Is it time to unban Flash?

[Sinis]

A fairly well known cEDH content creator has mused about Thassa's Oracle being a problem. This is not an isolated incident, and there are the same sorts of flareups of "Ban Thoracle" talk on twitter and competitive EDH outlets. Some content creators regularly complain that the comments on their videos are "ugh, more thoracle wins".

I knew this would happen when Flash was banned. Now that it's widely understood that EDH will likely never be competitively balanced, can we safely unban Flash?

[BeneTleilax]

No. Flash made Thoracle worse.

[WizardMN]

I don't think so either. It isn't exactly the most fair card and it allowed a certain "olive branch" to cEDH players. I don't think it really needed to be banned but it has broken nearly every other format and Wizards isn't exactly shy about putting strong ETB triggers on creatures that its absence ultimately makes the format better.

It is unfortunate cEDH players are still having troubles even after the ban of course, but I don't think there is any reason to reverse that banning. It doesn't make "casual" EDH any better and it makes cEDH worse.

[wildfire393]

The problem with Thassa's Oracle is that it makes a large number of combos into instant wins without requiring a large number of other cards. It used to be things like Protean Hulk, Hermit Druid, Doomsday, Underworld Breach, and similar compact win combos would each require multiple specific cards in order to get from the starting point to a win. Nowadays, it basically just boils down to "and then slap down Thoracle and you win". If your combo involves drawing, milling, or exiling a significant portion of your deck, Thassa's Oracle is the easiest win condition and is one that is very difficult to interact with as it can't be killed in response to its trigger most of the time (while Laboratory Maniac can be killed in response to trying to draw a card, turning a win into a loss).

I wouldn't hate to see the Oracle banned, because it would require that decks adapt a bit more to fit the combos they are running, as well as making the actual winning have a few more interaction points.

[duducrash]

Is Thoracle a problem in most tables? I know it is in the higher powered tables and EDH but I can think of several cards that come up more in my personal experience

[ISBPathfinder]

Is Thoracle a problem in most tables? I know it is in the higher powered tables and EDH but I can think of several cards that come up more in my personal experience

I see it quite often myself. Nobody in my metas consider their decks to be cEDH but lots of people in my meta have combo wincons in their deck. I have seen a number of decks that when running well can cast Thassa's for a win by turns 5-7 with some level of consistency if they get good hands and aren't interrupted just right.

I guess I would say that 1/4 players in my meta have Thassa's Oracle in decks. Several of us still hold out but if you see it at all its hard to do much about it. They all justify it because its not technically "combo" and its a legal card. Its at the top of my ban it yesterday list.

Getting back to Flash, I didn't care when it got banned and I still have no feelings on it either way. I never saw anyone using flash hulk but I see Thassa plenty. Personally I think there are more ways to interact with Flash hulk than there is oracle.

[Sinis]

It is unfortunate cEDH players are still having troubles even after the ban of course, but I don't think there is any reason to reverse that banning. It doesn't make "casual" EDH any better and it makes cEDH worse.

This was always going to happen. I don't believe my prediction was particularly prescient; there are tens of thousands of cards in circulation, and something broken is bound to appear. I made a point with someone earlier today: Chromatic Sphere is a mana ability, so if you have an empty library, a Sphere and Laboratory Maniac, you can win the game with a mana ability, which permits no responses and can be done under split second.

My point isn't "Gosh, Thoracle it's a problem." It's "gosh, everything is a problem including things that are not yet revealed, we should just unban the things where people know they're putting together an endgame combo for 1U and just let people sort themselves out on whether they want to play that game via rule 0".

It is (IMO) pointless to police Flash's ability to win the game out of nowhere only to have Thoracle do the same thing only slightly slower and permitting the same amount of interaction (which ban advocates would cite as 'none').

No. Flash made Thoracle worse.

Maybe, but this just reeks of the same argument everyone had two years ago: "If we ban one singular card X, a competitively balanced environment will reign supreme afterwards!"

No. If we keep Flash banned, and now ban Thoracle, there will be a new bugbear in 6 months. It is a fool's errand to try and competitively balance EDH's banned list. IMO, we should just unban the cards where people are required to have awareness to break them. For example, if you play Thassa's Oracle naively, it's actually quite hard to 'accidentally' empty your library. If you win with Thoracle, you knew exactly what you were doing from the get-go, and you should have had that conversation about how decks play out with the people you played with. Same with Flash; if someone is using it to legitimately power out a creature at instant speed, it's no problem. The moment it becomes a value proposition, you have to ask if it's Protean Hulk with a specific game-winning package, or if it's something like Sphinx of Uthuun.

We can have those conversations. But, I don't believe we can ban every card in magic that has reasonable applications, but will become highly competitive if optimized.

Is Thoracle a problem in most tables? I know it is in the higher powered tables and EDH but I can think of several cards that come up more in my personal experience

100%. Thoracle isn't an issue, IMO. Neither was Flash, though.

