Is the format ready to unban Hermit Druid?

[slave]

Hermit Druid

I love this card - it's a killer in hobo's clothing.
This thing reminds of Max Cavalera for some reason, everytime I play this sucker in my casual decks I end up yellin Cut-throat, Cut-throat, Cut- throooooooaaaaaattttt!
Mind you, I always play it fairly with basics in the lists.

But it's been banned for a while.
So we all know how powerful this little critter can be, but could it be ready to unban?
We have a format where it's possible for someone to Snt in an Emrakul on turn 1.
We have Storm decks, Force of Will, Dredge and lots of other decks that are very fast, or others equipped with plenty of removal and/or counter to negate the explosive ability of this little guy.

The biggest thing that strikes me with this card is not only the likelihood of a turn 1 play, turn 2 library > yard - but it's vulnerability.
Counter & removal eats this thing. We have uncounterable killers for it in Abrupt Decay.
We have options like Planar Void, Rest In peace & Leyline of the Void that buggers it also.

Thoughts > is this card still too powerful?
Or could it exist again in the legacy format?

[Megadeus]

One card combo that can easily run protection. Heres my deck:

4 Hermit Druid
7 Combo Pieces
16 Assorted Non Basic Lands
12 Protection Spells
Cantrips and stuff.


It isnt the fact that it dies to removal. It is a 1 card combo that you can EASILY build to protect the combo with countermagic and other stuff.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

To be honest, I am not sure what the incentive is to unban any more combo pieces. There is already too much combo and particularly too much dumb combo, and Hermit Druid is a pretty dumb combo. I would actually rather unban Yawgmoth's Will than Hermit Druid because the former actually requires play decisions. And Yawgmoth's Will isn't even in the top ten cards I'd think about unbanning.

[catmint]

I am generall for unbanning a lot and letting a format go wild because I think combos strength is generally overrated by people remembering short term results and not taking inconsistency issues into consideration enough.

It would of course be much stronger than cephalid breakfast, but look at how strong breakfast is at the moment. :tongue:


So concerning Megadeus numbers here is what I think
- 20 lands: Wasteland is a problem
- 7 combo pieces
- 12 cantrips: who wants to draw the combo pieces
- 4 hermit and 4 GSZ
- 4-6 mana elfs / acceleration
- 3-4 concordant crossroads
- Rest protection

You could argue of leaving out the manaelfs crossroads running all protection but I don't think you should try to hope to cast GSZ for x=2 within a reasonable time without acceleration. Also I think it is more likely to resolve a 1 mana enchantment rather than countering all removal spells directed at hermit.

My thoughts on why hermit is fine:
- A 1 card combo that dies to every removal spell is not a real 1 card combo.
- You probably need to run supporting "engine" cards (acceleration/crossroads).
- Running dead combo pieces is a big downside. A lot of the hands you start with 6 cards. Mulligan sucks. Dead draws -> consistency issues
- Wasteland will always hurt
- Deathrite Shaman, Rest in Peace, Surgical Extraction
- Pithing Needle, Engineered Plague

[anonymos]

One card combo that can easily run protection. Heres my deck:

4 Hermit Druid
7 Combo Pieces
16 Assorted Non Basic Lands
12 Protection Spells
Cantrips and stuff.


It isnt the fact that it dies to removal. It is a 1 card combo that you can EASILY build to protect the combo with countermagic and other stuff.

It can also run the "Oops! All Spells" route since they're already running ESG and other stuff. It'd just add to the consistency. It's another card that says generate 3 mana and win from that deck...

[menace13]

The Bear speaks the truth. More combo is not needed. There are already various types of combo decks, and graveyard combo decks.

Hermits are built differently than the other gy based decks. It resembles Breakfast, but uses less slots. Making it more efficient, and easier to execute. Breakfast, and Reanimator need 2 cards to combo. Land counts are around 18, some form of Spirit Guides, or Petals. Disruption packages are pretty much in line with the others, aside Dredge. The tutors are direct into play, and on color, and seek out silver bullets-or Worldly Tutor for non-greens-. Cavern of Souls. So it isn't really losing anything that the other gy decks can do. I think it has an advantage over all of them in their current states.

