September Ban List Update

[Myllior]

Unexpected, but not unwelcome. While it does hit some genuine decks (such as Dirk's Sorrow's Path), I've seen it used for a number of decks where perfectly valid commanders already existed (dragons, gods, shrines) and those decks were less interesting to me as a result. On balance, I think it's the right move.

It's a bit spookier to think of this as the de facto best endgame for Gallia of the Endless Dance or Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar + Gx nonsense commander decks, but I think that's a niche enough thing for again some low-play commanders.

Some on Reddit suggested Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger, which is both a good combination and I think quite on theme for the commander too.

[onering]

I'm nervous about world fire because it can just be miserable. It either is a 9 Mana I win with setup or a 9 Mana table flip. Playgroups should be able to police it, but it has a lot of potential to be toxic in online play.

Golos needed to die. RiP to cool decks like Dirk's Sorrows Path or my deck that jammed in as many garbage Legends like Tobias or Lady Calaria and hoped I could land three of them on a spin. Those decks were vastly out numbered by easy mode %$#%$#% that was strangling the format.

[Dragonlover]

RiP to cool decks like Dirk's Sorrows Path or my deck that jammed in as many garbage Legends like Tobias or Lady Calaria and hoped I could land three of them on a spin.

If you can, just Rule 0 them in. Like, I get that needs a stable playgroup and if you don't have one then that kind of sucks, but I am lucky enough to have one and be able to do so. I refuse to change my commander because people I've never met and will never play with can't just self police for half a %$#%$#% second, and a deck with roughly 20 alternate wincons needs all the help it can get.

Dragonlover

[Mookie]

Welp, I'm not sad to see Golos, Tireless Pilgrim go. It is unfortunate that some more tame / interesting decks are being hit by the splash damage, but speaking to my own experience, I haven't actually seen any tame Golos decks in the wild. Those that I have seen have felt extremely difficult to deal with without a large amount of dedicated hate. Of course, I've long been a proponent of the compromise 'let Golos stay legal, but put Blood Moon in every precon'. My official stance towards nonlegal commanders is 'I'll play against anything once, but I expect you to have a backup commander available if it's broken', so rule 0'ing the decks gets a thumbs up from me.

When Leovold, Emissary of Trest was banned, I had a friend that was disappointed because he was what made their morph tribal deck playable (this was prior to the printing of Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer). My response to that was that yes, he had a deck that wasn't abusive or overpowered (it didn't include any wheels).... but for every person making a deck that is actually interesting to play against, there are significantly more people building something obnoxious.

As for Worldfire.... I'm not a big fan of the unban, but I will concede the point that it probably won't see much play - the format has gotten much faster since it was originally printed. 9 mana is a lot, and actually winning the game off it will usually require even more mana... especially since any cheap commanders will probably have been cast a few times by the time their controller hits 9+ mana. I guess Mana Geyser is a card though, as is Jhoira of the Ghitu (although I can't recall the last time I actually saw someone piloting Jhoira). On the plus side, unlike a certain other 9 mana sorcery, Worldfire tends to end the game very quickly after it resolves.

....on the plus side, I've had a copy of Worldfire sitting in my trade binder for years, so maybe I'll finally find someone to take it off my hands.

[RxPhantom]

Is anyone really champing at the bit to play Worldfire? I think it came off of the list simply because it could stand to be removed. I remember when it came out and nobody particularly cared one way or the other. The ban seemed kind of unnecessary at the time. Unlike Golos, it's a card that either won't see play, or will be regulated by social contracts.

[JWK]

I don't expect to run into Worldfire very often, mostly because the people I tend to enjoy playing against aren't the sort of people likely to be interested in playing it. I suppose I might theoretically run into it in a game on PlayEDH, but I'd be kind of surprised. I have played a couple hundred games on there and the worst thing I've encountered other than tedious combos is a couple of Expropriates.

[onering]

Would Gallia actually want Worldfire? The deck can play a long game, but through being deceptively resilient through drawing cards and utilizing the gy, and Gallia being cheap enough to recast multiple times. A big, 9 mana haymaker you have to set up seems to run counter to her ability of discarding a card at random to draw 2. I don't really want to sit back and wait to set up Worldfire when I could be punching in damage and laughing off sweepers.

