[SCD] Drannith Magistrate

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Post by umtiger » 3 years ago

pokken wrote:
3 years ago
It's probably the single most powerful thing you can do for 2 mana if you do it before people play their commanders and people don't answer it. You're denying 3 players - on average - at least 3 virtual cards each (given the average power level of commanders).

People are seriously misunderstanding how big of an impact denying commanders asymmetrically can be.
idk about you, but in most games of EDH, I know that my opponents judge the merits of their starting hands highly on the basis of being able to execute T2 Rampant Growth/Signet. So in a typical game, T2 Magistrate will leave the caster behind.

You're seriously over-stating the impact of denying a commander. Unless you're going all-in on a glass cannon, there are many alternative play patterns besides rushing to a general. Sand-bagging a general can be a correct line of play. If Magistrate denied more things as collateral damage (like an amalgam of Magistrate + Containment Priest), maybe I'd see it your way.
Dunharrow wrote:
3 years ago
If every white deck plays this then I am sure it will be heavily considered for banning.
I don't plan on playing it. Just paint a target on myself. But if 3 decks at every table are running it then we have a problem.
So if every deck packing red starts to play Blood Moon, are we going to ban that too? Perhaps, it's time to change the mindset that one's general is a given each and every single game? Having a virtually-undeniable access to a resource throughout the game is broken. And it's okay for people to stop you from doing broken stuff. Less complaints about cards like these and more complaints about Edgar Markov, Derevi, Yukiro instead.

Magistrate is neither a board-stasis-inducing-card like Winter Orb nor a choke-you-out-of-resources-card like Smokestack.

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Post by Yatsufusa » 3 years ago

Ultimately I think the Magistrate has to go through the "tried and tested" route of being played for some time before any decisions can be made, not unlike much more explosive cards like Griselbrand, Prophet and P.Titan went through. Personally I think/feel there are enough decks out there not overly reliant on their Commander and pack enough removal (especially creature removal, since most Commanders themselves are creatures) that Magistrate reaches at most the same level of the more-brutal-but-not-enough-to-be-banned stax cards like Winter Orb and Smokestack.

But waitaminute, isn't that the same argument some used against me when I was campaigning hard to get Iona banned? Yes, but Iona and Magistrate operate vastly differently despite the surface end-result feeling similar. The crux is Iona was flexible in color choice and color identity is a format rule restriction... which Iona could potentially use to exploit/invert the multiplayer aspect of the game, which was why I deemed no matter how little/controlled the situation could become, even one case of 3 players agreeing to exclude the fourth out of the entire game because Color Identity worked in their favor was one case too much.

Waitanotherminute doesn't this mean if three players who didn't care about their Commanders could lock out the fourth player? Yes, but at that point of time it's solely sheer coincidence not worked-in-favor by a format rule restriction. How reliant you are on your Commander is variable you can fully control (even if some Commanders are more needy than others). The Commander and how you build around it (or ignore it) is a added feature of the format, not like color identity which functions as a restriction.

Staxing/punishing/locking a additional featured pillar of the format (commanders) is significantly below exploiting a restrictional pillar (CI) to invert yet another pillar (multiplayer). If anything the Magistrate is likely to properly invoke the multiplayer pillar to do its part properly.

I daresay that the card encouraging more overtly-commander-reliant decks to either rely less or pack more removal so they always have access/protection would actually be a good thing. At least better than arguing that people should play multicolored decks over monocolored decks because of Iona (trust me I've actually seen those raised up before).
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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

umtiger wrote:
3 years ago
You're seriously over-stating the impact of denying a commander.
And from my side I think you're dramatically underselling the effect. Ephara is a very weak commander and represents 2 cards a turn cycle for 4 mana.

I get the argument people make about your deck has to function without the commander etcetc. But that is just not reality anymore. A good half the decks you run into are complete buildarounds.

At this point there's nothing to do really but wait and see, really, since the RC is fine with it. But watch out for it :) casual players are going to loooooooathe this card.

