[Speculation] Ban List Update Prediction Thread

[pokken]

Upheaval has the same problem I have conceptually with torment which is it turns "play a %$#% of ramp" into a wincon. It's really and truly awful. Ramp ramp ramp one sided armageddon on one card gg.

But it's worse because the threshold is lower. Like 4 mana rocks you can replay puts you irretrievably ahead mostly. Even one threat is game ending.

And the icing on the horseshit sundae is countermagic is all you can realistically stop it with.

All those other effects you mention require a strategy beyond ramping and synergy pieces.

[DirkGently]

Honestly I think the biggest knock against upheaval compared to jokulhaups is that it's blue. Plus it requires far less setup. You can happily overcommit permanents into upheaval and just replay 'em. Jokulhaups you've gotta plan ahead at least a bit. And it's explicitly MLD. So you know what side of the fence you're standing on. Upheaval looks a lot more "nice" at first blush.

If Gifts is in your deck, there are plenty of gifts piles that win the game that are just commonly ran cards.

Such as? What's the most efficient combo using commonly ran cards?

What's the most abusive possible combo for gifts for cEDH? You can reanimate any given creature with unburial rites, but any one creature into play certainly doesn't win a game on its own. Even for hulk you'd need a sac outlet, and that sac outlet would likely be vulnerable to removal, plus grave hate...all things flash doesn't care about.

[Drusus]

Primeval Titan should stay banned. Its just good value. At worst its an Hour of Promise that gives you a 6/6 trampler for 1 more mana. And if gets blinked or it swings, its already better than HoP. Its also just a must-have for any green-centric deck.

Panoptic Mirror I'm 50/50 on.

Upheaval still has combo potential and is still a feelsbad card. So I doubt its unbanning. Also heres something that you can do with it that you couldn't do when it was legal: Upheaval + Teferi's Protection. For 6WUU you can just cast Upheaval, then Protection, phase out your stuff, then bounce all your opponents permanents, including lands. Then when your turn rolls around, your stuff just phases back in. There are similar things that are currently legal you could do like that, but it takes more cards and more mana.

For something in the same vein as Upheaval, I present Worldfire. Same trick as before. You float a bunch of mana, Worldfire, then when its on the stack, you use TP. Not only are opponents denied their hands and graveyards and permanents, but each opponent is at 1 life. The main differences is that first of all Teferi's Protection prevents your lifetotal from changing, so you still have whatever life you had when you cast Worldfire. Also that when your turn rolls around, you still have cards in your hand and the permanents on the board, just not the ones in your graveyard. The cost is just two cards and a measly 9RRRW for a real game ending haymaker.

Protean Hulk should be banned. Banning Flash is just moving a goalpost, one more hoop to jump through to make the thing work in the end.

Braids, Cabal Minion would be fine without the commander spot, but sadly B-A-C doesn't exist anymore. I wouldn't be opposed to their unbanning even if its smokestax.

Gifts Ungiven I can't say, in my years playing cards I avoided it like the plague in other formats.

Recurring Nightmare is still too abusable. Especially as mana production keeps improving over the years, making the cost of RN not worth unbanning.

Sylvan Primordial is way too obnoxious to be unbanned. If unbanned its just like Primetime, there is no reason a green-centric deck like Sultai or Temur wouldn't run it.

[cryogen]

So, fun fact about the Braids ban, according to Gavin the reason she is banned is because in the very early days of the format someone ran a Braids deck that had like a consistent 70% or higher win rate regardless of the number of opponents. *

I still think she is an antisocial card, but hearing that was what pushed me over the edge because I already felt that monoblack generals have come so far since then and she wouldn't be as desirable in the CZ any more (similar to Kokusho).


* (Source: Casual Magic podcast episode 13 I think, episode with guest Genomancer)

[if4ko]

Wants: Flash banned for reasons we've already discussed, Rofellos unbanned because the power level of legends has risen to accommodate it.

Prediction: No changes and a hell of a lot of chaos and anger.

[pokken]

Rofellos is really not any better than yisan or selvala in terms of power. Kinda silly. And only marginally better than Azusa.

[ZenN]

Rofellos is really not any better than yisan or selvala in terms of power. Kinda silly. And only marginally better than Azusa.

As the overall power of the available card pool increases this sort of thing is just going to become more and more true for many things on the banned list. People have very negative gut reactions to a lot of the cards based on historical negative experiences, as clearly evidenced by some of the discussion in this thread.

A bunch of the cards on the list really deserve an objective look and a real comparison to other existing cards that aren't banned to determine if they truly merit being on the list.

[pokken]

Rofellos is really not any better than yisan or selvala in terms of power. Kinda silly. And only marginally better than Azusa.