[Toshi]

Would Gallia actually want Worldfire? The deck can play a long game, but through being deceptively resilient through drawing cards and utilizing the gy, and Gallia being cheap enough to recast multiple times. A big, 9 mana haymaker you have to set up seems to run counter to her ability of discarding a card at random to draw 2. I don't really want to sit back and wait to set up Worldfire when I could be punching in damage and laughing off sweepers.

As a Gallia of the Endless Dance player myself i'll echo this.
An overcosted sorcery that requires an unintuitive setup is just bland compared to a well-timed Rites of Initiation or Mercadia's Downfall, who fit that deck so much better.

9 mana for Worldfire isn't as hard to force early, in a format where Jeska's Will, Mana Geyser, Turnabout and others exist. Especially when Jeska's Will might even exile the extra damage damage spell you otherwise might have to dig for.
But as others have pointed out, which deck wants to run it? Idk really.

[lookingupanddown]

Is anyone really champing at the bit to play Worldfire? I think it came off of the list simply because it could stand to be removed. I remember when it came out and nobody particularly cared one way or the other. The ban seemed kind of unnecessary at the time. Unlike Golos, it's a card that either won't see play, or will be regulated by social contracts.

Most common ones I've seen usually use it as a game-winning combo, between Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger and the Chandra tribal deck running Chandra, Awakened Inferno.

[ISBPathfinder]

Is anyone really champing at the bit to play Worldfire? I think it came off of the list simply because it could stand to be removed. I remember when it came out and nobody particularly cared one way or the other. The ban seemed kind of unnecessary at the time. Unlike Golos, it's a card that either won't see play, or will be regulated by social contracts.

I remember when it got banned. Like literally nobody was really paying attention to the card because it was more or less already kind of a taboo thing to do and its not easy to abuse it. I don't particularly expect it to make much impact.

[Sharpened]

Is anyone really champing at the bit to play Worldfire? I think it came off of the list simply because it could stand to be removed. I remember when it came out and nobody particularly cared one way or the other. The ban seemed kind of unnecessary at the time. Unlike Golos, it's a card that either won't see play, or will be regulated by social contracts.

I remember when it got banned. Like literally nobody was really paying attention to the card because it was more or less already kind of a taboo thing to do and its not easy to abuse it. I don't particularly expect it to make much impact.

Well, no one was paying attention because Prime Time got banned at the same time. I reread the MTGSalvation thread yesterday (I had free time) and it's 90% Primeval Titan discussion, 8% Kokusho unbanning, and the stray Worldfire comments.

[ISBPathfinder]

Well, no one was paying attention because Prime Time got banned at the same time. I reread the MTGSalvation thread yesterday (I had free time) and it's 90% Primeval Titan discussion, 8% Kokusho unbanning, and the stray Worldfire comments.

That is true, I was more saying that before it got banned it wasn't getting much attention but yes it did get vastly overshadowed by other talk when it happened too.

[cryogen]

Sat on my thoughts for a day regarding these, and I'm disappointed by both of them, not so much because of the cards themselves but the reasons behind them.

Golos: I acknowledge that it was ranked #1 most popular general by EDHREC and that it is probably the easiest goodstuff general to use. But I take particular issue with this part: "...but the greatest is that in the low-to-middle tiers where we focus the banlist, Golos is simply a better choice of leader for all but the most commander-centric decks."

I'm sorry, but low to mid tiers is the bread and butter of the format. This is where we choose our general because of how it resonates with us, not because it is the strictly better option. And what exactly is "the most commander-centric", anyway? Almost every general guides your deck design at list a little bit, and the diversity of Commander is huge. So maybe Golos had to die for the sins of WotC, but I still think it was a bad decision.

Wildfire: First of all, who actually was petitioning to unban this in the first place? That aside, the bar for unbanning a card is supposed to be higher than banning one, with the the most important question to ask is will the format be better or at least unchanged if this is unbanned. How is the format better now that Wildfire is legal? Were people really itching to play Barren Glory or have yet another "I win the game unless you counter this high cmc card" card? Wildfire is a %$#% card that when played improperly invalidates the entire game and turns it into a dragged out game of chance, and when played properly forces players to scoop rather than play the aforementioned game of chance.

[ISBPathfinder]

Sat on my thoughts for a day regarding these, and I'm disappointed by both of them, not so much because of the cards themselves but the reasons behind them.

Golos: I acknowledge that it was ranked #1 most popular general by EDHREC and that it is probably the easiest goodstuff general to use. But I take particular issue with this part: "...but the greatest is that in the low-to-middle tiers where we focus the banlist, Golos is simply a better choice of leader for all but the most commander-centric decks."