[Jemolk]

Honestly, I think cEDH players need to get used to the idea that they can sculpt their experiences too. If Thoracle isn't fun, don't play it, and don't play with people who do. Yeah, I know, maximum power and all that, but honestly, you don't have to aim at a Tier 0. It's not like there's prizes on the line forcing you to care more about winning than having fun, yeah? You can still have high-power, high-interaction, high-speed games. Just, if something isn't fun, don't do it when your entire purpose is having fun. And if it's generally agreed that it isn't fun, that makes it less of a problem. You can step back from the razor's edge of maximal optimization. And in less optimized decks and games, there's even less of an excuse.

It's not that I'm entirely unsympathetic to the frustrations of cEDH players, it's just... you guys have the tools to solve this (unless I'm completely missing something). Why not use them? Is such an overwhelming portion of the playerbase going to be jerks about it that you can't actually self-police?

[DirkGently]

I'd be happy with a thoracle ban. Not because of cEDH, %$#% cEDH. But I don't like it in casual tables either.

I always preferred a Protean Hulk ban to a Flash ban. I've only seen hulk used to get some degenerate nonsense, usually a combo to win the game, sometimes with some hatebear to prevent interaction so that the combo is virtually unbreakable as soon as the hulk trigger resolves. Unbanning it was a mistake and I think the RC banned flash to avoid losing face by re-banning hulk after they'd taken it off the banlist.

Flash could cause future problems ofc but idk, burning 2 cards to get a 2 mana version of an etb/ltb/etc feels more "cool" than "broken" in most circumstances. I'll believe it's broken when I see it (and I basically never saw it at casual tables, I think once, and it was used pretty fairly).

Why not use them? Is such an overwhelming portion of the playerbase going to be jerks about it that you can't actually self-police?

Correct.

[Sinis]

It's not that I'm entirely unsympathetic to the frustrations of cEDH players, it's just... you guys have the tools to solve this (unless I'm completely missing something). Why not use them? Is such an overwhelming portion of the playerbase going to be jerks about it that you can't actually self-police?

It's quite common for other communities to self-police. The speedrunning community has lots of categories depending on the game; any%, no major glitches, etc. cEDH players could very easily have events that are 'no thoracle'.

That said, I'm hesitant to paint a section of the community with a broad brush.

Flash could cause future problems ofc but idk, burning 2 cards to get a 2 mana version of an etb/ltb/etc feels more "cool" than "broken" in most circumstances. I'll believe it's broken when I see it (and I basically never saw it at casual tables, I think once, and it was used pretty fairly).

This was always my experience with it. Flash never 'accidentally' won a game. Sometimes someone Flashed a Sepulchral/Diluvian Primordial in and got amazing value, but it never just flat out won them the game.

[pokken]

If Flash is legal it's only a matter of years before something else gets printed that combos with it, so I like it as the ban over hulk, but I was against the Flash ban initially (despite misgivings) and do think it should be unbanned.

Here's the thing about a slippery slope. Sometimes it is actually slippery and you do go sliding down it. And now we've arrived.

It's taking a while but Thassa's Oracle is almost guaranteed to be on the chopping block (although more likely because it's seeping into upper mid power levels, thanks CEDH podcasts:P). And once it gets banned Dockside Extortionist is next.

And a few years from now we're regularly doing things to support CEDH probably with the pretense that CEDH tech is bleeding into tuned metas. So yeah we should bite the bullet, unban flash, and say it was a mistake to try policing the top of the format.

Then it's fine if we ban Dockside anyway because it's problematic fast mana, but Thoracle should be left alone. A+B combos are not something we police in EDH**


**The Staff of Domination unban was the deciding point that we no longer ban things just for being part of an A+B combo. The card has to do something else. Time Vault is the only A+B combo piece on the block and it's a bit of a legacy ban that never got addressed because it became a $1000 card I betcha

[Sinis]

It's taking a while but Thassa's Oracle is almost guaranteed to be on the chopping block (although more likely because it's seeping into upper mid power levels, thanks CEDH podcasts:P). And once it gets banned Dockside Extortionist is next.

It's interesting. I went out today with a friend to play at an LGS (that I never go to) with randoms so I could get the slick new Conjurer's Closet promo (with the hands reaching through the closet).

My buddy and I played with completely random people, who played a variety of decks each for over 6 hours. We saw precisely zero Thassa's Oracles. If Thassa's Oracle is a problem, Squire is a problem, because they have, from my sample size today, roughly the same play rate.

To make things better; there were no real feelbads. People were upfront about their deck power levels, and how they play. Literally nobody complained when I played Kroxa Discard, and almost won (I was very up front about what it was going to do, and asked after; people even enjoyed playing against it!).

[DirkGently]

This was always my experience with it. Flash never 'accidentally' won a game. Sometimes someone Flashed a Sepulchral/Diluvian Primordial in and got amazing value, but it never just flat out won them the game.

A limiting factor for a lot of strong ETBs/LBTBs is that they don't actually do much at the beginning of the game. Primordials are a good example (obviously Sylvan Primordial would be insane but the rest are crap t2).

