where/how things would be expected to play out. I tend to agree with the Command Zone perspective, and think that WOTC actually has an immeasurable advantage in how it could market the *philosophy* of commander in something like a commander precon (i.e., like the card insert explaining the game, also tell the "stories" of what different player groups get out of the game - see Mark Rosewater on the types of Magic players). It seems strange to me that "rule zero"-ing to allow "un"-cards is seen very differently than "rule zero"-ing to allow a Mana Crypt. Most commentary (at least that I hear) seems to indicate that Mana Crypt generally contributes negatively to game balance outside of a certain type of commander game, but that having it banned prevents it from being used where it could/should exist. I think WOTC is looking to brackets to somewhat deal with this fractionation of what people want from a game of commander, but I think its more of a "personality assessment" problem than a "power-level" problem. Rachel had a good quote in a recent episode to the effect of "Commander is closer to DnD than it is Modern" - and I think that is very true *of certain casual groups*. cEDH is arguably much closer to Modern as a "sub-culture" than the precon "sub-culture". Understanding what players/clusters of different players want out of the game is arguably going to be a necessary pre-condition for a well-functioning banlist, and it is somewhat disheartening to hear in recent episodes that WOTC (among others) don't seem to have a clear picture on what people want but the conversation moves past that almost immediately to what should be done "for the monolithic community".

[@lVideoWatcherl]

Make cEDH its own format already

[@JimFaindel]

Going into my LGS to play Commander was eye-opening. Telling them I brought an upgraded precon made them switch from their turn 3 win kind of decks to turn 5 ones. Rule 0 helps, but if the culture at the store is cut throat, you better adapt and start playing more powerful stuff. You can't really refuse to play against other people's decks if there's noone else to play against.

[@hermodnitter3902]

Turn 5 wins are still god awful except very high power pods, level 9 or 10. If a game store only had these types of tryhards, I'd easily play another format.

[@Grimjr7]

I'm not sure if this was your goal. But this is a good argument for the ban list

[@JimFaindel]

​@@hermodnitter3902 That's kinda the point, the other formats the store had were Pokemon and Yugioh. These guys were the only other ones playing magic on the only lgs within 200 km, so I kinda don't have other option but to try to fit in. Rejecting someone else's archetype is a luxury I just don't have.

[@JimFaindel]

@@Grimjr7 I don't think a ban list would have helped here, unless by that you mean we should get rid of a whole lot more cards, from rhystic studies to combo pieces like sanguine bond, exanguinate or tassa's oracle. In the end I just learned to keep more removal and counterspells on hand with mana open.

[@shikarymtg]

turn 5 is cEDH. That's why the two formats should be clearly separated, with separated banlists, so that you could have walked up to them and said "I don't play cEDH"

[@anjunakrokus]

I want the banlist to be used to moderate "unfun" playpatterns that are likely to pop up in LGS games. Most of us, myself included, barely play at an LGS, but building it for a random group of people with various interests means that you remove highly problematic, feel bad, interactions. Sure it might cost you a few interesting decks, but that's also what rule 0 is for. To include stuff that's on the banlist, putting the responsibility of that discussion on the deckbuilder. Leovold, Iona, and Braids for example essentially say 'nobody wins, nobody has fun' stapled to a 2 hour game. They prevent catching back up (can't draw more cards with Leo, bleeding lands with Braids, can't cast shit with Iona), and their inherent playpatterns encourage unfun games. Most of all, I want WotC to sit and listen. Public opinion and trust is at an all-time-low, and right now instead of any bans/unbans I'd rather get a statement or two about how they are going to collect data, a report about the data, etc. Show us that they are making informed, well thought out, decisions for our benefit (and not for WotC the company). Show us that they are taking this serious. If they make any big swings (including unbanning any of the four recent bans) I would not be surprised if it rips this community in half.

[@scottcampbell9515]

Just do a Game Knights with your proposed Banned List. Have Jimmy, Josh, Rachel, and The Professor. Then have a discussion about the impact the previously banned cards had.

[@raiserofchickens]

Agreed. Sometimes people need to get spanked a few times with banned cards to understand why they got put on the list in the first place.

[@JaceBeleren-d3c]

i'd argue have the three of them and someone who is a better builder than them (no offense prof) play. put kibler or something on and they might reconsider

[@UnreasonableOpinions]

@@JaceBeleren-d3c I get your point, but I also think that having a Kibler-tier player gives people the out of assuming the cards are fine and he's just better. Some of the banned cards allow for entirely average skill players to do silly things, and - no offense to the main crew - their level of play is a good bit closer to the average player than hall of famers.

[@atk9989]

​@@UnreasonableOpinions You could have it be CGB or Kyle Hill or even Cassiush Marsh or Post Malone and it would be similar to having Kiblier play as far as busted combos happening. All are known fans of powerful decks and busted combos.

[@watery2211]

@@raiserofchickens I mean some unbanned cards can give the same unfun play pattern. Yet stay unbanned and we don't see them a lot. I think it can be the same for a lot of these banned cards wherre they will just rule themselves out like worldfire, winter orb etc

[@Takadox]

Lets be honest, a lot of the cards that were suggested to be unbanned would be terrible for pick up games at an LGS. It would definitely need the help of something like the bracket system. If I go to my LGS for commander night and a guy want to play Braids, it's not as easy as just telling them 'no thanks'. The whole pod could tell that guy 'no', and it wouldn't matter.

[@ohyea456]

Why not?

[@k9commander]

The way I see it, the problem comes when you say no and the other two say yes. If all 3 of you say no and that one player refuses to change or borrow decks, play a 3 player game without them.

[@Metherel]

what do you mean? just because braids player doesnt listen to you doesnt mean you have to listen to him just find a new 4th or play a 3 man if youre gonna tilt that hard (over a commander thats less oppressive than tergrid tho?)

[@Takadox]

@@Metherel most LGSs randomly assign pods, you can't really choose who you play with. And you can't exclude that person either since he paid the entry

[@Metherel]

@@Takadox so then you also should expect to play against some cards you dont want to see, because if you know that youre the kind of player that will tilt over seeing cards you dont enjoy YOU WOULDNT BE QUEUING GAMES WITH RANDOMS right?

[@farhavens]

I, personally, really don't want Golos unbanned. I'm pretty sure I played against it at least once every single EDH night at my LGS. It's design doesn't lead to exciting deck designs either, and I'm not even sure cEDH even cares about it either. Literally no reason for this to be unbanned as it makes the casual LGS experience so much worse.

[@HighlanderBrasileiroMTG]

I play Golos and I believe it is not fair and must stay banned.

[@Azeria]

Lutri should just be banned as companion. It’s not an overpowered card in the 99 at all… but I want to play it in my new Bria deck because it’s an on-theme Otter.

[@JanklordEmperor]

Companion just blanket shouldn't be a thing in commander

[@empurress77]

Rule zero covers this quite well.