Abrupt Decay, Lilly, DRS, Stp, Bolt, Terminus, Dismember, Snuff Out. Pretty much all I could think of atm. Those seem like discard or counter targets. Everything else is just ignored.

I don't think it would eat everything alive. I do think it adds nothing in terms of diversity to what is already available. it is just another gy deck, a very good one at that when deck design versatility is taken into account.

[Amon Amarth]

I agree with others that it doesn't add a lot to the format. Still, hermit.dec is vulnerable to basically anything you can throw at it. From Darkblast to Tormod's Crypt to Pithing Needle. It might be, on average, a turn faster than Show and Tell but it, again, dies to everything. I'd rather have a cleaner banned list than having to MAYBE reban a questionable card again. It doesn't help that the decks literally dies to any disruption.

[Mastikor]

Are we really talking about Hermit Druid? IMO it's one of the least cards to be considered for unbanning. I've been playing it in Vintage for some time now and it's quite retarded. Effective t2/3 kills in a one card combo?

Not that the format couldn't adapt to it (it is rather vulnareble I admit), but why would we want an consistent super fast one card combo deck when people are already crying for the bans of S&T/Grizzly?

Personally I'd love to play it in Legacy, but I don't think it's safe. It would hurt format a lot.

Now, lets talk about Memory Jar :tongue: (why the hell is this banned anyway?)

[Megadeus]

My thoughts on why hermit is fine:
- A 1 card combo that dies to every removal spell is not a real 1 card combo.

If you have a crossroads out and a mana up, then your removal is useless. And yes it is a "real" one card combo. I drew my hermit druid. I forced your force. #winning

SnT at least needs a fatty and the SNT in hand. You can discard hermit all you want. If I draw another one you're dead.

[catmint]

LoL - If you have crossroads out .. aka not a 1 card combo :smile:

Not unbanning for the reason "we don't need another GY deck" might be valid and it is up to wizards, but it terms of power we can all agree it is safe.

[Megadeus]

You dont need a cross roads out. Cross roads just makes your removal literally do nithing. I could also just play druid,counter your attempt to kill him, and continue on with my business of killing you

[catmint]

Great job megadeus. If you want to make a statement of why a combo is strong just use the "I force your disruption argument". :laugh:
Fact is: unless you run a haste enabler out first, every removal spell is a live disruption.
Your initial statement that you can "easily" build to protect from removal is not true since you also need slots for mana generation, crossroads and a ton of dead combo cards. You cannot run significantly more protection than sneak & show but you die to way more disruption.

The deck will be torn into pieces by every blue based aggro control deck. Classic case of OCS (Overestimating combo syndrom).

[Infinitium]

Great job megadeus. If you want to make a statement of why a combo is strong just use the "I force your disruption argument". :laugh:


Full stop. Do keep in mind that most to all banned engines are as such exactly because they enable compact combos protected by countermagic (and usually discard because again they're compact).

[Infinitium]

slots for mana generation, What, lands? Your argument as to why this isn't significantly better than comparable decks is that it has to run lands?


crossroads No you don't. You can substitute crossroads for Duress and call it a wash except now you run 16 protection spells to supplement your turn 3 combo (unless you're playing something hilarious such as burn but really?).


ton of dead combo cards. 2 Narcomoeba, Dread Return, Sutured Ghoul, Dragon Breath. Add another two cards to that in case you want to play it safe and go for another Narco and the Angel/Mad Researcher kill. Tons.


You cannot run significantly more protection than sneak & show Except that unlike Sneak you only have to find one combo piece prior to going off. Incidentally, Worldly Tutor. Also, you don't put the opponent's hate onto the battlefield for them.


The deck will be torn into pieces by every blue based aggro control deck. Classic case of OCS (Overestimating combo syndrom).

Kind of like how Flash Hulk folded to any deck that bothered to pack free counterspells and graveyard hate. No, wait, what?

