Taken from here, because the main Commander site is apparently under a deluge and can't be bothered to MySQL correctly -- http://tappedout.net/mtg-forum/comma...-january-2016/
Prophet of Kruphix is Banned
Vancouver Mulligan replaces Partial Paris
Rule 4 is no more (you can only generate colored mana in your commander's color identity)
I never sat across from a Prophet of Kruphix but I've seen several analogues, I have trouble thinking this was anything but kid service. Maybe someone's been legitimately impacted by this that can explain to me why it's not; I don't see it, or at least, I don't see it as being a bigger problem card than any of the other U and/or G cards that they have no apparent allergy to. How DEN is still a card after all this time I have no idea.
I gave my two cents about Vancouver mulligans some time ago; I typically saw Partial Paris as an equalizer, not a game-breaker. When the players are already coming together under house rules, you're either self-moderating broken starts by a) discouraging the decks b) being as broken as your opponents. I don't think this really addresses the root of the 'issue', but whatever.
As for Rule 4 dissolving -- honestly this feels like a major pillar of the format, one of its defining rules, and I'm surprised at the logic used to get rid of it. "It never came up before, so we don't expect it will anytime soon." How could it come up if it was largely prohibited by deck construction in the first place? One of the most interesting parts of the format to me was that by picking a Commander you were essentially deciding which kinds of magic were off-limits to you; even if you stole a Troll Ascetic (somehow), you couldn't give it the mana it needs to regenerate it. It's the Alara principle; your Grixis commander has never seen Green or White mana before, why should the deck built around it be any different? It seems like a foolish change, and it's another one of those "so Blue can do more things now, not that any real Blue mages care about this sort of thing" hand-wavey explanations as to why this isn't just making Blue decks better by letting them actually make use of those objects they stole with the outside mana symbols.
I do not like these changes.
I know EDH is all about the house rules and the social gathering and the whoozit and the whatsit and all that, but here's the thing, is I primarily have to play with PUGs if/when I do because I never have fucking time to play with my mates. So in a personalized format all I have to go to are PUGs, and all I have to rely on is the widely known rules, so I can't just dismiss them as "not my EDH" because it is. So, that's lame.
Originally Posted by Dissection
The main problem with Prophet of Kruphix and the reason I have always hated seeing it far more than Dead Eye Navigator is the crushing amount of both turn and mana advantage it provides for such a low up front cost. In order for a player to prevent you from beginning to run away with the game, they need instant-speed removal on the turn you decide to play your Prophet. I built a Momir Vig deck specifically to abuse Prophet and it was frighteningly good finding, protecting, and abusing this creature. Sure, you have to build around it a bit, but the payoffs are absurd. The card essentially reads: Play mostly creatures in your deck. If you do, this is three Time Walks per round.
It also has perfect stats for this format being green for Green Sun's Zenith, blue to pitch to Force of Will, having 2 power for recursion with Reveillark and being a wizard for incidental card advantage from Azami.
I know part of the reason for the ban was fan service, but I will not be sad to see it gone.
I think using the regular mulligan rule (with the multiplayer modifier) will force people to run more lands. I see this as neither a good or a bad change.I gave my two cents about Vancouver mulligans some time ago; I typically saw Partial Paris as an equalizer, not a game-breaker. When the players are already coming together under house rules, you're either self-moderating broken starts by a) discouraging the decks b) being as broken as your opponents. I don't think this really addresses the root of the 'issue', but whatever.
I do not like this change either for the reasons you listed. It seems like they are trying to fix something that worked perfectly fine. I supposed it makes rainbow lands better? And now when you have Gauntlet of Power in play with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, opponents can tap for two black mana instead of two colorless mana.As for Rule 4 dissolving -- honestly this feels like a major pillar of the format, one of its defining rules, and I'm surprised at the logic used to get rid of it. "It never came up before, so we don't expect it will anytime soon." How could it come up if it was largely prohibited by deck construction in the first place? One of the most interesting parts of the format to me was that by picking a Commander you were essentially deciding which kinds of magic were off-limits to you; even if you stole a Troll Ascetic (somehow), you couldn't give it the mana it needs to regenerate it. It's the Alara principle; your Grixis commander has never seen Green or White mana before, why should the deck built around it be any different? It seems like a foolish change, and it's another one of those "so Blue can do more things now, not that any real Blue mages care about this sort of thing" hand-wavey explanations as to why this isn't just making Blue decks better by letting them actually make use of those objects they stole with the outside mana symbols.