[@chronoflect]

Easiest rule 0 in the world. Nobody will object to lutri in the 99.

[@Azeria]

@@chronoflect so why is it banned in the 99? or even as your commander… why should we have to rule zero it?

[@51gunner]

I think they should just print a different Lutri and Yorion in some Commander set that have different restrictions. I like most of the other Companions, they're fun little deckbuilding challenges. I play a deck with Keruga, I played a deck with Lurrus (but moved Lurrus to the 99), and I see interesting brews with all the others except Umori. The upside of an "extra card" is not so huge that it's gamebreaking; we don't see cEDH getting dominated by Zirda decks getting Monoliths for infinite colorless, nor do we see Lurrus loops. They're potentially really strong but not so strong that Commander can't handle them. Umori I think just needs more time to cook and the right commander or two to be printed for it, either a Golgari+ artifact creature or enchantment creature. But I would like to see Azorius and Izzet decks have an option for a companion they can build to.

[@huckstej]

8 mana sorcery that wins the game? "Hey!? What do you expect? It's 8 mana... it's fine!" 15 drop creature that will rarely be in the command zone and can only be cheated out in a handful of ways and cannot win the game? "TOO STRONG! People may have to sacrifice lands!" 4 drop creature that will only be in the command zone and has a billion ways to accelerate into play and that also makes you sacrifice lands... "It's fine! Rule zero exists... you will have clues to sacrifice"

[@L_Zant]

@jaredhuckstep20 yeah braids is a big no from me. Can literally win the game like turn 2 if you get her out

[@FearOgre]

"8 mana sorcery that might win the game and can be interacted with in multiple ways"

[@florinalinmarginean1135]

​@@FearOgreI feel like Biorhythm is a better card than Emrakul. Let's be honest: no one is going to hard cast Emrakul and, if they do, they probably deserve to win. So you need to combo it with Through the Breach or Sneak Attack. What does it accomplish? It probably ends the game for one of your opponents and then gets sacrificed at the end of your turn, which is cool enough. Biorhythm is a different beast though. Most green decks can reliably cast it by turn 4 and it might kill the whole table at that point. If it does not, your opponents will probably be at a low enough life total where combat will just end at least one of them. Sure, you can counter Biorhythm. But, as early as turn 4, it's probably the best spell you can cast for 8 mana to try to win the game. And while green cannot search it, a simic commander will give you every tool to get to it. I don't know, but I'd rather deal with Emrakul 😅

[@watery2211]

@@florinalinmarginean1135 The whole "this card wins in x turn" doesn't matter because we have a 3 mana 2 card win the game. For biorhythm you need a board state, Thoracle combos you don't. If Thoracle can stay unbanned , turn 4 biorhythm kills aren't good a good argument for why it should be unbanned.

[@shikarymtg]

@@florinalinmarginean1135 I'm going to cast it, I have an Herigast deck, just watch me. But yeah overall I agree, the new Emrakul can end games just as easily and it costs less

[@zargaden]

No unbans for me. Just an opinion: Last week, we said "commander is a dark room, don't just run blindly." This week, we are saying "it would be fun to unban 20~ cards." There are tons of cards on that list I would love to play, but my problem is: 1. Cards getting compared to non-banned cards: Having more than one of an effect builds consistency. We do not need more consistent toxicity because it encourages that as an archetype. Cards should not just be unbanned on the logic of "eh, why not? we have X already." I have played games where every spell I played was countered. I do not need two Jin Gitaxias. 2. A huge chunk of cards are on this list because they encourage unfun things. This is not adding a pool of fun, silly antics with new exciting brews. I have played a lot of games against stuff like mana drain, armageddon, stasis, no mercy, the abyss, and I could go on and on. My experience does not tell me that adding more poisonous stuff like Iona, Sundering Titan, Emrakul, Braids, etc is suddenly going to be great for the format and make my games better.

[@derekgarcia3069]

Man...love me some No Mercy and The Abyss (which is honestly less oppressive than Grave Pact in most lists that want them), but I guess it depends on your play style. I don't think unbanning Primetime, Sylvan, or Recurring would be much of an issue, but i also just really want to play with those 3 cards, so maybe I'm wrong! Though think about Henzie with Primetitan! 5 (or less) mana, play 4 lands and draw a card?!?!? SIGN ME UP!!! :D

[@emiach]

No unbans is a completely hilarious take

[@zargaden]

@@derekgarcia3069 The way my friend used Sylvan was in a karador list where he reanimates it three times in a turn and blows up lands. This list is also with Ashen Rider, Vorinclex, and Mindslicer. Basically, a lot of my work playing against it is getting rid of his creatures that remove permanents before I get mind slicered. So having one more of that effect that also ramps is not exciting to me, but I do have the scars for it lol. Prime time is one of the main ones I like, but I also fully respect why people don't love it. The fact that it can hit multiples of any land is an issue in lists that are already doing a lot of wild solitaire landfall shenanigans.

[@Skyfysh]

Fun is subjective.

[@julianpeck1812]

Yet another “I don’t like these cards! My fee fee’s are hurt” post. Unban everything and rule 0 it. I’m sick and tired of “but my social anxiety won’t let me ask about it!” Idc sry.

[@matthewrose8002]

As a CEDH player keep Flash out of our games. It warps the entire thing around a single combo and 2-3 colors. It is also hard to interact with and is just a win the game if you have the two cards in play to combo off with it.

[@Lazydino59]

*thassa’s oracle has entered the chat*

[@Metherel]

but bro dont you hear the comments? prime time will just WARP GAMES and is WAY TOO STRONG, nobody gonna care about flash when you can get your 6 mana land tutor/ramp engine!!!

[@matthewrose8002]

@@Metherel Prime time isn't as bad as Flash. If you have hulk in your hand and you cast flash at instant speed you get a combo that you go through your deck with abilities only happen from that point forward until you win the game. It is a better win con than Thassa's oracle demonic consultation.

[@Metherel]

@@matthewrose8002 i know im just poking fun at the players that think prime time is too strong

[@DualSwordBesken]

@@Lazydino59 That's the neat part, you don't have to choose between Flash and ThOracle, you just play them in the same deck and your Flash Hulk gets you your ThOracle win.

[@andrewcrelling6687]

It's important to note that recurring nightmare, unlike chthonian nightmare, doesn't have an etb, and because returning it to owner's hand is part of the cost, u essentially can't interact with it when it resolves.

[@seisner6655]

Yup. It's a crucial element of the new design that people don't really internalize when reading the cards side by side.

[@shikarymtg]

yes it's powerful, still not that powerful. It can be countered, you can just exile the graveyard, have them discard it, simply wipe out all their creatures or just attack the player and kill them. There are a lot of cards that just win the game if you don't have a counterspell. Very casual tables will not be able to handle it effectively, but that's why they are putting brackets in place. My only issue with it is the price, but if they reprinted it, even at two mana, I would be ok with it.