Protean hulk is an exception since he was designed by a moron who doesn't appreciate how broken this game is. I really think hulk was always the preferrable ban. It's really annoying to see that card come down in a normal commander game because you kind of have to appreciate the fact that, if it dies, the game can just end without even having a window for interactivity. At least if someone casts T&N for mike trike you can break the combo with removal. I really hate that card.

[onering]

Unban Flash, ban Oracle and PHulk.

Oracle is a problem in cEDH and trickles down into casual in problematic ways. Its too difficult to interact with for such an noninteractive win, and the gameplay patterns it creates are not good for the format. It good enough to see play for value then is an uninteractive wincon.

PHulk has always been obnoxious. Enables combos, and even when its used fairly its a time consuming value engine. I don't think it should have been unbanned.

[ISBPathfinder]

My problem with Oracle is that most don't consider it to be cEDH. The things you had to do to make Flash Hulk impressive was somewhat thorough and specific in colors. The deck composition had to be built correctly with very specific cards and colors which in my opinion limited its scope. You built a deck somewhat dedicated to doing that because of the colors needed and the setup required to do it.

Thassa's Oracle on the other hand can just be thrown in any draw heavy blue deck. It means it opens up the decks that it can go into and the amount of space it takes up is only a single card. Flash Hulk had a ton of cards that lent themselves to very specific archetypes that it needed to run in order to function and it felt like it had more levels of interaction to it as well. I never had an issue with flash hulk because I felt like it was narrowed due to colors and archetype it tends to run and its axis of interaction still felt somewhat broad to me.

I want to see Thassa's Oracle go because it feels like it doesn't take any work for it to function, it takes almost no space to set it up as an option, its interaction window is incredibly hard to stop, and its just way too dang cheap to use. When oracle doesn't go to plan it ends up being a cheap blocker who does some scrying at the absolute worst case which still makes it a totally valid card.

I don't understand how its so powerful, so hard to interact with, and so damn easy to win with and yet the fact that we don't agree with it being an issue is EXACTLY my problem because it encourages people to run it because they don't see it as a problem card ruining this format. I think its such a problem I want them to take his buddy Jace with them as they ban it. Laboratory Maniac is a card, I don't think they need to make better, less interactive variations of.

Honestly, I think cEDH players need to get used to the idea that they can sculpt their experiences too. If Thoracle isn't fun, don't play it, and don't play with people who do. Yeah, I know, maximum power and all that, but honestly, you don't have to aim at a Tier 0. It's not like there's prizes on the line forcing you to care more about winning than having fun, yeah? You can still have high-power, high-interaction, high-speed games. Just, if something isn't fun, don't do it when your entire purpose is having fun. And if it's generally agreed that it isn't fun, that makes it less of a problem. You can step back from the razor's edge of maximal optimization. And in less optimized decks and games, there's even less of an excuse.

It's not that I'm entirely unsympathetic to the frustrations of cEDH players, it's just... you guys have the tools to solve this (unless I'm completely missing something). Why not use them? Is such an overwhelming portion of the playerbase going to be jerks about it that you can't actually self-police?

If you play in a closed off group self policing is great and I think it totally works. I play in a store where a large portion of our player base plays in multiple locations / returns home for 1/3 of the year from college and we have to play against a lot of them somewhat infrequently. I played against a few guys the other night with one of them playing 4c Omnath landfall with Expropriate in his deck as an example of the level gameplay. That sort of deck isn't cEDH but its kinda hardcore comp shy of that.

So, playing at a higher end comp store with a transient playerbase where there probably are like 30 people in and out of the store and I am someone who has been able to play maybe 10-15 times in the last two years due to covid and IRL stuffs. I don't play this stuff but its completely miserable when I get to show up that once every few months to play against it. I can't be the source of the change I just am not there often enough anymore and the playerbase moves in and out too much.

Making social adjustments in large stores open to the public is something incredibly hard to make work if you aren't the person who is the store owner. Why should they listen to you as some random shmo who just doesn't want everyone to push the most horrible cards on everyone every game? I even asked what level everyone was playing to and they said average or slightly below when that guy was actually playing 4c Omnath landfall lol.

[Jemolk]

@ISBPathfinder -- Ah, yeah, I suppose if you're semi-irregular, that would both make it harder to change things and also more important that the rare games you do manage to get in are good. And the larger the store, the harder it would be to change the culture as well. As someone who also plays at an LGS, but who is there every week in a smaller store, and who had an impact on the local meta prior to COVID, I'm probably underestimating the difficulty of shifting problem dynamics at LGSs generally.

That failed pregame discussion you mention is why I think it would be really good if we could have more detailed discussions of what we're trying to do, how fast, etc., rather than the relatively subjective metrics we use now like assigning numbers to things. I would really like to see those discussions pushed further and harder, and I think that would solve a lot of problems like you're having. I think that may be something the RC could push, too, and which I think would have more beneficial impact than banlist tweaks. Could be wrong, though.