Actually, does this make the weird lock with Zedruu the Greathearted and Celestial Dawn less effective?
I support all changes!
Partial Paris was fine if you kept 6 and threw away a 4th land to potentially re-draw another land, but more often than not it was 'mulligan 5, keeping Sol Ring and land'. That always annoyed me. Now it's not an issue.
Getting rid of Rule 4 is a flavor loss, which is a shame. But not having 'Exotic Orchard makes green, which turns to colorless because Rule 4 --> Kozilek!!' moments seems like a plus.
Prophet of Kruphix was a problem and I am glad to see it gone. In games I've played, the person resolving Prophet wins. I wouldn't say that it has happened in every pod I've played in, but whenever I've seen Prophet hit the table, the game gets lop-sided and is over shortly.
I play Legacy competitively and EDH for fun. I build EDH decks to be strong and streamlined, but I plan to win about 1/5 to 1/3 of the games I play with friends-my share, roughly. This is possible because the group I play with feels the same way; however, Primeval Titan, Sylvan Primordial, Prophet of Kruphix, and Consecrated Sphinx are really hard to leave out of a deck that can play them, and they immediately shape the game around themselves. My decks tend to be heavy on instant speed spot removal to kill, in order of dislike, Prophet of Kruphix, Deadeye Navigator, and Consecrated Sphinx.
Prophet of Kruphix is my least-favorite EDH card, for the reasons listed and the way it boggs down the game. In a four player game, I get 1/4 of the turns and have to wait three turns until I get to untap. As soon as someone drops a Prophet, I get 1/8 of the turns and need to wait seven turns until I get to play again. As others stated, it also requires immediate, instant speed removal; even if the next player in line has a Wrath, it's still almost a Time Walk. Temporal Manipulation is good; Time Stretch is scoop-inducing.
The EDH banned list is a funny thing. Sol Ring is ridiculous, much stronger than most of the creatures on the banned list, and in many ways harder to answer. I don't feel bad running a Swords to Plowshares or a Krosan Grip in an EDH deck; even though they trade one for one, they're so good at what they do that I am willing to make that inefficient-in-multiplayer trade. I don't feel as good running a Nature's Claim, although perhaps I should. I think part of the problem is that Sol Ring doesn't get tutored for and the game doesn't revolve around it once it sticks like games do around Prophet, Consecrated Sphinx, and Prime Time. Still though, Sol Ring is legal and those aren't? It's very strange.
InfoNinjas
Yeah, I mean the fact of the matter is that by the time you get to a point where you're putting Prophet in your deck, you're not "playing to win". The fact that EDH is basically singleton vintage with their ridiculous banlist means that if you really wanted to be competitive within the banlist (like we do in every other format of Magic) you would just play all the broken fast mana, cantrips, tutors, and card draw and basically just play unpowered Vintage. The fact that people chose to follow the "spirit of the format" and power down their decks to play grindy midrange 5-drops and then they're always the ones who get stuff banned (Primeval, Sylvan, and now Prophet.) The format is basically just a joke IMO. You either have competitive EDH which is playing to the fullest within the allowed banlist, in which case you should just proxy up Vintage and play that; or you have some "gentleman's agreement" format where there's a soft banned list not on the broken cards like Ring, Crypt, Vault, Demonic, YawgWill, etc. but more of a soft ban on what you're allowed to do with those cards, which is positively absurd.
I tried to build a Grixis deck with Nekusar. Rocks, Tutors, Draw Sevens, Megrim/Liliana, Minds Desire and Vise. As I started to build the local group politely asked me not to, said I was not following the spirit of the game. I took that on board and thanked them for letting me know before I spent my money.
