THE STATE OF THE COMMANDER BANNED LIST 

For the record; playing no-banlist 4 player vintage is BANANAS. Snapcaster Mage is a staple when ancestral recall exists.

What a breath of fresh air listening to you guys talk about the positives of why these cards are good for the format.

Ironically, your talk of use of clones and Dockside is exactly why Prophet and Prime Time caught bans. The games resolved almost entirely around them if they were in the game. Who can play them, who can copy them, or steal them. People make deck choices around the idea of "Whoever gets and keeps the Bomb wins". To be clear, I'm not admonishing your points, just pointing our the similarities (and that I find it funny to hear).

The argument to play around Dockside is silly. It often doesn’t matter when your other opponent vomits out 5 artifacts turn 1. Same reason Bowmasters annoys me, it doesn’t punish draw, it punishes someone for someone else drawing. I wouldn’t get rid of Dockside for cEDH, it is simultaneously the best Red and Green card in a format dominated by Dimir. But some of the arguments around it are nonsense.

I personally hate the "Representative" part of the banlist. That you shouldn't be playing cards that similar. What percentage of edh players actually dont put cards in their deck because there is a similar card on the banlist? I guarantee its almost 0%

14:04 I can’t quite recall where I heard it, but someone suggested that in turn order, S2 scry 1, S3 scry 2, S4 scry 3 before the draw step on their first turn to even things out. That could be an interesting idea to try.

The main point of the dockside argument is that it makes decks playable but if it is banned a lot more new decks would pop up. I see the point of wanting to play powerful things but at a certain point there’s just going to be the best thing you can do and everyone will just do that. Almost feels like reverse power creep for cedh, like how could they possibly print a more powerful card?

The discussion you guys had about fast mana makes me think about some of the folks I regularly play with & the decks they have built using those cards outside a cEDH context. To give one example, one regular player at the stores I frequent owns two decks: Voja, Voice of the Conclave & Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm. He has tuned both decks to get those two out on the table as soon as turn 2, long before anyone else has enough mana to pay the ward costs on these cards, & then just snowballing from there. It's clear to me at least that those two were never intended to hit the board that soon. In addition, another regular has begun adding these pieces to other kill-on-site decks like Krenko, Pantlaza & Marwyn to create these board states that get far out of control long before anyone has the resources to effectively answer their boards. With that in mind, I am beginning to wonder if the reason people want fast mana out of Commander has less to due with power & more to do with the fact that, like Paradox Engine before it, people are failing to self-regulate & these cards are being used to create game states that are becoming more difficult to balance without devolving into an endless arms race. The same could also apply to many of the cards talked about here. Maybe for some, Dockside Extortionist isn't being used as a catch-up card, but as a way for a deck that's already in a winning position to pull even further ahead before anyone can do anything about it.

My view is pretty much the polar opposite of Jim and the RC. EDH is a format that is predicated on pregame discussions regarding power levels and players trying to match the power of their opponents decks to ensure a good/fun play experience for all. In this vein "casual" (i.e. not cEDH) could work almost entirely without a ban list and be self-policed by play groups as they see fit. Players already impose their own soft bans with "no 0 mana rocks" or "no 1 mana tutors" etc. Ban lists for other formats are there to provide healthy metas; so a ban list is really only needed for competitive play (tournaments etc.) So whilst Jim feels that the RC should provide a ban list for EDH, with cEDH policing themselves. I feel that the RC should provide a cEDH ban list and let the casual players police their games in the same way they do with power level discussions. Any card that is deemed ban worthy for cEDH would also be suitable for casual EDH ban. Maintaining a cEDH level ban list still provides the safe space for casual players to play the broken cards, play the splashy spells, play the crazy combo; the format EDH was designed to be.

Flash is exactly what I've been thinking this whole time. People have been acting brand new about the role of bans. There is space to keep the core identity of cEDH as the "Wild West," where broken stuff rules the day and powerful cards are the name of the game, but to claim that there is no problem to be solved, that there isn't homogenization, that there are not undesirable play patterns, and - yes - POWER outliers is nonsense. People often disagree about what (if anything) needs to be banned, hence why an invested, but impartial third party managing that is so important. "Unban everything and let the meta sort it out" is unrealistic navel-gazing that flies in the face of our understanding of how card games work. Having to do this whole song and dance where the function of bannings is re-explained every time is ridiculous. The current system sucks, and a lot of the proposed solutions suck, but that doesn't mean there isn't something that can be done.

