If Coalition Victory were one of those "you win" enchantments with "at the beginning of your upkeep" rather than a sorcery it would probably be less of an issue.
Unfortunate paradox: this was always going to be an issue with early cards. WOTC needed to make mistakes before they could learn. That's just an annoying part of life.
@@XCodes Obviously. It just comes down to the issue of the RC not wanting to take responsibility when it comes to shaping the meta game. Sheldon Menery, one of the founders of EDH said that he doesn't see Thassa played that often. But then again, he said the new Elesh Norn was gonna warp the format and that wheel effects are bad for the game.
My favorite thing I've ever seen with c victory was during invasion block draft. The player had it and legacy weapon with 4 harrow. He won the 12 man draft. He managed to both play and use both C. Victory and legacy weapon successfully somehow. Watched him use legacy weapons ability several times. It was crazy!
"Power Creep" is a real thing now and with all these reprints and the secondary market drop in price. It is easier to access these cards and average "6-7.4" power level decks are now "7.5-8.4". Constant reprints of Smothering Tithe, Rhystic Study, Mystic Remora, etc with newer cards make infinite go so much faster and easier... And don't get me started on how many people sneak in Thassa's Oracle and Demonic Consultation in any Dimir themed or combo-ed deck. Having a Coalition Vicory with a 5 Color Deck just helps with combos like that now...
The other issue with biorhythm is that it can easily cause draws. If someone goes board wipe, play a creature, cast biorhythm and someone's only response is to remove the creature the the game draws.
Still an end. My only issue I am having with EDH is no one wants the game to end unless it's on their terms. Sometimes you have to realize your just stalling and take your L and start a new game.
@@ich3730 depends on how you go out. If it's a ridiculous instance due to many cards interacting, I find draws can be fun. If it's "I kill everyone, including me", then the draw is less interesting
Counterargument for panoptic mirror staying banned: There are lots of extra turn spells and they are basically all good on their own, so its pretty easy to accidently make the combo.
Counter counter point. Expropriate is the only extra turn spell you need, is the same amount of mana as the combo, and should have everyone outright scoop anyway. Counter Counter Counter point: demonic consultation and thoracle is unbanned, both are good on their own, and are VERY easy to tutor. Counterpoint to EVERY SINGLE PART OF THIS. Kenrith and timetwister aren't banned. There's no reason anything should be banned if those two are fine. There's no actual good reasons for these bans other than the rules committee is full of very biased people.
The problem with Panoptic Mirror is that is take EVERY powerful instant and sorcery and makes it devastatingly better. I have a sweeper deck that runs 15 board wipes. Can you imagine the frustration at this table if I put Wrath of God, Damnation, or Merciless Eviction on Panoptic Mirror? It isn't just extra turn spells that win you the game, EVERY powerful instant or sorcery wins you the game...
How insane is it that Oathbreaker unbanned Gifts Ungiven recently and it's not even that good. A format where you can literally put Gifts in the command zone unbanned the card and it's not even good, yet it's still banned in EDH.
Compared to intuition gifts gives you a second card which given how many nutty reanimation hulk lines or the equally stupid reanimation/ bomberman or breach lines that it sets up. They are both really powerful and giving that strat more consistency than it has now (looking at mad farm, blue farm or just read breach) would be unhealthy for the format.
Gifts would definitely see cEDH play because the main Intuition pile is actually a 4 card combo (Breach/Brain Freeze/LED/Sevinne's Reclamation), but I still think it should come off the list regardless.
Would it be though? Pauper is unique in that Wizards actually releases official statements on their reasons for each and every Pauper ban. In detail, too!
One thing about coalition victory is it just says "you win the game". Even if many other cards at that level basically win you the game, at least they tend to have some kind of effect, while coalition victory just wins the game boringly without space for counterplay once it resolves.
Gifts ungiven is alaays a +1 in card advantage while also being able to get 4 cards into zones where they're more accessible. Intuition and dt, while powerful, are card neutral so are more narrow albeit slightly.
If you cast any of these for card advantage in cedh you've already lost the game. The fact that Intuition is one mana cheaper and has the exactly same outcome makes it 100x better
@@fangoukulele7570Except it only gets one card into your hand, not two. That’s good if you already have either what you need or a reanimation spell, but it’s not as strong as Gifts Ungiven.
@@computerwaste5950 the big top 10 guy for MTG, gues this guy doesnt know hiru (duel logs) is the top 10 guy of yugiyoh and is branching off to different games
idk, about the Gifts Ungiven / Intuition argument. Both are powerful tutors, but getting two cards you searched for vs. one seems like a very potent difference.
It's one mana cheaper and you only need 3 cards to win anyways, so in cedh you'd maybe play Gifts in a flex Spot, but realistically idk if that's worth
@@fangoukulele7570 Both are extremely powerful tutors, I was never denying that. I have doubt both would make the list if available. I just think people are underestimating that extra card advantage. Like, in a vacuum, it’s an instant tutor, vs. an instant double tutor (graveyard shenanigans notwithstanding).
I agree with pretty much agree with the points on Panoptic Mirror and Gifts Ungiven. Recurring Nightmare is strong but you can interact with it, a creature is needed to sacrifice so if they have no creatures then the card is wasted in their hand.
Recurring Nightmare will probably not come off the banlist as it has a powered down version in Hell's Caretaker that's legal and popular in commander. It also might stay banned specifically due to being a extra copy of Caretaker that's harder to get rid of.
You interact with Recurring Nightmare the same way you interact with Victimize. And if you've already got infinite mana for the combo, then how you spend it is really irrelevant at that point, there are so many mana sinks that one more doesn't matter.
That main problem with comparing Panoptic Mirror to Sanguine Bond, is that its a 2 card combo with lots of cards as opposed to just one. SB and EB are enchantments that don't affect the board immediately, wheras an extra turn card is a generic value card that's immediately useful. If you play Mirror in a turns deck, it's essentially an infinite with like 10 other cards in your deck, that can be protected by the other 9 extra turn cards since you can use them to get to your next upkeep without passing around the table. Any 2 card combo where it can combo with a generic value card that you have multiple of in your deck is much stronger than one that's based around combo pieces that only exist for the explicit purpose of being combo pieces.
I believe panoptic mirror is still banned in order to prevent any future combo because the designers may release a potentially new instant or sorcery that will become busted if it can be copied during each of your turn. The fact that the card does not have any restrictions in terms of what instant or sorcery card that can be copied makes it a big issue because it opens the door to so many future combo potentials. Not only can panoptic mirror copy any instant or sorcery card, but it also make sure that you always have access to a specific instant or sorcery card that may become a part of a new combo piece in the future. If panoptic mirror have a restriction in terms of what card it can be imprinted or have some sort of activation cost (such as Isochron Scepter), then I don't think it would have been banned.
Another facyor for gifts ungiven is time, especially at lower skill tables. People often play tutors without a plan on what to get, instead just scanning through their deck for something useful. Now those players have to do that four times. Intuition being on the reserved list means less enfranchised players are unlikely to cast it.
Biorythim - "it punishes creature-light decks" - and I don't see any problem with that 🤷♂ Panoptic Mirror - can we all agree "take an extra turn" effects are a huge mistake?
I wouldn't mind Coalition Victory being unbanned. I can't believe I'm saying this but I think it's been powercrept as a wincon. It's easy to get to sure, but there are countless wincons even in casual edh that are faster, more consistent and arguably more banworthy
I think the issue with Coalition Victory is that unlike other "win the game" conditions, it doesn't have an end step or upkeep clause, counterspell or instant speed removal is the only way to avoid immediate victory. Your deck does not need any building around it except simply having a 5-color commander and tossing it in as a random thing you suddenly draw and become the archenemy. It's the same problem I have with Sol Ring. It doesn't help that it is actively powercrept upwards by the increasing ability to have a lot of different land types on single cards
@@antarath517 8 mana, sorcery speed, and requires 5 color commander. There are a lot of faster and more reliable win conditions. Lets be honest, the edh banlist is filled with a lot of cards that are there more because some players think it is "unfun", and not because they are broken or warp the format around it.
Thing is, being unbanned adds nothing good to the format, you just make one more card that says "the last hour didnt matter I just resolve this spell and win even if the only other card ive cast this game is a 5 color creature. Thats not fun or interesting. The format needs LESS cards that make the rest of the game up to the point theyre cast not matter.
Intuition is not strictly better. It only gives you one of the cards into your hand. Which means if you get graveyard recursion, it really only acts as a 3 mana tutor. Gifts Ungiven gives you both pieces you need
negative. usually one of the cards you get with intuition you want or can cast from your graveyard anyway, like past in flames that he used as an example. if you grabbed 2 other instants/sorceries, it tutors for 3 cards for 3 mana. another line is the Sevinne's Reclamation, Underwolrd Breach, and LED. Keep Sevinne's and you grab breach, escape LED, recast Intuition for your wincon, GG. Keep breach, you skip Sevinnes. Keep LED, Sevinne's has flashback like past in flames. Essentially it is at least just as good minimum, or even better because it costs one less.
Rule 0 - your playgroup discussion can decide what cards are legal before decks are chosen. The only banned card is Blue-Eyes White Dragon.... And only as the commander, its fine in the 99.