[HammafistRoob]

What, lands? Your argument as to why this isn't significantly better than comparable decks is that it has to run lands?

No you don't. You can substitute crossroads for Duress and call it a wash except now you run 16 protection spells to supplement your turn 3 combo (unless you're playing something hilarious such as burn but really?).

2 Narcomoeba, Dread Return, Sutured Ghoul, Dragon Breath. Add another two cards to that in case you want to play it safe and go for another Narco and the Angel/Mad Researcher kill. Tons.

Except that unlike Sneak you only have to find one combo piece prior to going off. Incidentally, Worldly Tutor. Also, you don't put the opponent's hate onto the battlefield for them.



Kind of like how Flash Hulk folded to any deck that bothered to pack free counterspells and graveyard hate. No, wait, what?

Well said sir, I couldn't have said it any better myself. Hermit Druid is definitely NOT safe to unban.

[catmint]

I would be happy to take a bet for a couple of duals if it would BREAK the format. Because that's what we are talking about. Becoming an established combo archteype: sure. Threat to the format: no.

Classic OCS... happens all the time.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

You wouldn't play Concordant Crossroads. You would play Hall of the Bandit Lord.

Also Cavern of Souls.

Not being able to run lands is a bug of the Oops decks, not a feature. Hermit Druid would be far more powerful due to having access to good permanent mana sources. And y'know, Daze, Brainstorm etc..

I don't agree that the power level of the deck would be safe, compact easy combos are generally the most dangerous. Hulk-Flash was retarded busted and it had to go to greater efforts to get the combo together. Granted Druid is more vulnerable to some forms of hate, but it also has more room for disruption.

Best case scenario it adds nothing useful to the metagame, worst case scenario it breaks it. Why unban it then?

[Tao]

> play against random generic control deck
> side appropriately
> turn 2 they go "Hermit Druid, Go"

Druid would break the format imo. Most decks have the chance to easily side into Druid Combo and that would not be good at all.

[dontbiteitholmes]

I don't care if it's not the best combo. If we are constantly talking about the criteria for what makes a card ban-worthy IMO being a one-card-combo is at the very top of that list.

Oh btw Cavern is a non-basic land, bonus.

[menace13]

The deck will be torn into pieces by every blue based aggro control deck. Classic case of OCS (Overestimating combo syndrom).
Riiiight.

More like Underestimating Combo Syndrome.

Glad we had this productive discussion on how we feel.

[Aggro_zombies]

The deck will be torn into pieces by every blue based aggro control deck. Classic case of OCS (Overestimating combo syndrom).
Since when does aggro-control beat combo-control? You get to run all the same disruption and draw, except you don't have to attack them turn after turn to end the game.

The thing about Hermit Druid is that it would probably be hands-down the best blue-based control deck in the format. Your combo takes up all of, what, twelve slots including Druid (4 Druid, 4 Narc, 1 DR, 1 Angel, 1 Lab Maniac, 1 Azami)? The rest of the deck can be discard, draw, and counters. Like Flash, you wouldn't want to be focused on turboing the combo out as soon as possible; you get the best returns from waiting a bit, disrupting along the way, and then killing the opponent when you're sure he can't fight back. RUG shows you can easily build a stable, entirely nonbasic manabase, though Hermit would likely run more lands and turn Wastes into Cavern of Souls/Hall of the Bandit Lord. The best part is, you can totally run a transformational sideboard into generic midrange BUG if you wanted.

That there is a deck that operates on roughly the same principles as Druid (that one worse-Belcher thing) doesn't mean Druid itself is a good card to unban.

[apple713]

I would be happy to take a bet for a couple of duals if it would BREAK the format. Because that's what we are talking about. Becoming an established combo archteype: sure. Threat to the format: no.

Classic OCS... happens all the time.

I would bet my beta set of power this card would break the format.

I play it regularly in EDH.. very similar to vintage and it is consistently a t3 win with all sorts of protection. If they remove it sure whatever...shallow grave it into play on t3.... theres your haste effect... Oh you think it'll get countered... Cavern of souls is your answer.

