[SCD] Hullbreacher

[pokken]

I just really do not like this card. Really unfun. It's like Winter Orb but socially acceptable somehow

How's it been for you guys?

Somehow it's like everything I expected Drannith Magistrate to be but 100x more annoying since it shuts off so many commanders after they've already been cast, and also regularly is Mindslicer combined with Smothering Tithe.

[Dragoon]

I think those effects would be perfect if they just somehow only triggered when the draw was caused by an opponent's spell and not your own wheel. Something like:

If a spell or ability would cause its controller to draw a card except the first one they draw in each of their draw steps, instead you create a Treasure token.

There, and also, print it in white.

[pokken]

If it couldn't mindtwist you that'd be great but it's still pretty obnoxious

[illakunsaa]

Somehow it's like everything I expected Drannith Magistrate to be but 100x more annoying since it shuts off so many commanders after they've already been cast.

Good. The more stax effects there are the better. Far too many commander just provide easy value that can be casted over and over.

[Swift2210]

It feels like Sylvan Primordial for blue. It's too good not to play. For my non-blue decks I've had to add a bit more removal

[pokken]

It feels like Sylvan Primordial for blue. It's too good not to play. For my non-blue decks I've had to add a bit more removal

I'm definitely amping up the removal in response to this. It's so good that every blue deck has it, and some warp themselves around it. One player in my group plays Lazav, the Multifarious so you have to pack grave hate in addition otherwise he will just turn into Hullbreacher over and over again.

It's comically powerful even if you don't have synergy at all, which is I think the big problem. It does paint a target on your back, but with no one able to draw cards at any real rate it's not that hard to just stomp them if it sticks for a couple turns. And being so dang cheap and having flash you usually get some value on it the first time you cast it too.

[JWK]

I have run into it only occasionally. It's almost always annoying, but doesn't tend to stick around too long in my experience. I have a few copies but don't currently run it in any decks, mostly because while it is very powerful, it is not particularly synergestic with how I tend to build and play.

[BounceBurnBuff]

Given the most recent update is "no changes until in store play, but we're watching some stuff", I'm willing to bet money this card was discussed. JLK famously hates the card, it produces eyerolls even in cEDH levels of play, and its in 2 popular tribes that will encourage its use.

I also like how 'breacher can effectively win off of the back of another player at instant speed for 3 mana. Flash anyone?

[Legend]

I think those effects would be perfect if they just somehow only triggered when the draw was caused by an opponent's spell and not your own wheel. Something like:

If a spell or ability would cause its controller to draw a card except the first one they draw in each of their draw steps, instead you create a Treasure token.

There, and also, print it in white.

A perfect fix. Making it blue was asinine.

[illakunsaa]

I hope they dont ban it. I just got a foil one.

[Dunharrow]

Notion Thief and Spirit of the Labyrinth have been around a long time.
Narset, Parter of Veils has also been around a little while.

These are all good effects.
Notion Thief is two colors, so not as played... it is great when it is great, and mostly just eats removal. I cut it from my decks.
Spirit of the Labyrinth I still play. There are non-draw sources of card advantage so the symmetry is rarely ever an issue for me. It is in white so doesn't help the overpowered blue.
Narset is easy to kill (just attack it), and doesn't give the controller perpetual mana or card advantage.

So ya, in many ways Hullbreacher is very strong and possibly the best of these options. But these effects have been around for a long time and have not caused too many issues. Maybe blue has too many of these effects now?

I just don't think it is that oppressive. Notion Thief can win a game out of nowhere... can hullbreacher? Not as effectively.

As long as these effects are easy to kill, I don't have a problem with it.

[Outcryqq]

It's annoying to the extent that the first victim of his flash "gotcha" moment is a feel-bad, but after that, my experience is that the table kills it and/or its owner, then moves on. Like @Dunharrow said, Notion Thief has been around for quite a long time, albeit more color restricted, and my experience has been similar. I'd note that I don't play cEDH, and I imagine that less color restriction and one less mana makes a big difference for its use in that environment.