Intuition like other reserve list cards are hard to ban due to how salty those owners are. Since wizard can't print them, intuition price point depends on the demand with a lot coming from the commander format. If banned, the price will drop, those owners gets so salty in their lost of value in cardboard
In my opinion, uh, cope and seethe, basically. I mean, that's *resale* value, right? So Wizards don't even get anything from it? Surely this is just the correct decision from their perspective, even optically, as it would make it clear that they don't encourage making the price of entry too high (or at least they get to pretend to).
Reoccuring nightmare is absolutely an insane powerhouse. I think playing it in cube might change your opinion. It turns every top deck into the biggest threat in your graveyard. If you can't exile my eldrazi, but you can destroy it, too bad arbor elf off the top reanimate my creature again. Pair that with a stax deck and you can turn off irrelevant hate pieces and pull out better onces. The amount of flexability it has by being such a sticky card is bonkers. You basically have to be playing black or blue to meaningfully interact with it otherwise they'll just dredge more threats in a turn and go back to recycling loops.
The thing about commander bans is that they ban cards more as an example of what KIND of cards you shouldn't play. Because it's 100 singleton, there is always the chance that the cards you want are in the bottom 50% of your deck. So winning involves using multiple cards(tutors, draw, protection, ect...) To win even with two to three card combos. In fact, the more cards in the combo is an advantage, because by using more generic abilities means you can have differently named cards that basically do the same thing. So the ban list is filled with cards that are more "feels bad" that "wins every time". And the color identity basically bans any cards not in those colors. Also it's a four pod format, so cards that lead to "non-games" for two or more players, defeats the purpose of the format. So the ban list is more to protect the format more than the players.
I talked to Toby Elliott about the philosophy of the EDH banned list, and, basically, everything you said is wrong. Nothing is banned for being too powerful. Things are banned for being *deceptively* powerful. They aren't trying to stop you from doing cheesy stuff if you want to. They're trying to stop you from doing cheesy stuff when you *don't* want to. The ban list is there to keep people from making decks that are too powerful *by accident.* Panoptic Mirror looks like it could be a lot of fun, but in practice, it doesn't even have to be a time walk on the mirror to make all the opponents groan. Cards are banned that seem like they're going to be fun, but aren't.
I think one thing to note about Intuition and Gifts Ungiven is that, since Commander is a more casual format and lower power tables probably aren't shilling out as much cash for these gamebreaking pieces, Intuition is probably not affecting those as much as Gifts would.
The problem with Panoptic Mirror is it starts a non-deterministic wincon where everyone basically has to scoop in disgust because actually playing it out could take an hour or minutes. I respectfully disagree that Recurring Nightmare is okay because it goes infinite with a ham sandwich. The play pattern of Recurring Nightmare is not grindy at all, you probably win on the spot if you resolve it in a deck designed to make use of it.
I think you're worrying a bit too much about the "non-deterministic wincon". If an opponent has an answer to disrupt infinite turns, they'll usually want to cast it immediately, or maybe after a single turn at most. And otherwise, the game is over. Minus some very specific board states vs. cards remaining in deck, even the most terrible EDH jank piles can beat the rest of the table with infinite turns. Any players who insist on not scooping at that point are just creating their own problems, they've already lost. But I definitely agree that Recurring Nightmare was banned for doing a lot more than just recycling some value ETB/death triggers.
So your complaint about Nightmare is that a 100 card singleton deck can be built around it? Geez...imagine that. High power tables are expecting that and have interaction, and a low power table isn't going to build around Nightmare. I don't understand your position... Should we ban Cathars' Crusade because it goes infinite when you build around it (and even sometimes when you don't)? Should we ban the precon commander Shalai and Hallar because it goes infinite with a million things? Nightmare is stopped with a counterspell, or graveyard hate. There's no good reason for it to remain banned.
The issue with Panoptic mirror compared to those other combos in the video, or thoracle combos, etc, is that those other combos win you the game on the spot. Panoptic/extra turn spell still requires the player to actually manage to close out the game, which depending on the board state and what other players have in hand/mana up to respond to things, it basically leads to one player just playing a game of solitaire until they grind out a win with the rest of the pod being bored to tears if it's not just an instant concede. It's less of a power issue and more of a fun issue. Most EDH players also don't play cEDH, so it's not really fair to look at this from JUST a cEDH lens either. For Nightmare, it comes down to a combination of repeatability AND lack of interaction. Sure there are ways to repeat yard recursion, and there are definitely better recursion spells than nightmare, but none of those cards are both non-interactable and repeatable outside of a counterspell. Sure you can find a way to get repeatable recursion, but this usually requires at least a few cards to combo off of each other and not just a one card combo essentially. Also, not every deck runs mass yard removal, especially when it comes to again, lower power tables or more casual decks. Gifts was also banned because of an exploit with how the card worked, not just because you can find 2 cards and 2 recursion effects. Gifts says up to four cards, so you simply pick 2 cards you want in bin, fail to find the other two, and essentially acts as a double entomb. It's also likely that the "with different names" part has some slight thing to do with it since the format already essentially a tutor 2 cards for 4 mana, something that black "king of tutors" color can't even do as efficiently. Intuition on the other hand FORCES you to search for 3 cards, which means a card of an opponent's choice will go to yard and 2 to hand.
I hope to see a part three this is really good now intuition not being banned is not a good argument the problem with gifts is theres very tricky ruling with gifts that you can tutor less than 4 cards and only 2 cards so they both go to the graveyard since that's likely where you want them. and likely that's a end step response then on your turn you can easily get them out your graveyard and do the combo. and you can't do this trick with intuition. i'm really trouble seeing nightmare unbanned even with the seer number of grafdigger cage effects there are in todays commander. the only real way to stop it is with Counterspells/Discard effects/ and Wheels. plus i still don't see cage/rest and peace effects used in commander tables that much. now the mirror i can see as unbannable in today's era there are faster winning combos in todays era and plus this is a upkeep trigger so everyone can get a shot of removing it before the next turn comes up. and artifact removal is the second most often used type of removal in commander.
I agree with these plus id like to add the caviate that if gifts becomes unbanmed, since in good ciuations, its better. The combo its better with id say are breach lines of led, brain freeze, sevine's reclamation and underworld breach. For intuition, you would use it if you have one in hand, but with gifts, youve got the package all in one sho5. Instead of needing to grab one earlier.
Recurring Nightmare's issue seems to lie mostly with ETB effects for example, something like Great Whale, which untaps 7 lands when it ETBs. So, Nightmare and Whale or Palinchron effectively give you an infinite mana loop that can't be interacted with. If you're playing a blue black deck, you effectively could keep bouncing whale and something like Air-Cult Elemental or Fatestitcher, all while floating 4 mana with each loop, bounce all your opponents creatures and tap all their lands, then use the floating mana to cast Torment of Hailfire for an absurd X Cost. Then even if they survive by discarding cards, they have nothing to defend themselves anymore.
The Intuition/Gifts experience: "Oh, that's a neat card! How much-- OH. Well, maybe it'll get a reprint eventua-- oh. Well, maybe there's a less crazy, less expensive card with a similar effect? Oh yeah, that's go-- OH COME ON!!"
Biorythm was banned because of it's ability to win as early as turn 3 with Rofellos. With Rofellos banned, it could be unbanned due to how slow it is and that by that time, a blue player should have a counter for it or there should be some creatures on the board
It really threw me off that one five-color creature can satisfy Coalition Victory, but one changeling can't satisfy the requirement of having a full party
The argument around Gifts Ungiven and Intuition is just further proof that "Signpost bans" are a terrible concept. If you don't know, the Rules Committee sees the ban list as "indicative of cards that the RC thinks shouldn't be played." Essentially, if the RC disapproves of a mechanic or set of similar cards, instead of banning all of them, they'll only ban one of them (usually the most well-known/well-played of them) and then think this will discourage people from playing the other problematic cards.
Same comment I left on the Part I of this series. Would really appreciate to see a take on the ban list but through the perspective of cEDH instead of just EDH. The type of comparison you gave here regarding the Panoptic Mirror 🪞 and mentioning the 'Thossacle' combo because of the difference between casual and competitive play. My favourite to return would be Recurring Nightmare, since I built a dirty cEDH Savra list and that card would allow for probably one the strongest sac outlets with that commander.
I find it utterly insane that cards are just allowed to stay without reprints, costing thousands of dollars, and be perfectly legal to play. This is should violate all kinds of real life laws pretty much everywhere around the world, nevermind what the playerbase should say about it. Each time this comes up, I keep wondering just how Magic has survived this long and gotten away with such an incredibly awful business practice. Not even Yugioh is THAT greedy.
One card I actually want to see banned is Ad Nauseum. At instant speed, for only 5 mana and with 40 life starting total, its basically a one card I win the game in commander. There isn't even much variance in it like with demonic consultation, since you can always exile the card you name or just exile far too much of your deck in return for the card. With Ad Naus you either just win on the spot or in the small case where you don't, the player who cast it ends up wasting a ton of time for the rest of the players, dies and the game then just continues as with 3 players when the idea is to have 4.