I love seeing your videos pop up on my recommended page they always bring me joy! Thanks Cam & Dylan!

Unbans not bans

12:50 Docside is actually about 100 dollars. Closer to 95, but still. So the comparison is even more apt.

23:30 I know you guys love playing these cards, but people who played Flash Hulk loved it too. And people who played hullbreacher loved it. Etc. I think there needs to be a serious discussion if you want cEDH to grow because what impacts tournaments negatively for the players AND spectators automatically need to be at least mentioned.

How would yall feel about a point system instead of a ban list for tournament EDH like in Canadian Highlander?

The only reason dockside is not used more in casual is that it's a close to 100$ USD card. If it was cheaper it would get banned in a week. And someone else said on here, your arguments for dockside are what banned primetime lol.

I wouldn't want the community to ban. It's just going to devolve into people calling to ban things they don't like vs things that may actually, possibly, maybe be ban worthy.

Thank you for speaking some sense into this situation, you guys always manage to come in with reasonable and level headed takes that seem to have the community in mind, and I love that.

Well that's great timing! I'm potentially happy with unbans if done with great care and playtest but tbh I don't trust any central authority to handle it correctly. Topdeck seems to be rushing thing seem hold baseless biased opinions shared by "themselves and many others" to quote them. Statistics am I right? I am against bans, especially as a first action and especially rhystic. What's more exciting than a counterspell battle under rhystic, where every card draw could totally change the game, and mana must be manage carefully? Topdeck argues that it slows the game down, creates complicated stacks etc but to me the format is all about those crazy stacks, it's peak adrenaline. By the way rhystic slowing the game is such a big problem shared by "topdeck and **many** others" that you didn't even think to talk about when analyzing it... I love this format, it's in a great place, it's getting more and more popular. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I'm moving into cEDH because I want to do broken things sometimes. I don't personally use proxies a lot (if ever) because I enjoy the collecting aspect as well. The fact that cEDH doesn't have a separate banlist means I can use the cards I invest in in my casual decks too. It's a big plus for me.

"Nadu was a mistake" Quote from WotC. Bans are relevant.

Rhystic and mystic against rog/sai is much better than it in the deck. A rogssai turn 1/2 win can play 5-10 cards which means like a 3 times the odds to draw a counter especially if there’s a counter war. Taking Rhystic out makes turbo want to go even faster

I'm for mostly leaving things unbanned, the only thing I'd consider that ya'll didn't mention was Jeweled Lotus. I mainly dislike it because it's such a boring design. It goes in every deck and isn't really part of any distinct strategy or win con. I guess it enables higher CMC commanders a bit more, but you usually can't guarantee finding it consistently and you probably aren't tutoring for it. Maybe banning it could free up a slot in most CEDH deck for something more interesting and strategy focused?

I’m yet to play a single game of cEDH, but the first three minutes of this episode are peak reason for me to continue to watch/listen to every episode you put out. Y’all are the biggest dorks ever and I love it!

I would love to see a Thoracle-less tournament because I like seeing people get creative with their combo lines.

The ban list in edh makes absolutely no sense.

I really wish there was another popular commander fomat for people who actually want more stuff banned. It's so hard to try and change EDH, every suggestion is met with lots of resistance. There's multiple formats to play in 60 card, though admittedly they're less popular than edh these days. At least pauper commander is a thing. I wonder if Commander just being a single big monolithic thing is part of why it's so popular in the first place.

Fast mana is so tricky. As you were discussing about 38 minutes in, the Moxen are on a similar power level to Sol Ring and Mana Crypt, but since there are still so many cEDH tournaments that are *not* proxy friendly, then their legality DEVASTATES the ability to play in events. Requiring every cEDH player to buy a set of power in addition to the $5,000+ they’ve already spent to play is asking so much.