[pokken]

I think people are far too willing to give things like this a pass because they die to removal. So did Prophet of Kruphix - and Hullbreacher is, if it sticks on the board, possibly more oppressive than prophet (cheaper, has flash, stops any draws, ramps). It isn't quite as powerful but it's cheaper and not as restrictive on colors or deck design.

The sense of Commander and what's bannable has really changed at large, as I don't think Hullbreacher would have lasted 10 minutes in the Leovold/Prophet/Sylvan primordial era.

Notion Thief and Spirit of the Labyrinth have been around a long time.
Narset, Parter of Veils has also been around a little while.

* Notion Thief is more expensive and far less omnipresent (due to mana cost)
* Spirit of the Labyrinth is symmetrical and has almost no point of comparison.
* Narset, Parter of Veils does not generate any advantage other than taking cards from others when you wheel; it's a lot different than a guy with flash who can respond to other people's wheels *and* generates absurd advantage.
* Alms Collector is the one you missed which is obviously much worse.

I just don't think it is that oppressive. Notion Thief can win a game out of nowhere... can hullbreacher? Not as effectively.

If you don't think +21 mana is an advantage, what is?

I have yet to see a person lose a game where they hullbreached a wheel.

[onering]

I played against a d-bag that was doing these effects and wheels, or at least intended to, but his hullbreacher was stolen before he could wheel. On his next turn (turn 4), he wheeled anyway then quit. Table flip BS.

[pokken]

I played against a d-bag that was doing these effects and wheels, or at least intended to, but his hullbreacher was stolen before he could wheel. On his next turn (turn 4), he wheeled anyway then quit. Table flip BS.

I hope you enjoy seeing that nearly constantly. I've played like 15 games since I started playing limited in person on occasion and 10 of them have had a hullbreacher and it defined the game every time.

It's basically an autoinclude in any blue deck. Instant speed, high power, best color, ramp, etc.

It's better and more omnipresent than Primeval Titan. 18% of decks built since it came out is *bananas*.

[Dunharrow]

I think people are far too willing to give things like this a pass because they die to removal. So did Prophet of Kruphix - and Hullbreacher is, if it sticks on the board, possibly more oppressive than prophet (cheaper, has flash, stops any draws, ramps). It isn't quite as powerful but it's cheaper and not as restrictive on colors or deck design.

The sense of Commander and what's bannable has really changed at large, as I don't think Hullbreacher would have lasted 10 minutes in the Leovold/Prophet/Sylvan primordial era.

Notion Thief and Spirit of the Labyrinth have been around a long time.
Narset, Parter of Veils has also been around a little while.

* Notion Thief is more expensive and far less omnipresent (due to mana cost)
* Spirit of the Labyrinth is symmetrical and has almost no point of comparison.
* Narset, Parter of Veils does not generate any advantage other than taking cards from others when you wheel; it's a lot different than a guy with flash who can respond to other people's wheels *and* generates absurd advantage.
* Alms Collector is the one you missed which is obviously much worse.

I just don't think it is that oppressive. Notion Thief can win a game out of nowhere... can hullbreacher? Not as effectively.

If you don't think +21 mana is an advantage, what is?

I have yet to see a person lose a game where they hullbreached a wheel.

Hullbreacher + wheel is obviously insanely strong. Same with Wheel + Notion Thief. Narset is also somewhat strong, though obviously less so than either of these.
But there are plenty of two card combos that win the game. I didn't think you were discussing Hullbreacher from a Hullbreacher + wheel point of view.
How is that different than Splinter twin? The RC would never ban it due to wheels. Leovold was banned because it was in the command zone.

I though the argument was that it was too strong by itself. I disagree with that. PoK/Sylvan Primordial were cards that had too much value on their own to the point that the game revolved around stealing it, cloning it, blinking it, killing it...
Hullbreacher is strong, but once you surprise one player, the rest of the game is not centralized around it. It either dies or has little additional benefit. People won't cast card draw into it. It turns into a Narset after the initial flash surprise is over.

Wheels are of course very powerful with it, but you are talking about cards that generally help your opponents unless you have hullbreacher in play.

