Ban List Update - Flash Banned

[cryogen]

I can't really say that made Companion and Lutri more palatable, but I at least appreciate that Sheldon took the time to explain his stance on them.

I'll probably be eternally salty about the legality of the mechanic but it sounds like it's not going anywhere.

I chatted with Toby about it before the full statement had gone up and what really sold it for me was when he asked "if companion started in the Command zone, would you have cared?" And it really honed in for me that the only thing I didn't like about the mechanic (and still don't, for that matter) is the location where it resides as a companion. Well, actually I don't like that it's the 101st card, and think it should count towards your 100 just like partners and the Commander do. But what's important for me is that I realized I don't dislike the mechanic, I dislike the execution of it - similar to extort.

[Airi]

I chatted with Toby about it before the full statement had gone up and what really sold it for me was when he asked "if companion started in the Command zone, would you have cared?" And it really honed in for me that the only thing I didn't like about the mechanic (and still don't, for that matter) is the location where it resides as a companion. Well, actually I don't like that it's the 101st card, and think it should count towards your 100 just like partners and the Commander do. But what's important for me is that I realized I don't dislike the mechanic, I dislike the execution of it - similar to extort.

At that point, it would have been closer to partner, which I still don't like, but maybe would have been easier to stomach? But it's still an extra card you have free access to at all times, and the restrictions on them were not made equal. Some are difficult to work around, others not so much, and it still took banning a card in favor of the 8 remaining to make them legal. At this point, I don't think there's any functional change they could make to the mechanic for me to not hate it. I dislike it on too many levels.

[Hermes_]

I liked the quote from Commander Advisory Group (CAG) member Adam "Stybs" Styborski

"The banned list in every other format of Magic is the specific result of metagame/decks being unbalanced. As a player, I can ask "Why is Golgari Grave-Troll banned?" or "Why is Lion's Eye Diamond banned?" and get a discrete answer — there was a deck that caused it.There is no discrete metagame of Commander decks, and most of the most busted cards in the format aren't actually banned. It's a difference of management that isn't intuitive from the perspective of managing Magic's other formats."

[cryogen]

I chatted with Toby about it before the full statement had gone up and what really sold it for me was when he asked "if companion started in the Command zone, would you have cared?" And it really honed in for me that the only thing I didn't like about the mechanic (and still don't, for that matter) is the location where it resides as a companion. Well, actually I don't like that it's the 101st card, and think it should count towards your 100 just like partners and the Commander do. But what's important for me is that I realized I don't dislike the mechanic, I dislike the execution of it - similar to extort.

At that point, it would have been closer to partner, which I still don't like, but maybe would have been easier to stomach? But it's still an extra card you have free access to at all times, and the restrictions on them were not made equal. Some are difficult to work around, others not so much, and it still took banning a card in favor of the 8 remaining to make them legal. At this point, I don't think there's any functional change they could make to the mechanic for me to not hate it. I dislike it on too many levels.

I like the idea behind Partner. Because from a flavor standpoint, what does it matter if my army is being led by One person, a pair of people, or even a pair of people and their adorable otter sidekick (I'M STILL SALTY ABOUT THIS WOTC)? It also gives WotC more flexibility to give us 4c decks with open design potential.

I think for everyone it boils down to what bothers you. Are you against the templating which put it "outside the game"? Do you dislike that it's a 101st card? Are you against extra cards in your starting hand?

[pokken]

I hate the template. If they had made it "Partner with anyone as long as your deck meets these criteria" I wouldn't have minded. I like partner as a mechanic.

What I don't like about partner is the way they pushed them so hard at first, purely a power level thing with Tymna and Thrasios being too strong. The rest are fine.

I have a minor issue with partners not sharing commander tax but I have never seen that be an issue with anyone other than Tymna/Thrasios

My issue with the existing companions is again the 4 or so that are simply too powerful, pushing into Tymna/Thrasios territory.