Wait, can't you cast a naturalize effect on recurring nightmare as it enters the battlefield? It can only be activated as a sorcery, so you should be able to stop it anyways, or am I missing something?
You can’t cast spells which target permanents on a card entering the battlefield as it isn’t a permanent until it has actually entered the battlefield. That only happens when each opponent has passed priority in response to the card being put on the stack, resulting in the controller of Recurring Nightmare reobtaining priority the moment it resolves and thus allowing them to activate it and return it to their hand before anyone can interact with it.
There is a way to naturalize Recurring Nightmare. If any ability triggers on entering the battlefield, you can destroy Nightmare in response. Nightmare is sorcery only so they can't activate it to dodge the removal.
"Power Creep" is a real thing now and with all these reprints and the secondary market drop in price. It is easier to access these cards and average "6-7.4" power level decks are now "7.5-8.4". Constant reprints of Smothering Tithe, Rhystic Study, Mystic Remora, etc with newer cards make infinite go so much faster and easier... And don't get me started on how many people sneak in Thassa's Oracle and Demonic Consultation in any Dimir themed or combo-ed deck. Having a Coalition Vicory with a 5 Color Deck just helps with combos like that now...
Issue with the arguement for unbanning gifts is qhile yes theres demonic tutor in format but a lot of incredibly strong blue decks are either mono blue or are blue/red so dont even have access to demonic
Why do people think that Commander shouldn't have a banlist when it's a casual format... I feel like casual formats need banlists the most because extremely broken, competitive warping cards/strats will absolutely ruin the game for people who are just trying to have fun. If anything, I'd argue that Commander's banlist should be more restrictive because it is a casual format... and that broken/overpower cards should have no place in their meta at all.
At this point, I have a personal deckbuilding banlist of cards I would play in cedh vs casual edh. I'd argue that since these cards are unlikely to make it in cedh, they are unbannable. If you play these cards, you'll over time either commit to the meme or phase it out due to various rule 0/fun factors/social factors. Minus gifts ungiven, that's probably still too good.
With a couple of these, they're still banned because they wouldn't bring anything fun to the game if they were unbanned. Like, sure you could unban coalition victory, but it wouldn't add anything to the format by doing so.
Recurring Nightmare needs to stay on the banned list not just because it is unrespondable but because it's position on the Reserved List will negatively affect the community. If you look at what the legality of Cradle has done to the price in recent years that is the perfect example.
I would argue that Gifts is better than intuition, since you can fail to find for 2 cards and get a double entomb, whereas with Intuition there's no requirement for the cards, so you cant just find 2 cards
He's talking of the Casual Low-leveled (and Budget centric) Crowd (which usually is known to be slow to react to unbannings in this format and the like since the comittee is completely indenpendent from Wizards and, unlike the company, it does not have a consistent way to comunicate) not the Competitive one which usually is over the comittee almost all the time Mirror will absolutely see almost on it's play in the higher level tables of Competitive Commander the moment it gets unbanned which means that the card (which only had it's original print from Darksteel) will Skyrocket (which is what usually happens when cards that only had one printing see a lot of Play in the competitive side of the format) which means that it will become totally unaffordable for the Casual Budget Player (with only the few lucky that managed to get their copies before the Skyrocket)
@@alpha34098 I think the opposite. It's going to be problematic at the lower levels, but at the competitive level, I'd be surprised if it saw any significant level of play. It costs 5 to cast, and another 5 to imprint the extra turn spell. Any of the cheaper extra turn spells are either unimprintable by the mirror, or comes with severe drawbacks like losing the game at the end step or not untapping. So for a total of 10 mana you can win the game the next turn. I can't think of anything else you would imprint and would win you the game if you cast it for free on each upkeep. Most turbo decks a the competitive level wins at 3-5 mana, a thoracle consult costs 3 to win immediately, and an adnauseam is essentially 5 mana win the game. For lower power levels, something like a boardwipe every upkeep is oppressive. At those tables you typically have a harder time winning without a board state, and it's in situations like those where, I think Mirror would be the issue.
Mirror is like quite obviously one of the fairest cards on this list and was banned a long time ago when the format was much much slower. While you can do some busted things with the cards, you still have to both find the Mirror and the spell you want to copy with it, and either find a way to cheat Mirrror into play or pay its casting cost, and then spend the mana to imprint the card, and then wait an entire turn cycle for its effect to trigger. This gives your opponent's plenty of time to find a way to out the card or to try and remove you as a player. It's arguably a problem at much higher power but still casual commander tables, but other cards that also do similarly busted things like Isochron Scepter are still legal and don't really fiend much in the way of complaints, and there are still decks like Narset Extra Turns which sit in a similar but more consistent niche space. It is a card that can potentially say "I win if I untap with this" but that's true a whole host of cards in Commander. And if you're using Mirror to imprint something like a card draw spell or a ramp spell, you're only getting to, in fair use cases, start copying the card on Turn 7 which probably isn't resulting in any determinant factor on the game.
@@lamiaprincess6371 hard agree. I think this and biorythm are the only two that I could easily see coming off the list. The fact that this cost 5, and even then takes a whole turn cycle to get started doing anything ultimately puts it in the same category as things like mirari's wake and nyxbloom ancient, the "if I'm allowed to untap, then you all lose very quickly" category
While I see the reasoning for unbanning nightmare we all know ppl won't use it as a value engine but as a combo enabler. While there are "easier" ways to combo of with reanimation effects there are plenty of loops unique to nightmare some of them self-sustaining.
Ok HERE is where I have 2 issues with CoVics banning. 1) Its a single copy in a 100 card deck. Its not likely to get pulled often and is easier to stop than other autowins cause you have to play the creature and CoVic, so it is at least a 2 turn setup. 2) And this applies to ALL Commander Bans. Calling a format "Casual" and then having a Ban list is a oxymoron. Casual should indcate you arnt caring about anything other than playing, period. The minute you worry about if one card or another is too "powerful" in a format you are creating a Meta and its all of a sudden competitive. Only people Ive ever heard complain about Auto Win cards or really ANY card is Comp players. Ive played ZERO casual games where people complain about X or Y card.
Panoptic Mirror would absolutely see play in lower power tables. Even without infinite turns or other combos, just casting Wrath of God every turn would be a miserable experience to play against. I think it should remain banned.
I disagree just because Panoptic Mirror is not really any different to other combos people could include, it falls down to the player to decide to include the cards and how to use them. A wrath wouldn't be as bad as infinite extra turns since it's basically "do you have interaction? Okay i win for 9 mana" in commander 3 people would eventually find some kind of artifact removal for the mirror. There's a myriad of infinite mana possibilities into "I win" that just don't see play based on the choices by players to not include them in a deck. Many unfun strategies are completely untouched by the ban committee like Humility, Spreading Plague, Blood Moon, Mass Land Destruction which don't see play simply because they're not fun and people don't want that. There's 9 or 10 mana combos that can completely shut down creatures or could destroy all non-land permanents into a faiths reward/cosmic intervention to effectively win the game that aren't an issue. People don't play Mass land destruction into splendid reclamation by choice, not because it isn't good and easy to assemble, the same people wouldn't run a Panoptic Mirror combo.
One of the few cards on the banlist that should be there, nobody wants to watch the artifact deck play solitaire for the bajillionth time. Plus there are still plenty of artifact auto wins
CV is vulnerable to instant-speed removal on the 5c creature (or potentially strip mine on a land). That’s another reason it might be unbanned. Every colour can kill creatures at instant speed. Not so with biorhythm, for example. You basically need to play blue to stop biorhythm. CV is still boring though. I don’t know who told you that gifts had zero non-combo uses, but that’s absurd. For any deck mucking around in the graveyard there is a lot of cool potential there - I use intuition to set up loam value packages, for example. You need a pretty specific sort of plan to set up a combo with it, and if you’re going to that much trouble you’re probably out of scope for the banlst anyway.
I haven’t played magic in a while, so I’m not too sure on why Recurring Nightmare works the way you say it does? Can other players only cast spells or do actions in response to something done by the current (turn) player? My understanding was that Instants or things with Instant speed could be played at any time during any turn. Also, even if you can only get priority in response to the active player doing something, is the resolution of the card not treated as something that grants priority?
Biorhythm ban is simply nonsense: Aggro and Midrange focused decks (normally) won't be headshot'd, Control decks will simply waste another counter on an EIGHT MANA card. Coalition Victory ban is simply stupid because there are tons of better wincons with less mana. Also, in a format like cEDH/EDH, saying that there is ANY reanimate-like card better than Recurring Nightmare is just a brainless move.
Also I don't think that giving creature focused decks a boost would be a bad thing. The entire formats slowly migrates to a more combo focused style of play. As someone who likes combo decks, I am convinced that I deserve to get one shot killed by Biorymth.
Disagree about gifts only being useful for combo. Historically it was actually more often used in control decks. It lets you search up answers or finishers at instant speed as a two for one. When it's used this way the gifts subgame actually makes it a super interesting card. If it was unbanned I suspect it would be played in this way or in midrange decks to do stuff like setting up loam piles if it got played at all. It's way too slow for combo decks but the card advantage might make it interesting for slower grindier decks.