LOL (Talking about Black Lotus) Cam: "Maybe we add more fast mana to the format." Hilarious! Great stuff, boys, I love the Sisay segment; it's actually helpful! Keep up the fun yet serious podcasts, where all of these insights and opinions are spot on, no flaws, no notes; why are you 2 NOT on the rules committee!?

TOTALLY agree with you, word for word. I'm completely with you on this topic (even with the hypotetical Hullbreacher unban: this format is so vast and articulate that I'm sure it's possible to confront almost any issue, the answers are all there!), happy to see that people well informed on the matter like you share my same vision on that. Thanks, keep up the good work!

As a primarily casual commander player (I had made a CEDH Teshar deck at one point) I did put Thassa's Oracle in one of my decks because it was a blue/black Merfolk Tribal deck. Thassa was amazing with it because of the high blue devotion giving me a lot of library filtering. I never expected to win the game on the spot unless I'd already had a massive draw.

I'm gonna argue that of all the cards mentioned Nadu is one that maybe should be banned just from the perspective of it being super non-deterministic and goldfishy for the person playing it and not being very fun to interact against. But even that I'm not 100% on because if the pilot of the nadu deck uses their two triggers on nadu for the turn you can start pointing interaction at the commander after that without worrying about giving further advantage to the player. And since you generally know what interaction is in their hand you'll know how safe or unsafe it is to try and remove nadu at that point and can try and collaborate with the table to also try and get nadu off the field

MAD RESPECT FOR THE TWISTED TIMBERS SHIRT

The breakfast combo is Thassa's Oracle, Cephalid Illusionist, and Nomads en-Kor. No spells needed to be cast and no cards needed to be drawn. Personally, I would like to see some tournaments that ban Krark, Nadu, Sensei's Divining Top, and possibly Seedborne Muse to increase the speed of play. Yes, Naus turns can take forever, but all off the cards regularly extend the time of turns and Krark and Nadu's wins are nondeterministic, so you have to sit through them.

I think the solution when it comes to order advantage was from a houserule I saw. The second player after getting their 7 scrys 1, third scrys 2, and if your last in turn order you scry 3. Its not card advantage but makes it so the later draws and disadvantaged players have a little smoother of a start. Scry has always been the ALMOST draw that WotC would use to give a bump without breaking cards and stuff.

Imo, cEDH is pretty close to being a solved format. You have 4-5 decks that are simply outliers, 7-8 cards that are outliers, and everything else gets smothered because of how overwhelming those strategies are. Arguing that thoracle is good because of limited interaction means you should also unban flash. It led to tons of turn 1 wins, and those are fast. Fast, simplistic, and incredibly linear games are good, right? We want the starting hand to decide the game along with turn order, right? The problem with having outlier cards is that they are so far ahead of the next best option that nothing else is even playable. If you level the playing field by banning the most outright broken cards, then more options become viable. This isn't that difficult to understand, lol. Some people argue that other cards would simply take the place of most broken cards. Certainly, but the gap between those cards and the next best cards would be smaller. Thoracle, Dockside, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Underworld Breach, and Rhystic Study are so utterly above board that they dominate everything and every win condition. Without them, you get more complex and involved games. Games aren't as deterministic based on turn order and draw either.

12:41 depending on the printing, yeah

I once got glasses and had to go to an archery competition the next day and found that the prescription was too strong and they were like binoculars because I could see the target really good

My buddy and I were discussing Nadu and Grief the other day. One of the things about EDH is that it's the format that has the widest selection of cards to use (afaik). I said I don't think cards should be ban, but I understand why some are, but that's also a rule zero thing. He said similar, but argued for a bigger ban list, and I offered a suggestion of a CEDH banlist that is different from EDH, he said he'd not like that. I have found watching these videos that while the same format, CEDH is such a different game than EDH, like, you'd never see ad naus be used super effectively outside something like an orzhov lifegain deck because in EDH you need all your life because there's a ton of attacking and most wins are through attacking. CEDH doesn't have much in the way of creatures attacking a lot of the time, not a ton of big stompys. In my pod we have power level card bans, so if we're playing level 6, you cant use CEDH cards like mana crypt, its all about having a doscussion to have an understanding so everybody can have fun.

I've seen some talking about banning rhystic and remora; i personally disagree, it's true that are powerful pieces for faster decks to farm cards even faster but on the opposite side these cards help slower decks to punish and find answers more consistently.