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Post by umtiger » 3 years ago

pokken wrote:
3 years ago
And from my side I think you're dramatically underselling the effect. Ephara is a very weak commander and represents 2 cards a turn cycle for 4 mana.
You're being quite disingenuous here. You have to make an upfront payment of 2UW + continue to pay more mana + have 2 triggers before you're even up any cards. But yes, commanders are a strong source of advantage, which is why it's perfectly legitimate to have a way to stop or slow them down.

However, posing an extremely vulnerable roadblock like Magistrate (even asymmetric) isn't a big enough tempo advantage to help you runway with the game. It's easier to win games by actually winning rather than stopping other people from winning. That's why Prophet of Kruphix is kill-on-sight and Magistrate isn't. So please stop trying to use the "dies-to-doom-blade" argument in your favor.

Stopping others from playing generals is strong, but here it's more like halting. Magistrate doesn't take away resources like LD or prevent like Nether Void. Your opponent(s) can still execute other tactics even if their strategy is general-centric.
pokken wrote:
3 years ago
I get the argument people make about your deck has to function without the commander etcetc. But that is just not reality anymore. A good half the decks you run into are complete buildarounds.

At this point there's nothing to do really but wait and see, really, since the RC is fine with it. But watch out for it :) casual players are going to loooooooathe this card.
Except casuals aren't going to be playing Magistrate to lock people out of games. And if it's not used in conjunction with another card to lock a table (Uba Mask, etc.), then how is this card any different from Magus of the Moon, etc? And if it is used in conjunction with another card, then how is this card any different from Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir + Knowledge Pool? Bannings suck and I have a high-bar for banning, so I have some bias, but why should we legitimately "watch out" for this being banned, when every sign points to this being an okay card?

I play a Sram deck and built it as a Boogles glass-cannon with 36 auras (mostly 1cmc and mostly crap like Red Ward). You can play Magistrate in your 99 against me all day and I won't even bother changing decks. But then again, I'm not a salty-MTG player. You have to a.) get to 2 mana before me and b.) have it in the top 9 cards of your library. On the other hand, I have Sram each and every game plus I stuffed my deck with enough moxen to have a T1 Sram near 25%* of the time (w/o mulligans, it's higher with mulligans but since my strategy isn't to mull into a T1 Sram, it's not fair to include it in calculations).

*hyper-geometric distribution with drawing 8 cards and having Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, & Lotus Petal in my 99

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Post by onering » 3 years ago

I think a card that makes you the archenemy, while not actually helping you get ahead on resources, is a lot worse (for the person playing the card) than a card that makes you the archenemy but gives you an overwhelming advantage on mana. Magistrate will tend to make you the archenemy on principle, because people will want to play their commander, but Prophet made you the archenemy by necessity, because people had to deal with it immediately or lose.

I feel like the correct play against magistrate (unless you're playing flashback, escape, suspend, etc) is to ignore it until the turn before you want to play your commander, and kill it end of turn before you untap. It only hurts you under pretty specific circumstances, so you can reap the benefit of your opponents also not being able to cast their commanders and maybe one of them spends the removal spell to handle it and its no problem at all.

I really feel like for this card to be banned, we need to see it start to show up almost every game, and have a negative impact on those games. If its everywhere but the typical game with magistrate sees it eat removal after a couple turns when someone is ready to cast their commander, then it won't be ban worthy. If games where it shows up tend to result in people being unable to play their commanders for most of the game, and this is a common occurrence, then we have a problem.

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Post by cryogen » 3 years ago

umtiger wrote:
3 years ago
So if every deck packing red starts to play Blood Moon, are we going to ban that too? Perhaps, it's time to change the mindset that one's general is a given each and every single game? Having a virtually-undeniable access to a resource throughout the game is broken. And it's okay for people to stop you from doing broken stuff. Less complaints about cards like these and more complaints about Edgar Markov, Derevi, Yukiro instead.