Gifts says up to, not exactly 4. If your combo wants any 2 cards in the yard, you just tutor 2 cards and combo off. Intuition is weaker in that it requires 3 cards to be selected, ensuring that your opponent has some amount of choice in which cards go where. That said, I fully support banning both or unbanning both, but make no mistake- Gifts is the stronger option for combos, but intuition is the BEST 3 mana instant speed draw spell.
You know what the best part about Commander is, it is not a tournament format, more friends and casual. Not to say CEDH isn't a thing, but even then it's typically just a group at an LGS, not a sanctioned tournament. This means, the Banlist is a guideline, not a hard rule, if you make an argument for playing a card from the banlist, and your crew agrees, then who cares?
Biorhythm - i think a better comparison to Biorhythm is cratorhoof behemoth. It is a huge spell that asks you to have a lot of creatures and wins the game when it comes down. With that said, knowing how hated cards like expropriate are, unbanning it would probably not be a good idea, as more cards that just insta win is not what the player base off, so I think unbanning it would do more harm then good.
I've always felt reoccurring nightmare was getting worst due to how good grave hate has gotten. To me if protein hulk is fine then so should recurring nightmare. You can also pitching needle it's effect or prevent them from resolving a creature along with it.
I’m a cedh player and intuition is better then demonic tutor in any deck with red white and blue in it because it can set up the entire underworld breech combo off one card and gifts ungiven could do the same thing so it would def see play in cedh
coalition victory can be interacted with more easily thanthoracle or second sun and i say either take it off the ban list or ban the cheaper ones that win the game easier than it.
Gifts can also get a four-card combo where you're able to work with part of it in the graveyard. Intuition already does this, but because it only gets three cards, you'll need to find the last card by different means. This is especially the case for Breach-Freeze which is usually made up of Underworld Breach, Lion's Eye Diamond, Brain Freeze. Using either Gifts or Intuition, you can get a card called Sevinne's Reclaimantion which is used to pull the Breach back from the 'yard and get the combo started. It helps that Reclaimation is castable from the graveyard anyway. Gifts Ungiven lets you get all four out of one card, and it'll largely not matter which two you give the opponent, as they can threaten to start the combo from any pair you give them. Love the content! And thanks for the video!
It is pretty irrelevant in almost all cases, since you can cast Intuition again with the LED mana and get the last card anyways. It's only relevant when the Yard is too empty but tbh that's not the case in most games
The main strength of Gifts Ungiven isn't necessarily that it gets you cards to your hand; it's that Gifts Ungiven is a double Entomb with upside. There's also the politics aspect of Gifts Ungiven; it's not as bad as Trade Secrets is, but you can more or less play politics to get exactly what you want with it if you have a friendly party a the table, and there's nothing the others can do about it.
I mean the main point of a gifts pile, if you are doing it right, is it doesn't matter what cards they choose, you get the same result(usually a combo victory on the following turn) no matter what.
the thing with edh is all of these cards are ok. its just its again not a comp format tho they will argue it is , simply put people wanna build their deck 1 way and want it to always work/win that 1 way. so the moment some1 introduces cards that are powerful they rage quit/give up. theres a reason theese cards dont really see play in say legacy/modern cause they can be countered or just beaten/played around fast. until edh players can learn how to use more tools they will never advance their own meta
Very interesting how Logs keeps talking about the card being used against you but a lot of counterarguments are from people who want to play the cards. Let's see more counterarguments that say the cards are easy to deal with if used against you, please.
Cookin' with the Intuituon argument for Gifts Ungiven ... Gifts requires different names ... Intuition just says 3 cards ... Aesi/Tatyova decks can just use it to grab 3 basics and Shadowborne/Persistent/Relentless Rats Colonies can use it to grab 3 of their respective gimmick card ... The ONLY thing I can think of that balances Intuition over Gifts is that Intuition doesn't say "up to" 3 cards, but not sure that's really a restriction.
Intuition is not nearly as good as gifts ungiven with reanimator effects, because the opponent always gets to choose which card doesn't go into your graveyard. with gifts ungiven you can always just only give them two cards so they are both guarenteed to go to the graveyard
The issue with panoptic mirror is that it slots into every deck as it is an artifact. Sure you cant take infinite turns with every color, but its not hard to slot blue into a plethora of other decks in a format that has no issue running 4+ colored decks. Comparing it to a 2 card combo with 2 5 mana enchantments is a bit silly imo. Strongly disagree on the nightmare. While the other effects are "better" in terms of mana efficiency, if you get stopped and have a recurring nightmare you can just try again the very next turn. To say that it is worse than the others based on such an arbitrary thing like mana or that you have to sac a creature feels a bit ignorant in regards to the power level of the card. And the classic "just play graveyard hate bro" is the very same argument you have previously stated is NOT a good argument to deal with cards. Another issue with this card is that if you play it and recur your big boi winner and they disrupt it you can try again the very same turn if you have the board for it. And just because it can be used in value grind strats doesnt mean that those decks wont also run heavy hitter combo pieces. I feel like you are really underselling the value of this card.
Explaining the reasoning behind the commander banlist is more of a psychological dive into the erratic and irrational whims of Sheldon. The literal reason consultation isn't banned is because Sheldon hasn't seen it used against him, therefore it's not an issue.
Panoptic mirror only requires one card being played to go infinite, this means they can't counter the other half when it's time to go off. You also have the option of imprinting card draw like treasure cruise and drawing 3 every turn for free to get you to the extra turns spell. You could also imprint a tutor and search up whatever card you want every turn. It's not only a mostly single card combo but it's infinite utility as well.
Biorythm costs a lot- the decks that can engineer that much mana on demand can do just about anything else to win regardless, so yeah, biorythm should be unbanned. It's more expensive than most board wipes by now anyway.
Honestly, with the argument to why Coalition Victory/Biorythm should be unbanned, you could have used Thassa's Oracle. It's a format warping card, especially for how cheap the combo is. The common method is to use Demonic Consultation since it allows you to empty your library, on top of being able to tutor it out since both black and blue have methods of getting the card into your hand. Coalition Victory is too slow of a card. Either the RC should set a precedent and band Thoracle, or double down and remove coalition victory. But the Banlist is a joke since the RC only does signpost bans.
I don't want to see gifts unbanned. Not for power, but because I value my time. An opponent mulling over what cards to get followed by another player doing the same over what cars to get them sounds dreadful. Another point gift is up to. So you can fail to find and get an expensive blue double entomb. Which makes it take even longer to resolve.
Honestly if it was just an enchantment that did the wincon on upkeep it would be fine. A ton of janky alt win cons work that way these days just to give a chance for the opponents to do something about it, whether it be enchantment removal or board alterations. It’s the fact that the opponents need instant speed removal, or a counterspell is the issue
If Coalition Victory were one of those "you win" enchantments with "at the beginning of your upkeep" rather than a sorcery it would probably be less of an issue.
Unfortunate paradox: this was always going to be an issue with early cards. WOTC needed to make mistakes before they could learn. That's just an annoying part of life.
Meanwhile Thassa's Oracle is warping the entire cEDH meta game, where decks that don't need it still run it because it's a powerful win condition.
@@XCodes Obviously. It just comes down to the issue of the RC not wanting to take responsibility when it comes to shaping the meta game.
Sheldon Menery, one of the founders of EDH said that he doesn't see Thassa played that often. But then again, he said the new Elesh Norn was gonna warp the format and that wheel effects are bad for the game.
My favorite thing I've ever seen with c victory was during invasion block draft. The player had it and legacy weapon with 4 harrow. He won the 12 man draft. He managed to both play and use both C. Victory and legacy weapon successfully somehow. Watched him use legacy weapons ability several times. It was crazy!
"Power Creep" is a real thing now and with all these reprints and the secondary market drop in price. It is easier to access these cards and average "6-7.4" power level decks are now "7.5-8.4". Constant reprints of Smothering Tithe, Rhystic Study, Mystic Remora, etc with newer cards make infinite go so much faster and easier... And don't get me started on how many people sneak in Thassa's Oracle and Demonic Consultation in any Dimir themed or combo-ed deck. Having a Coalition Vicory with a 5 Color Deck just helps with combos like that now...
The other issue with biorhythm is that it can easily cause draws. If someone goes board wipe, play a creature, cast biorhythm and someone's only response is to remove the creature the the game draws.
Perfectly balanced. As all things should be.
Still an end. My only issue I am having with EDH is no one wants the game to end unless it's on their terms. Sometimes you have to realize your just stalling and take your L and start a new game.
@@trizkit995 having a 2 hour struggle end in a draw is just unsatisfying tho, might as well not play at all then
@@ich3730 depends on how you go out. If it's a ridiculous instance due to many cards interacting, I find draws can be fun.
If it's "I kill everyone, including me", then the draw is less interesting
Keep crying. Skill issue.
Counterargument for panoptic mirror staying banned: There are lots of extra turn spells and they are basically all good on their own, so its pretty easy to accidently make the combo.
Counter counter point.
Expropriate is the only extra turn spell you need, is the same amount of mana as the combo, and should have everyone outright scoop anyway.
Counter Counter Counter point: demonic consultation and thoracle is unbanned, both are good on their own, and are VERY easy to tutor.