As the overall power of the available card pool increases this sort of thing is just going to become more and more true for many things on the banned list. People have very negative gut reactions to a lot of the cards based on historical negative experiences, as clearly evidenced by some of the discussion in this thread.

A bunch of the cards on the list really deserve an objective look and a real comparison to other existing cards that aren't banned to determine if they truly merit being on the list.

I agree again for the most part

The more and more I've noodled on it, I am not sure that primetime is as bad as sylvan primordial. I'd be willing to see him come off first and see how it goes. It feels like 6 and 7 mana do a lot more than they used to.

It's true that green's land tutor suite has gotten kinda ridiculous since Primetime. stuff like nylea's intervention and pir's whim and so on.

My gut instinct is still that it's too powerful but we're also in a world with bolas's citadel at 6 mana that people somehow don't care about I predicted that card would be banned by now but somehow nobody even cares. It's a weird world.

[ZenN]

My gut instinct is still that it's too powerful but we're also in a world with bolas's citadel at 6 mana that people somehow don't care about I predicted that card would be banned by now but somehow nobody even cares. It's a weird world.

Oh my god, right? That card is insane. And let's not forget Command the Dreadhorde also at 6, which is also an insane card in this format.

[Vertain]

Gifts ungiven is reasonable to come off I think. People say it's too good in combo, but I have yet to see concrete examples outside of double entomb with unburial rites, which in my opinion is totally okay for the total 8 mana that it costs.

Expropriate is so stupid it's offensive. I doubt that it's gonna go, but I'd be pleasantly surprised if it actually happens.

I also don't think that it's going to happen, but I'd really like for the RC to show their colors and put the original Moxen on the same side of the list Sol Ring and Mana Crypt are. I honestly don't care which side, but "percieved barrier to entry" is no more and easy fast mana isn't quantum physics. Either it's a problem for the format or it's not. Pick one.

[DirkGently]

My gut instinct is still that it's too powerful but we're also in a world with bolas's citadel at 6 mana that people somehow don't care about I predicted that card would be banned by now but somehow nobody even cares. It's a weird world.

I'd be very happy if it got banned.

Honestly there's so many stupid cards these days it's hard to keep track anymore.

What I hate the most is all the people cheering for this stuff when it gets printed. Emergent Ultimatum: "Yaaay, they printed ultimatums for the wedges!" everyone cries. What are you even talking about? The old ultimatums were mostly garbage when they were printed, and they're 100% garbage now. Why do you care about this terrible cycle that only ever had one good one?

And these new ones - mostly emergent but Eerie is also pretty disgusting, and ruinous is dumb too although it doesn't bother me as much - look like just absolute cancer to play against. How can people get so excited about these cards? People whine to no end about cyc rift, but then they print a version that destroys everything instead of bounces and people are psyched (I know being an instant with an easier cost and a single-target mode makes a big difference, but still, it's a similar effect).

I just don't even get it. I feel like the voices who want balanced formats get drowned out by the voices saying "we just want something even MORE broken! Give it NOW!"

[Wallycaine]

Gifts ungiven is reasonable to come off I think. People say it's too good in combo, but I have yet to see concrete examples outside of double entomb with unburial rites, which in my opinion is totally okay for the total 8 mana that it costs.

Expropriate is so stupid it's offensive. I doubt that it's gonna go, but I'd be pleasantly surprised if it actually happens.

I also don't think that it's going to happen, but I'd really like for the RC to show their colors and put the original Moxen on the same side of the list Sol Ring and Mana Crypt are. I honestly don't care which side, but "percieved barrier to entry" is no more and easy fast mana isn't quantum physics. Either it's a problem for the format or it's not. Pick one.

I think there's a valid argument that "easy fast mana" has a threshold problem. Like, Sol Ring being the one card that everyone runs is not a huge problem, because it's just one card, so the randomness helps mitigate its worst problems. Mana Crypt doesn't really fall into the same area because it does have a significant drawback. But if Sol Ring and Moxen are both legal, that causes a lot more issues, because people are more likely to have them in hand, just by virtue of people running more of them (assuming you're ignoring the price point, of course). So the five color player is more likely to have sol ring+mox or multiple mox openers, while a mono color player would be lucky to get one of the two. It creates a rougher environment for everyone, and is more likely to lead to unbalanced games.

[Vertain]

And these new ones - mostly emergent but Eerie is also pretty disgusting, and ruinous is dumb too although it doesn't bother me as much - look like just absolute cancer to play against. How can people get so excited about these cards? People whine to no end about cyc rift, but then they print a version that destroys everything instead of bounces and people are psyched (I know being an instant with an easier cost and a single-target mode makes a big difference, but still, it's a similar effect).