I'm sorry, but low to mid tiers is the bread and butter of the format. This is where we choose our general because of how it resonates with us, not because it is the strictly better option. And what exactly is "the most commander-centric", anyway? Almost every general guides your deck design at list a little bit, and the diversity of Commander is huge. So maybe Golos had to die for the sins of WotC, but I still think it was a bad decision.

Wildfire: First of all, who actually was petitioning to unban this in the first place? That aside, the bar for unbanning a card is supposed to be higher than banning one, with the the most important question to ask is will the format be better or at least unchanged if this is unbanned. How is the format better now that Wildfire is legal? Were people really itching to play Barren Glory or have yet another "I win the game unless you counter this high cmc card" card? Wildfire is a %$#% card that when played improperly invalidates the entire game and turns it into a dragged out game of chance, and when played properly forces players to scoop rather than play the aforementioned game of chance.

The one thing I will say about Worldfire is that it set an odd precedent that I am happy with it being overturned. I agree with you that nobody really seemed to care but it seemed odd to me to say that this super weird finisher / LD type effect is banned but all of these better finishers / LD effects are legal. I do see a lot of value in what you are saying about it though.

I guess it gives a finisher for Squee, the Immortal lol. I get that it could work with any commander with floating mana I just point out Squee here because he is cheap and maintains his low cost.

[cryogen]

Sat on my thoughts for a day regarding these, and I'm disappointed by both of them, not so much because of the cards themselves but the reasons behind them.

Golos: I acknowledge that it was ranked #1 most popular general by EDHREC and that it is probably the easiest goodstuff general to use. But I take particular issue with this part: "...but the greatest is that in the low-to-middle tiers where we focus the banlist, Golos is simply a better choice of leader for all but the most commander-centric decks."

I'm sorry, but low to mid tiers is the bread and butter of the format. This is where we choose our general because of how it resonates with us, not because it is the strictly better option. And what exactly is "the most commander-centric", anyway? Almost every general guides your deck design at list a little bit, and the diversity of Commander is huge. So maybe Golos had to die for the sins of WotC, but I still think it was a bad decision.

Wildfire: First of all, who actually was petitioning to unban this in the first place? That aside, the bar for unbanning a card is supposed to be higher than banning one, with the the most important question to ask is will the format be better or at least unchanged if this is unbanned. How is the format better now that Wildfire is legal? Were people really itching to play Barren Glory or have yet another "I win the game unless you counter this high cmc card" card? Wildfire is a %$#% card that when played improperly invalidates the entire game and turns it into a dragged out game of chance, and when played properly forces players to scoop rather than play the aforementioned game of chance.

The one thing I will say about Worldfire is that it set an odd precedent that I am happy with it being overturned. I agree with you that nobody really seemed to care but it seemed odd to me to say that this super weird finisher / LD type effect is banned but all of these better finishers / LD effects are legal. I do see a lot of value in what you are saying about it though.

I guess it gives a finisher for Squee, the Immortal lol. I get that it could work with any commander with floating mana I just point out Squee here because he is cheap and maintains his low cost.

If it was never banned then I wouldn't care at all, because it is the type of card I don't anticipate people clamoring to start running. And if I come across it I'll just scoop. For me, these type of finishers (spend a lot of mana, cast Card X, win or effectively win on the spot if no one has an instant speed response" are all so different that even though they share a common theme they also differ in other aspects enough that you have to evaluate them in a vacuum. And for me, that evaluation starts and ends at how you actually win.

[Sharpened]

So I think Sheldon did a relatively poor job at communicating why Golos had to be banned.

And while it's nice to say that people at the low or mid tiers of the format choose their general because of how it resonates with the player and not because it's strictly better, doesn't the overwhelming popularity of Golos decks just blow that idea out of the water. Golos isn't a flavorful general. He doesn't resonate with people. Is there any other highly played general that EDHRec doesn't list any "High Synnergy Cards" for?

One thing cool that Golos did was it effectively let people build a deck with a land as a commander. That's pretty cool, and worthwhile, and we definitely need a commander like that.