Magistrate is neither a board-stasis-inducing-card like Winter Orb nor a choke-you-out-of-resources-card like Smokestack.
I think banning tuck sent the message that commanders are special and permanently shutting them down is a bad thing.
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Post by Maluko » 3 years ago

I would like to add a point that I believe has not been discussed properly in this post before. Drannith Magistrate doesn't just stop your commander, it stops everyone else's too. In some circumstances, this can actually be advantageous to the table as a whole. I won't lie, I added the Magistrate to Winota solely because my metagame is full of Golos, Tireless Pilgrim decks everywhere and I'm just sick of seeing it. The card is excellent against Golos because even if you fail to stop it from being cast, you can at least stop its activated ability. And stopping obnoxious commanders is something you may want to do sometimes, even if you can't play your commander as a consequence. You may be playing the coolest deck in history, that doesn't mean your opponents are going to match your power level. Unlike Prophet of Kruphix, which gave massive amounts of card advantage (if played correctly) to its owner only, the Magistrate can be used as a political tool, which makes it far more interesting and not worthy of banning in my opinion. And unlike Iona, Shield of Emeria, it doesn't shut down entire decks and can be easily removed. Although it can also be more easily recurred by the likes of Sun Titan, I'll give you that.

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Post by DirkGently » 3 years ago

@onering That is also my assessment. Though if multiple people are getting locked out of their commander for most of the game, I really hope the lesson they learn is "play some removal and/or have a reasonable backup plan of some sort" and not "rabble rabble bad card ban plz".

I doubt I'll play it outside of a dedicated hatebears card. Seems like it puts a lot of focus on you but doesn't provide enough benefit against the actually good decks, imo.
Maluko wrote:
3 years ago
Unlike Prophet of Kruphix, which gave massive amounts of card advantage
Tempo advantage, not card advantage.

Obviously most decks can turn one into the other, but broadly speaking I'd say tempo advantage is FAR more exploitable than card advantage, especially in commander where you can play a 20-card draw spell and still lose pretty easily. Hence why sphinx is fine and PoK is banned.
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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

umtiger wrote:
3 years ago
pokken wrote:
3 years ago
And from my side I think you're dramatically underselling the effect. Ephara is a very weak commander and represents 2 cards a turn cycle for 4 mana.
You're being quite disingenuous here. You have to make an upfront payment of 2UW + continue to pay more mana + have 2 triggers before you're even up any cards. But yes, commanders are a strong source of advantage, which is why it's perfectly legitimate to have a way to stop or slow them down.
I'll ask you to temper your aggression a bit. I will use the word disingenuous from time to time myself when someone is obviously trying to word-wrangle -- I take a bit of exception to an accusation of insincerity here.

I have played Ephara for many years and the reason I said 2 cards a turn cycle was specifically to temper the investment requirement. +4 cards is common with actual investment. +2 cards is me playing a creature every turn and one flash dude or one enabler, which is pretty much the baseline.

In counterpoint, I think the claims that the card can just be answered are a bit confusing. You had better be playing exile or tuck removal if you don't want it to just show up again every turn in most white decks :P Once it hits the battlefield it's going to keep hitting the battlefield until someone exiles it or grave hates it.

As to the rest - I'll agree that time will have to tell, but I think you're underestimating how starved white is for good cards and what the bar for casual cards is these days.

On EDHrec it's one of the most played cards from Ikoria already (more than parcelbeast or any of the ultimatums or companions).

My prediction you can check later is it becomes a virtual autoinclude in white decks (mono white/2c majority white decks) and heavily played otherwise.

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Post by Airi » 3 years ago

I like the card a lot. I think its a nice middle ground to things like tuck being legal, as this isn't nearly as backbreaking. Sometimes, you need to delay a commander to catch back up in a game. I doubt this will be a source of "permanent" removal in the same way that tuck was.