It's a game not meant for us Hammer. If you like me where your plan is to abuse what you have access too and you have open to you cards from the beginning of the game, then we are the top of the table when it comes to both options and opportunities. If we take this format to the Spike extreme we turn into everyone else's worst nightmare. I think it's fine to say it's not for us and move on, like standard is also. If people want to play EDH and only have a few hundred dollars to spend, let them play with their rules and have their fun. We have our format, our place to shine, it's just not with kids who have a Timmy outlook on the game and may also not have the funds needed to match an arms race we would start.
It is better to ask and look stupid then keep your mouth shut and remain so.
I hope your afterlife is filled with eternal torment.
Fuck. Which one of my quotes do I drop for this?
Isn't that exactly the point though? It's not singleton Vintage...
The thing is, I actually love casual EDH. I play big mana decks that try to Djinn Illuminatus a Time Stretch or Radiate a Rite of Replication. I have a sweet deck that I liked playing with my more casual friends who aren't as competitive or invested as me. But the problem is I knew I was intentionally hamstringing myself every time I built a deck, because there were legal cards I wasn't playing because they were too good. I was playing DOWN to their level and I still got a card banned from my deck almost every announcement. And so I was in this weird spot where my friends looked at me like I was a jerk for casting Primeval Titan while one of them had freaking NECROPOTENCE in play.
Imagine this was any other format. Imagine you're playing Modern and you play Mono-Green beatdown because "Thoughtseize and Liliana are overpowered," and they leave those cards legal while banning Dungrove Elder. Imagine you're playing Legacy and Vampiric is legal, but only if you use it to get something "fair" (probably a fucking Veteran Explorer) and if you play Storm a judge stands behind you all day and "tsks" disapprovingly. The format IS for me, I want to play big mana battlecruiser Magic with my less-enfranchised friends, but it's so hard to do that when the banlist is laughably hypocritical.
The difference is that Modern is a sanctioned format where players almost always compete for prizes. It's very easy to not care about using powerful cards when there is money on the line. But EDH has been culled and shaped to appeal to casual players who get together to have fun and people take great offense when they feel their fun is being stifled. Whether that's right or wrong doesn't really matter. The rules committee has to balance the format in a way that appeals to the majority of players and EDH has always been the format for Timmies. You can play Hermit Druid combo or Oona Pitch Long or Aluren all day long and it's "allowed" - but people will stop playing with you because it's not the kind of Magic they want.
I really dislike the colored mana change. I play this fromat for the flavour of a deck being on point. This just destroy the whole purpose of the format.
Last edited by JPoJohnson; 01-19-2016 at 12:46 PM. Reason: format, not game.
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle".
- Albert Einstein
But this doesn't answer my point about the absurdity of the "gentleman's agreement:" if those types of cards are too good for the purposes of the types of games EDH should be about, just ban them. When someone asks for a pickup game of magic, I ask them what format. Formats exist to define what's reasonable to play and allowable in the games. Even if I'm playing tier 1 and they're playing budget, at least we have the same IDEA of the game when I say "I've got Legacy, do you wanna play?" With EDH, it encompasses a spectrum of formats that are unrecognizable from each other. Hermit Druid combo bares no resemblance whatsoever to the game that Mr. tribal dragons expected to play. And apparently fair midrange Prophet/Titan decks are equally busted in the eyes of Timmy, when the difference between Prophet and fucking Sol Ring is astronomical.