I hate bans but banning broken cards always creates a more diverse environment and usually that means a “better environment”, but for CEdh I don’t know if that would happen

Reasoning ----------------------------------- 1 - We want the format to thrive. It can only do so with a strong player base. This means we need to attract new players and retain experienced players. So for the format to be going strong, this assumption is crucial. 2 - We as Magic players want to win because we did something right and lose because the other player was lucky. We want to play to the best of our ability and get better results as we get better. Having this as the underlying assumption for all tournament players makes it attractive to those who are invested in the format and spend time learning and practicing. Having a clear audience with a clear goal is greatly beneficial to (1), because people can self-identify whether or not they want to be a part of this particular group, and when they do, they are more likely to be happy with their choice. 3 - While being bored every now and then in a game is acceptable. Being bored often will drive people to leave the format. Being bored is horrible. So we could think about derived goals like: a - We want diversity in viable Tier 1 win conditions. b - We want some diversity in the best-performing decks. c - We want people to play cards regularly or win fast enough. 4 - Playing the most powerful cards is an amazing experience that attracts many players to the format, so let's make this one explicit.

Great shirts by the guys today

It's funny as Dyl says the Bowmaster stops Rhystic. New Red creature in Duskmourn says "Whenever your opponet draws a card. Deal 1 dmg to them." So who knows might see massive RogSai play

1 card in Command Zone.

The issue arises once there are prizes on the line. Once there is a financial stake in the success and health of the format, it becomes important that it is managed well and feeling fair and balanced (for the most part)

As a rog pilot I’m not sure ad naus going away would hurt as much as it would have a couple months ago. The main lines you’re going for are necro with borne or valley flood caller.

Honestly just ban anything that takes forever 😅 we want to play the game we don't want cards that stall out games.

You guys said it. cEDH is all about playing around with the most broken cards and combos. Now that having pre-game conversations is becoming the norm, we should revisit the cards that were banned to police unpleasant game experiences. I would be curious to see how it would shape the meta if we un-banned cards that were banned because they extended games but didn't necessarily win, like: paradox engine and prophet of kruphix. Paradox engine - essentially a 1-card dramatic sceptre. You'd see it in a lot of storm decks with enough rocks, but not everywhere. Hullbreacher can be really annoying, but but the resource restriction and ramp can help end games. Also, there was no real good reason to ban Golos, imo. Totally viable infinite mana deck in cEDH, like Sisay.

A ban list based on underlying goals ----------------------------------- When it comes to a ban list, it should enforce the underlying goals of competitive play. So let's think about some underlying goals for our format. 1 - We want to be an attractive format for both new and experienced players to get into. 2 - Your chances of winning should be as much as possible based on your deck and skill level. 3 - We want to prevent boredom. 4 - We want to play the most powerful cards. You might change some goals when defining the format, but these seem obvious (reasoning below). It would be great if we when defining the format and thinking about the ban list, would argue based on underlying goals about what to ban and what not. For instance, being proxy-friendly is greatly improving (1).s Having to wait around for Nadu maybe winning is boring, going against (3). One can argue other cards and interactions based on these reasonings. Biorhythm does not offend this, nor does emrakul, upheaval, or coalition victory. So both bannings and unbannings can be reasoned with underlying goals. I suggest we let the ban committee do its job and suggest that they look at data and respond based on the underlying goals - and ask them to make those goals public.

I'd love to see a 'go off clock' for competitive formats, where if someone is trying to go for the win they bring over a judge who runs a timer with a set amount of time for the winning turn to occur. Though to be honest, it's about time that players in magic started employing chess clocks anyway.

29:00 (I'm assuming that we're trying to "fix" Hullbreacher here) "If a spell or ability you don't control would cause an opponent to draw a card except the first one they draw in each of their draw steps, instead you create a tapped Treasure token." Not sure if it being tapped would be necessary in this kind of revision, but that seems to be the way Wizards is "balancing" Treasure generation.

I'm actually kind of glad that the rules committee is so petulant as to be functionally useless; it means that I can continue doing broken nonsense and the casuals can all die mad about it.