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Post by umtiger » 3 years ago

pokken wrote:
3 years ago
In counterpoint, I think the claims that the card can just be answered are a bit confusing. You had better be playing exile or tuck removal if you don't want it to just show up again every turn in most white decks :P Once it hits the battlefield it's going to keep hitting the battlefield until someone exiles it or grave hates it.
I'm not sure about the "confusing" part. It's quite obvious that Magistrate is very easily answered. It's a speed-bump, not a clock. No one needs to be packing spot removal for this 1W 1/3.
1.) It has no natural protection and it has no natural recursion.
2.) It has no etb trigger.
3.) It does not present a threat in combat.
4.) It is a low-value target to spend resources to recur. Like, if you're Sun Titan'ing this...I don't care. I'll remove Sun Titan first because it's a card that would actually help you win.
5.) Once it hits the battlefield, it does nothing. Which sometimes is very, very nice (ala Null Rod). But this is much more narrow...I know the counter is, "Well, everyone has a general" but shutting down artifacts is leagues stronger and Null Rod actually does affect artifacts already on the battlefield unlike Magistrate.

pokken wrote:
3 years ago
As to the rest - I'll agree that time will have to tell, but I think you're underestimating how starved white is for good cards and what the bar for casual cards is these days.

On EDHrec it's one of the most played cards from Ikoria already (more than parcelbeast or any of the ultimatums or companions).

My prediction you can check later is it becomes a virtual autoinclude in white decks (mono white/2c majority white decks) and heavily played otherwise.
No one is underestimating that mono-white sucks. But it's not starved on hate-bears, you just can't play them as 4-of's. White is starved on "I-win-the-game-type" cards not stuff like this.

Even if Magistrate is an auto-include, that's not a ban-worthy offense. And this is not a miserable effect to play under, not even close.

I'm not misunderstanding anything about "casual." Perhaps, you are. "Casual" in almost every common usage of the term in online discourse with regards to EDH means that Uba Mask + Drannith Magistrate is frowned upon. So your incentive to play Drannith Magistrate should go even lower in a casual setting unless I'm misunderstanding something.

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Post by Wallycaine » 3 years ago

cryogen wrote:
3 years ago
umtiger wrote:
3 years ago
So if every deck packing red starts to play Blood Moon, are we going to ban that too? Perhaps, it's time to change the mindset that one's general is a given each and every single game? Having a virtually-undeniable access to a resource throughout the game is broken. And it's okay for people to stop you from doing broken stuff. Less complaints about cards like these and more complaints about Edgar Markov, Derevi, Yukiro instead.

Magistrate is neither a board-stasis-inducing-card like Winter Orb nor a choke-you-out-of-resources-card like Smokestack.
I think banning tuck sent the message that commanders are special and permanently shutting them down is a bad thing.
While true, the Magistrate is very specifically not permanently shutting them down. It's temporarily shutting them down for as long as the Magistrate survives, which is unlikely to be terribly long.

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Post by RxPhantom » 3 years ago

Wallycaine wrote:
3 years ago
pokken wrote:
3 years ago
RxPhantom wrote:
3 years ago
Also, a T2 Magistrate makes you the archenemy. If the other players at the table are powerless to stop it, then they may need to take a critical look at their decks.
That is literally *exactly* what people said about prophet of Kruphix, but T4 prophet :) "If you can't kill a 5 mana 2/3 then what's the matter with you" etc :P

And it made you archenemy etc.
The major difference here is that if you didn't remove it at instant speed before the next players turn, they were already getting a significant mana advantage out of it. If you don't remove the Magistrate right away... you... play your other cards? In order for it to even be disruptive, it needs to come down before your commander, not be removed, and be out at a point in the game where playing your commander is the right move. That's actually a fairly specific set of circumstances, and even when they come true, the delta between "play your commander" and "play the other cards you can play" is typically not so huge as to shut someone out of the game. It's not until you've completely run out of other cards to play that it becomes a huge problem, at which point... you probably weren't in good position anyways.
Took the words right out of my mouth. Letting a player go a whole turn cycle with Prophet may let them run away with the game. Magistrate does nothing like that. Sure, it cuts off access from what is likely the most important card in your deck, but as I said before, your deck shouldn't roll over and die without its commander. Personally, I've never built a deck that became powerless without its commander. There are 99 other cards in the deck.
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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

umtiger wrote:
3 years ago
5.) Once it hits the battlefield, it does nothing. Which sometimes is very, very nice (ala Null Rod). But this is much more narrow...I know the counter is, "Well, everyone has a general" but shutting down artifacts is leagues stronger and Null Rod actually does affect artifacts already on the battlefield unlike Magistrate.
I think this is the main point we have of disagreement; it doesn't "do nothing." It allows me to play my commander and (conservatively) draw an extra 1-3 cards per turn cycle while you can't. That is something.