Emergent Ultimatum is dumb, I give you that.
Eerie Ultimatum is strong, but also very vulnerable to single player graveyard hate like Bojuka Bog, since it's limited to your own yard. Pushed, yes, but problematic? We'll see. For now, I'll give it the benefit of doubt.
On Ruinous Ultimatum versus Cyclonic Rift: Rift is instant, compared to the Ultimatum ridiculously easy to cast and available to every blue deck. The Ultimatum commits you to the arguably worst two colors of commander. And while destroying is a lot more effective than just bouncing, it's also a lot easyer to "interact with". You can regenerate, make indestructible, have die-triggers etc. Against rift, you are limited to Teferi's Protection and countermagic and that's it. I have no problem with this card.
Genesis Ultimatum is less problematic than emergent. Certainly has a higher ceiling when you're blessed by RNGesus, but without the tutoring emergent has I think it's gonna be way less of a nuisance in the average game.
Inspired Ultimatum is the safest and least spectacular of the bunch. It's also the most consistent.

All said, I'd like Emergent Ultimatum to be axed, but I'm not a friend of pre-bans in general, that's why it isn't in my predictions.

[DirkGently]

Eerie Ultimatum is strong, but also very vulnerable to single player graveyard hate like Bojuka Bog, since it's limited to your own yard. Pushed, yes, but problematic? We'll see. For now, I'll give it the benefit of doubt.

It's not THAT vulnerable to bog, since bog is a sorcery (barring crop rotation). If your grave gets nuked, you just dump more stuff in there and try again later. There's not a lot of good "surprise" grave hate afaik, it's almost all on-board. So you can't really counter an ultimatum with grave hate. Though keeping a scavenger grounds perpetually open is bound to annoy. Luckily that's my usual MO when playing Phelddagrif.

But yeah, there is at least play-around. I don't like it, but it doesn't stress me out like EU does. Though I'm crossing fingers that EU causes expropriate to get the banhammer.

[ZenN]

I'll be honest, I'm pretty positive that people are overreacting about Emergent Ultimatum. If someone manages to resolve that spell, and they have built their deck for it, then yes, it'll probably win. But it's way, way harder to cast than something like a Tooth and Nail, and the fact that the opponent gets to choose which two you get means that any combo it goes for has to be built redundantly.

The best thing I've seen to do with it is to go get Protean Hulk, Viscera Seer, and Boonweaver Giant, and have both Dark Privilege and Pattern of Rebirth available as Boonweaver targets. This way, if they give you Hulk and Seer, you just sac Hulk and win. If they give you Hulk and Boonweaver, you go get Privilege to sac Hulk and win. If they give you Boonweaver and Seer, you go get Pattern, sac Boonweaver to go get Hulk, sac Hulk and win.

That's 6 slots just to be able to get and sac a Hulk with Ultimatum, plus the slots for the Hulk combo itself. And Ultimatum costs 7, with no generic, so your Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, etc., aren't helping you.

The worst thing about the card is that in more casual environments it'll just be annoying whenever someone resolves it. I can see someone doing something like fetching Expropriate, Time Stretch, and some other turns spell. It'll be annoying, and everybody will groan. That definitely sucks. But if we're talking about more casual play, isn't Rule 0 supposed to be king?

It's not a bad card. It's definitely not as powerful as a lot of people are making it out to be. It's not going to be any worse than T&N is already. Though, I guess in fairness, some people think T&N should be banned, so what do I know?

[Drusus]

Rofellos is really not any better than yisan or selvala in terms of power. Kinda silly. And only marginally better than Azusa.

Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy just looks like a better Rofellos to me in almost every aspect, except it its not an elf.

[ZenN]

Rofellos is really not any better than yisan or selvala in terms of power. Kinda silly. And only marginally better than Azusa.

Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy just looks like a better Rofellos to me in almost every aspect, except it its not an elf.

You get to play blue. You fill the deck with the best ramp already available, cheap rocks. You have an outlet for all that mana. Seems good.

EDIT: Oh, and it makes it easier to go off with Dramatic Scepter, and then just dump your whole deck on the table. Neat.

[pokken]

I'll be honest, I'm pretty positive that people are overreacting about Emergent Ultimatum. If someone manages to resolve that spell, and they have built their deck for it, then yes, it'll probably win. But it's way, way harder to cast than something like a Tooth and Nail, and the fact that the opponent gets to choose which two you get means that any combo it goes for has to be built redundantly.

The best thing I've seen to do with it is

I think there was an enter the infinite line that required fewer bricks, but yeah I tend to agree with you that the deckbuilding consequences for it are being undersold. People always forget the times you draw your combo pieces and then those effects don't work right or need secondary pieces.