But too much of Golos's play was because he was a must kill general because if he lived you won, and he effectively had a commander tax of 1 unless he was countered. The card as designed is pretty miserable. And it's everywhere. It's the most played commander of the past 2 years by a significant margin. If people had resisted the siren song of the best 5 color goodstuff piles and played generals that resonated with them or were particularly flavorful, we wouldn't be here. But clearly, that didn't happen. Golos was centralizing in casual games, which is why he had to go.

Rereading the old thread looking for Worldfire discussion, I was struck by how people talked about Primeval Titan in regards to his ban. So much of decisions had become - if the card could get Primeval Titan, just get that. What's the best creature to reanimate? Prime Time. Casting Bribery? Target the green player and fetch Prime Time. What creature to tutor up with Survival? What to Entomb? What to clone? The answer was always Prime Time. Not because it was the coolest or because it you may or may not have needed specific lands. Not even because it was the creature that pushed you closest to winning (although it often did). Prime Time let you do more stuff.. It busted open doors and turbo-charged whatever you wanted to do. People went for Prime Time at all levels, not because they were cut-throat competitive, but because it enabled our worst instincts.

Golos operates in a similar vein. It pushes you ahead. It lets you do more - 3 free spells an activation? As long as you aren't tied to a specific commander, Golos can be your commander. Why make a Blink deck with a dedicated blink commander - just play enough blink spells and Golos as your commander. He blinks well and lets you add colors. Same for Dragons. Or for landfall - just stick Omnath in the 99 instead of the command zone. And yeah, plenty of people were tied to specifc commanders, but the numbers tell us that plenty of others just expanded their deck with Golos at the helm and played popular commanders in the 99.

The cards that are most important on the banlist are the unfair ones that people can lie to themselves that they are playing fairly. It always blows me away to go back and read how many people that Primeval Titan was fair and they didn't have a problem with it. Golos was a card that, while not as good as Prime Titan, did a lot of similar things and was even more problematic as it could sit in the command zone.

My condolences to the people that liked him, and I hope we get a fair Commander that lets you build around a specific land, but Golos really had to go.

[Hermes_]

Is anyone really champing at the bit to play Worldfire? I think it came off of the list simply because it could stand to be removed. I remember when it came out and nobody particularly cared one way or the other. The ban seemed kind of unnecessary at the time. Unlike Golos, it's a card that either won't see play, or will be regulated by social contracts.

I remember when it got banned. Like literally nobody was really paying attention to the card because it was more or less already kind of a taboo thing to do and its not easy to abuse it. I don't particularly expect it to make much impact.

I was saddened by its ban,but then I had a Apocalypse +Barren Glory wincon deck.

[BeneTleilax]

And what exactly is "the most commander-centric", anyway? Almost every general guides your deck design at list a little bit, and the diversity of Commander is huge.

That's why he said "most". This is an odd misreading here, surely you will admit that some decks can be more commander-centric than others? Golos was monopolizing goodstuff decks (which are generally *less* commander-centric), and putting pressure on every other archetype.

That aside, the bar for unbanning a card is supposed to be higher than banning one

So long as the demand to keep the banlist short is part of the criteria for banning, which it appears to be given how often it comes up in discussion here, this rule creates a feedback loop. If a card cannot be unbanned without clearing a higher bar than a ban would, and the bar to ban a card gets higher with the length of the banlist, the banlist will calcify. That is detrimental, if not lethal, to a rapidly growing format targeted by an increasing number of new products.

[Crazy Monkey]

I can understand the Golos banning within the context of games outside a dedicated group. I never had a personal experience where it was over-represented, but I did somewhat resent the concept of a "best goodstuff" commander for any color combination. I do agree that it would be nice to have an option for a way to build around a land, but a rule 0 conversation probably covers this in my own group.

I'm surprised at the worldfire unban, for the reasons mentioned by others (literally nobody was asking for this), but in hindsight it's in keeping with a pattern for the past 4+ years. Nearly every ban since Leovold, Emissary of Trest has included an unban; presumably in a effort to keep the banlist short. (Ignore Hullbreacher) I appreciate this because it does show the the RC is committed to the path that they believe makes the format most accessible; ie. a short banned list.

By comparison I think that the card paired/swapped with Leovold (Protean Hulk) was a lot more of an impact on the format than Worldfire will ever be. And I think, much like hulk, it will be self regulating in established metagames. It's basically the red version of Expropriate, either much more limited (float mana → commander) or random in who wins off of it. I don't anticipate it sticking around in an established metagame unless it's a wincon. Casting it blind/without a plan is the type of game invalidating chaos that few will tolerate repeatedly.