It has no built in recursion, but all those arguments about protection/recursion are distractions. They're variants of "dies to doomblade" which we've established is not a benchmark for problematic gameplay in commander. (It is, however, in the color with some of the most powerful creature recursion that basically all hits it)

The fundamental difference between it and other very powerful baneslayer cards (that are powerful by virtue of sitting on the battlefield) that is brought up is that people can just wait and not cast their generals

However, that same argument can be made of Prophet of Kruphix; if you just leave it I'll just accumulate some value, then you kill it. If you just leave Magistrate, I accumulate commander value while you don't, for as long as it's on the battlefield.
umtiger wrote:
3 years ago
No one is underestimating that mono-white sucks. But it's not starved on hate-bears, you just can't play them as 4-of's. White is starved on "I-win-the-game-type" cards not stuff like this.

Even if Magistrate is an auto-include, that's not a ban-worthy offense. And this is not a miserable effect to play under, not even close.

I'm not misunderstanding anything about "casual." Perhaps, you are. "Casual" in almost every common usage of the term in online discourse with regards to EDH means that Uba Mask + Drannith Magistrate is frowned upon. So your incentive to play Drannith Magistrate should go even lower in a casual setting unless I'm misunderstanding something.
White is starved on hatebears that are both socially acceptable and one-sided. Most of white's good hatebears require a lot of setup to be good; Hushbringer and Eidolon of Rhetoric are probably the two strongest mono white hatebears in EDH and they're symmetrical which makes them very narrow.

My opinion is that this card will become socially acceptable because it's so easy to play; it's not like winter orb at all because orb requires support to be good. Magistrate is just good. And it doesn't mess with people's lands, which is the main sin in casual play :P
Airi wrote:
3 years ago
I like the card a lot. I think its a nice middle ground to things like tuck being legal, as this isn't nearly as backbreaking. Sometimes, you need to delay a commander to catch back up in a game. I doubt this will be a source of "permanent" removal in the same way that tuck was.
Part of what makes me really suspicious of this card is how much I like it and how much it suits my style of gameplay. :)

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Post by Wallycaine » 3 years ago

pokken wrote:
3 years ago
umtiger wrote:
3 years ago
5.) Once it hits the battlefield, it does nothing. Which sometimes is very, very nice (ala Null Rod). But this is much more narrow...I know the counter is, "Well, everyone has a general" but shutting down artifacts is leagues stronger and Null Rod actually does affect artifacts already on the battlefield unlike Magistrate.
I think this is the main point we have of disagreement; it doesn't "do nothing." It allows me to play my commander and (conservatively) draw an extra 1-3 cards per turn cycle while you can't. That is something.
That's... not the Magistrate doing that, though? Like, you're adding the effects of a whole seperate card, and calling it something the Magistrate does. The Magistrate stops other players from playing their commanders. That's it. That's the whole effect.

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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

Wallycaine wrote:
3 years ago
That's... not the Magistrate doing that, though? Like, you're adding the effects of a whole seperate card, and calling it something the Magistrate does. The Magistrate stops other players from playing their commanders. That's it. That's the whole effect.
All prophet of kruphix does is let you untap lands and creatures and flash in creatures.

This was exactly the same argument people made for PoK being fine; it requires other cards to be good.

If Magistrate's text was "Everyone else skips their draw step" that might make it more easy to understand the power. Magistrate isn't letting me draw cards, but it's letting me draw more cards than everyone else.

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Post by DirkGently » 3 years ago

Wat? Why are you equating the ability to cast a commander with the ability to repeatedly draw cards? Not everybody plays ephara, you realize. Some commanders give CA. Some are wincons. Some are answers. Some are tempo. Equating every commander to repeatable card advantage is extremely strange.

PoK gives tempo advantage. Magistrate gives (virtual) card advantage. One of those things is far more exploitable than the other.