I also do kinda think that 'partner with anyone as long as your deck meets xyz' is very difficult to make fair for both singleton and normal formats at the same time, which is just a design flaw I think.

edit: To add, I think it struggles in the same way things like persistent petitioners and relentless rats and shadowborn apostles do. Toby I think mentioned that and it resonated. Things that break or interact with the singleton rules are by nature way, way different experiences in commander.

[Legend]

I think for everyone it boils down to what bothers you. Are you against the templating which put it "outside the game"? Do you dislike that it's a 101st card? Are you against extra cards in your starting hand?

What bothers me is the hypocrisy of "Companions okay, Wishes nokay". For years the RC has been gaslighting us with the same BS arguments against Wishes. Now some of those go-to excuses have been abandoned for Companions, and the RC acts like they never even made them, but the remaining reasons are completely legit trust us we're the RC, we promise Hasbro is not behind the curtain. It's %$#% narcissistic at this point.

[pokken]

What bothers me is the hypocrisy of "Companions okay, Wishes nokay". For years the RC has been gaslighting us with the same BS arguments against Wishes. Now some of those go-to excuses have been abandoned for Companions, and the RC acts like they never even made them, but the remaining reasons are completely legit trust us we're the RC, we promise Hasbro is not behind the curtain. It's %$#% narcissistic at this point.

Is that what you really believe? That seems a bit over the top to me.

[Airi]

I think for everyone it boils down to what bothers you. Are you against the templating which put it "outside the game"? Do you dislike that it's a 101st card? Are you against extra cards in your starting hand?

Kind of a mix of all of it, tbh. Add into it that I don't think that what the mechanic brings to the format is worth banning cards over, and bam. Salt mine. To the degree that I won't even use companion when it would benefit me (trying to find a place for Kaheera that isn't the 99. Companion for Arahbo would solve all of my problems but I refuse to do it).

[cryogen]

I think for everyone it boils down to what bothers you. Are you against the templating which put it "outside the game"? Do you dislike that it's a 101st card? Are you against extra cards in your starting hand?

What bothers me is the hypocrisy of "Companions okay, Wishes nokay". For years the RC has been gaslighting us with the same BS arguments against Wishes. Now some of those go-to excuses have been abandoned for Companions, and the RC acts like they never even made them, but the remaining reasons are completely legit trust us we're the RC, we promise Hasbro is not behind the curtain. It's %$#% narcissistic at this point.

Can expand on this (without the unfounded accusations)? Because from what I can tell the RC has been consistent in their application of "outside the game" effects since they all did the same thing: pull othercards from outside the game. I don't know if they ever considered how to rule in the case of cards that bring themselves from outside the game, since that effect never existed, and it doesn't make sense to change the rules to account for things that don't exist.

Now I guess you can accuse Hasbro (by which i assume you actually mean WotC since Hasbro doesn't give two %$#% about micromanaging the RC) of influencing the RC to allow their new mechanic, but both the RC and WotC have been pretty open about this: the latter saying the mechanic itself was cool and something they liked, and the latter saying they knew it would cause issues with Commander and knew there was a chance the mechanic just got banned altogether.

[BeneTleilax]

What irks me about Companions is that they are a hidden consistency system, targeted at casual. I don't even like tutors, but you still have to draw the tutor, and thus expend some deckbuilding cost for doing so, and it's clear what is. No-one looks at Imperial Seal and thinks it's casual. Plenty of people look at Jegantha and think it's casual, even when they end up using it quite powerful ways.

If that was all, I think they would be grounds for houserules, as my main group has houseruled against nonland tutors already. My store gets a decent amount of new arrivals, and people who play at a variety of tables, and so don't build by any particular set of houserules. Normally, this is fine; we ask them to take out their Demonic Tutor or whatever and slot in something else. However, because Companions provide *so* much consistency, they are often difficult to remove from a deck. A Jegantha-Najeela or Zirda-Kenrith may be highly consistent and comparatively overpowered with their Companion, and terrible without it. Companions are all linear, so they encourage building to rely on them, and less-experienced players are likely to build even more reliant, if Commander-reliance is a good predictor.