[@Professionalyoutubeviewer]

Sure, but you can interact with it fine when it’s played initially. The only things that would be interacting with it while it’s on the field are stifle effects which yes in this instance would not be able to stop the activated effect as the cards cost includes returning it to hand. As far as I’m aware at least.

[@andrewcrelling6687]

@@Professionalyoutubeviewer if u mean u can interact with it once it enters, u actually can't because u will not have priority until the player changes phases.

[@dylansparling7169]

@@BusinessSkrub its even worse, its become "it can be countered, why ban it?"

[@S44LT]

Golos should be unbanned. For those of us who play on a budget, Golos represented “buy some sleeves and you have a deck”

[@ReyosBlackwood]

45:42 Gifts Ungiven has the words "up to" where intuition does not, which is a big part of the difference. In some formats, Gifts is read as "Search your library for 2 cards and put them in your graveyard" which is a line that Intuition cannot take since it must find three cards. For graveyard combo decks Gifts is a much stronger card. That said I don't think Commander is going to be a format that really needs to keep it banned, perhaps I would put it at a 3 though rather than a 4 considering that difference.

[@watery2211]

at that point it is just double entomb for 4 mana, and intuition already has a way where it doesn't matter what card you pick.

[@h1h0n3y]

Blue having 4 mana double entomb is fine. There are already so much creature entomb now anyway and what Gifts add to current commander is entomb non-creature.

[@HighlanderBrasileiroMTG]

Or ban intuition or unban gifts IMO.

[@EulogyfortheAngels]

Golos is strictly on the banlist because he takes up so much of the oxygen in the room regarding 5 color commander design space. I wish they'd print a variant with the land tutor part and a more on-theme 5 color activated ability.

[@k9commander]

Instead of an activated ability, just make the casting cost WUBRG. WUBRG for a 3/5 artifact creature scout. When it enters, search your deck for a land card, put it on the battlefield tapped.

[@RobSomeone]

God yes, just 5 color sad bot but better. I just had him for a lands toolbox deck and just kept blinking him. Almost never activated that ability.

[@charliebanks8979]

I'd like to see 'banned as commander/partner/companion' rather than flat bans. For example I don't think Lutri, the Spellchaser should be banned in the 99.

[@HighlanderBrasileiroMTG]

True Golos as commander must keept banned but is Fine in the 99.

[@damo9961]

Too complicated with all the other stuff going on now.

[@gotelc]

I feel that the people who say "X can totally be unbannned" never played with X in the format. I took a break from commander and only played with Dockside for a little bit and didn't see anyone really abuse it. So when I came back (crazy time to come back, i know), I heard it was getting banned. I was asking, "Why?" But after thinking about it, yeah, flickering, sacking, and reanimating. Absolutely would make it unfun to play against.

[@h1h0n3y]

Dockside warped the high power table, even the deck that can't play dockside will use card that copy or steal dockside. It also making people feels bad for playing artifact/enchantment deck, they become the reason that dockside player win the game.

[@Mel-be6mg]

it's just very like channel or fastbond, lets one player get way way ahead of the table. the hosts here love to say "8 mana spells are fine to end the game" but dockside quite easily makes those happen on turn 4, and sometimes earlier! pretty ridiculous

[@dicegamer3466]

We don’t want people to “feel bad”.

[@Mutoforma]

The "broken" play patterns with Gifts aren't usually the ones where you choose 4. If you choose only 2 cards from your deck, the opponent no longer has a choice in the matter--you're effectively sending any two cards of your choice to the graveyard.

[@h1h0n3y]

4 mana for two Entomb is fine

[@matthewrichards4078]

1:18:34 Sundering's a artifact, with artifact shinanegans before blue, copies of him and things that mill/ping for 1 per land death from said copies and you clear a table.

[@TrulySilentLie]

So, Hullbreecher is a 1 without discussion, but Leovold is an easy 3? Sure, there are differences between the two, stopping card draw is worse than stopping card draw and replacing them with treasures for the player playing it, but both these cards were banned for the same playpattern. The auxiliary reasons for why they in particular got banned is different, but not even discussing Hullbreecher and then being so low on Leovold feels off. I played quite a lot against Leovold. I would much rather see Hullbreecher unbanned before Leo

[@Hemlocker]

IMO the two differences that explain it are: - Leovold is in the command zone, so you can just refuse to play against it. - Hullbreacher has flash.

[@TrulySilentLie]

They did use the argument that you can refuse to play against a deck based on the commander, but that's honestly a weird sentiment. The flash definitely is powerful. Leovold does however protect itself and the deck's pieces really well, so there's that. It's just weird how Hullbreecher got close to 0 discussion, when they got to Leovold and went on ti discuss it, I just quit the video

[@HighlanderBrasileiroMTG]

Agreed Leovold IMO is worse because is recastable as commander it should never be unbanned.

[@christophervennix9861]

Speaking as a person who has actually tried 'rule zero' conversations with other people...its pretty hard to get a unanimous (or even 'generally agreed' on) decision from a group of three people to remove something, especially when one player has built a whole deck around it. On the other hand, its really not that hard to have a conversation on 'how do you feel about letting me play this?' Its much, much better to have a ban and have players 'rule zero' into accepting to ignore the ban than the other way around. Accordingly, I'm all for most of the cards remaining on the ban list rather than being removed and forcing uncomfortable conversations and/or players just not wanting to play in certain groups anymore.

[@MillionaireRobot]

100% agree with u

[@shiranui498]

I don't see people mentioning the other side of Rule 0 as well. Sure you can comply with Rule 0 with randos but what are you gonna replace the card you removed? Commander is a format without sideboards.

[@christophervennix9861]

@@shiranui498 first off, I'm pretty certain no-one would have an issue with you swapping cards out before you start after a rule 0 conversation - that's kind of the whole point. Secondly, generally you would have that conversation with your playgroup *before* building / bringing the deck. As in "Hey are you guys ok with me making / bringing x?"

[@andrewbays494]

really? I'm on the other direction. bans are bans i feel bad even asking to play it.

[@PK_Dispel]

I personally liked that hullbreacher punished overdrawing. But I agree that it was overkill. I know that a lot of people love drawing tons of cards, but there should definitely be more risk involved in doing so. I agree with Jimmy that jeweled lotus sounded like a bigger problem than it actually was. Most times I saw it played was not super impactful, and when it was, not much more than Sol Ring or other mana rocks. But that was from my personal experience.

[@alexschultz4272]

I had a jeweled lotus in 1 deck which was a 7 cmc commander. That's the whole reason I put it in the deck was to make it easier to that commander out versus much faster decks.

