What would it take for Primeval Titan and Sylvan Primordial to be unbanned?

Cow31337Killer
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Post by Cow31337Killer » 4 years ago

Let me start off by saying even though I would personally love to see Primeval Titan|M12 and Sylvan Primordial|GTC unbanned, I can understand the reasons behind their banning in the first place. Still, I am hopeful that one day I'll get to use these cards in my mono-green casual decks. My main question for this thread is this: In your opinion, what would have to change in EDH (in terms of new cards printed, or possible bannings) in order to make these two cards safe to unban? Or, alternatively, do you think enough has changed in the time since their bannings (nearly 7 years ago each) to warrant a possible unban?

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Post by RxPhantom » 4 years ago

I don't see it happening at all. Prime Time hitting the board warps the game into making itself the center of it. It's the same reason Prophet of Kruphix is banned. As for Sylvan Primordial, that thing was just absurd value. If it only did one of its two modes (ramp or land destruction), then it would be fine, but the total package was a bit too much.
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Post by Mookie » 4 years ago

It might be possible for Primeval Titan to be unbanned, although I consider it extremely unlikely. Similar to Prophet of Kruphix, Griselbrand, and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, Primeval Titan has a huge impact when it hits the board. Not necessarily to the extent of the first three, but games will likely centralize around stealing, cloning, killing, and recurring it. Additionally, its impact even when killed immediately is still pretty substantial - fetching Thespian's Stage + Dark Depths or Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth + Cabal Coffers is quite potent. Even if you're not running interesting lands and just fetching basics, I think Primeval Titan would still be run in pretty much every green deck.

I would say that the points in its favor are the existence of Tempt with Discovery and Hour of Promise as other ways to fetch out multiple utility lands, making it a less unique effect. However, both of those cards do so at a significantly less competitive rate than Primeval Titan.

On the other hand, I hope that Sylvan Primordial is never, ever, ever getting unbanned. Only fetches Forests, but it ramps out more lands than Primeval Titan while also setting all of your opponents back, making it even more miserable to play against when reanimated / flickered / ramped out early.

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pokken
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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

I can tell you that my briberies would come back in the moment prime time got unbanned. Right now it's not really worth running. When every Gx deck has prime time it's quite a bit more consistent :)

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Post by cryogen » 4 years ago

The better question to ask is "what has changed in Commander such that these two cards wouldn't continue to do exactly the same things they did before?"

The answer of course, is nothing because we have gotten more playable clones and more flicker/blink effects and they would be just as obnoxious as they were years ago.
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Post by TGambitG » 4 years ago

It would take people to stop playing Commander like it's Legacy Singleton, and remember that the format is for people to have enjoyable games for EVERYONE. Those two cards do NOT do that.

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 4 years ago

I would rather see Balance unbanned than see a return of Sylvan Primordial. I actually can't think of any other card that I supported a ban for as much as I did the banning of primordial. I honestly don't really foresee a future where I can support unbanning primordial. I had to live through super early entomb + rez effects on him followed up with cloning the hell out of him and I just can't get behind ever seeing that again. I remember creating Nim Deathmantle + Ashnond's Altar loops with primordial and I just, don't think I ever want to see him back. Ever.

Primeval Titan..... I think maybe someday it would be less of an issue. As the card pool continues to increase and new effects come out all the time I think the power discrepancy between this card and the next lessens. In my mind Primeval Titan could eventually go the way of Kokusho. As of right now I think the power level of it is still kind of really high but as we get more effects like say Pir's Whim and Hour of Promise I think that very slowly we increase the average power of commander decks. Primeval Titan was INCREDIBLY powerful in his day and I do remember how many tutors / clones / rez effects were always going after him. This said, I think its possible that as we see more and more cards introduced with commander in mind the uniqueness and power of Primeval Titan does slowly diminish.
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Post by Dunharrow » 4 years ago

Primeval Titan will only become more powerful as more lands are printed. I think it is unlikely to be banned. That being said, if Gaea's Cradle and some other powerful lands were banned then maybe it could be reconsidered.