I just don't think it is that much of a concern.

If you want to talk about hullbreacher + wheels being a problem, then Splinter Twin goes infinite with a whole slew of creatures.

[benjameenbear]

I though the argument was that it was too strong by itself. I disagree with that. PoK/Sylvan Primordial were cards that had too much value on their own to the point that the game revolved around stealing it, cloning it, blinking it, killing it...
Hullbreacher is strong, but once you surprise one player, the rest of the game is not centralized around it. It either dies or has little additional benefit. People won't cast card draw into it. It turns into a Narset after the initial flash surprise is over.

Wheels are of course very powerful with it, but you are talking about cards that generally help your opponents unless you have hullbreacher in play.

I just don't think it is that much of a concern.

If you want to talk about hullbreacher + wheels being a problem, then Splinter Twin goes infinite with a whole slew of creatures.

I bolded the section that I think is the most powerful reason that Hullbreacher is an incredibly powerful card. What Hullbreacher does is essentially put a hard stop to a core advantage you want to accrue during any game of EDH. Unless you're playing specific card advantage engines that don't include the word 'draw' on them, you're completely eliminating any chance your opponents have to get more cards. Hullbreacher essentially removes a critical component of EDH right out from under people, at instant speed, in an easily splash-able color that has the best options to protect this inequity.

So you're right in that the game DOESN'T centralize around Hullbreacher... because it completely eliminates your opponents from being able to find answers to it. It's not something that encourages or allows meaningful gameplay; it restricts it in a very unbalanced and powerful fashion whereas the Primordial or Prophet examples you cite DO technically allow gameplay after their resolution (it's just harder). If you don't have the right answer in hand RIGHT THEN, then you're completely locked out of the majority of any way to get an answer to Breacher or advance your core strategy beyond the one-card-per-turn limitation of the game.

Hullbreacher is powerful because he completely invalidates a core pillar of the game (card advantage) while ALSO simultaneously INCREASING your mana advantage relative to the table.

I'm going to assume that you don't play a lot of cEDH based on your comment about Wheels. I mean this in a non-critical way simply because nearly ANY cEDH deck with UR symbols in their identity are playing draw-7's. I don't have statistics to verify my claim, but I would hazard a guess that nearly every cEDH deck with Izzet colors available to them is playing a minimum of 2 Wheels/Draw-7 effects. Why they do that is an entirely separate discussion, though.

But there are ENTIRE deck strategies that now focus around resolving a Wheel effect with Hullbreacher/Notion Thief/Narset, Parter of Veils to generate insurmountable advantages. Hullbreacher has created the critical density in the most powerful and common color for optimized or cEDH decks for what is essentially the most powerful Stax piece I've seen in years.

Frankly, for anyone who claims that Hullbreacher is manageable because it dies to removal after "gotcha"-ing a player is playing against an opponent who's playing the card wrong imo or who's already got a solid board-state or the right cards in hand and the Hullbreacher player doesn't want to protect their Breacher.

[UnNamed1]

Here are my 2 cents, and I know I'll probably disagree with a lot of people here.

Hullbreacher should stay unbanned.

Hullbreacher slows down the game, and that's a good thing. Does it suck if you suddenly are negative a card and your opponent got 3 mana for spending....3 mana? Yeah. But most people should be able to play around a stax piece that forces the game to go slower, and adapt at using the cards available to their best advantage. Hullbreacher never stays around long, it's a big target stax piece. But that is all it does. You still get your draw for turn, you are still able to remove the creature. In most cases, Hullbreacher is a negative or even response to someone trying to draw. Worst case is Hullbreacher with wheels, but those are fairly telegraphed with time to respond. Unless you're running cEDH with the variety of 3 mana wheels, most players will need 8+ mana to effectively Hullbreacher directly into a wheel. This isn't even taking into account any backup for counterspells.

Hullbreacher is a strong card, but only because players are used to drawing as many cards as they want without consequences.

[pokken]

How is that different than Splinter twin?

You can't flash in splinter twin in response to someone else's wheel or draw spell

or even splinter twin someone else's combo creature.