Whether something requires something else to be good is kind of irrelevant taken on its own. MoM is fine because it needs something pretty specific to be powerful. PoK just needs "any creatures and/or tap abilities and/or instants". Which is open-ended to the point of being meaningless.

Everybody skips their draw steps would obviously be absurd and isn't even close to a reasonable comparison. That theoretical card would prevent anyone from drawing enough mana to cast anything they couldn't already cast, or drawing into answers they didn't already have. I know the word disingenuous gets thrown around a lot, but did you even think about that analogy before you said it?
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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
3 years ago
Wat? Why are you equating the ability to cast a commander with the ability to repeatedly draw cards? Not everybody plays ephara, you realize. Some commanders give CA. Some are wincons. Some are answers. Some are tempo. Equating every commander to repeatable card advantage is extremely strange.

PoK gives tempo advantage. Magistrate gives (virtual) card advantage. One of those things is far more exploitable than the other.

Whether something requires something else to be good is kind of irrelevant taken on its own. MoM is fine because it needs something pretty specific to be powerful. PoK just needs "any creatures and/or tap abilities and/or instants". Which is open-ended to the point of being meaningless.

Everybody skips their draw steps would obviously be absurd and isn't even close to a reasonable comparison. That theoretical card would prevent anyone from drawing enough mana to cast anything they couldn't already cast, or drawing into answers they didn't already have. I know the word disingenuous gets thrown around a lot, but did you even think about that analogy before you said it?
Many commanders are significantly more powerful than 'draw 1 card per turn.' Not all, but a lot. I think the analogy holds pretty well to be honest. It's not a perfect comparison but

The ceiling is *waaaaay* higher than draw one card per cycle. The floor is obviously lower but there're a lot more golos decks than Bartel Runeaxe these days.

If you can't tone your rhetoric down a little we're gonna be permanently through man. The whole wat, did you even think about this, whatever. It's just pointless and doesn't do anything.

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Post by DirkGently » 3 years ago

It's less about the power level of commanders, and more about equating all the multitudinous effects they have to a repeatable CA engine. For example, looking at my main 3 decks, Phelddagrif can play pretty decently without Phelddagrif for an extended period of time with few problems. Zirilan loses plan A but can just start slamming dragons from hand, so it's usually more of a tempo loss than a CA loss. Kaervek is more of a removal tool than anything else, though he's also a wincon (but he's also got a lot of removal, and tutors for removal, to deal with anything preventing him from sticking to the battlefield). It also has a fair number of alternative wincons that, depending on the situation, can be more efficient than he is at progressing the game. It really just depends on the deck what you're losing, it can't be reduced down to "draw 1 card per turn". Especially since commanders do cost something. Even if you would have gotten repeated CA from your commander, you regain the tempo you would have lost casting it.

I can appreciate trying to find a baseline for "how valuable is a commander" and then negating that value to understand how powerful drannith magistrate is, but I think what you've done is take some very simplified heuristics and then apply them in a way that renders them very inaccurate. The end result is that it doesn't really tell us anything about the actual value of the card.
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Post by onering » 3 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
3 years ago
onering That is also my assessment. Though if multiple people are getting locked out of their commander for most of the game, I really hope the lesson they learn is "play some removal and/or have a reasonable backup plan of some sort" and not "rabble rabble bad card ban plz".

I doubt I'll play it outside of a dedicated hatebears card. Seems like it puts a lot of focus on you but doesn't provide enough benefit against the actually good decks, imo.
Maluko wrote:
3 years ago
Unlike Prophet of Kruphix, which gave massive amounts of card advantage
Tempo advantage, not card advantage.

Obviously most decks can turn one into the other, but broadly speaking I'd say tempo advantage is FAR more exploitable than card advantage, especially in commander where you can play a 20-card draw spell and still lose pretty easily. Hence why sphinx is fine and PoK is banned.
Id assume that it's only getting banned if people have responded by running more removal and it's still locking out commanders all game due to one player just focusing on recurring it or multiple players running it and recurring it once or twice as the norm. That happening every once in awhile wouldn't be enough, and if it's only locking out commanders in removal light environments thats just not a problem. I personally don't think it will ever reach the point where it is ban worthy, because it takes too much investment to make it work like that consistently for enough people to do it for it to be a format wide problem. There are just better things to do that are more likely to help you win.