Counterpoint to EVERY SINGLE PART OF THIS. Kenrith and timetwister aren't banned. There's no reason anything should be banned if those two are fine.
There's no actual good reasons for these bans other than the rules committee is full of very biased people.
@@airagog don't think you understand why they're banned in the first place, also this is the worst place to discuss this
@@XCodes how do you draw an out when you do t get a turn?
Also, that combo takes a long time to kill the table, and isn’t fun for the opponents, while thoracle consult is vert fast.
The problem with Panoptic Mirror is that is take EVERY powerful instant and sorcery and makes it devastatingly better. I have a sweeper deck that runs 15 board wipes. Can you imagine the frustration at this table if I put Wrath of God, Damnation, or Merciless Eviction on Panoptic Mirror? It isn't just extra turn spells that win you the game, EVERY powerful instant or sorcery wins you the game...
How insane is it that Oathbreaker unbanned Gifts Ungiven recently and it's not even that good. A format where you can literally put Gifts in the command zone unbanned the card and it's not even good, yet it's still banned in EDH.
How can my opponent play gifts when I have wrenn and six, and crop rotation in the command zone
Compared to intuition gifts gives you a second card which given how many nutty reanimation hulk lines or the equally stupid reanimation/ bomberman or breach lines that it sets up. They are both really powerful and giving that strat more consistency than it has now (looking at mad farm, blue farm or just read breach) would be unhealthy for the format.
It's a one card find your combo for 4 mana. We don't need more consistency
Oathbreaker is more fast format than EDH, for EDH it's still to powerful
Gifts would definitely see cEDH play because the main Intuition pile is actually a 4 card combo (Breach/Brain Freeze/LED/Sevinne's Reclamation), but I still think it should come off the list regardless.
You could also just get thoracle/demonic consultation/regrowth/noxious revival and as long as you have a 5th mana source untap and kill
Can I ask if you do a Pauper format ban list. It would be a great mini series.❤
Great idea, I would love to see a -logs type treatment of this topic!
Would it be though? Pauper is unique in that Wizards actually releases official statements on their reasons for each and every Pauper ban. In detail, too!
One thing about coalition victory is it just says "you win the game". Even if many other cards at that level basically win you the game, at least they tend to have some kind of effect, while coalition victory just wins the game boringly without space for counterplay once it resolves.
Gifts ungiven is alaays a +1 in card advantage while also being able to get 4 cards into zones where they're more accessible. Intuition and dt, while powerful, are card neutral so are more narrow albeit slightly.
Intuition is still a win the game card regardless
If you cast any of these for card advantage in cedh you've already lost the game. The fact that Intuition is one mana cheaper and has the exactly same outcome makes it 100x better
@@fangoukulele7570Except it only gets one card into your hand, not two. That’s good if you already have either what you need or a reanimation spell, but it’s not as strong as Gifts Ungiven.
A notable part of Gifts Ungiven is that you can fail to find 2 of the cards, allowing it to function as a 2-card entomb
Dread return + any late-game bomb is the classic choice.
Wake up babe, new manalogs upload
Actually I think it’s hirumaredx
@@professionalhater3929 hirumanax
I wish he didn’t just pirate Nizzahon’s channel tho :(
@@august3149who
@@computerwaste5950 the big top 10 guy for MTG, gues this guy doesnt know hiru (duel logs) is the top 10 guy of yugiyoh and is branching off to different games
idk, about the Gifts Ungiven / Intuition argument. Both are powerful tutors, but getting two cards you searched for vs. one seems like a very potent difference.
So I searched for underworld breach, lions eye diamond and seveines reclamation. I now proceed to win the game.
@@DUxMORTEM *shrug*
@@DUxMORTEM if your in red, fervant mastery does this too, its a gifts ungiving if you look at it sideways lol
It's one mana cheaper and you only need 3 cards to win anyways, so in cedh you'd maybe play Gifts in a flex Spot, but realistically idk if that's worth
@@fangoukulele7570 Both are extremely powerful tutors, I was never denying that. I have doubt both would make the list if available. I just think people are underestimating that extra card advantage. Like, in a vacuum, it’s an instant tutor, vs. an instant double tutor (graveyard shenanigans notwithstanding).
I agree with pretty much agree with the points on Panoptic Mirror and Gifts Ungiven.
Recurring Nightmare is strong but you can interact with it, a creature is needed to sacrifice so if they have no creatures then the card is wasted in their hand.
Recurring Nightmare will probably not come off the banlist as it has a powered down version in Hell's Caretaker that's legal and popular in commander.
It also might stay banned specifically due to being a extra copy of Caretaker that's harder to get rid of.
Hard disagree. In response to you targeting it I activate it.
@@DUxMORTEM Recurring Nightmare's effect is sorcery speed.
@@DUxMORTEM only you cannot, it is sorcery speed. I don't get why ppl say it can't be interacted with.
@@ferminbalestrini6193 Look into how priority works in this game and you’ll figure out why people say this
You interact with Recurring Nightmare the same way you interact with Victimize. And if you've already got infinite mana for the combo, then how you spend it is really irrelevant at that point, there are so many mana sinks that one more doesn't matter.
That main problem with comparing Panoptic Mirror to Sanguine Bond, is that its a 2 card combo with lots of cards as opposed to just one. SB and EB are enchantments that don't affect the board immediately, wheras an extra turn card is a generic value card that's immediately useful. If you play Mirror in a turns deck, it's essentially an infinite with like 10 other cards in your deck, that can be protected by the other 9 extra turn cards since you can use them to get to your next upkeep without passing around the table.
Any 2 card combo where it can combo with a generic value card that you have multiple of in your deck is much stronger than one that's based around combo pieces that only exist for the explicit purpose of being combo pieces.
I believe panoptic mirror is still banned in order to prevent any future combo because the designers may release a potentially new instant or sorcery that will become busted if it can be copied during each of your turn. The fact that the card does not have any restrictions in terms of what instant or sorcery card that can be copied makes it a big issue because it opens the door to so many future combo potentials. Not only can panoptic mirror copy any instant or sorcery card, but it also make sure that you always have access to a specific instant or sorcery card that may become a part of a new combo piece in the future. If panoptic mirror have a restriction in terms of what card it can be imprinted or have some sort of activation cost (such as Isochron Scepter), then I don't think it would have been banned.
Another facyor for gifts ungiven is time, especially at lower skill tables. People often play tutors without a plan on what to get, instead just scanning through their deck for something useful. Now those players have to do that four times.
Intuition being on the reserved list means less enfranchised players are unlikely to cast it.
I don't think people at those tables would be playing gifts ungiven lol, it is a combo enabler through and through.
Biorythim - "it punishes creature-light decks" - and I don't see any problem with that 🤷♂
Panoptic Mirror - can we all agree "take an extra turn" effects are a huge mistake?
I wouldn't mind Coalition Victory being unbanned. I can't believe I'm saying this but I think it's been powercrept as a wincon. It's easy to get to sure, but there are countless wincons even in casual edh that are faster, more consistent and arguably more banworthy
I think the issue with Coalition Victory is that unlike other "win the game" conditions, it doesn't have an end step or upkeep clause, counterspell or instant speed removal is the only way to avoid immediate victory.
Your deck does not need any building around it except simply having a 5-color commander and tossing it in as a random thing you suddenly draw and become the archenemy. It's the same problem I have with Sol Ring. It doesn't help that it is actively powercrept upwards by the increasing ability to have a lot of different land types on single cards
@@antarath517 8 mana, sorcery speed, and requires 5 color commander. There are a lot of faster and more reliable win conditions.
Lets be honest, the edh banlist is filled with a lot of cards that are there more because some players think it is "unfun", and not because they are broken or warp the format around it.
Apparently Thorical is "fun"
Thing is, being unbanned adds nothing good to the format, you just make one more card that says "the last hour didnt matter I just resolve this spell and win even if the only other card ive cast this game is a 5 color creature. Thats not fun or interesting. The format needs LESS cards that make the rest of the game up to the point theyre cast not matter.
Intuition is not strictly better. It only gives you one of the cards into your hand. Which means if you get graveyard recursion, it really only acts as a 3 mana tutor. Gifts Ungiven gives you both pieces you need
negative. usually one of the cards you get with intuition you want or can cast from your graveyard anyway, like past in flames that he used as an example. if you grabbed 2 other instants/sorceries, it tutors for 3 cards for 3 mana. another line is the Sevinne's Reclamation, Underwolrd Breach, and LED. Keep Sevinne's and you grab breach, escape LED, recast Intuition for your wincon, GG. Keep breach, you skip Sevinnes. Keep LED, Sevinne's has flashback like past in flames.
Essentially it is at least just as good minimum, or even better because it costs one less.
Rule 0 - your playgroup discussion can decide what cards are legal before decks are chosen.
The only banned card is Blue-Eyes White Dragon.... And only as the commander, its fine in the 99.
Intuition like other reserve list cards are hard to ban due to how salty those owners are. Since wizard can't print them, intuition price point depends on the demand with a lot coming from the commander format. If banned, the price will drop, those owners gets so salty in their lost of value in cardboard
So let's ban it! Win win
In my opinion, uh, cope and seethe, basically. I mean, that's *resale* value, right? So Wizards don't even get anything from it? Surely this is just the correct decision from their perspective, even optically, as it would make it clear that they don't encourage making the price of entry too high (or at least they get to pretend to).