So you're right in that the game DOESN'T centralize around Hullbreacher... because it completely eliminates your opponents from being able to find answers to it.

I agree with basically everything else but in my experience the game does immediately centralize around no one being able to draw more than one card a turn (outside of a few rare effects that bypass draw, e.g. Fact or Fiction), and having to do things like hold back land drops or creatures to prevent mandatory draws that ramp the hullbreacher player.

I'm going to assume that you don't play a lot of cEDH based on your comment about Wheels. I mean this in a non-critical way simply because nearly ANY cEDH deck with symbols in their identity are playing draw-7's. I don't have statistics to verify my claim, but I would hazard a guess that nearly every cEDH deck with Izzet colors available to them is playing a minimum of 2 Wheels/Draw-7 effects. Why they do that is an entirely separate discussion, though.

But there are ENTIRE deck strategies that now focus around resolving a Wheel effect with Hullbreacher/Notion Thief/Narset, Parter of Veils to generate insurmountable advantages. Hullbreacher has created the critical density in the most powerful and common color for optimized or cEDH decks for what is essentially the most powerful Stax piece I've seen in years.

And of course we know CEDH is not the format, but I'm starting to see windfall/hullbreacher packages creeping into 5-6 power decks, because people are like "ok hullbreacher is sweet, I can just add windfall and days undoing and have a wincondition!"

Hullbreacher is a strong card, but only because players are used to drawing as many cards as they want without consequences.

The consequences of drawing cards in commander is you pay mana (tempo) to do it. Now you get blown the frick out by a 3 mana powerhouse

[benjameenbear]

The consequences of drawing cards in commander is you pay mana (tempo) to do it. Now you get blown the frick out by a 3 mana powerhouse

At instant speed, no less!

Perhaps it's just a matter of semantics in what I said about Hullbreacher not being a centralizing force. It definitely is because it warps the game so completely if protected. Imo I think that it can warp the game sufficiently enough to be its own win condition, which (in my mind) makes it not as "centralizing" as say Prophet or Primordial were. Those cards were centralizing because they created a nearly insurmountable advantage that didn't directly facilitate a win. There were still options of interaction, draw, or strategy that could be leveraged even when those cards were in play that gave a false sense of hope to the rest of the table. My experience with Breacher has been that whoever resolves it and protects it with a draw-7 effect (which is the optimal strategy to play alongside Breacher) usually wins in 1 turn cycle, maybe 2 (at the maximum).

And to be clear, I'm in favor of keeping Breacher unbanned. I think it creates interesting play patterns and punishes greedy combo decks that dominate the higher levels of play. Personally, I think it slows down the format a bit more since people HAVE to be more wary of potential Breacher Blowouts... which means they need to accumulate more mana sources or wait for better opportunities to resolve it, which translates into longer games (typically). Granted, I definitely lean towards higher-level cEDH play as my preference, so I certainly admit I'm jaded in this regard lol.

I'm merely trying to address why it's such a powerful card and why it's worthy of banning consideration. I love playing around it AND playing it personally and, in most cEDH games, resolving one alongside a Wheel almost always results in a win so there isn't as much wasted time before the next game progresses.

I'm not surprised that Breacher + Draw-7's are trickling down to the more casual spectrum. It's a solid win condition in the best color, and everyone should be playing more Blue in their decks lol.

[onering]

The two differences between Kiki/Splinter Twin plus Conscripts/Exarch/etc and Hullbreacher/Wheels is that with the former only Kiki-Jiki is a really good card that you'd want to run even in decks without the combo, with Conscripts being borderline nowadays, and the rest of the potential pieces being only, and the Kiki/Conscripts combo not randomly winning off of other player's cards unless someone has a Kiki-Jiki out when you play conscripts. All the cards in the Hullbreacher/wheels combo are great. Hullbreacher is a very strong hate bear against a basic facet of the format that just blows people out, while Narset is less powerful but still strong and so is Notion Thief, and wheels are generally good in this format, verging on great in many decks. They are all cards that you want in your deck even if you just evaluate each individually. Because of how often wheels are run, Hullbreacher (and Notion Thief), are also much more likley to just go off based on what someone else is doing.