Sylvan Primordial I am not sure. I guess it is just a card that scales too well with multiplayer.
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Post by onering » 4 years ago

I don't understand how a card like hour of promise makes Prime Time more acceptable. Yeah, it's the same effect on the front end, just without a 6/6 trample to go along with it, but Prime Time is a repeatable effect even without help (just attacking every turn). It's also much easier to cheat out, much easier to steal, much easier to recur, much easier to copy, and can be blinked. It isn't tutoring two lands to play one time that is the problem, it's the repeatedly doing so as well as the centralizing nature of the card.

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Post by papa_funk » 4 years ago

Cow31337Killer wrote:
4 years ago
My main question for this thread is this: In your opinion, what would have to change in EDH in order to make these two cards safe to unban?
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Post by Yatsufusa » 4 years ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
4 years ago
I would rather see Balance unbanned than see a return of Sylvan Primordial. I actually can't think of any other card that I supported a ban for as much as I did the banning of primordial. I honestly don't really foresee a future where I can support unbanning primordial. I had to live through super early entomb + rez effects on him followed up with cloning the hell out of him and I just can't get behind ever seeing that again. I remember creating Nim Deathmantle + Ashnond's Altar loops with primordial and I just, don't think I ever want to see him back. Ever.

Primeval Titan..... I think maybe someday it would be less of an issue. As the card pool continues to increase and new effects come out all the time I think the power discrepancy between this card and the next lessens. In my mind Primeval Titan could eventually go the way of Kokusho. As of right now I think the power level of it is still kind of really high but as we get more effects like say Pir's Whim and Hour of Promise I think that very slowly we increase the average power of commander decks. Primeval Titan was INCREDIBLY powerful in his day and I do remember how many tutors / clones / rez effects were always going after him. This said, I think its possible that as we see more and more cards introduced with commander in mind the uniqueness and power of Primeval Titan does slowly diminish.
Funny enough, I'm the opposite, probably due to my own experience - I feel that Primordial as less of a problem than Titan. Both can be abused, no doubt, but Primordial generally benefits 1 deck much more than the others, so the incentive to remove it is a whole lot higher from experience. Titan, on the other hand just plain benefits everybody, so the scramble to abuse it was very real, as I personally witnessed. People forgo'ed win-cons in favor of Titan when using Bribery (or reanimation from others' graveyards) because what was important was the land acceleration enabled them to show what their deck can perform so well that it was more important for that than anything else (to be fair those games were more of vanity shows than outright cEDH games).

Primordial feels like Protean Hulk, where the deck running it no doubt can abuse it well (to the point of broken), but when stolen over, it usually loses a lot of "value" comparatively (can't deny that Primoridal's sub-optimal cases are better than Hulk's, generally speaking). While your statement that Titan parallels Kokusho by a lot does make sense from a theory perspective, I don't feel that the power creep will actually hit Titan the same way it did Kokusho, because life loss and lands are two very different things.

If anything, I feel like Paradox Engine is the actual Titan comparison - Engine didn't suffer the rampancy of Titan because it was an artifact, which is rarer for others to steal, but mana rocks are rampant, so the incentive to steal it when you could I daresay was about equal to Titan (or slightly less). Titan is of a card type easier to steal (creature) that affects another type that's even more common than Mana Rocks (Lands), so honestly if the RC released Titan while still keeping Engine on the list, I'd really question that decision.
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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

I think I'd rather see Primetime than SP personally just because of how much SP craps on so many strategies - artifacts, enchantments, playing nonbasic lands, etc. But I don't think I'd like to see either one. Green is still the most powerful color in casual EDH because ramping and playing fatties is the most powerful thing you can do without pissing in anyone else's cheerios. No need to push it more.

I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say Balance, but...there're a ton of egregious cards on the banlist I would prefer to see before Primetime or SP. recurring nightmare for instance, or even Tolarian Academy.

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