[@Morrodin182]

Banning J-Lo and Mana crypt are two mistakes as far as I am concerned. Don't get me wrong, Jeweled Lotus is actually an example of bad card design and in an ideal world would never have existed. At the same time, it is only usable on your commander and a sort of 'ritual' effect instead of an actual mana rock. Also, the card is only usable in Commander (yes there is a janky way of making it useable, but that is so janky that mentioning it is actually intellectual dishonesty in a way) Mana Crypt... well mana crypt is more or less a sol ring. Sure it costing 0 mana makes it stronger but it comes with a drawback (and yes 3 life in a 40 life game is small, but it can actually make you lose the game, if the game is a rather close one). So, if you aren't going to touch Sol Ring... then don't touch Mana Crypt either. The excuse that there is too much fast mana is kinda dumb as it has been part of commander since it's inception and it was never a problem. If new cards start to turn it into a problem... maybe we should look at those new cards then.

[@alexanderwaller7354]

JLo is not that awful really. It really enabled K'rrik and Kraum to be playable in cEDH, without it they are too slow. Sometimes seeing a 4 mana dude like Minsc and Boo or something on turn 1 is usually not that different to being punched by a Serra Ascendant.

[@Kreiger19]

I think they need to bring back the "Banned As Commander" section of the banned list. I feel there are a lot of cards that are a problem specifically because of how accessible they are in the command zone that are fine in the 99. Also, can we get your opinions on the new RC members being forced to sign a Non-Disparagement Clause towards Wizards?

[@Iamgoodatnames]

Real I don’t understand why banned as commander is “too confusing”

[@shawnnoble6367]

Torment of Hailfire is absolutely fun way to win the game? I always enjoy winning or losing to it, and so does both my playgroups - which have been playing since just after Beta

[@JuQmadrid]

Wait a second. You definitely want Hullbreacher to stay banned but you'd be open for Leovold to be unbanned?

[@jackstraw9635]

Just like them being okay with all of black and Green's tutors but God forbid Blue get Tinker 🤦🏽

[@JuQmadrid]

@@jackstraw9635 I understand that call. Tinker puts the artifact on the battlefield and it can be done as soon as turn one. It's not a good gam play to get killed by a Blightsteel Colossus before you get your second land.

[@watery2211]

@@JuQmadrid Because hullbreacher is less color intensive. Hullbreacher you can play in every blue deck, leovold no. Same reason why hullbreacher is banned but notion thief is not.

[@edhdeckbuilding]

"does this card contribute to a positive gameplay experience" is the most vague and meaningless metric to use for banning cards.

[@jxhook]

Absolutely

[@dicegamer3466]

Personal preference is the primary rationale used to support most card bans.

[@RuleZer0]

Mana Crypt getting unbanned would be no different than 2018 commander before Dockside/J-Lo got printed. Signal ban was real bad

[@volkerracho9646]

Iona should be a 1.

[@kuragari1anonly]

I dunno, I'm good without Iona. I like mono color decks and I don't want to bring a mono color deck into someone playing white since who knows if they can turn the deck off or not. My luck is that it locks me out more so than other players when playing multiple colors. :T

[@Lessly007]

The Problem with Sylvan Primordial is the same as with Prophet of Kruphix. As soon as he hits, the primary gameplan changes to who can clone/blink/reanimate him the most to inevitabily win the game. It just takes the fun out of casual battlecruiser games.

[@Da_gman67]

Free my boy Rofellos(or add a banned as commander)

[@Lazydino59]

Low key doesn’t even need to be banned as commander. Playing (almost) all forests is enough of a deckbuulding restriction when you compare to like selvala

[@dexterelliott2767]

I actually enjoy the idea of a banned as part of the 99 specifically or banned just as a commander for certain cards.

[@thecaldera16]

26:55 15 squirrels with reach: Hold my nuts

[@Discollama217]

You'll likely need 21 squirrels since you're sacrificing 6 permanents. So you're only off by 40%

[@thecaldera16]

@@Discollama217 no way, I'm sacrificing everything but my 15 deadly squirrels

[@kylegonewild]

@@Discollama217 This guy would rather have 6 lands than 15 squirrels lmao

[@anderszobbe2030]

1:09:29 relevant note: As fare as i know you can respond to the trigger in your upkeep an inprint the time warp then making the card go infinite for 10 mana over 2 turns

[@wgoms]

" Hey guys, check my new Oko, Thief of Crowns commander (: "

[@RBGolbat]

Tbf, he’s much less threatening in a multiplayer environment

[@HighlanderBrasileiroMTG]

​@@RBGolbatHe is fine.

[@elsporko321]

I don't get the argument that Jeweled Lotus let's you play a "clunkier" high-cmc commander to keep up with faster, lower costed commanders. Like, the other guys are playing Jeweled Lotus, too. Playing your commander faster is pretty much always good, and if everyone is running it then you didn't gain much if any advantage. If you're playing at a similar power table then you'd be playing against the cards, too.

[@JasonOshinko]

A potential way to fix Jeweled Lotus is to make it have your commander cost {3} less to cast, so it wouldn't work as well with lower cost commanders.

[@elsporko321]

@@JasonOshinko That's a good point. There could definitely be more cards that help reduce colorless (or tax) costs to make high cost commanders a little more worthwhile.

[@nerdaccount]

I love the rational discussion about this topic! you all rock!

[@neminem233]

I didn’t even realize Panoptic Mirror was banned

[@Chpow01]

"lol time warp" get's old super quick.

[@imaginarymatter]

It has to be the fairest two card infinite combo in the entire game.

[@ohyea456]

@@imaginarymatter It's insane what people think need to be banned in a casual format that was designed around the concept of playing anything you owned.

[@Chpow01]

@@ohyea456 Panoptic was banned in one of the very first ban lists. I went with time warp as an example, but there are a lot of other horrible sorceries that you can imprint and use to ruin the game.

[@k9commander]

Here's the problem with Panoptic Mirror. I ramp on turn 2 or 3. Edit: on the turn I don't play the ramp, I play that 2 drop creature that prevents my opponents from casting or activating effects on my turn. Back to original: On turn 4 I cast Panoptic Mirror. I pass. You have one rotation to remove or you're screwed. On turn 5, it triggers on my upkeep. I hold priority. I tap it, and imprint Teferi's Protection. The mirror trigger goes through and casts TP. Check the rulings if you don't believe me. I am now Zalfir. I (and the mirror) am(are) under Teferi's Protection and can't be interacted with under most circumstances. Sure, I don't get to play the game, but you can't touch me or the mirror. That is nowhere near the worst thing the mirror can do.

[@Ry45-x3y]

a side effect of golos being super good for any strategy is that he enables strategies that don't have good options for commanders

[@Grimjr7]

I agree 💯 👍

[@joshholmes1372]

This! He was the theme x commander until wizards prints a commander to run x.

[@Morrodin182]

from all the cards the mentioned, there are only 3 cards I want unbanned: Jeweled Lotus, Mana Crypt and Golos. My reasoning for all 3 is similar: It was a mistake to ban them.