I don't want Rhystic and Mystic to be gone from the format, I just wish they were in colors besides blue

Ok it is hilarious, but The Play to Win podcast which requires me to go watch the video to experience than entirely physical comedy bit with their glasses. I’m also very glad you did this thing haha

God I wish that glasses thing was a bit, but something tells me this is how you guys normally are 😂😂😂 I couldn’t breath that was so funny.

Cam had the Millennium Eye with his new lenses.

You guys hit the nail on the head. perfect explanation! on the other hadn, if all these cards do get banned, Yuriko gets a lot better haha

Nadu and Krarkashima's biggest issue is being nondeterministic​ similar to legacy's 4 horsemen which is basically soft banned from tournament play due to your opponent calling a judge for slow play as soon as you go for it since you can't give a definite number of loops you need and the board state isn't changing meaningfully. Nadu wins here due to the built in card draw which changes things and gives options, whereas even with infinite mana you can't shortcut a number of spell casts with kraark out since it's possible you never resolve one.

EDH/CEDH is my safe place. I love that bans are so rare. I quit Standard, Modern, Legacy because I got so sick of bans. It was so maddening to not be ble to do anything about it.

First time hearing about conquest and woah this format looks really fun

I wonder if an "Ace Spec" type of philosophy would help. For example, you can only have 1 among Rhystic Study, Smothering Tithe (or Esper Sentinel if it's more popular), Dockside Extortionist, Ad Nauseum, or Gaea's Cradle (I don't know if Green has anything as high-value and heavily played as the other 4 colors).

I’ve had the convo with people that ThOracle gets a smidge worse if Demonic Consultation goes away. You still have Tainted Pact, Divining Witch, and a few other options. But taking that combo from 3 mana total to 4+ mana makes it more manageable. But I dunno. Tough discussion to have.

My top 3 need to be banned cards #1 Thasa's Oracle-Too easy to win. Win the game for 3 mana>? Zero fun here. No thanks. #2 Ad Nauseum-Punishes nonblue decks. Not made for a 40 life game. Instant speed too much #3 Timetwister- I don't like pay to play games. Outspend to win? Who can afford this? Axe this

Cam is Pegasus from yu gi oh with his Millenium eye and you can't change my mind

I think you need to ban the card that is present in the top decks and keeps the lower power decks further down. Bowmasters is where I'd start, it's a broken design that's unhealthy for the format. Green is gone because no one ever hits the player drawing cards, they kill all the green players creatures. Are there any other cards where you say "Well x exists, guess I'm not playing wheels, mana dorks, notion thief..." ? Bowmasters has narrowed the format so much, it's design was a good idea but a failed execution. It needs to say target the player who drew the card or their permanents.

I think if your gonna have a competitive format, even a non-60 card format, you still need to curate it. I think we need to get over the idea that commander is a casual format when you are holding tournaments or making prize pools and you need to know people in competitive games don't self-regulate, they just play for advantage. I'm sorry cedh has grown past that childish stage of pretending its just a recreational hobby. Its not a kitchen table when you have brackets and seeding. You have try harded yourself into the evil you thought you could escape... congrats.

as someone who works in an optometrist office....20/60 is bad still, but glad it's better than what it was without correction!

I enjoy cEDH, but I really wish more people would try Conquest - the format is sick, has some really nice rules to push other strategies: 30 life, 12 commander damage, planeswalker commanders, starting players scry X where X is your starting position -1. It doesn't replace cEDH imo (sometimes you like the more acceleration and so on) but it's fun on it's own merits and more people should try it.

I like CEDH to be the more rock paper scissors meta we currently have rather than trying to even out the playing field. Like its 4 players unlike Standard, so everyones only winning an average of 15-18% of the time anyway which ngl contributes people in CEDH less salty than casual commander and competitive 1v1 formats.

How crazy is it to just ban the 2 color partner commanders? It feels like they really break the color pie and limit deck diversity, they effectively start you off on an additional card in hand.

"Fast mana, please ramp responsibly" - Cam

Even Yugioh understands that eternal formats require regular balancing lists. WotC releases cards at twice the rate of YGO, but the RC bans at less than a quarter of the rate. Considering that WotC clearly doesn't make sure that all cards they released are balanced, the "anything goes" mentality is actually just retarded.