An ex girlfriend invited me to "casual EDH" at her local shop a few times. For reference, I played RUG ramp, big mana bullshit plays, including Prophet of Kruphix at the time. No infinite combos, no fast mana, no tutors whatsoever, because these were the types of games I enjoyed with my other friends. So my deck went big, but wasn't broken. The first week, my 4 man pod consisted of me, Mono-U control, and two black decks packed with all the broken shit. Each black deck threatened an infinite table kill on turn 3, the Mono U guy countered it and I had a Krosan Grip. Then, by turn 5 both of them had found YawgWill to do it again, and Mono-U guy tapped out to stop the first one and the second one went off. Games over, combo decks win, GG. I thought "this place is a lot more competitive than my deck, huh?" Then, the next week I show up, there's 3 new players I'm playing with. There's mono-red Aggro guy who's new to the game and doesn't understand the stack, GR tokens guy who is playing mostly RTR block cards and had no nonbasic lands or mana acceleration, and some Bant Angels deck that was again casual low-power. Suddenly, with the same deck I played last week, now I'm the one who's a league above them in power level, and on turn 10 or so I copied a Rite on a Battlegrace Angel or something stupid and won that way. Completely different games with the same deck, both times because there was a fundamental misunderstanding of what EDH is supposed to be.
If the ban list was reasonable, everyone would have the same idea of what they're getting into. Ban tutors, mana rocks, combo pieces, whatever, until the format is healthy. THEN you can ban a midrangey card like Prophet if it's getting out of line. But the absurdity of saying "we'll let the format police itself when it comes to busted fast mana, but we're using our Authority as Creators of the Format to tell you which green creature you can and can't play" is ridiculous.
I don't disagree with the flavor complaint. But it hardly destroys the whole purpose of the format... Off-color mana turning colorless was a small part of the overall color restriction.
My irritation at the flavor fail changed to indifference when the RC compared the change to mana-burn. Really what gets significantly more (or less) powerful with this change? How often will this affect the games you play?
I've started asking anyone I've never played with how many turns (or how much time) they'd like the game to go before drawing my hand. It gives everyone an idea of the power level of their deck. This is often better than directly asking what power level they play at because people tend to under or over estimate that...
I mean, yeah, I can't really pose an argument against this because everything you're saying is correct. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize that the best games of EDH I've played have been with groups of people who have the same idea of how powerful a deck should be. It's almost like the format as it is is asking you to build decks for every conceivable level of competitiveness you could face.
I agree.If the ban list was reasonable, everyone would have the same idea of what they're getting into. Ban tutors, mana rocks, combo pieces, whatever, until the format is healthy. THEN you can ban a midrangey card like Prophet if it's getting out of line. But the absurdity of saying "we'll let the format police itself when it comes to busted fast mana, but we're using our Authority as Creators of the Format to tell you which green creature you can and can't play" is ridiculous.
<33333333333
Well, there you go. Successful EDH metas are a communal exercise. When I lived in NY we had a very good meta at our local store, where everyone understood that you played the competitive people with your competitive decks and you played the casual-fun people with your casual-fun decks. No one really got bent out of shape about any of it, because everyone understood that different strokes are for different folks.
Now-a-days I only have one EDH deck built and I rarely play it. It's a foiled-out Rhy, the Redeemed and it's mostly just for fun. I don't play anymore because I lack time, but also the EDH crowd around here tends to be humans that I would prefer not to interact with in any way, shape or form. Some of our Legacy crew has been picking up decks lately, but it really doesn't seem to be developing into a real competitive meta.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
I have built a sub-serious Karametra deck with focus more on the beautiful art than any real power. It's meant as a relaxation from real Magic and I found it satisfactory to build it, to sleeve it, to shuffle it and to cuddle with it. But the actual playing of it is a nightmare and I find very little joy in it. As someone already pointed out on this forum, most of the EDH games would be better if the pair would simply show to each other their deck instead of playing out the games.
Normally I'm trying to build a deck as powerful as possible, but in EDH there are so many constraints and so many opposing goals, wishes and expectations that there's no chance to play a real game of Magic even in a case you'd play in a confined environment of head-to-head tested and designed pair of decks meant for mutual opposition and shared experience. The people's idea of "fun" decks ranges from one end of a spectrum (Casual Bears Deck) to the other extreme (Singleton Vintage) with so many possibilitites in betwen that there's hardly any chance to have anything else than a crazy "format" even before the comic absurdity of singletons-only deck kicks in and makes all life miserable with unpredictable chaos; one that's very often reduced by redundancy which in my eyes is either a confession of inner and inherent failure in EDH's nature, or at least a sacrifice to better enjoyment of a game lest it would turn into Dice Roll Olympiade.