[@kurtreznor]

Re: Biorhythm. It was banned way back at the beginning of the format. I remember decks being full of board sweepers in those days and not many ways to keep creatures in play after. Even if you played at least one creature every turn, you would often not have a creature at the start of your next turn...meaning Biorhythm was a lot more likely to randomly kill players even if they were constantly trying to establish a board. The game is definitely in a different place now, unban Biorhythm.

[@twidelia4102]

Great video, I thought the contention when talking about Emrakul was interesting in regards to wanting to play it but not wanting to play against it. I think a lot of splashy impactful cards feel the same. Some others that come to mind are Void Winnower, Avacyn (usually in combination with Armageddon, mass wipes etc) omniscience and many more. I think Emrakul and most of the other cards should come off the ban list. There's a lot of wildly powerful stuff in the format and I feel like if we had in depth conversations about cards that are currently unbanned the same we there was a conversation about Emrakul, there would be a lot of questions about weather cards should be legal or are fun enough for the format. Also the contention of looking at biorythm and coalition victory as 8 mana win the game being fine but then why isn't Emrakul a 4 for the same reason? Also Golos feels like such a bizarre ban to me. I'd argue that Golos has more creativity than not. The argument of homogenization feels mute to me for the card. Having Golos banned feels reminiscent of solo play RPG games having really high cost for respecs. Like who is this actually serving having it banned. If someone wants to build Golos does it really have that much of an effect on other players. Just let people play it if they want to have a generic good 5 color commander.

[@WUBRGer_King]

He was the defacto best WUBRG commander, cheated on commander tax, and gave you free stuff while being generic to cast and fixed your mana for you. Golos was *everywhere* and deserved a ban.

[@cameronalexandre485]

I used to go to an LGS with easily 4+ pods going at one time and it was never hard to find a game with different people. I played against golos 1 out of every 3 games because like 7 people had built it. it was everywhere

[@empurress77]

Golos has been banned in most every format and for good reason. Way too cheesy!

[@dustinstephan4523]

I feel like emrakuls problem is that it comes out and takes one player out but probably doesn't kill them which creates an unfun experience in general

[@Metherel]

you just described the average voltron deck experience

[@shikarymtg]

a lot of cards can do that. The new Sorin for example can do it much more easily and not leave them around with less lands, just kill them outright. Shall we ban it?

[@xNero96x]

​​@@shikarymtg I think you misunderstood, the problem is that it leaves you out of the game but not dead. Basically you go back to turn 1 with less cards when everyone is playing their turns 4, 5, 6... Wich is much worse than just losing

[@shikarymtg]

​@@xNero96xscooping is an option. Also 6 permanents doesn't mean 6 lands

[@Skyfysh]

Maybe players should learn to play more diverse removal. Even excusing that, there are plenty of strategies that remove a single player from a game, as people have already listed. Not every deck is going to have Emrakul, just like every deck doesn’t have Kozilek or Ulamog.

[@deathbypuppermixes]

Ignoring ALL of the unban stuff, shout out to whoever wrote the copy for the Shopify ad, particularly the "helped me in two or more kinds of ways" Very subtle tie-in and hilarious, kudos.

[@theagave5195]

I will still argue that as much as the "lutri can just be added to any deck with UR" argument has played out, the companion mechanic as it sits right now is already hard enough to play. You pay 3 mana to get your companion AT SORCERY SPEED. You then add the cost of the card to play it. And unlike your commander, it's not a "free card" you always have access to if you have mana. It's a "free card if you have 3 mana plus the companion". And I personally do not think that lutri being unbanned will make it shoot in price. Just like with a lot of the cards discussed, the possibility of a card being played does not necessarily mean it will go in every deck it can just because of its color. And if people believe that it will really be bad, play Lutri right now as your companion. In fact, play any of the companions and use them in them companion zone. Tell me how many times you ACTUALLY cast your companion as of today in October 2024. If lutri was unbanned tomorrow, there may be a price spike because people want to try it. But I believe it will immediately fall down because the additional possibility of playing lutri is not enough for every person to play it. It would just be a 6 mana clone spell at best and people have better things to do with their themed decks than spend 3 mana at sorcery speed to add a spell clone card.

[@ducciotarno3900]

In this context by free people means that there is no deck building cost to play lutri as your companion, with the new rule it may be rare the time you actually use it but there is no downside in playing him in your deck, the only thing that will stop people from playing him is price or flavor of the deck (like wanting to play only wizards) Other companions aren't comparable since they do have a cost to be played as companion

[@HighlanderBrasileiroMTG]

Lutri dont work with Singleton Formats since they all allready need to play Singleton.

[@Knives4540]

Like many other comments have said, people in the Command Zone have the luxury of picking and choosing which games they want or don't want to play, while many people are stuck in smaller cities or just don't have regular playgroups, and those are the people the banlist should concern itself with. The RC handwaved a lot of stuff away with "just rule 0 it" when that's not a reality for most people, and when Rachel pointed that out in their discussion of the new bans, I thought they would at least avoid making the very same assumptions the RC was criticised for. Handwaving Lutri away just so they don't make "banned as companion" a thing was one such example, I think. What if someone really likes Lutri? I myself find the art pretty cute, I can see why someone might want to build her, and they shouldn't be forbidden because "banning as companion would be a hassle". It's the same reason I feel like some of the card they used the "self-regulating" argument for, like Braids and Leovold, might work better if they were just banned as commander, instead of banned entirely. Even if it adds extra steps, some caveats should be added to benefit the EDH community as a whole, not just those of us who have our own playgroups and can just houserule whatever we like.

[@taytay3ism]

they know this game inside and out....prints nadu

[@obliqueObloquy]

That happened because of communication with the RC. Nadu was originally going to give all your spells Flash. RC said "we're worried about this because it's half a Prophet of Kruphix." Then it was changed by WotC to try to preserve commander. It ended up breaking multiple formats. Something like that should /never/ happen again. An outside group should never have influence on what cards are printed in this game in that kind of way.

[@isidoreaerys8745]

Prints grievous wound Prints Leyline of Resonance Prints Maddening Cacophony.

[@Lazydino59]

They know how to make money*

[@brandonvoice8941]

@@isidoreaerys8745 you are the worst type of magic player... nothing is wrong with any of those cards. LOL

[@DragoSmash]

Biorhythm has a lot more issues than Craterhoof Behemoth you can respond to Craterhoof with a fog, counterspell, instant boardwipe, you can have a ton of life at the moment or gain life in response, you can slow it with Propaganda, Ghostly Prison, etc, it has wiggle room in the answers to it but Biorhythm? what you gonna do? you can only respond with counterspells or with VERY narrow things like playing a creature at instant speed, Teferi's Protection/Flare of Fortitude so your life can't change, because none of the other interaction works, its an uninteractive "i win/we draw" button and should stay banned

[@Cangaroombi]

It's a "I win card" only if the other players don't have creatures. The best case scenario is the player before you wraths and you have a creature to play (hopefully 0/1-mana). Basically, it is a very situational 2 cards combo for at least 8-9 mana, but probably more.