This is an interesting problem because the issue stems as much from the increasing availability of the effect as well as the independent strength of Hullbreacher as a card. Hullbreacher is both the strongest version of this effect, as well as the most recent version of the effect which increases the density of the effect within a deck (from 2 to 3 in UBx, or 1 to 2 in Ux sans B).

[Dunharrow]

I though the argument was that it was too strong by itself. I disagree with that. PoK/Sylvan Primordial were cards that had too much value on their own to the point that the game revolved around stealing it, cloning it, blinking it, killing it...
Hullbreacher is strong, but once you surprise one player, the rest of the game is not centralized around it. It either dies or has little additional benefit. People won't cast card draw into it. It turns into a Narset after the initial flash surprise is over.

Wheels are of course very powerful with it, but you are talking about cards that generally help your opponents unless you have hullbreacher in play.

I just don't think it is that much of a concern.

If you want to talk about hullbreacher + wheels being a problem, then Splinter Twin goes infinite with a whole slew of creatures.

I bolded the section that I think is the most powerful reason that Hullbreacher is an incredibly powerful card. What Hullbreacher does is essentially put a hard stop to a core advantage you want to accrue during any game of EDH. Unless you're playing specific card advantage engines that don't include the word 'draw' on them, you're completely eliminating any chance your opponents have to get more cards. Hullbreacher essentially removes a critical component of EDH right out from under people, at instant speed, in an easily splash-able color that has the best options to protect this inequity.

So you're right in that the game DOESN'T centralize around Hullbreacher... because it completely eliminates your opponents from being able to find answers to it. It's not something that encourages or allows meaningful gameplay; it restricts it in a very unbalanced and powerful fashion whereas the Primordial or Prophet examples you cite DO technically allow gameplay after their resolution (it's just harder). If you don't have the right answer in hand RIGHT THEN, then you're completely locked out of the majority of any way to get an answer to Breacher or advance your core strategy beyond the one-card-per-turn limitation of the game.

Hullbreacher is powerful because he completely invalidates a core pillar of the game (card advantage) while ALSO simultaneously INCREASING your mana advantage relative to the table.

I'm going to assume that you don't play a lot of cEDH based on your comment about Wheels. I mean this in a non-critical way simply because nearly ANY cEDH deck with UR symbols in their identity are playing draw-7's. I don't have statistics to verify my claim, but I would hazard a guess that nearly every cEDH deck with Izzet colors available to them is playing a minimum of 2 Wheels/Draw-7 effects. Why they do that is an entirely separate discussion, though.

But there are ENTIRE deck strategies that now focus around resolving a Wheel effect with Hullbreacher/Notion Thief/Narset, Parter of Veils to generate insurmountable advantages. Hullbreacher has created the critical density in the most powerful and common color for optimized or cEDH decks for what is essentially the most powerful Stax piece I've seen in years.

Frankly, for anyone who claims that Hullbreacher is manageable because it dies to removal after "gotcha"-ing a player is playing against an opponent who's playing the card wrong imo or who's already got a solid board-state or the right cards in hand and the Hullbreacher player doesn't want to protect their Breacher.

A few things here
1. cEDH is not a good discussion point for banning a card. cEDH is a turn 3 format. There are one-card win conditions. Hullbreacher is not an issue in cEDH it is just another abusable card. Flash was an exception, no way Hullbreacher will be banned for cEDH considerations.
2. In a 4 player game, someone has a sweeper or removal. The biggest issue with Hullbreacher isn't that it stops you from digging for an answer. The biggest issue is that it immediately nets mana to leave up a counterspell. This is very similar to PoK. You had to have an instant to kill it or it would be too late and would get protected. But unlike PoK, that mana in single use. You don't get a bunch of mana every turn for the rest of the game. It doesn't give flash to your creatures. It might take a couple tries but it will die. Strong card for sure, but the only way it will be banned is it is sees a TON of play at all levels.