This may be solipsistic, but I see moderate-turnover groups such as this as the main audience of the banlist. Tight-knit groups that always play with the same members do not need the banlist. They can make their own rules for whatever they are doing, and know with what their fellow players are looking for before they even start deckbuilding. Likewise, large tournaments, or other highly anonymous settings where no social contract exists prior to the start of the game are not the intended audience of the banlist, as anyone who has played in one can attest. Groups with a loose contract, and some new players joining regularly, are greatly helped by a common baseline. The banlist doesn't exist to punish the guy who brought Braids Stax to tables such as mine. It exists to let people know not to waste time and money building Braids Stax if they want to play that sort of casual EDH.

[Dragoon]

What irks me about Companions is that they are a hidden consistency system, targeted at casual. I don't even like tutors, but you still have to draw the tutor, and thus expend some deckbuilding cost for doing so, and it's clear what is. No-one looks at Imperial Seal and thinks it's casual. Plenty of people look at Jegantha and think it's casual, even when they end up using it quite powerful ways.

If that was all, I think they would be grounds for houserules, as my main group has houseruled against nonland tutors already. My store gets a decent amount of new arrivals, and people who play at a variety of tables, and so don't build by any particular set of houserules. Normally, this is fine; we ask them to take out their Demonic Tutor or whatever and slot in something else. However, because Companions provide *so* much consistency, they are often difficult to remove from a deck. A Jegantha-Najeela or Zirda-Kenrith may be highly consistent and comparatively overpowered with their Companion, and terrible without it. Companions are all linear, so they encourage building to rely on them, and less-experienced players are likely to build even more reliant, if Commander-reliance is a good predictor.

This may be solipsistic, but I see moderate-turnover groups such as this as the main audience of the banlist. Tight-knit groups that always play with the same members do not need the banlist. They can make their own rules for whatever they are doing, and know with what their fellow players are looking for before they even start deckbuilding. Likewise, large tournaments, or other highly anonymous settings where no social contract exists prior to the start of the game are not the intended audience of the banlist, as anyone who has played in one can attest. Groups with a loose contract, and some new players joining regularly, are greatly helped by a common baseline. The banlist doesn't exist to punish the guy who brought Braids Stax to tables such as mine. It exists to let people know not to waste time and money building Braids Stax if they want to play that sort of casual EDH.

I don't know if Companions will be that overpowered. I feel like people may be overestimating them at the moment (I might be wrong though, obviously). Playing Zirda, the Dawnwaker as Companion for Kenrith, the Returned King, for example, prevents you from playing stuff like Training Grounds, Heartstone or Rings of Brighthearth, maybe Fires of Invention. It aprevents you from playing mana doublers which works great with Kenrith. You also get less ETB effects, which makes the last ability of Kenrith less powerful. On top of that, remember that once the companion is gone, it's gone. A single Path to Exile might get rid of it effectively (except for effects like Pull from Eternity or Riftsweeper, and the latter can't be played with Zirda as Companion). All in all, I think it's fine. You trade consistency for overall powerlevel. It also might force you to play other cards in the 99, which will increase diversity and I'm all up for that.

WotC has been toying with the very core rules of EDH quite a few times over the last few years. Be it with Planeswalker Commanders, Eminence, Partners or even stuff like Shadowborn Apostle. Companion is just one more of those mechanics. If you were already bothered by the previous ones, I can see why this one will also bother you. If you were not, why does Companion bother you?

I'm just a bit sad that the banned companion was U/R. It would have been funny to build a Rowan Kenrith & Will Kenrith deck with an U/R companion and full of Persistent Petitioners. Just to be able to say that you're playing a perfectly legal EDH deck of 101 cards with multiple copies of a nonbasic nonland card and with two commanders, none of them being a creature.

[pokken]

I made a deck with Zirda and Kenrith that played 46 lands, a stoneforge package (stoneforge, greaves, jitta, dowsing dagger, sofaf) 30ish ramp spells, and 20 removal spells - basically nothing else. It was absurd. Basically able to play archenemy against two very decent decks.

I didn't play a single sweeper, just ramp and removal.