[@decktechsandspecs]

Resident cEDH player - flash is not fine, especially with oracle still around, it just says 2 mana I win in addition to oracle consult lines and everything else

[@obliqueObloquy]

I'm not sure why there is no discussion of roughly what Tier these cards should be. I think that could even influence whether some cards should be unbanned, like Balance. It's a very powerful card, but if it is unbanned and placed in Tier IV, then playing against decks with it included will be an easy decision to make. Same could be said for Braids and such.

[@k9commander]

Honestly, I thought that's what the video was going to be.

[@IronRage]

The speculation on the ban list is causing all of these banned cards to SKYROCKET. I was originally going to buy a couple of prime times and biorhythms but at these prices absolutely not.

[@thetogtube2]

Don’t worry… if WotC will reprint whatever they unban

[@imaginarymatter]

I can imagine a card like Biorythm being reprinted and then absolutely tanking in price. It will probably go back down in price anyway since it still wouldn't see much play if unbanned.

[@ArCSelkie37]

@@thetogtube2 I saw someone comment on a different video that WotC should do an Unban secret lair drop.

[@JJMickeyMedia]

Overall I appreciate your reasoning and think you both have fair points. Where I disagree is with the general sentiment of "this card is safe to unban because it's mostly a problem in the command zone". I think when it comes to untrusted play, saying "I don't want to play against that commander" is often too troublesome (requires players to have alternative decks to play, or other pods to be available, it can lead to heated arguments, etc.) and trusted playgroups will have a much easier time with Rule 0'ing them in if they stay banned.

[@L4TMTG]

Saying one more mana and showing one more mana is top notch!

[@TensyCL]

I can't watch this anymore, you guys have no consistency. "Bring back Flash, it's fine to have Hulk piles". "Keep Gifts Ungiven banned, we don't want 4 mana cards that make win the game piles?" Flash costs 2.

[@Codyjpeg]

anyone know if TCZ has a video about cutting cards from your decks? like advice on how to decide which cards to swap out for a new card you wanna use in the deck.

[@JudeofAwesometon]

One minor criticism I have watching this is for Sylvan/Prime Time they didn't really touch on why they were banned in the first place. They mentioned it with Dockside but part of the reason prime time and sylvan were banned is that for the rest of the game it was just everyone copying/reanimating it and decks that dont have access to those mechanics fell behind on board. That being said I am still 100% on board with unbanning them but having played in the format with them I think it is disingenious to not include that when discussing whether to ban or unban the card.

[@51gunner]

Yeah, these are easily tutorable in green and then become the focus of a game. Primetime tutors out land combos (Cabal Coffers + Urborg, Thespian's Stage + Dark Depths, etc.) and/or just ramps you and then Sylvan can be blinked/copied repeatedly to give you a million mana and end the game. Probably a "2" for me; not going to be the most heinous possible unban but it also doesn't need to be unbanned.

[@DarthChocolate15]

Part of the problem with these two cards is just how fun they seem. Why is that a problem? Because this makes them terrible for self regulation. If legal these cards will see play all across mid level casual tables where they are too powerful and game warping. Also, equating them to Old Gnawbone really shows a lack of understanding as to how these cards impact a game of commander.

[@h1h0n3y]

If they ever unban Primordial/Prime time, I'll put in Bribery to all my blue deck because every green player definitely has them in the deck.

[@HighlanderBrasileiroMTG]

Maybe prime needs to keep banned IMO Sylvan Primordial is fine.

[@JudeofAwesometon]

I am fine with unbanning to test the waters to see how much the meta has evolved since then. I am more of a 3 than a 4 however as I don't think people remember how much they warped the meta.

[@k9commander]

Biorhythm in elfball. Sure Biorhythm won't see play in every green deck, but it will see play in EVERY elf deck. The average elf deck has 8 mana by turns 3-5. Depending on the draws. The highly tuned ones have it turn 3.

[@Metherel]

fuck ya! lets get some biorhythms going!

[@HollowPlace]

Shaman of Forgotten Ways already does this and doesn't see play at all.

[@k9commander]

@@HollowPlace Magus of the Balance is legal in commander. Balance is not. The creature and the Sorcery are not the same.

[@Slurreful]

Elfballs already win by turn 4 or something stupid like that

[@Metherel]

@@HollowPlace i love my shaman of forgotten ways in mono green omnath

[@marcellofranceschina3690]

@commandcast hey, new player here (playing since mid august). So when you were talking about Cathonian Nightmare (around 1hour 14mins), doesn't that card only allow up to 3 cmc to be brought back? I ask because like i said im new and I don't know what the lightning bolts are, but X lightning bolts and it starts with 3 makes me initially think a max of 3 cmc can come back, where the other card seems unconditional

[@Bongus_Bubogus]

Golos should remain banned. Ubiquity, sure, but once you got 7 mana (tutored out The World Tree on Golos cast facilitates this) no matter what strategy you are playing, that activated ability is better. If you want a reference, MTGGoldfish featured a Scout Typal deck once with Golos and just the ability alone destroyed the game. It’s a trap that the other generic 5c commanders don’t create, as even Kennith’s utility abilities aren’t enough to push every deck to activate them all the time.

[@51gunner]

Golos is the whole game of Commander on one card lol. - Ramps you - Color-fixes you - Draws cards - Casts spells Golos: The Gathering decks lol.

[@brandandixon3943]

Golos is fun though.

[@VitalSyntax]

I agree with many of these unbans, but with a few changes, here is my insights as a 10+ year player of pre-cons to cedh. 1. Griselbrand: 1->3 You mentioned multiple times how 8+ mana spells that "win-the-game" are fine. Yes it could be in the command zone, and yes it would be a powerful, buy also like you said for Braids and others: easy to see across the table. It won't break cedh either, just put it in bracket 4. 2. Dockside: 1->3 Is not "fast mana", its condition explosive mana that can combo with other cards. It helps the player in 3rd/4th turn order the most and helped players come from behind. It punished opponents who playout fast mana. It mostly saw play in cedh because that's where most mana rocks are played, yet no one was asking for it to be banned. 3. Golos: 1->3 Although it was the most played commander, it also supported the most archetypes and provided a shell for many creative deck brews. It was not an overly powerful or oppressive deck and no one was asking for it to be banned. 4. Jeweled Lotus: 1->3 Was not a ubiquitous card, many commanders didn't want it. It provided a lot of viability to expensive commanders. It is literally only playable in commander, the ban deleted millions of $ of value and no one was asking for it to be banned. 5. Flash: 4->2 This card was banned at the request of the cedh community, even if it is fine in casual, ya'll gotta give us at least 1 card. The cedh community should control this decision. I personally don't want to return to the flash meta.

[@alexanderwaller7354]

Extra turns have been slowly getting worse down in EDH, so Emrakul is probably fine (especially compared with Kozilek and his draw 4). Trouble in Pairs sees a lot of play, Gerard's Hourglass Pendant is also pretty good. Plus annihilator 4 is really not much different to annihilator 6 in EDH; either they wreck you utterly or you have token generation and are functionally immune.