@@misirtere9836 yeah WOTC always pretends the secondary market doesn’t exist but they know it does, they just can’t acknowledge it for legal reasons
Reoccuring nightmare is absolutely an insane powerhouse. I think playing it in cube might change your opinion. It turns every top deck into the biggest threat in your graveyard. If you can't exile my eldrazi, but you can destroy it, too bad arbor elf off the top reanimate my creature again. Pair that with a stax deck and you can turn off irrelevant hate pieces and pull out better onces. The amount of flexability it has by being such a sticky card is bonkers. You basically have to be playing black or blue to meaningfully interact with it otherwise they'll just dredge more threats in a turn and go back to recycling loops.
The thing about commander bans is that they ban cards more as an example of what KIND of cards you shouldn't play.
Because it's 100 singleton, there is always the chance that the cards you want are in the bottom 50% of your deck. So winning involves using multiple cards(tutors, draw, protection, ect...) To win even with two to three card combos. In fact, the more cards in the combo is an advantage, because by using more generic abilities means you can have differently named cards that basically do the same thing.
So the ban list is filled with cards that are more "feels bad" that "wins every time". And the color identity basically bans any cards not in those colors.
Also it's a four pod format, so cards that lead to "non-games" for two or more players, defeats the purpose of the format. So the ban list is more to protect the format more than the players.
I talked to Toby Elliott about the philosophy of the EDH banned list, and, basically, everything you said is wrong. Nothing is banned for being too powerful. Things are banned for being *deceptively* powerful.
They aren't trying to stop you from doing cheesy stuff if you want to. They're trying to stop you from doing cheesy stuff when you *don't* want to. The ban list is there to keep people from making decks that are too powerful *by accident.* Panoptic Mirror looks like it could be a lot of fun, but in practice, it doesn't even have to be a time walk on the mirror to make all the opponents groan. Cards are banned that seem like they're going to be fun, but aren't.
And this we're left with a incoherent banlist that never gets updated
I think one thing to note about Intuition and Gifts Ungiven is that, since Commander is a more casual format and lower power tables probably aren't shilling out as much cash for these gamebreaking pieces, Intuition is probably not affecting those as much as Gifts would.
The problem with Panoptic Mirror is it starts a non-deterministic wincon where everyone basically has to scoop in disgust because actually playing it out could take an hour or minutes.
I respectfully disagree that Recurring Nightmare is okay because it goes infinite with a ham sandwich. The play pattern of Recurring Nightmare is not grindy at all, you probably win on the spot if you resolve it in a deck designed to make use of it.
I think you're worrying a bit too much about the "non-deterministic wincon". If an opponent has an answer to disrupt infinite turns, they'll usually want to cast it immediately, or maybe after a single turn at most. And otherwise, the game is over. Minus some very specific board states vs. cards remaining in deck, even the most terrible EDH jank piles can beat the rest of the table with infinite turns. Any players who insist on not scooping at that point are just creating their own problems, they've already lost.
But I definitely agree that Recurring Nightmare was banned for doing a lot more than just recycling some value ETB/death triggers.
So your complaint about Nightmare is that a 100 card singleton deck can be built around it? Geez...imagine that.
High power tables are expecting that and have interaction, and a low power table isn't going to build around Nightmare. I don't understand your position...
Should we ban Cathars' Crusade because it goes infinite when you build around it (and even sometimes when you don't)? Should we ban the precon commander Shalai and Hallar because it goes infinite with a million things?
Nightmare is stopped with a counterspell, or graveyard hate. There's no good reason for it to remain banned.
@@greyaye8565 you are not considering what nightmare actually is like to play against
The issue with Panoptic mirror compared to those other combos in the video, or thoracle combos, etc, is that those other combos win you the game on the spot. Panoptic/extra turn spell still requires the player to actually manage to close out the game, which depending on the board state and what other players have in hand/mana up to respond to things, it basically leads to one player just playing a game of solitaire until they grind out a win with the rest of the pod being bored to tears if it's not just an instant concede. It's less of a power issue and more of a fun issue. Most EDH players also don't play cEDH, so it's not really fair to look at this from JUST a cEDH lens either.
For Nightmare, it comes down to a combination of repeatability AND lack of interaction. Sure there are ways to repeat yard recursion, and there are definitely better recursion spells than nightmare, but none of those cards are both non-interactable and repeatable outside of a counterspell. Sure you can find a way to get repeatable recursion, but this usually requires at least a few cards to combo off of each other and not just a one card combo essentially. Also, not every deck runs mass yard removal, especially when it comes to again, lower power tables or more casual decks.
Gifts was also banned because of an exploit with how the card worked, not just because you can find 2 cards and 2 recursion effects. Gifts says up to four cards, so you simply pick 2 cards you want in bin, fail to find the other two, and essentially acts as a double entomb. It's also likely that the "with different names" part has some slight thing to do with it since the format already essentially a tutor 2 cards for 4 mana, something that black "king of tutors" color can't even do as efficiently. Intuition on the other hand FORCES you to search for 3 cards, which means a card of an opponent's choice will go to yard and 2 to hand.
I hope to see a part three this is really good
now intuition not being banned is not a good argument
the problem with gifts is theres very tricky ruling with gifts that you can tutor less than 4 cards and only 2 cards so they both go to the graveyard since that's likely where you want them. and likely that's a end step response then on your turn you can easily get them out your graveyard and do the combo. and you can't do this trick with intuition.
i'm really trouble seeing nightmare unbanned even with the seer number of grafdigger cage effects there are in todays commander. the only real way to stop it is with Counterspells/Discard effects/ and Wheels. plus i still don't see cage/rest and peace effects used in commander tables that much.
now the mirror i can see as unbannable in today's era there are faster winning combos in todays era and plus this is a upkeep trigger so everyone can get a shot of removing it before the next turn comes up. and artifact removal is the second most often used type of removal in commander.
I agree with these plus id like to add the caviate that if gifts becomes unbanmed, since in good ciuations, its better. The combo its better with id say are breach lines of led, brain freeze, sevine's reclamation and underworld breach. For intuition, you would use it if you have one in hand, but with gifts, youve got the package all in one sho5. Instead of needing to grab one earlier.
You are talking about Failure to Find?
@@S20Urza Thought so.
Recurring Nightmare's issue seems to lie mostly with ETB effects for example, something like Great Whale, which untaps 7 lands when it ETBs. So, Nightmare and Whale or Palinchron effectively give you an infinite mana loop that can't be interacted with. If you're playing a blue black deck, you effectively could keep bouncing whale and something like Air-Cult Elemental or Fatestitcher, all while floating 4 mana with each loop, bounce all your opponents creatures and tap all their lands, then use the floating mana to cast Torment of Hailfire for an absurd X Cost. Then even if they survive by discarding cards, they have nothing to defend themselves anymore.
The Intuition/Gifts experience: "Oh, that's a neat card! How much-- OH. Well, maybe it'll get a reprint eventua-- oh. Well, maybe there's a less crazy, less expensive card with a similar effect? Oh yeah, that's go-- OH COME ON!!"
Biorythm was banned because of it's ability to win as early as turn 3 with Rofellos. With Rofellos banned, it could be unbanned due to how slow it is and that by that time, a blue player should have a counter for it or there should be some creatures on the board
Panoptic Mirror is really funny, and being funny makes it more likely to see play
It really threw me off that one five-color creature can satisfy Coalition Victory, but one changeling can't satisfy the requirement of having a full party
i believe it’s because you need multiple creatures with each type, if you had 4 changelings it would probably work
The argument around Gifts Ungiven and Intuition is just further proof that "Signpost bans" are a terrible concept.
If you don't know, the Rules Committee sees the ban list as "indicative of cards that the RC thinks shouldn't be played." Essentially, if the RC disapproves of a mechanic or set of similar cards, instead of banning all of them, they'll only ban one of them (usually the most well-known/well-played of them) and then think this will discourage people from playing the other problematic cards.
The main reason why all cards are banned in commander is because the rules committee banned them from their personal playgroup.
Same comment I left on the Part I of this series. Would really appreciate to see a take on the ban list but through the perspective of cEDH instead of just EDH. The type of comparison you gave here regarding the Panoptic Mirror 🪞 and mentioning the 'Thossacle' combo because of the difference between casual and competitive play.
My favourite to return would be Recurring Nightmare, since I built a dirty cEDH Savra list and that card would allow for probably one the strongest sac outlets with that commander.
I find it utterly insane that cards are just allowed to stay without reprints, costing thousands of dollars, and be perfectly legal to play.
This is should violate all kinds of real life laws pretty much everywhere around the world, nevermind what the playerbase should say about it.
Each time this comes up, I keep wondering just how Magic has survived this long and gotten away with such an incredibly awful business practice. Not even Yugioh is THAT greedy.
One card I actually want to see banned is Ad Nauseum. At instant speed, for only 5 mana and with 40 life starting total, its basically a one card I win the game in commander. There isn't even much variance in it like with demonic consultation, since you can always exile the card you name or just exile far too much of your deck in return for the card. With Ad Naus you either just win on the spot or in the small case where you don't, the player who cast it ends up wasting a ton of time for the rest of the players, dies and the game then just continues as with 3 players when the idea is to have 4.