I understand how hosing card draw is big. I played a ton of Spirit of the Labyrinth. But arguing that a card in the 99 should be banned because of the interaction with wheels is just silly. There are one card combos in the format. There are tons of two card combos that win the game.

The question is not how busted this card is in cEDH. The question is "does the RC feel it is too present in the casual commander meta".
That is hard to judge.
But based on the presence of other similar cards that are never considered for banning, I would be surprised if this one got the axe.

If anything, we need more of these in commander. More hate cards to play against UG ramp draw go crazy.

[Dunharrow]

The two differences between Kiki/Splinter Twin plus Conscripts/Exarch/etc and Hullbreacher/Wheels is that with the former only Kiki-Jiki is a really good card that you'd want to run even in decks without the combo, with Conscripts being borderline nowadays, and the rest of the potential pieces being only, and the Kiki/Conscripts combo not randomly winning off of other player's cards unless someone has a Kiki-Jiki out when you play conscripts. All the cards in the Hullbreacher/wheels combo are great. Hullbreacher is a very strong hate bear against a basic facet of the format that just blows people out, while Narset is less powerful but still strong and so is Notion Thief, and wheels are generally good in this format, verging on great in many decks. They are all cards that you want in your deck even if you just evaluate each individually. Because of how often wheels are run, Hullbreacher (and Notion Thief), are also much more likley to just go off based on what someone else is doing.

This is an interesting problem because the issue stems as much from the increasing availability of the effect as well as the independent strength of Hullbreacher as a card. Hullbreacher is both the strongest version of this effect, as well as the most recent version of the effect which increases the density of the effect within a deck (from 2 to 3 in UBx, or 1 to 2 in Ux sans B).

This is a well-reasoned post. While Hullbreacher is a very strong card, there are still a million infinite combos in the format. Is it stronger than food chain + whatever creature in the command zone?
It is stronger than Protean Hulk?

There are so many combos... so unless casual commander devolves into a hullbreacher + wheel format, why are we even talking about this card?

[pokken]

Is it stronger than food chain + whatever creature in the command zone?
It is stronger than Protean Hulk?

1. Yes. The food chain combos all require another piece and operate at sorcery and require 6 mana setup cost vs. 3+3.

(Except Prossh, Skyraider of Kher who still doesn't really win on his own with chain, requires other spells)

2. Yes, hulk requires a sac outlet and 2-3+ specific cards and is at sorcery speedunless you're necro-hulking which again requires setup (you have to get hulk in the bin).

All these cards are awful. Hullbreacher is great by itself. That's the main difference. Now we have combos that are made up of all good cards vs. making sacrifices.

You make zero sacrifices to play hullbreacher. Every blue deck should have it pretty much. And Windfall /Timetwister while not pure good stuff become pretty darned great when part of an infinite combo as opposed to being hot garbage as cards like Cephalid Illusionist

[benjameenbear]

Why am I talking about this? Because it's fun to talk about the strengths of the card and why it could be banned lol. And because for me personally, it's been a while since I've engaged in a substantive discussion on this site and this topic actually intrigued me.

If the Rules Committee decided to ban Flash, which was banned almost exclusively on cEDH considerations from the context of multiple threads on this site and others I remember reading, then I think discussing a card's ban-worthiness from a cEDH standpoint is acceptable. The reason I think this, besides the precedent set by the Flash banning, is that if a card is absolutely broken at a cEDH level than it becomes a matter of time until the card becomes noticeable at the "casual" setting.

Respectfully @Dunharrow, cEDH is not a T3 format where the game is over by T3. cEDH is a T3 format meaning that T3 is a pivotal point in the flow of any particular cEDH game. Can the game be over by T3? Sure, but that's the exception and not the rule. Dismissing an observation based on the implied assumption that cEDH isn't EDH isn't productive.

I do agree with your point that a card shouldn't be banned based solely on interactions that could be present in the regular 99 of a deck. The caveat to that point is: when those interactions in the 99 are so common in the broader EDH community to become ubiquitous, then of course a ban should occur.

Either way, the discussion has been enlightening and I still standby my opinion of keeping the card unbanned.