I could see it getting banned though even if decks adapt to have more reliable backup strategies. If Magistrate commonly locks out commanders all game, but all the decks just play their backup plans, I don't think that's something the RC is going to be ok with. Basically, if it becomes as reliable as tuck used to be, it's probably eating a ban for the same reason the tuck rule was changed. I waver between agreeing with that sentiment and disagreeing with it. I like the way it currently is because there are a lot of oddball commanders that need to be built around to work and aren't problematic at all but wouldn't be worth it with tuck running around, but I dislike it because there are a lot of annoying, repetitive, or overpowered commanders that wouldn't be nearly as bad if there was a way to permanently handle them (or more ways, Song of the Dryads et Al are great).

One weird thing I just realized if that 2 players get out magistrates, than everyone else at the table has a string disincentive to use spot removal on them, as doing so only helps the controller of the other Magistrate (unless you get both).

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Post by Wallycaine » 3 years ago

pokken wrote:
3 years ago
DirkGently wrote:
3 years ago
Wat? Why are you equating the ability to cast a commander with the ability to repeatedly draw cards? Not everybody plays ephara, you realize. Some commanders give CA. Some are wincons. Some are answers. Some are tempo. Equating every commander to repeatable card advantage is extremely strange.

PoK gives tempo advantage. Magistrate gives (virtual) card advantage. One of those things is far more exploitable than the other.

Whether something requires something else to be good is kind of irrelevant taken on its own. MoM is fine because it needs something pretty specific to be powerful. PoK just needs "any creatures and/or tap abilities and/or instants". Which is open-ended to the point of being meaningless.

Everybody skips their draw steps would obviously be absurd and isn't even close to a reasonable comparison. That theoretical card would prevent anyone from drawing enough mana to cast anything they couldn't already cast, or drawing into answers they didn't already have. I know the word disingenuous gets thrown around a lot, but did you even think about that analogy before you said it?
Many commanders are significantly more powerful than 'draw 1 card per turn.' Not all, but a lot. I think the analogy holds pretty well to be honest. It's not a perfect comparison but

The ceiling is *waaaaay* higher than draw one card per cycle. The floor is obviously lower but there're a lot more golos decks than Bartel Runeaxe these days.

If you can't tone your rhetoric down a little we're gonna be permanently through man. The whole wat, did you even think about this, whatever. It's just pointless and doesn't do anything.
The issue is that the rhetoric feels wholly deserved here. You're comparing the inability to cast the commander with direct card advantage, and implying that the first one is more powerful. That's fairly ludicrous. I mean, if stopping people from casting their commander was that powerful, why aren't Nevermore and Declaration of Naught format staples, especially in 1 on 1 play? I'd argue it's because stopping 1 card out of 100 that they're using is actually a fairly minor effect. We can even be generous, and say that they've seen maybe 15 cards out of the deck... and you're still only stopping 1/16th of their options.

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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
3 years ago
, it can't be reduced down to "draw 1 card per turn".
It can't be reduced but it can be compared; I think it's a useful way to think about it to think about the spectrum of the impact. If you disagree that's fine.

My guess is that if you said "having access to a commander is equivalent to drawing one additional card per turn" that would be closer to accurate than not.

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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

Wallycaine wrote:
3 years ago
The issue is that the rhetoric feels wholly deserved here. You're comparing the inability to cast the commander with direct card advantage, and implying that the first one is more powerful. That's fairly ludicrous. I mean, if stopping people from casting their commander was that powerful, why aren't Nevermore and Declaration of Naught format staples, especially in 1 on 1 play? I'd argue it's because stopping 1 card out of 100 that they're using is actually a fairly minor effect. We can even be generous, and say that they've seen maybe 15 cards out of the deck... and you're still only stopping 1/16th of their options.
Because those cards are not efficient enough. Turning off one commander is weak in the same way one target discard is weak. I will say I have meddling maged maelstrom wanderer enough times to appreciate the power of turning off commanders.