Restricted card pools create more potential metas for the community to explore in sixty card formats, which could be interesting to see for EDH. However, there may be no "ban list frontier" that actually changes the optimal player patterns in the multiplayer format, which is what I think those interested in hypothetical non-cEDH tournaments would be looking for. I'd find tournament structure expansion an interesting approach for meta exploration, like if the same decklist had to go through rounds of heads up play in addition to winning in pods of four. Maybe I'm just describing the direction brawl is going to end up going actually

Rule 0 is the worst part of commander. Part of the appeal of cEDH is that you don’t need it. Cedh has what regular EDH doesn’t: shared expectations.

10:11 - Hot take, curating the tournament rules and banlist a bit better would bring more people on board. Specifically banning Rhystic Study would get me a lot more excited and involved in the format and I know I'm not the only one who feels that way.

I'm amazed they didn't just ban orcish bowmaster, for the foreseeable tournaments. Maybe the goal is to unban things to find out what is actually the problem before they actually ban things

What’s so sad about Jim’s comments on Twitter on 8/21 is that it feels like the RC has their head in the sand and refuse to change as the format changes. That’s how people lose interest

I like that we are in a very similar head space you guys.

Unban: Rofellos, leovald, fast bond, coalition victory, lutri, primeval titan, upheaval, balance, prophet of kruphix, golos, and griselbrand. Ban: rhystic study. And no companion zone for lutri gotta be in the 99

I feel like the weird win lines is the draw to cedh and thoracle kind of goes against that and also thoracle being hard to interact with punishes you for not playing blue and banning it might make blueless decks more viable, I also feel like there are other easy win conditions other than thoracle too.

I wish rule zero can be a form logistical override. Like in most of my local game stores because they are a licensed venue for Magic they strictly stick to the rules and the ban functionally disabling rule zero to only "this is my deck I wanna do X" "No I don't want you to play the deck because X" and that's it unlike the several hundred other things that rule zero can do. This is an unfinity commander I wanna play *buzzer noise* wrong you can't because of the rules

Another Friday, another great video, another day of Cam finding new ways to pronounce words

To me a banlist for CEDH specifically would address concerns about egregiously powerful cards, and the time strain the format already has. Banning dockside and thoracle would be on the cards, but looking at that that says it wouldn't make rounds 120 mins, for tiebreaker sakes. Or maybe just rhystic study to make blue not so head and neck ahead of the other colors. Breach can stay, as you said it's interactable as fuck. But in the end making a banlist consistent with powerlevel that provides the best experience in terms of agency and time logistics would be the idea. Ot just chop topdown powerful cards. Also start by unbannimg the non reserved list stragglers in the banlist everything that has been powercrept and stayed as a signpost of a bygone era.

I think that if the wording on hulbreacker was different, lie only giving treasures and not preventing draw it would still be a good card and not worry of a ban in the first place. It would be nice if wizards made fixed versions of these cards and not do so much power creep... we are now in a time where there isn't a single creature in standard that doesn't have some sort of effect or ability... even green big stompy creatures like a 10/10 for 4 green mana don't exist

What people need is turn timers and death clocks.

One of the rules I see from another content creator is that turn 1 seat 1 draws their card on the end step of that first turn, which seemed to be an interesting and easy way to take away some of the power of going first without changing all that much

cEDH starting hands should be: P1 does not draw P2 scry 1 P3 scry 1 P4 draws Not only is seat 1 at a huge advantage, s4 is normally at a huge disadvantage. Oddly, s3 has a slightly higher (but within the margin) win rate than s2 in the data sets I’ve seen.