The last experience I mentioned above was when we played a four-seat table (after a three hours of lgs Legacy action and with a midnight approaching; factors that are already and enough taxing on both mental and physical powers of an individual) with all the usual stuff that accompanies multiplayer games, be it politics (thankfully we were at least that sane to choose to play 2HD), tiresome turns and wutnot. The stupidity of EDH showed up in all nakedness when both of the games ended in the same result: our side was annihilated without a smallest chance of a real counterpressure and the whole undertaking left a bad taste in my mouth pickled cheese or not. And it led me to a decision:
The last time I played an EDH was also the last time I played this joke of a format for the rest of my life.
Why so? I won't even start on the obvious clunkiness of format's banned list (setting aside if it's called EDH or Commander). I just want to tell that I find little excuse for an existance of a format where Sol Fucking Ring or Hermit Druid is allowed, while Sylvan Primordial or Primeval Titan isn't. (Lets not start a war over any particular card; I just wanted to build and EDH deck with full cycle of Titans and Primordials, but as they're not allowed, I simply set the idea to the rest where it dwells with any other indecent and obscene thoughts.) But the whole substance and base and essence of EDH is so far from my understanding and from what I am able to swallow, that I find no need to participate in it anymore.
For one, I would be able to stand the awful deck that my companion Martin (Slosh here on MTS) was lent. I might be able to withstand the unending shenanigans with opponent's DEN. But being a GW pilot, being forbidden to play 8-mana creatures and mass-LD althewhile my opponent is not only allowed to play, but he even ACTUALLY PLAYED an unholy sort of the most wicked magick ever seen in history of mankind, forced me to abandon this ship and leave it to those who find it amusing to navigate it throught the rocks and cliffs of opposing "fun decks".
As a Karametra pilot/deckbuilder that put some kind of thought into the deck to make it more of an artistic project than a Vintage Lite, I find it offensive that after being put under a barrage and stream of Demonic Tutor, Mind Twist, Necropotence, Hymn to Tourach, Strip Mine, Nevinyrral's Disk and Dystopia, my opponent had guts to comment on and dispute my immediate leaving of the table, pub, community.
Have fun with your Format: Wheel of Fortune.
Last edited by Bed Decks Palyer; 01-19-2016 at 05:41 PM.
It's a difficult theme, you know my reservations about the format and it really comes to your aspirations playing it, I'm a super spikey person so it's hard for me to just jam things mindlessly and it haunts me if I play technicaly poorly so it often comes to playing well vs. social aspect, in a hypocritical format where winning certain ways is frowned upon by some... and that's just the core of the problem, the other is the objective power disbalance when you bring a spoon to a gunfight, a slingshot to a rocket launcher fight, a sailboat to a spacefight, a spacefight to a galaxyfight, you get the impression, so while I finally topdeck Alpha Instill Energy for my Beta Prodigal Sorcerer my Opp mass clones dragon/titan/golem hybrids... After said night you ragequit, I actually reanimated a deck limited to Saga to compete with Toms, probably Animated the Dead deck would be more precise, did not cost much lifetime and the deck is definitly -1 in front... it was quite fun and challenging, but then we got to the good old Shrieking Drake, Oath of Ghouls, Aluren, Equilibrium, Survival, Tortured Existence, Citanul Flute boardstate which needed 2 tables and a beer to maintain, just to find the embarassing fact I cant kill my opponent other than in 10 turns of said personal hell of infinite options because my only 1+ power creature is a Gilded drake and don't have a way to deal with enchantments other than bounce or Smokestack.. so found out I'm actually sick when my precious creation does what it's supposed to do, Tom scooping to my supreme position when I started to chain Spike Feeder counter in rather embarassing fasion was the most rewarding I experienced that night... since then we've bough-in/proxied 93/94 oldschool and sling that instead - is faster to play between legacy rounds, the format is suprisingly well balanced and creative and you get to play all the sweet cards...