[@Awsomeman328]

A couple of changes to the ban list and to the Commander format as a whole that I'm surprised you guys didn't mention is 1) the possibility of bringing back the 2 Ban List system to have both a "Banned as Commander" & a "Banned in the 99" lists (possibly even including a 3rd "Banned as Companion" list since it can be more than just Lutri), and 2) the possibility of a Sideboard being introduced to Commander. If WotC is shacking up the ban list, specifically not banning any more cards probably for this year, then splitting the ban list is a possible outcome to consider. Although there is not that many banned commanders in the first place, about 6.5/10 of these commanders I have different scores for between BaC & Bi99 (I included at the end of this comment) so there are some nuances to consider if this option is worth it or not, if giving more player freedom is worth having a more complicated ban list, which personally I say yes that player freedom is worth it even if a decent number of commanders that get banned get put on both lists anyway. It can even open the door to making a 3rd list of "Banned as Companion" to put not only Lutri in but also Yorian since it can't even be played anyway and so Lutri won't just be alone on that list, in addition to him finally most likely being allowed in both the Command Zone and the 99. Speaking of Companions, they are SUPPOSED to be in your deck's sideboard, but since Commander doesn't have that they just say, "oh hey, you just get a special place for your Companion, don't worry about it." But with both Companions and the amount of wish-boarding cards/mechanics, especially the Lesson and Learn cards from Strixhaven, I think WotC should bring the Sideboard to Commander. As for how big it should be, idk. It could be 7 to match best of 1, or could scale that up to 15 b/c of the bigger deck size and also to also match to best of 3's sideboard size. Or they could scale the best of 3's sideboard size up b/c of the larger deck size, though idk what bigger number that'd be used. Regardless, if you guys talked about the possibilities of Hybrid Mana rules changes, I'm surprised this possible rules change wasn't mentioned. --- For each of the banned commanders, here is my own personal tier list ranking of if they should be on either ban list: (Banned as C), (Banned in 99) with "->" meaning that I ranked it the number on the left but am leaning towards the number on the right. - Braids, Cabal Minion - (2), (3) In the Command Zone, 2. In the 99, a 3. - Emrakul, the Aeons Torn - (4), (3) - This card primarily gets abused & cheated out early when in decks with at least 1 color, so it should be fine in its own colorless decks. In the 99, I'm with Jimmy of at least wanting to experiment to see what happens in today's modern version of the format to see if it is ok or not, so I'd put her at a 3 as well. - Erayo, Soratami Ascendant // Erayo's Essence - (3->2), (3) In the Command Zone I say 3 though leaning towards 2, while in the 99 I'm a solid 3. - Golos, Tireless Pilgrim - (2), (4) - This card is just too easy of a commander to make any deck with and just have easy access to both the 5 color identity and easy mana fixing to get to all 5 colors of land on your board on top of helping pay for half of it's commander tax; mostly it just homogenizes the format which is not good. In the 99 though, it is basically an upgraded Solemn Simulacrum for 1 more mana that can only go into 5 color decks. - Griselbrand - (1), (2->1) - In the Command Zone this is a 1 & in the 99 this is a 2 tittering on a 1 for me. Just having automatic access to this card in the Command Zone just makes this card too abusable and having it in the 99 just makes it slightly more inconvenient to find it but also lets it be played in more colors than mono-black potentially making it more abusable. For me it is not at a 1 in the 99 b/c I'd want to see it get tested just in case, though I think we probably know the answer anyway so idk if we should bother giving it a chance. - Iona, Shield of Emeria - (3->2), (3->2) - This a 3 leaning towards 2 in both the Command Zone and the 99. On the one hand, I hate this card for mono colored decks and can be cheated out, but on the other (outside of cheating out its cost) it is a 9 mana spell that can be a win-con. So I agreed with this ban originally, but I can see it coming off the list. - Leovold, Emissary of Trest - (2->3), (3) This is a 2 in the Command Zone though leaning towards 3 and 3 in the 99. - Lutri, the Spellchaser - (4), (4), (1) - This would be a 1 to stay banned, since every deck that could run it as a companion will run it so just don't even bother. BUT we could add a banned as Companion list and include Yorian b/c he can't even be used as a Companion anyway so he won't be alone. That way, people could still play him as a Commander or in the 99! If this became the case, then he'd be a 4 for both the Command Zone and the 99. - Nadu, Winged Wisdom - (1), (1) - Stay banned, both in the Command Zone and in the 99. I'd say it'd be fine in the 99 if it weren't for the fact that equipment that can activate target for 0 being common in this format, i.e. Lightning Greaves, and players tending to just accidentally run out the Nadu loop play pattern w/o meaning to combo off with it. - Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary - (3), (4) - In the Command Zone I have this as a 3, since green already has enough ramp for this probably not make that much of an impact, but would want to keep our eye on it just in case and if it does turn out to be a problem it can just be banned as a commander. In the 99 this card is perfectly fine at a 4.

[@dorsalfin22]

I'm glad you brought up the sideboard/ wish cards. I think that would be a fun change. Commander at stores is usually someone bringing a couple decks and swapping throughout the night. I'd almost never think it useful to use the sideboard like in 1v1. I built a wish deck for fun with lessons and learn cards. The other one you didn't mention that I think would be good too is to uncap the deck size limit. Let Yorion work as companion. Battle of Wits is an objectively BAD card, and I want to try it so much! 60 card formats have taught us running more cards than the minimum is a disadvantage, so no reason not to let people try and finally not have to cut that 104th card 🤣

[@Awsomeman328]

@@dorsalfin22 When I first got into Commander, I also thought about the exact 100 card deck building limit and wished it was a range of values like most other card games/formats. But after years of thinking about this idea, I have come around to believing otherwise, for two main reasons: 1) The practicality of trying to shuffle a deck bigger than 100 cards. Sure, going from 100 to 120 is not that big of a deal as far as trying to shuffle, but once you go bigger difference than that it becomes much less practical to shuffle your deck (at least with sleeves, I haven't experimented with shuffling bigger un-sleeved decks so I'm not aware off-hand the practicality of that). Also with Yorion specifically, if they did make that change to allow for bigger decks, Yorion would have to be banned like Lutri, b/c the deck building restriction on Yorion's companion ability is too generic and easy to fulfill that every EDH deck with White and Blue in its identity would be encouraged to run Yorion with 20 extra cards, even if they don't synergize with Yorion's blinking ability at all. 2) It is actually good to have deck building restrictions, like only 100 cards exactly & only cards in your deck's commanders' color identity, because despite their name-sake of "restricting" our options it also encourages and helps facilitate creativity. Commander is a format where you can't just run 4 copies each of Murder & Doom Blade, you have to choose what your own personal flavor of removal is in your deck, and your choices can actually tell someone a lot about the type of person who built a deck. So, as counter-intuitive as it sounds, having restrictions &/or conditions can actually help proliferate creativity, OR, at the very least, it doesn't get as much in the way as many people initially think (given the restrictions are not *too* constricting).