This deck is horrible, I just piled cards I had in there:
https://deckbox.org/sets/2648043

GIving up Exploration was the hardest thing, no need for training grounds at all when you have zirda and 10 counterspells. I didn't even play a force of will or force of negation or pact of negation, just cheap interaction.

The deck basically builds itself and even with that jank I chucked together in 10 minutes with no tuning it was bonkers

[Dragoon]

I made a deck with Zirda and Kenrith that played 46 lands, a stoneforge package (stoneforge, greaves, jitta, dowsing dagger, sofaf) 30ish ramp spells, and 20 removal spells - basically nothing else. It was absurd. Basically able to play archenemy against two very decent decks.

I didn't play a single sweeper, just ramp and removal.

This deck is horrible, I just piled cards I had in there:
https://deckbox.org/sets/2648043

GIving up Exploration was the hardest thing, no need for training grounds at all when you have zirda and 10 counterspells. I didn't even play a force of will or force of negation or pact of negation, just cheap interaction.

The deck basically builds itself and even with that jank I chucked together in 10 minutes with no tuning it was bonkers

5-colors goodstuff deck can be very powerful in casual metas. That "jank" deck still costs more than $3,000, according to deckbox.
Have you tried playing the deck without Zirda? Was it that much weaker? Have you played it multiple times? Against different decks? I'm not saying companion isn't worth it but Kenrith is already a very, very powerful general. I don't see anything you could do with Zirda that you couldn't do without it. If your deck can win consistently, Kenrith will likely be the main reason, not Zirda.

[pokken]

5-colors goodstuff deck can be very powerful in casual metas. That "jank" deck still costs more than $3,000, according to deckbox.
Have you tried playing the deck without Zirda? Was it that much weaker? Have you played it multiple times? Against different decks? I'm not saying companion isn't worth it but Kenrith is already a very, very powerful general. I don't see anything you could do with Zirda that you couldn't do without it. If your deck can win consistently, Kenrith will likely be the main reason, not Zirda.

That deck is nowhere *near* 5 color goodstuff. The manabase is probably 95% of the cost (just the lands are probably 2500). Cut all the OG duals Shaves like 1600 lol You'll notice a distinct lack of any good card draw or any sweepers or any bombs. No csphinx, no rhystic study, no sylvan library, no tutors other than Stoneforge Mystic and land tutors. No demonic tutor no vampiric tutor no mystical no e-ttuor nothing.

The deck wins by pumping creatures with G: +1/+1 and 1U: draw til I hit a removal spell.

I haven't seen it run without Zirda because it's 100% correct to reanimate zirda before doing anything - she pays for herself in 2 activations (5 mana to reanimate).

I've only gotten one game with it so far. The two turns before I won, I:
1) protected zirda from a fight effect by pumping it to a 7/7 for GGGG. This would not have worked with 8 mana as the cost.
2) removed a blocker and pumped kenrith from 12/12 to 21/21 one-shotting the defender with trample over no blocker. That sequence cost me 10 mana, but woulda cost 19 without Zirda, so you be the judge.

Kenrith's ability is nowhere near enough to win games without the discount. It's Okay, but Zirda acts like Mana Reflection for 1WW

[WizardMN]

I made a deck with Zirda and Kenrith that played 46 lands, a stoneforge package (stoneforge, greaves, jitta, dowsing dagger, sofaf) 30ish ramp spells, and 20 removal spells - basically nothing else. It was absurd. Basically able to play archenemy against two very decent decks.

I didn't play a single sweeper, just ramp and removal.

This deck is horrible, I just piled cards I had in there:
https://deckbox.org/sets/2648043

GIving up Exploration was the hardest thing, no need for training grounds at all when you have zirda and 10 counterspells. I didn't even play a force of will or force of negation or pact of negation, just cheap interaction.

The deck basically builds itself and even with that jank I chucked together in 10 minutes with no tuning it was bonkers

5-colors goodstuff deck can be very powerful in casual metas. That "jank" deck still costs more than $3,000, according to deckbox.