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=290260&page=18 <-----second post on the page, the poster is Emether

The above link outlines in detail all possible situations that it has answer for main deck. In legacy it would actually be more consistent than EDH and more abusable.

look I would love for the card to be unbanned cause it would be top of my list to play. It's degenerate.

Compare it to survival. Both cards abuse the graveyard, and have means to win the game shortly after casting. The difference is that Survival doesnt win when you untap with it... and survival got the ban hammer.

[monovfox]

Phyrexian Revoker, Abrupt Decay, SHOW AND TELL. Etc. I don't see it being that much of a problem. Sure, the deck can run force. I think Show and Tell is more degenerate

[apple713]

Phyrexian Revoker, Abrupt Decay, SHOW AND TELL. Etc. I don't see it being that much of a problem. Sure, the deck can run force. I think Show and Tell is more degenerate

hermit druid is more resilient than show and tell. Here's why.

hermit druid dies before activation. next turn it gets postmortem lunge (<---my preference) into play and wins on the spot.

same situation with show and tell would be that it gets countered and you are holding a fatty in hand... Did you put regrowth in your deck? You have to find another one... Or you have to find a sneak attack. Lets say you have a sneak attack in your hand... you have to get 4 mana as opposed to the 2 mana that hermit druid costs.

lets say your playing omni tell. You are now playing a 3 card combo compared to a 1 card hermit druid tutorable combo...womp womp womp from the start. I've played this deck enough to know that its not better than sneak and show.

Having hermit druid killed is not a problem there are tons of ways to bring it back.

unearth
reanimate
corpse dance
necromancy
on and on... the deck is playing black...

if you are really worried about it getting killed you have answers that curve perfectly.

mother of runes
sylvan safekeeper

you also have tons of tutors

worldly tutor
sylvan tutor
intuition
green sun's zenith
summoner's pact
... tutoring for creatues is what green does.

intution ---> hermit druid and 2 postmortem lunges .... looks like i get to keep my hermit druid :)


so now that you are playing black you have cards like thoughtseize and duress to pick apart early removal if the whole mother of runes / sylvan safekeeper isn't your style. If you would rather play slowly you can play blue, spell pierce daze misdirection fow .

Since hermit druid is splashable you have your choice of support, discard or counterspells, depending on your meta.



Since you are playing green artifacts / enchnatments have never really been a problem for green. Pithing needle and revoker get smashed by ancient grudge, krosan grip, ray of revelation for enchantments and i think crumble even gets there


in short the deck plays along the same graveyard shenanigns as dredge but 10x more consistent and has ALL the answers. It should have a ridiculously high game 1 win % with a slightly lower game 2 win %.


All i ask is that you pick the deck up sometime and just play it against the most broken decks you can find.

Oh yeah, once the druid mills the deck your set... there are tons of answer to be played from the grave

memory's journey
pull from eternity
ray of revelation
ancient grudge

[Mewens]

The nature of Hermit Druid is troubling, as well, even if its power level were in line with the rest of Legacy (and I don't think it is – I think it's more degenerate than Hulk-Flash, honestly).

Flipping coins is balanced: Over a long enough timeframe, you'll win about half of your coin flips. That doesn't mean coin-flipping's a good game, and combo decks that are coin flips – "I got my turn 2 combo off, you lose; you got your turns 2 hate off, I lose" – don't make for good games, either. SnT is already perilously close to that paradigm; I'm not sure we should be advocating more linear, powerful and quick-to-close combo decks.

And because I know that comment's gonna piss off some of you, just a quick clarification – I'm not advocating for the end of combo decks, nor am I saying all combo decks are coin-flipping, herp-a-derp piles. Hell, I'm not even against a few dumb-as-a-rock combo decks floating around; they kind of keep things honest, in a weird sort of way. But there's a certain point where there's too many of them, and even if they're not posting 55%+ win ratios, they're injecting a lot of chaos into tourneys and undermining the "skill" part of the game.