I simply do not have time, mental capabilities and the zeal to follow another format with legacy which is even X time more complicated if I want to enjoy the format and stay a sane human lifeform... even though your attitude to the game isn't that spike as mine I think it really comes what do you expect of it, my deck is also an "artistic project", a dadaistic one, but either you accept you could lose/win miserably or (don't) play the format/subformat the ad hoc group agrees on, the actual banlist of the ABC or different Commandlander is unimportant
Additional content on the Rules Announcement by Sheldon:
http://www.starcitygames.com/article...r-January.html
On mulligans:
On Rule 4:
On Prophet banning:
Last edited by Ace/Homebrew; 01-22-2016 at 12:28 PM. Reason: Spelling
After a long time, I'd stopped playing EDH altogether about half a year ago 'cause of the same bullshit you guys are talking about. Here's my honest opinion though:
They NEED to split Commander into 2x different formats. That's the only way I see it. You basically have two different sides that see this format differently: The Casuals vs the Spikes. The Spikes want to play this as a singleton vintage and use the maximize every card outside the banlist and decklists to the full potential, the casuals have their own conception outside of the ban of what is/isn't fair and the "kind of magic game" they want to play. The issue isn't about one side being more right about "what makes a great game of Commander" over the other, it's the fact that the format is just so massive and not very defined that it opens players up to their own interpretation of "what it means to be fair".
If they had two separate Commander formats, they could then have a "Casual EDH" with its own rules committee, the format would have very aggressive ban list trying to crack down on combos, degenerate cards, sol rings, tutors or w/e, and try to make it more of a Creature vs Creature format again. Then have "Constructed EDH" which actually unbans more shit, like PTitan and Prophet are fair game, let the Spike players play Constructed EDH format and that way ppl can ask "are you doing Constructed edh?" or something like that, so they know not to bring their Timmy flavorful deck to a wolf fight.
Right now they're trying to do this thing where they shoot for the middle ground, catering to both casual AND competetive players, and it just doesn't work. THey just end up pissing them both off 'cause then neither side is completely getting the type of game they want. Word
MJ
May your suffering equal your weakness--Ihsan's Shade
Another problem as I see it in getting rid of Rule 4 is that it just begs another set of questions.
There's always been a tension in deckbuilding for EDH wherein color identity excludes or includes cards based on their sum total of mana symbols present on the card. Previously, if one wanted to play cards that are costed one way but have a more complex color identity -- say, Bringers or cards like Paragon of the Amesha -- you had to build to access those colors, which (in the case of Bringers) meant picking a five-color Commander. That hasn't changed, but now the effect is negative for a new reason -- Why, if I'm able to tap for all colors of mana as I see fit, does color identity limit me to excluding cards with outside activation costs? I can generate those colors just fine, and the casting cost on the card is mono-red, so why can't I toss a Bringer of the Good Things into my monocolored deck again? The only thing holding people back is that definition of color identity.
I see this as a problem as much now as I did when I tried to peruse the mtgcommander.net forums (I've never actually *tried* to get banned so hard in my life, I really hate that place lol) and people were making the arguments for deleting Rule 4 years ago. It tends to be the same individuals that really want that Spiky, 100-card Highlander busted-as-fuck Vintage experience, because they tend to complain that a format with deckbuilding restrictions such as this is a format that's living a lie. Honestly I think the Spikiest players in EDH are the guys that really want things both ways; they want their Grixis commander decks fully powered and ready to pull off a fundamental turn kill, and they also want those dirty filthy budget players to go play their kitchen table Magic at their mom's house, alone and sad, living this "lie" that Magic can be defined by any other set of rules.
That's.... a tad hyperbole. But it's the vibe I get from the people who play the format like it's damaged but just enjoy pwning n00bs with Storm combo and then stating that those decks are truly the pinnacle of the format, and everyone else that isn't tweaking their decks to be as broken as possible are just lying to themselves about the game they're playing. That subtext is *always* sneaking around in their crappy arguments, and it's gross and stupid and full of angry crabs.
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