Wait, can't you cast a naturalize effect on recurring nightmare as it enters the battlefield? It can only be activated as a sorcery, so you should be able to stop it anyways, or am I missing something?
You can’t cast spells which target permanents on a card entering the battlefield as it isn’t a permanent until it has actually entered the battlefield. That only happens when each opponent has passed priority in response to the card being put on the stack, resulting in the controller of Recurring Nightmare reobtaining priority the moment it resolves and thus allowing them to activate it and return it to their hand before anyone can interact with it.
There is a way to naturalize Recurring Nightmare. If any ability triggers on entering the battlefield, you can destroy Nightmare in response. Nightmare is sorcery only so they can't activate it to dodge the removal.
"casting reoccurring nightmare"
"In response I exile your graveyard"
easy peasy
"Power Creep" is a real thing now and with all these reprints and the secondary market drop in price. It is easier to access these cards and average "6-7.4" power level decks are now "7.5-8.4". Constant reprints of Smothering Tithe, Rhystic Study, Mystic Remora, etc with newer cards make infinite go so much faster and easier... And don't get me started on how many people sneak in Thassa's Oracle and Demonic Consultation in any Dimir themed or combo-ed deck. Having a Coalition Vicory with a 5 Color Deck just helps with combos like that now...
Issue with the arguement for unbanning gifts is qhile yes theres demonic tutor in format but a lot of incredibly strong blue decks are either mono blue or are blue/red so dont even have access to demonic
Why do people think that Commander shouldn't have a banlist when it's a casual format... I feel like casual formats need banlists the most because extremely broken, competitive warping cards/strats will absolutely ruin the game for people who are just trying to have fun. If anything, I'd argue that Commander's banlist should be more restrictive because it is a casual format... and that broken/overpower cards should have no place in their meta at all.
Your channel is the only one I get mobile notification on
At this point, I have a personal deckbuilding banlist of cards I would play in cedh vs casual edh. I'd argue that since these cards are unlikely to make it in cedh, they are unbannable. If you play these cards, you'll over time either commit to the meme or phase it out due to various rule 0/fun factors/social factors.
Minus gifts ungiven, that's probably still too good.
With a couple of these, they're still banned because they wouldn't bring anything fun to the game if they were unbanned.
Like, sure you could unban coalition victory, but it wouldn't add anything to the format by doing so.
Recurring Nightmare needs to stay on the banned list not just because it is unrespondable but because it's position on the Reserved List will negatively affect the community. If you look at what the legality of Cradle has done to the price in recent years that is the perfect example.
Then they should ban all reserve list cards
I would argue that Gifts is better than intuition, since you can fail to find for 2 cards and get a double entomb, whereas with Intuition there's no requirement for the cards, so you cant just find 2 cards
A simple errata to make coalition fair: a basic land of each basic land type, and a mono color creature of each color.
And as with all instant win effects, the errata that makes it fair also makes it completely unplayable
Doesn't make it fair. It's fair already.
Entire counter point to it "not being fair"
Expropriate is unbanned
You're insane if you think Mirror wouldn't see play
It can go in any deck and can target any card
He's talking of the Casual Low-leveled (and Budget centric) Crowd (which usually is known to be slow to react to unbannings in this format and the like since the comittee is completely indenpendent from Wizards and, unlike the company, it does not have a consistent way to comunicate) not the Competitive one which usually is over the comittee almost all the time
Mirror will absolutely see almost on it's play in the higher level tables of Competitive Commander the moment it gets unbanned which means that the card (which only had it's original print from Darksteel) will Skyrocket (which is what usually happens when cards that only had one printing see a lot of Play in the competitive side of the format) which means that it will become totally unaffordable for the Casual Budget Player (with only the few lucky that managed to get their copies before the Skyrocket)
So can isochron scepter, but it really doesn't seem much play either
@@alpha34098 I think the opposite. It's going to be problematic at the lower levels, but at the competitive level, I'd be surprised if it saw any significant level of play. It costs 5 to cast, and another 5 to imprint the extra turn spell. Any of the cheaper extra turn spells are either unimprintable by the mirror, or comes with severe drawbacks like losing the game at the end step or not untapping. So for a total of 10 mana you can win the game the next turn. I can't think of anything else you would imprint and would win you the game if you cast it for free on each upkeep. Most turbo decks a the competitive level wins at 3-5 mana, a thoracle consult costs 3 to win immediately, and an adnauseam is essentially 5 mana win the game. For lower power levels, something like a boardwipe every upkeep is oppressive. At those tables you typically have a harder time winning without a board state, and it's in situations like those where, I think Mirror would be the issue.
Mirror is like quite obviously one of the fairest cards on this list and was banned a long time ago when the format was much much slower. While you can do some busted things with the cards, you still have to both find the Mirror and the spell you want to copy with it, and either find a way to cheat Mirrror into play or pay its casting cost, and then spend the mana to imprint the card, and then wait an entire turn cycle for its effect to trigger. This gives your opponent's plenty of time to find a way to out the card or to try and remove you as a player.
It's arguably a problem at much higher power but still casual commander tables, but other cards that also do similarly busted things like Isochron Scepter are still legal and don't really fiend much in the way of complaints, and there are still decks like Narset Extra Turns which sit in a similar but more consistent niche space. It is a card that can potentially say "I win if I untap with this" but that's true a whole host of cards in Commander.
And if you're using Mirror to imprint something like a card draw spell or a ramp spell, you're only getting to, in fair use cases, start copying the card on Turn 7 which probably isn't resulting in any determinant factor on the game.
@@lamiaprincess6371 hard agree. I think this and biorythm are the only two that I could easily see coming off the list. The fact that this cost 5, and even then takes a whole turn cycle to get started doing anything ultimately puts it in the same category as things like mirari's wake and nyxbloom ancient, the "if I'm allowed to untap, then you all lose very quickly" category
While I see the reasoning for unbanning nightmare we all know ppl won't use it as a value engine but as a combo enabler. While there are "easier" ways to combo of with reanimation effects there are plenty of loops unique to nightmare some of them self-sustaining.
Ok HERE is where I have 2 issues with CoVics banning.
1) Its a single copy in a 100 card deck. Its not likely to get pulled often and is easier to stop than other autowins cause you have to play the creature and CoVic, so it is at least a 2 turn setup.
2) And this applies to ALL Commander Bans. Calling a format "Casual" and then having a Ban list is a oxymoron. Casual should indcate you arnt caring about anything other than playing, period. The minute you worry about if one card or another is too "powerful" in a format you are creating a Meta and its all of a sudden competitive. Only people Ive ever heard complain about Auto Win cards or really ANY card is Comp players. Ive played ZERO casual games where people complain about X or Y card.
Panoptic Mirror would absolutely see play in lower power tables. Even without infinite turns or other combos, just casting Wrath of God every turn would be a miserable experience to play against. I think it should remain banned.
I disagree just because Panoptic Mirror is not really any different to other combos people could include, it falls down to the player to decide to include the cards and how to use them.
A wrath wouldn't be as bad as infinite extra turns since it's basically "do you have interaction? Okay i win for 9 mana" in commander 3 people would eventually find some kind of artifact removal for the mirror.
There's a myriad of infinite mana possibilities into "I win" that just don't see play based on the choices by players to not include them in a deck.
Many unfun strategies are completely untouched by the ban committee like Humility, Spreading Plague, Blood Moon, Mass Land Destruction which don't see play simply because they're not fun and people don't want that.
There's 9 or 10 mana combos that can completely shut down creatures or could destroy all non-land permanents into a faiths reward/cosmic intervention to effectively win the game that aren't an issue.
People don't play Mass land destruction into splendid reclamation by choice, not because it isn't good and easy to assemble, the same people wouldn't run a Panoptic Mirror combo.
Interesting to hear what you think of Paradox Engine ban. It seemed quite devicive
One of the few cards on the banlist that should be there, nobody wants to watch the artifact deck play solitaire for the bajillionth time. Plus there are still plenty of artifact auto wins
CV is vulnerable to instant-speed removal on the 5c creature (or potentially strip mine on a land). That’s another reason it might be unbanned. Every colour can kill creatures at instant speed. Not so with biorhythm, for example. You basically need to play blue to stop biorhythm. CV is still boring though.
I don’t know who told you that gifts had zero non-combo uses, but that’s absurd. For any deck mucking around in the graveyard there is a lot of cool potential there - I use intuition to set up loam value packages, for example. You need a pretty specific sort of plan to set up a combo with it, and if you’re going to that much trouble you’re probably out of scope for the banlst anyway.
I haven’t played magic in a while, so I’m not too sure on why Recurring Nightmare works the way you say it does?
Can other players only cast spells or do actions in response to something done by the current (turn) player?
My understanding was that Instants or things with Instant speed could be played at any time during any turn.
Also, even if you can only get priority in response to the active player doing something, is the resolution of the card not treated as something that grants priority?
Ok hear me out, intuition is mainly played in cedh, and u can say that gifts is a little more powerful than intuition
Counterpoint on Coalition Victory: Approach of the Second Sun is legal.