(Just to put that all in perspective, I'm playing an enchantress combo deck right now that's probably more herp-a-derp than smart, so I'm at least a little guilty of this.)

[Megadeus]

I think the comment that said, At best it adds nothing and At worst it breaks the format in half.., Holds true. A One card combo is just not good for the format. And it can be built in so many different shells.

[HPB_Eggo]

Druid combo would take one of two forms...

1) A deck focused on powering out Hermit Druid and going nuclear ASAP. Is a turn faster than a lot of other combo decks, but can be interacted with by more cards - importantly, cards that are run by nearly every deck in the format. I would have zero problems with seeing this, other than it being stupidly simple to play and possibly driving out a lot of more interesting combo decks.

2) A deck that plays more or less exactly like current control decks, but instantly wins the second it can meet some specific requirements. This sort of deck could be both better and more compact than RiP/Helm, which frightens me.

Vote goes for not allowing it back in. It won't contribute anything meaningful to the format other than, maybe, pushing out some combo that can only be interacted with on the stack in favor of one that can only be interacted with via removal, which might be a nice boost to non-blue decks but would otherwise just narrow down the format more, and there's a possibility of a very scary control deck that just wins with the best one-card combo ever printed when you let it get ahead for even a single turn. Scary stuff, man. Scary stuff.

[Ellomdian]

No. It's not a matter of "readiness" - it's a matter of the next major event turning into HulkFlash.

Just because a significant amount of Hate exists for a specific strategy or card does not justify unbanning it. Expecting the community to self-police is bad - at least FoW is a general answer to degeneracy. Forcing everyone to run RiP/Leyline to have a chance would just be stupid.

I would put Oath on the list above druid, and that would be testing the waters pretty heavily...

[Dice_Box]

With the printing of Emrakul... Yea no. Don't need this thing firing off, responding to Emrakul's trigger, hitting dread return and then shuffling the grave along with Emrakul straight back into the library. Then you can just do it all again. Yeah no.

[dontbiteitholmes]

I would put Oath on the list above druid, and that would be testing the waters pretty heavily...

That's like saying I'd rather shoot myself in the foot then get hit in the face with a baseball bat. Two things that should never happen for the good of everyone.

[catmint]

It has been pointed out by a couple of people that you can run a "combo-control" deck because you only need a couple of dead slots for the combo. Just because you run counterspells and discard does not make a deck combo-control to me. The way I understand combo control is to "really get control" and then win with whatever. Like RIP miracles or with a jace or entreat if you like to see that as a 1 card combo. A combo deck that runs enough disruption to survive and to setup the kill can play "controlling" but is it really "combo-control". But that's not the point of the discussion.

I seem to be pretty alone with my opinion that he would not break the format. My thoughts are:

- If you don't run supporting cards like crossroads or postmortem lunge every removal spell disrupts this combo and legacy has become a very removal heavy format.

- Deathrite, RIP and Surgical are so common because they are really good cards - even without any graveyard deck being Tier1.

- Dead cards do matter a lot. If you start 60%+ with an "auto-mull" which sometimes also forces you therapy yourself before you can win and if you have a certain % of "dead draws" that does hurt a decks consistency and should be taken into account.

- The best version of the deck would likely be BUG right?. Green and blue obviously and you might need to cabal yourself to be able to win. This means you are at least to some degree also vulnerable to wasteland.

- Countermagic for hermit itself is probably weak since pierce/fluster are a lot more common than snare and cavern can be a thing, but the tutors and supporting cards are all vulnerable to those taxing counters.

As I said I cannot see a build that has an edge over aggro control variants, but maybe that is not even relevant for "breaking the format". If it is much faster than other combo decks and cannot be disrupted by them it could be in a way that no other combo deck is viable and that would not be good.

So summing up: I don't think hermit would win over aggro-control, but being harmful to the format: might be.