[@Soulless_MTG]

the big difference between gifts ungiven and Intuition is the "up to" verbiage and the fact it is 4 cards vs the 3. It doesn't sound like a huge difference, but it drastically makes the card more dangerous and combo oriented in the decks that run it. if it's being cast, it means the person has won.

[@MrBrainFog]

As someone who does play paradox engine in brawl, you are absolutely correct lmao. It’s “have artifact removal or lose.” It combos off if you look at it wrong, and it turns all your cheap spells into rituals with just a few rocks and dorks. That said, as long as it does remain unbanned in brawl, I will continue to run it :P

[@Evyon25121]

I think that this is the most level-headed evaluation of the ban list that I've ever heard. The only one I disagree with is Iona because it can punish one or more players for simply sitting down with a deck that's built in accordance with the game rules (mono-colored decks).

[@JoeyJoJoJr17]

I disagree with Golos unbanning. Golos just ends up being a better commander than most commanders, regardless of what 99 other cards you want to play. He has the capability to outgrind and outvalue most decks with minimal deck changes. Do you want to play a mono blue Merfolk deck? Well, technically a lot of the monoblue Merfolk commanders kind of suck. You could play a Simic Merfolk deck and there's some good options there, but there's also a few nice Azorius Merfolk that can't be played in that color identity. There's Tuvasa as a Bant Merfolk, but her abilities lend itself to an enchantress playstyle. There's Morophon as a generic tribal commander, but 7 colorless is more than 5, and his abilities play hard into the board, by trying to get players to spill their entire hand and put all their gas in, to just get boardwiped. Or you can just play a WUBRG Merfolk deck that's inherently better because now your Merfolk synergies have access to every color, including black mass reanimation, red for enchantments like Impact Tremors or Goblin Bombardment, and a nice mana sink (arguably better than Thrasios, Triton Hero) ability that lets you get as much gas as you need. Make mass merfolk tokens use them to tap for mana for Golos ability, to make more merfolk, and then just burn out the rest of the table in an optimized Merfolk-flavor deck that just teeters the line between tribal and just WUBRG good-stuff piles. Golos would also be good as a WUBRG dinosaur commander, since he'd let you play the big blue or black dinosaurs you can't in other Naya lists, and with so many Dinos costing a lot of mana, you're sure to get a lot of value off the ability. Commanders need to cost WUBRG (like Jodah) if they allow you to play WUBRG goodstuff. Golos bypasses that. Commanders need to have a consistent identity and deckstyle. Golos bypasses that by letting any deck just focus on making big mana to play more stuff right off your library. Commanders need to not have built in tutor effects, because it inherently kind of bypasses the spirit of a singleton format. It tutors for any land on ETB making deck consistency a breeze (such as grabbing The World Tree for mana fixing or Fields of the Dead for mass tokens or Cabal Coffers/Urborg) Golos bypasses that again. Commanders need to be able to be removed, and while artifact and creature removal means he's technically easier to remove, the 5 toughness dodges a lot of damage or -x/-x boardwipes and even if you do remove it, the extra land they tutored for probably paid for the command tax for them to replay it out again. There's no real deck identity for Golos besides it being an undercosted WUBRG goodstuff commander that's unironically better than most other commander choices. At least Jodah is a WUBRG Legends-matter identity. Golos might be fine if he costed 7 or 8 mana instead or if WUBRG pips were integrated into the casting cost, but there's too many factors in his design favoring him over other commander options. The reality is that Golos is a boring commander choice, but he is undeniably a stronger option as the commander than most other legendary creatures in the format, just from the flexibility he offers for the deck.

[@derekgarcia3069]

This was a fun chat. One thing I did notice is that Jimmy is both an agent of chaos "I just want to see what happens?!?!" and seems to lean towards having a more powerful/faster format as an option, where Rachel seems to lean towards a slower style of play as the standard. I kind of got those vibes during the recent discussions around the bans, but this chat solidified it for me. Neither is right or wrong, just a difference in preference.

[@atombased-m3d]

hey can dockside be errated to say "Enters: get a treasure for each opponent who controls an artifact /or an enchantment"?

[@ismaelisaiasramirez]

Hi. I'm still new to MTG (coming from YGO), and it seems I've picked it up at the right time because things are INTERESTING.

[@tylercombs8650]

1:03:05 why do they not just ban companion mechanic and allow all the companions in the command zone or in the 99?

[@GreenSscythe]

Thanks for the Shout Out @commandcast

[@chance.malloy1043]

Love this episode and so nice to see a constructive conversation about the ban list with everything going on lately

[@ZakKmak]

Fun fact about Shahrazad: an old playgroup of mine had a friend with a "reserve list only" deck and it had one in it that we'd let him Rule 0. Often times on commander nights we'd have multiple pods, and the Shahrazad pod would finish before the others, even with the subgames because you just Halved everyone's life in the original game! If you're focused on playing the game, the game is gonna end is all I'm saying!

[@HighlanderBrasileiroMTG]

Fine for me and love chaos orb too as nuts as it is 😂

[@ty_sylicus]

This thumbnail is brilliant Jimmy. 😂

[@Dstinct]

Chaos orb is a straight up casual commander card. Use it all the time in Old School. If you can't flip a card, how are you holding your hand?

[@Link71386]

I know I'm "late" to the party. 11:34 Balance is just Cataclysmic Gearhulk, except it checks for fewest lands rather than six like Gearhulk, and discards cards. It would be redundant to unban Balance. 36:20 Make a "zero rule" with Fastbond that says "All players may play any number of lands...." You can figure out the rest. 52:24 Errata Hullbreacher to say "this ability triggers only once each turn," and THEN unban it.

[@James-mm8pr]

Rofellos has been getting more love than I would have thought. Ir reliably becomes 6 mana in turn 3 for simply playing forests in a monogreen deck. A refellos deck can easily have a curve from 3cmc up to 10cmc without issue

[@JediMB]

I remember my brother built a 5 color "alternative wincon" deck way back, almost 10 years ago, and missed that Coalition Victory was banned. Pretty sure our playgroup let him run it anyway. Would be nice to see it officially leave the ban list, as well as see an updated version of that deck. It's been so long now that Approach of the Second Sun hadn't even been released, and that seems like an obvious include in the deck.

[@sebastianoriva2158]

I had a golos deck, and I also had no problem tearing it apart after the ban. In my opinion it follows the braids argument (and tergrid also). I had the deck to play against competitive decks that often close games with combos. The advantage was that it was fairly cheap for what it did, so I could play with my "richer" and more competitive friends on a budget without feeling behind. If your group doesn't like it bring another deck and that's it

[@B__C__]

Great decktech! I am totally building Golos with Lutri!