My experience with Prophet was that once it hit the field, games became centralized around killing, protecting, cloning, and reanimating it, with any players that managed to hold on to theirs for multiple turns quickly running away with the game. Even if your deck isn't built around it, cloning a Prophet will usually provide a substantial advantage - almost every deck can benefit from either the extra mana or the flash.Myllior wrote: ↑4 years agoThanks for the explanations. I was more wondering what it is that pushed Prophet of Kruphix onto the banlist while the Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and Seedborn Muse combo is still free? Although I guess I answered myself already; it's the combination of the two effects on one card that pushes it over the edge, since it can never be played in a way that isn't readily abusable. Cheers again.
On the other hand, if two players have a Teferi, they sort of cancel out so that neither player gets access to the flash, so cloning it isn't nearly as attractive. Similarly, Seedborn Muse is a powerful effect when built around, but there are many decks that don't play a bunch of instants or mana sinks, so it is possible that a player may not have anything to do with the extra untaps.
Going back to the original banlist update... I don't really have any complaints. I didn't encounter a lot of Iona or Paradox Engine. Looking at the philosophy document through the lens of 'we want to promote fun over balance', getting rid of Iona makes a lot of sense - it may not be a particularly widely played or powerful card, but it's definitely not fun to play against. Similarly, Painter's Servant may enable a lot of broken things (such as griefing with Ugin / All is Dust), but it also allows for a lot of fun and interesting interactions.