[onering]

For Expropriate, I've noticed that the correct play is just to always pick money. Its still Blatant Thievery with an extra turn tacked on, so it still brutal, but its brutal in the way 9 mana should be, and it gives them a lot less time to translate it into a win before everyone hits back. Unless something you have will let them immediately combo, always choose money. It really does make the card much more manageable, because once someone other than the caster chooses time then it becomes absurd.

[umtiger]

I'm down for a Gifts unban and Rofellos, unlike the other banned commanders, does not lockdown.

But Primetime would be the strongest card in the format with an unban. You have to have seen the damage he's imposed on every other format, right? Upheaval is also insane. It's a get out of jail card unlike even Cyclonic Rift.

[RxPhantom]

Rofellos is capable of some really quick nonsense. I think people who think it's safe have never played with or against him, or have forgotten. He blows and can stay gone.

Regarding Emergent Ultimatum, if @ZenN didn't bring up Tooth and Nail I would have. It's a very good card, but good enough for a ban? I don't think so. Maybe if the third creature went to the graveyard or (even maybe-er) if it didn't exile itself.

Other the formally announcing Lutri's ban and clarifying companion rules, I see maybe a Hulk ban and a Gifts unban.

[CylonSupreme]

Ban: Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Mana Crypt, Cyclonic Rift. The entire companion mechanic. (Leave cards legal in the 100)

Unban: Gifts Ungiven, Braids, Rofellos, Lutri (if they ban companion), Sylvan Primordial, Recurring Nightmare.

I am aware my choices are unpopular. But mana rocks and cyclonic rift have become the auto includes. It's getting ridiculous how homogenized edh is becoming.

With companion it should go one of two ways. Either they admit everyone is capable of intense deck building restrictions, in which case "banned as a commander" is much easier to understand.

Or they say because "banned as a commander" is too difficult to keep track of, in which case companion is too difficult to keep track of.

[CrazyPierre]

Rofellos should never come off. Umbral Mantle, Staff of Domination, etc. etc and in the color that will get more lands out, it's just too silly for words.

As for next Monday's announcement, I'd say they go halfway and ban Protean Hulk again; that way Flash players can Flash Rector or other silliness but still have their cool spell.
I do agree though that cEDH should go the way of Tiny Leaders, Duel Commander, Leviathan, and that one with the Planeswalker and Spell and just form their own list, have regional coordinators and keep track of their stuff on their own.
It's just too much to expect Sheldon and the gang, who are doing this to maintain interest in a casual format, to appease everyone.
And Shivam, man that guy gets a lot of guff, what a saint.

[Vertain]

The worst thing about the card is that in more casual environments it'll just be annoying whenever someone resolves it. I can see someone doing something like fetching Expropriate, Time Stretch, and some other turns spell. It'll be annoying, and everybody will groan. That definitely sucks. But if we're talking about more casual play, isn't Rule 0 supposed to be king?

That's the thing about Emergent Ultimatum. It's not about winning on the spot because of six or more deck slots commited to comboing. It's about consistently ruining games because you're getting two of your three most powerful cards (which you would have ran without ultimatum anyway, because they're just good on their own), and at a discount no less.
Why this and not Tooth and Nail then? That's a valid concern, but Tooth and Nail is limited to creatures. Any color can interact with them, and at instant speed no less. When you resolve it, you still have to watch out for removal. When you resolve Ultimatum, you can easily make it so it punishes other players for not playing blue. Iona, Shield of Emeria, got banned for similiar reasons and I hope Expropriate and eventually Emergent Ultimatum (since I'm not a fan of pre-bans and Expropriate is easily the worst offender with Ultimatum, so it might even turn out to be actually bearable), will receive the same treatment.

Rule 0 works exceptionally well in tight-knit playgroups. Outside of that it's effectiveness becomes pretty meh pretty fast. Using it as a universal solution to anything short of cEDH is just a cop-out.

[DirkGently]

With companion it should go one of two ways. Either they admit everyone is capable of intense deck building restrictions, in which case "banned as a commander" is much easier to understand.

Or they say because "banned as a commander" is too difficult to keep track of, in which case companion is too difficult to keep track of.

BaaC made a couple cards legal in the 99. Out of 20,000. And they were mostly not-very-fun cards in the 99 either.

Companion allows a totally different form of deckbuilding. In terms of the impact on deckbuilding BaaC had versus companion legalization, it's not close.

It's fine to think companion will overly complicate the rules, but saying "companion is (potentially) complicated, therefore anything I like that also complicates the rules should also be allowed" is a pretty ridiculous argument. The RC feels the complication of companion is worth it for how cool companions will be and what they'll bring to the format. BaaC brought very little to the format and was complication for no real purpose.