My first thought was that "jank" doesn't necessarily mean "cheap". Sometimes people want to play things a little lower powered and end up playing duals and a few more expensive cards because they are fun. Duals don't necessarily increase the power of a deck but they increase the cost (and consistency of course). We aren't all out here just to build the best deck possible; we just want to have fun and janky decks can be that.

Have you tried playing the deck without Zirda? Was it that much weaker? Have you played it multiple times? Against different decks? I'm not saying companion isn't worth it but Kenrith is already a very, very powerful general.

True, Kenrith is very powerful, but Zirda does seem to work exceptionally well with him, I too would be curious to know the answers to those questions as I think, just from a gut feeling, Kenrith *is* that much better with access to Zirda but it would be nice to know how much Zirda is contributing.

I don't see anything you could do with Zirda that you couldn't do without it. If your deck can win consistently, Kenrith will likely be the main reason, not Zirda.

I am not sure the rest of this is that important, I mean, of course the deck can do without Zirda. As you said, Kenrith is already powerful, as are 5c goodstuff strategies in general. I don't think the argument is necessarily that Zirda adds power to the deck; just consistency. Granted, the two are intertwined. The question at the end of the day is "how much does Zirda affect the deck" as you alluded to above.

[pokken]

You could replace Zirda by playing training grounds/biomancer's familiar/tons of tutors. But as you see from my deck as bad as it is it's way more consistent than that. I don't need to play 10 tutors, I just play Zirda and Kenrith every time and draw removal spells/counterspells instead of redundant tutors or mana doublers.

It's probably worse than a deck with all the tutors and goodstuff, but it's way more consistent. I literally always have removal in my hand because there's like 20 pieces of it, and you could straight up cut the stoneforge/sunforger package and replace it with 6 more counterspells/removal pieces and be even more consistent (although the jitte/sword/sunforger act like removal spells, and I think the equip discounts are also worth it.

[Dragoon]

My first thought was that "jank" doesn't necessarily mean "cheap". Sometimes people want to play things a little lower powered and end up playing duals and a few more expensive cards because they are fun. Duals don't necessarily increase the power of a deck but they increase the cost (and consistency of course). We aren't all out here just to build the best deck possible; we just want to have fun and janky decks can be that.

It's true that a janky deck isn't necessarily cheap. I've never played competitive decks, I'm a casual player. I'm looking for fun over efficiency every time and I don't care a single bit about my win ratio. I usually play at 4-6 power level and yet I've built tons of janky decks like that. That Kenrith deck runs most of the broken mana ramps available in commander and the general is a powerful mana sink, protected by a bunch of counterspells. I have a hard time calling that jank. Bird tribal with Kangee can be jank, artist tribal is jank. Kenrith and a ton of mana just isn't jank to me. It may not be optimized but we're nowhere near the bottom of the pile in terms of power level.

Have you tried playing the deck without Zirda? Was it that much weaker? Have you played it multiple times? Against different decks? I'm not saying companion isn't worth it but Kenrith is already a very, very powerful general.

True, Kenrith is very powerful, but Zirda does seem to work exceptionally well with him, I too would be curious to know the answers to those questions as I think, just from a gut feeling, Kenrith *is* that much better with access to Zirda but it would be nice to know how much Zirda is contributing.

I don't see anything you could do with Zirda that you couldn't do without it. If your deck can win consistently, Kenrith will likely be the main reason, not Zirda.

I am not sure the rest of this is that important, I mean, of course the deck can do without Zirda. As you said, Kenrith is already powerful, as are 5c goodstuff strategies in general. I don't think the argument is necessarily that Zirda adds power to the deck; just consistency. Granted, the two are intertwined. The question at the end of the day is "how much does Zirda affect the deck" as you alluded to above.

Well, the conversation seemed to imply that Zirda made Kenrith more broken than it already is and I respectfully disagree for the moment. You still have to pay the price for it in your deckbuilding process, and I can't see how that won't end up with you making though choices that will reduce the overall power of your 99. I think that's totally fine and presents an alternate path to how to play Kenrith, I don't think it will become "THE" path though, given how glass cannon it might end up being. I really think people are overreacting to how powerful companion is, or they aren't running as much removal as they should. I would be curious to see how many of those companions will still show up a year down the road.