Do I want to play/play against Worldfire? Not any more than expropriate. And I don't expect games with random players to have built around it any more than I would the Protean Hulks, expropriates, and combos of the world.

[cryogen]

That's why he said "most". This is an odd misreading here, surely you will admit that some decks can be more commander-centric than others? Golos was monopolizing goodstuff decks (which are generally *less* commander-centric), and putting pressure on every other archetype.

That was a poor quote on my part. The emphasis should have been more on "commander-centric", not necessarily that it was the "most". My point was that every general to an extent is commander-centric, in that people tend to build around the one (or two) card(s) you always have access to, even if it is just in the theme of the deck.

So long as the demand to keep the banlist short is part of the criteria for banning, which it appears to be given how often it comes up in discussion here, this rule creates a feedback loop. If a card cannot be unbanned without clearing a higher bar than a ban would, and the bar to ban a card gets higher with the length of the banlist, the banlist will calcify. That is detrimental, if not lethal, to a rapidly growing format targeted by an increasing number of new products.

Emphasis mine. Where are you drawing this from? Length of the ban list, to my knowledge, plays no part on banning or unbanning a card. The bar for banning/unbanning a card is because of the card itself and how it interacts in the format. The only cards which probably get harder to unban the more time passes are cards on the Reserve List, due to the secondary market impact of unbanning them.

[BeneTleilax]

Length of the ban list, to my knowledge, plays no part on banning or unbanning a card.

People continually use the length of the banlist as a reason not to ban new cards almost wherever the subject is raised. If that's not part of RC policy, y'all need to clarify that.

The emphasis should have been more on "commander-centric", not necessarily that it was the "most". My point was that every general to an extent is commander-centric, in that people tend to build around the one (or two) card(s) you always have access to, even if it is just in the theme of the deck.

People build around the general to varying degrees though, and Sheldon explicitly acknowledged that. Players who haven't built around their general *much* ("much", not "at all") are more likely to trade them out for another, and those players were gravitating towards Golos to a format-warping extent.

[cryogen]

People continually use the length of the banlist as a reason not to ban new cards almost wherever the subject is raised. If that's not part of RC policy, y'all need to clarify that.

I'm not on the RC though, so I can't really clarify anything other than my own opinions? And unless the "people" you're citing are the four members of the Rules Committee or the thirteen (? I don't actually know how big it is anymore) people on the CAG, then them using the length of the list as a reason to ban/unban cards hold as much weight as anything I say.

Players who haven't built around their general *much* ("much", not "at all") are more likely to trade them out for another, and those players were gravitating towards Golos to a format-warping extent.

If you say so. I'm not going to debate this. From my own experience Golos wasn't a problem, and I've heard people complaining as well as not. Like I said before, I don't dispute that it was heavily played, nor that the decks people built are being mischaracterized. All I disagree with is how I interpreted commander-centric decks an their place in the format.

[onering]

The greatest loss from Golos is not being able to play a land as a commander anymore. This can easily be solved by WotC though, simply by printing a fixed version of the effect without the nonsense stapled to it. Print a real 5 color commander (as in, you pay one of each mana to cast it) that searches out a land to the battlefield. Make it a 5/5 with some decent keywords, say Vigilance and Trample. There, now you can build Sorrow's Path.dek or Field of the Dead.dek with a commander that doesn't have a ridiculous activated ability stapled on, and for which being 5 color is at least somewhat of a drawback rather than the commander fixing your mana. Hell, do a 4/4 for 2WG that tutors the land to play tapped, then give it the activated ability UBR, Sacrifice Cardname: Draw 2 cards. Now you can get your pet land sooner, and the commander isn't broken nonsense. There's a lot of opportunity for WotC to print a commander that tutors for a nonbasic that's actually interesting and fair in its own right, where when your running the deck you don't have to assure the group that your deck isn't the same tired bs they've seen a million times.

[pokken]

Just making a legit upgraded Solemn that gets the land tapped and draws 2 when it dies would be pretty fun.
Make it cost Reaper King mana to make it colorlessable, or even 1WUBRG would be fine.

[DirkGently]

The good news is that now we can rehash the wish arguments in a fresh new light now that rule 11 is rule 10. Down with rule 10!

(as an aside, the recently-removed rule 10 was extremely weird. If I'd ever noticed it before I would have definitely agreed it should have been axed since it literally didn't do anything.)