Reminded myself of this card in the Rofellos thread, as one of the examples of why the RC has largely given up enforcing 'too much mana too quickly' as a ban criteria. They seem a lot more focused on things like monopolizing game time and stax effects these days.
Dockside is basically Sol Ring level goodstuff most of the time - it should be in every deck with red. It's at 17% right now which is pretty unheard of penetration from a new card perspective.
What does it do?
- Makes tons of mana for very little most of the time
- Makes tons of easy infinite combos with basically everything
- Easy to use (no real deckbuilding costs)
- Non-restrictive mana cost that enables ubiquity
- Relevant creature types (goblin tutors, for ex) and P/T to be recruited
Should it be banned? Dunno! Here's the current list of cards banned for too much mana:
You can make an argument that Black Lotus, Paradox Engine and Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary are also on that list, but they all have other reasons.
So, is Dockside Extortionist better than any of the big three there? It's got plusses and minuses over all of them, not a strict yes/no.
Fastbond is probably the card closest to dockside, though it has far different play patterns. It requires a lot more of you, while dockside requires the opponents to play things that accelerate it. That is, Fastbond requires you to have enough lands for it to be useful. Functionally, Fastbond acts more like Dark Ritual unless combined with other cards.
In a vacuum, I think Dockside Extortionist is way better mid-late game unless you are playing a lands themed deck with lots of Crucible of Worlds effects, but Fastbond accelerates more early and provides a more long-term advantage. That said, there's a significant percentage of the time that Fastbond is worse than Exploration or Burgeoning as goodstuff.
Welll...Channel again is kinda insane early, which is a bit of a distinguisher of most of the cards on the list. Dockside Extortionist needs a particularly established meta (mostly CEDH) to be as good as Channel early - where all your opponents are playing rocks for example. At the top levels of gameplay, Channel is probably slightly worse than Dockside, but at mid power levels a turn 2 Genesis Wave for 28 is going to win a lot of games.
Just from a mana production perspective Channel is a lot more explosive, potentially generating 39 mana on turn 1 or 2, which is absurd. It does have the constraint of only making colorless, but presumably a well built deck would take advantage of that with its bombs.
My expectation is that Dockside Extortionist would be more ubiquitous but less problematic than Channel - its easier mana cost and lower deckbuilding constraints and making colored mana make it a bit more suitable as goodstuff. But channel is going to create a LOT more turn 1 and 2 kills which is probably why it's on there
This one is interesting for sure. Academy makes a consistent mana production advantage, but has a much higher deckbuilding constraint to be truly overwhelming than Dockside Extortionist. Much like Channel it's going to be played less but be more problematic when it happens, I think. Lots of turn 2 tap for 7 blue and win the game type stuff.
My personal take is that Dockside Extortionist is closer to the busted cards than it is not, but not sure it's quite bannable. The main issue with it that bugs me is that it's basically an autoinclude that can be game breaking at every level of play - slow casual metas with big boards can generate game winning amounts of mana easily, and it's pretty egregious in CEDH too. Not sure that it ought to be banned just for being explosive, considering it's probably not on the same level as Mana Crypt or Sol Ring that are legal...although it is surely more explosive than those some of the times and has more combo elements.
What do you guys think?