[cryogen]

I was thinking about Zirda last night as I was building Breya (yes, THAT Breya, aiming for 8-9 power level). It made sense to add the fox because I've got Basalt and Grim in there already. But what I noticed was that I had to cut out a good number of cards just to get the consistency of having it as my companion.

I know that isn't necessarily what y'all are discussing, and having it leading a deck would be an easy mode deck of artifact tutors and fireballs, but I think as a companion the hoops you have to jump through will help regulate the deck's power.

[Dragoon]

I was thinking about Zirda last night as I was building Breya (yes, THAT Breya, aiming for 8-9 power level). It made sense to add the fox because I've got Basalt and Grim in there already. But what I noticed was that I had to cut out a good number of cards just to get the consistency of having it as my companion.

I know that isn't necessarily what y'all are discussing, and having it leading a deck would be an easy mode deck of artifact tutors and fireballs, but I think as a companion the hoops you have to jump through will help regulate the deck's power.

It's exactly what I'm discussing though Companions come with real restrictions and the only one that doesn't has already been banned. I think it's a fun, neat mechanic that will allow some new deckbuilding ideas without taking over the world.

[pokken]

I do think at the competitive level the zirda build gives up too much to be good. Oracle and study remora library are harsh.

My issue with it at the casual level is the consistency. I really don't think there are many fun zirda builds that aren't going to create unbalanced games. Obv that's an issue with high power builds but zirda kenrith has a very high power floor and it's gonna trick people.

I honestly think that is gonna be a problem for most companion decks. They're all kinda like maelstrom wanderer...overpower casual games but too weak for competitive.

(Except sisay jegantha ughhh)

[Dragoon]

I honestly think that is gonna be a problem for most companion decks. They're all kinda like maelstrom wanderer...overpower casual games but too weak for competitive.

I feel like Zirda and Jegantha are the only ones susceptible to cause problems (and I'm still not convinced of that ). The others won't have that much of an impact I think, especially past the novelty phase.

[pokken]

I feel like Zirda and Jegantha are the only ones susceptible to cause problems (and I'm still not convinced of that ). The others won't have that much of an impact I think, especially past the novelty phase.

Interestingly I think Lurrus, Keruga and Gyruda are all vulnerable to the same thing just in a different power band; Lurrus-Ayli is a deck that doesn't really have a home anywhere I don't think. Casting Gatekeeper of Malakir over and over again is something that can be overwhelming.

But on the flipside I don't think that deck is very good. It gives up a *lot* of powerful key cards. It just will do what it does so consistently I don't think it has a real home.

Even Obosh, the Preypiercer presents something that is very difficult to deal with in some metas (damage doubling).

The thing about them that makes their power floor higher than partners is that most of the partners are either bad or overcosted or very narrow. The power level of these guys when they come down is mostly a lot higher than say Akiri, Line-Slinger or Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder.

Just my opinion of course.

[tstorm823]

Just my opinion of course.

I'll second that opinion. They played it pretty safe with the partners in general, and pushed the companions. Which make sense: partner is an all upside ability, companion is meant to require restriction.

[Airi]

Interestingly I think Lurrus, Keruga and Gyruda are all vulnerable to the same thing just in a different power band; Lurrus-Ayli is a deck that doesn't really have a home anywhere I don't think. Casting Gatekeeper of Malakir over and over again is something that can be overwhelming.

I feel like Lurrus-Karlov is probably going to be more of a thing, Karlov doesn't get hurt by the restriction nearly as badly, imo.

I still stand by the fact (not really in reply to you, Pokken, just musing now) that the restrictions are not created equal and some of them, like Jegantha, are not nearly as backbreaking as they appear if you want the effect badly enough.

[pokken]

Yeah, Jegantha's restriction actually might end up being a bit of a bleh for high powered non-cedh circles that have to deal with Sisay/Jegantha because the lack of force of will/force of negation keeps the deck from being top tier competitive