[Gheizen64]

It has been pointed out by a couple of people that you can run a "combo-control" deck because you only need a couple of dead slots for the combo. Just because you run counterspells and discard does not make a deck combo-control to me. The way I understand combo control is to "really get control" and then win with whatever. Like RIP miracles or with a jace or entreat if you like to see that as a 1 card combo. A combo deck that runs enough disruption to survive and to setup the kill can play "controlling" but is it really "combo-control". But that's not the point of the discussion.

I seem to be pretty alone with my opinion that he would not break the format. My thoughts are:

- If you don't run supporting cards like crossroads or postmortem lunge every removal spell disrupts this combo and legacy has become a very removal heavy format.

- Deathrite, RIP and Surgical are so common because they are really good cards - even without any graveyard deck being Tier1.

- Dead cards do matter a lot. If you start 60%+ with an "auto-mull" which sometimes also forces you therapy yourself before you can win and if you have a certain % of "dead draws" that does hurt a decks consistency and should be taken into account.

- The best version of the deck would likely be BUG right?. Green and blue obviously and you might need to cabal yourself to be able to win. This means you are at least to some degree also vulnerable to wasteland.

- Countermagic for hermit itself is probably weak since pierce/fluster are a lot more common than snare and cavern can be a thing, but the tutors and supporting cards are all vulnerable to those taxing counters.

As I said I cannot see a build that has an edge over aggro control variants, but maybe that is not even relevant for "breaking the format". If it is much faster than other combo decks and cannot be disrupted by them it could be in a way that no other combo deck is viable and that would not be good.

So summing up: I don't think hermit would win over aggro-control, but being harmful to the format: might be.

Point is that RiP-Helm go for slower control because the win conditions cost 6 mana in total. Hermit would go for more tempo-oriented control (cheap counters, cantrips) because its win condition cost 2, no reason to wait for T5 to win the game. Hermit is stupid and i'd unban at least 10 cards before it.

[YamiJoey]

As you basically said in your opening statement; it's a fun card to grab Basics with. If it had some kind of 'If you don't find it shuffle them all back' clause it'd be great to play with, almost like a Weathered Wayfarer (the Land Tax-esque White Creature. I'm crap at my older card names.) As is it's just another random Belcher card. The deck is borderline excellent, let's leave it like we leave Dredge.

[apple713]

It has been pointed out by a couple of people that you can run a "combo-control" deck because you only need a couple of dead slots for the combo. Just because you run counterspells and discard does not make a deck combo-control to me. The way I understand combo control is to "really get control" and then win with whatever. Like RIP miracles or with a jace or entreat if you like to see that as a 1 card combo. A combo deck that runs enough disruption to survive and to setup the kill can play "controlling" but is it really "combo-control". But that's not the point of the discussion.

I seem to be pretty alone with my opinion that he would not break the format. My thoughts are:

- If you don't run supporting cards like crossroads or postmortem lunge every removal spell disrupts this combo and legacy has become a very removal heavy format.

- Deathrite, RIP and Surgical are so common because they are really good cards - even without any graveyard deck being Tier1.

- Dead cards do matter a lot. If you start 60%+ with an "auto-mull" which sometimes also forces you therapy yourself before you can win and if you have a certain % of "dead draws" that does hurt a decks consistency and should be taken into account.

- The best version of the deck would likely be BUG right?. Green and blue obviously and you might need to cabal yourself to be able to win. This means you are at least to some degree also vulnerable to wasteland.

- Countermagic for hermit itself is probably weak since pierce/fluster are a lot more common than snare and cavern can be a thing, but the tutors and supporting cards are all vulnerable to those taxing counters.

As I said I cannot see a build that has an edge over aggro control variants, but maybe that is not even relevant for "breaking the format". If it is much faster than other combo decks and cannot be disrupted by them it could be in a way that no other combo deck is viable and that would not be good.

So summing up: I don't think hermit would win over aggro-control, but being harmful to the format: might be.

Compare Druid to vintage dredge. There are 3 decks in vintage, bazaar dredge, mana drain control, and stax. Since dredge is 1 of three decks you have to sideboard against and almost all the decks run leylines, bazaar dredge is proof that you cant hate out a deck.