Edit: if you want a good comparison. Gilded drake is run almost entirely for the ability to steal commanders in cedh. In casual it's less about this but still a big influence.

Listen, all I can tell you is I do not appreciate interacting with that kind of rhetoric. And I don't have to. I don't think calling an argument ludicrous is particularly useful either.

It's not a perfect comparison but since all commanders provide at least +2 cards a game it's not that baseless (assuming two casts is feasible for most decks).
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Post by Mookie » 3 years ago

Chipping in - looking at my own decks, I don't believe that any of them are shut down by losing access to the commander. Now, this could just be because of my deckbuilding style. I learned to play EDH when tuck was still a thing, so I built my decks based on the assumption that sometimes, my commander wouldn't be available. I also don't really have any interest in building a deck for a commander like Sram, Senior Edificer or Mairsil, the Pretender that falls apart if the commander isn't available.

If Drannith Magistrate comes down on turn 2, I definitely have several decks that are significantly slowed down - Thada, Brago, and Animar rely heavily on casting the commander turn 3-4 to serve as an explosive mana engine. However, those decks are also perfectly capable of playing a reasonable midrange game, by just casting ramp and card draw and hitting large amounts of mana naturally. This is partially because those commanders often attract removal when they are played out, which means I have designed my decks in such a way that they can play fine without the commander. For those decks, an early Drannith Magistrate is essentially a fancy Doom Blade for the commander... except significantly better for me, since it doesn't add commander tax and also hits some of my opponents. Simultaneously, if it comes down later in the game, I'm likely to already have my commander out and thus not care.

Meanwhile, I also have several decks that tend to not cast the commander until lategame - Sharuum and Mizzix are often finishers / combo pieces, and Tasigur doesn't get played unless I need a mana sink or a blocker. Again, those decks function fine without the commander.

Now, I will concede the point that Drannith Magistrate is a very powerful hatebear, and may cause problems in conjunction with Knowledge Pool, Uba Mask, or Possibility Storm. However, that interaction doesn't seem to be what is generating the bulk of the discussion in this thread - rather, it's focused on the hypothetical card:

Drannith Magistrate Lite 1W
Creature - Human Wizard
Your opponents can't cast cards from the command zone.
1/3

And I do not believe that card to be worth banning any more than Tale's End, Nevermore, Pithing Needle, or Hero's Demise.

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Post by Wallycaine » 3 years ago

pokken wrote:
3 years ago
Wallycaine wrote:
3 years ago
The issue is that the rhetoric feels wholly deserved here. You're comparing the inability to cast the commander with direct card advantage, and implying that the first one is more powerful. That's fairly ludicrous. I mean, if stopping people from casting their commander was that powerful, why aren't Nevermore and Declaration of Naught format staples, especially in 1 on 1 play? I'd argue it's because stopping 1 card out of 100 that they're using is actually a fairly minor effect. We can even be generous, and say that they've seen maybe 15 cards out of the deck... and you're still only stopping 1/16th of their options.
Because those cards are not efficient enough. Turning off one commander is weak in the same way one target discard is weak. I will say I have meddling maged maelstrom wanderer enough times to appreciate the power of turning off commanders.

Listen, all I can tell you is I do not appreciate interacting with that kind of rhetoric. And I don't have to. I don't think calling an argument ludicrous is particularly useful either.

It's not a perfect comparison but since all commanders provide at least +2 cards a game it's not that baseless (assuming two casts is feasible for most decks).
Considering most games go longer than 2 turns, 2 cards a game is a faaaaar cry from the "+1 card per turn cycle" you were touting just one post ago. And I'd agree that +2 cards a game is much closer to the actual value of commanders. At which point Drannith Magistrate is at best a global Mind Rot, and that's assuming it stays on board at all relevant times. So in the ideal scenario, one where everyone wants to play their commanders, but nobody removes Drannith Magistrate long enough to play their commander... you end up with the card advantage equivalent of Syphon Mind. Not exactly setting the world on fire, especially when you consider the number of failure points for the above scenario, and how easily something as simple as "Wrath the board, play my commander" gets around it.

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