Biorhythm ban is simply nonsense: Aggro and Midrange focused decks (normally) won't be headshot'd, Control decks will simply waste another counter on an EIGHT MANA card. Coalition Victory ban is simply stupid because there are tons of better wincons with less mana. Also, in a format like cEDH/EDH, saying that there is ANY reanimate-like card better than Recurring Nightmare is just a brainless move.
Also I don't think that giving creature focused decks a boost would be a bad thing. The entire formats slowly migrates to a more combo focused style of play. As someone who likes combo decks, I am convinced that I deserve to get one shot killed by Biorymth.
Disagree about gifts only being useful for combo. Historically it was actually more often used in control decks. It lets you search up answers or finishers at instant speed as a two for one. When it's used this way the gifts subgame actually makes it a super interesting card. If it was unbanned I suspect it would be played in this way or in midrange decks to do stuff like setting up loam piles if it got played at all. It's way too slow for combo decks but the card advantage might make it interesting for slower grindier decks.
happy to see the second part :D
Gifts says up to, not exactly 4. If your combo wants any 2 cards in the yard, you just tutor 2 cards and combo off. Intuition is weaker in that it requires 3 cards to be selected, ensuring that your opponent has some amount of choice in which cards go where. That said, I fully support banning both or unbanning both, but make no mistake- Gifts is the stronger option for combos, but intuition is the BEST 3 mana instant speed draw spell.
Cards that interact with exile?
Biorhythm is actually pretty balanced, because in decks that don't run a lot of creatures like Kess, they'll just never lt it resolve anyway.
You know what the best part about Commander is, it is not a tournament format, more friends and casual. Not to say CEDH isn't a thing, but even then it's typically just a group at an LGS, not a sanctioned tournament.
This means, the Banlist is a guideline, not a hard rule, if you make an argument for playing a card from the banlist, and your crew agrees, then who cares?
Biorhythm - i think a better comparison to Biorhythm is cratorhoof behemoth. It is a huge spell that asks you to have a lot of creatures and wins the game when it comes down. With that said, knowing how hated cards like expropriate are, unbanning it would probably not be a good idea, as more cards that just insta win is not what the player base off, so I think unbanning it would do more harm then good.
I've always felt reoccurring nightmare was getting worst due to how good grave hate has gotten. To me if protein hulk is fine then so should recurring nightmare. You can also pitching needle it's effect or prevent them from resolving a creature along with it.
I’m a cedh player and intuition is better then demonic tutor in any deck with red white and blue in it because it can set up the entire underworld breech combo off one card and gifts ungiven could do the same thing so it would def see play in cedh
coalition victory can be interacted with more easily thanthoracle or second sun and i say either take it off the ban list or ban the cheaper ones that win the game easier than it.
Gifts can also get a four-card combo where you're able to work with part of it in the graveyard.
Intuition already does this, but because it only gets three cards, you'll need to find the last card by different means.
This is especially the case for Breach-Freeze which is usually made up of Underworld Breach, Lion's Eye Diamond, Brain Freeze. Using either Gifts or Intuition, you can get a card called Sevinne's Reclaimantion which is used to pull the Breach back from the 'yard and get the combo started. It helps that Reclaimation is castable from the graveyard anyway.
Gifts Ungiven lets you get all four out of one card, and it'll largely not matter which two you give the opponent, as they can threaten to start the combo from any pair you give them.
Love the content! And thanks for the video!
It is pretty irrelevant in almost all cases, since you can cast Intuition again with the LED mana and get the last card anyways. It's only relevant when the Yard is too empty but tbh that's not the case in most games
The main strength of Gifts Ungiven isn't necessarily that it gets you cards to your hand; it's that Gifts Ungiven is a double Entomb with upside.
There's also the politics aspect of Gifts Ungiven; it's not as bad as Trade Secrets is, but you can more or less play politics to get exactly what you want with it if you have a friendly party a the table, and there's nothing the others can do about it.
I mean the main point of a gifts pile, if you are doing it right, is it doesn't matter what cards they choose, you get the same result(usually a combo victory on the following turn) no matter what.
Coalition victory is 8 mana, and 5 colors. If you have that, you can win so many ways.
I love graveyard Grind strategies so I am so in favor for this
the thing with edh is all of these cards are ok. its just its again not a comp format tho they will argue it is , simply put people wanna build their deck 1 way and want it to always work/win that 1 way. so the moment some1 introduces cards that are powerful they rage quit/give up. theres a reason theese cards dont really see play in say legacy/modern cause they can be countered or just beaten/played around fast. until edh players can learn how to use more tools they will never advance their own meta
You did a most broken cards of all time for each mono colour. Why not try and do the same for duel colours too?
Very interesting how Logs keeps talking about the card being used against you but a lot of counterarguments are from people who want to play the cards. Let's see more counterarguments that say the cards are easy to deal with if used against you, please.
on the positive side i liked your points about lutri on how it should be only banned as a companion.
Amazing!!!🎉
Cookin' with the Intuituon argument for Gifts Ungiven ...
Gifts requires different names ... Intuition just says 3 cards ... Aesi/Tatyova decks can just use it to grab 3 basics and Shadowborne/Persistent/Relentless Rats Colonies can use it to grab 3 of their respective gimmick card ... The ONLY thing I can think of that balances Intuition over Gifts is that Intuition doesn't say "up to" 3 cards, but not sure that's really a restriction.
This one isn't in the playlist
Intuition is not nearly as good as gifts ungiven with reanimator effects, because the opponent always gets to choose which card doesn't go into your graveyard. with gifts ungiven you can always just only give them two cards so they are both guarenteed to go to the graveyard
The issue with panoptic mirror is that it slots into every deck as it is an artifact. Sure you cant take infinite turns with every color, but its not hard to slot blue into a plethora of other decks in a format that has no issue running 4+ colored decks. Comparing it to a 2 card combo with 2 5 mana enchantments is a bit silly imo.
Strongly disagree on the nightmare. While the other effects are "better" in terms of mana efficiency, if you get stopped and have a recurring nightmare you can just try again the very next turn. To say that it is worse than the others based on such an arbitrary thing like mana or that you have to sac a creature feels a bit ignorant in regards to the power level of the card. And the classic "just play graveyard hate bro" is the very same argument you have previously stated is NOT a good argument to deal with cards. Another issue with this card is that if you play it and recur your big boi winner and they disrupt it you can try again the very same turn if you have the board for it. And just because it can be used in value grind strats doesnt mean that those decks wont also run heavy hitter combo pieces. I feel like you are really underselling the value of this card.
Explaining the reasoning behind the commander banlist is more of a psychological dive into the erratic and irrational whims of Sheldon. The literal reason consultation isn't banned is because Sheldon hasn't seen it used against him, therefore it's not an issue.
I love the typos
I want Reoccurring Nightmare unbanned just because I like the art
Panoptic mirror only requires one card being played to go infinite, this means they can't counter the other half when it's time to go off. You also have the option of imprinting card draw like treasure cruise and drawing 3 every turn for free to get you to the extra turns spell. You could also imprint a tutor and search up whatever card you want every turn. It's not only a mostly single card combo but it's infinite utility as well.
Biorythm costs a lot- the decks that can engineer that much mana on demand can do just about anything else to win regardless, so yeah, biorythm should be unbanned.
It's more expensive than most board wipes by now anyway.
Elfball.
A budget elfball deck could cast it turn 4/5. An expensive version could cast it turn 3.
I run a deck with Wastes in it. Do Wastes count towards Coalition Victory?
Honestly, with the argument to why Coalition Victory/Biorythm should be unbanned, you could have used Thassa's Oracle. It's a format warping card, especially for how cheap the combo is. The common method is to use Demonic Consultation since it allows you to empty your library, on top of being able to tutor it out since both black and blue have methods of getting the card into your hand. Coalition Victory is too slow of a card. Either the RC should set a precedent and band Thoracle, or double down and remove coalition victory. But the Banlist is a joke since the RC only does signpost bans.
I don't want to see gifts unbanned. Not for power, but because I value my time. An opponent mulling over what cards to get followed by another player doing the same over what cars to get them sounds dreadful.
Another point gift is up to. So you can fail to find and get an expensive blue double entomb. Which makes it take even longer to resolve.
I’m surprised you Didn’t mention for gifts ungiven about the “failed to find” rule
Also on the recurring nightmare front literally can just counterspell it
I really like this channel's explanations of things, but it kind of drives me crazy how prevalent typos are, and how often things are mispronounced.
I would love to see a card like coalition victory but instead it's "If you control a *monocolored* creature and a basic land in each color."
Honestly if it was just an enchantment that did the wincon on upkeep it would be fine. A ton of janky alt win cons work that way these days just to give a chance for the opponents to do something about it, whether it be enchantment removal or board alterations. It’s the fact that the opponents need instant speed removal, or a counterspell is the issue
Gifts normally acted as a search 2 cards to your grave so people would only search 2 cards and have them go to the grave
I hate the "it's not played at lower power lvl" excuse
09:48 valye based game! 🤩
Can you cover Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, and why we need to unban it before commander masters? ty =)
You just seem to think that no cards should be banned.