So, if I were to ban cards they would be: Rhystic Study: While paying the one is nice, this card either slows down the table CONSIDERABLY or draws a player too many cards. Because having a rhystic can win you a game easily and can be reasonably played T1, I'd ban it Nadu: Nadu is a problem because it is a win con that gives a player advantage. If Nadu is interacted with, it's controller draws cards and gets lands. Because Nadu not only takes too long turn wise to play with, but if it is interacted with still gives a player advantage, it should be banned. Cards NOT banned: - Dockside: This card is a hate piece for Artifacts and Enchantments. In addition, it powers MANY decks (not just one) to victory. While it is powerful, Dockside cannot win the game on its own - Ad Nauseum: While players CAN win with this card, if a player wiffs and / or doesn't get fast mana, they are left at a low life total and are easy to knock out. - Thassa's Oracle: Also allows blue + black / green to win the game quickly and cannot win on its own. While this is a 1 2 punch, Thassa's Oracle can be interacted with, as well as Tainted Pact or Demonic Consultation. Underworld Breach: This is the trickiest of them all because as long as you have a graveyard, you have card advantage with this card. However, due to graveyard hate and it's sacrifice and escape clauses, this card isn't as powerful as Rhystic and is more fair. In addition, this card speeds up the game

I don’t know if I agree with saying Rhystic study let’s you claw back into a game. Usually it is a turn one or two rhystic. That someone inevitable feeds or even if it isn’t fed, the player who cast rhystic will wheel to reset resources, and still have a rhystic study in play for the mid game

I think Nadu needs to be banned, not for power level reasons, but for gameplay reasons. Nadu consistently taking 20 minutes once they have their pieces together is an unfun play experience, regardless of how powerful it is.

I think a neat way to come up with personal bans is to allow everyone to ban a card in general once everyone sits down. But if someone draws a card that got banned this way, it becomes a 0 mana demonic tutor as long as someone else banned it ( so you don't just ban your own card an get another free tutor ). But yeah idk, just meet to think of theories of how people could change and alter the game to see what can work better

I don't play any fast mana (other than Sol Ring) in Commander. I try not to play tutors that aren't ramp, though there are a few cases (looking at you Savage Order) where I might run a few tutors for a high powered deck, but for the most part I try to steer clear of them. I play CEDH so I can play those cards.

We balanced our playgroup not by taking the draw from the player in seat 1 because that made going first be pretty bad in terms of winrate in our playgroup. we balanced it by removing the free mulling from the player in seat 1. This works great and isnt as much of a feelsbad.

I would be very interested in maybe every 4-6 months you have a rotating ban list. Maybe for 4 months we have the regular ban list. Then for 4 months we go back. And see how the meta was shaken up in that time. Keep throwing things at the wall for cEDH.

Commander is a casual format, whatever word you attach to it doesn’t change it from being a casual format, stop banning cards and let the community play at their hearts desire

If I were king for a day I'd add Kraark, Nadu, Gitrog, and seedborn muse. Things that lead to 20+ minute indeterminate turns, especially on OPPONENTS' turns make games a slog and in tournaments lead to even more games going to time. I would keep Prophet on the list for the same reason. I'd also add any card that (literally) says "you win the game" or any variation of "opponent(s) lose the game." When it started MTG had a very well defined list of what constituted a win and a loss, and these types of cards never should have been printed. We're supposed to be planeswalkers battling it out, and any spell that says "despite you having tons of resources, all your life, your entire 'mind' (library), I have defeated you because I said so" doesn't make sense. That said, if Thoracle wasn't blue, it wouldn't be so bad. They already messed up royally since the beginning of the game by giving one color counters, draw, bounce, copying, and gaining control of other people's stuff to one color. Did it really need "win off some bullshit that doesn't make sense" on top of that? If there were a Thassa like combo (2 pips of one color and 1 of a second color and hard to interact with) that you could run in sans blue decks, it would be much more tolerable. I'd unban Golos and Lutri. And just to make things complicated, I would unban Library, Bargain, and Griselbrand (banned as commander) in decks that don't have access to blue, and I'd move all other legendaries to banned as commander (other than the ones I mentioned earlier that I'd add or keep on the ban list).

3:28 a "separate banlist for cedh" simply is an impossibility. cEDH is not a format, it's a mindset, if it had a different banlist it would be a separate format. 4:20 0.5% to 1% probably, there are an incredibly large number of commander players that never leave their kitchen table. 4:45 flash was a problem, the edh RC bans cards that are problems. The cEDH community was loud enough to say "hey, we have this big problem." and the RC said "we agree this card is a problem, but we're not going to make this a pattern of whack-a-mole." 18:01 I fully believe that if this were a proxy friendly format from the outset, that only time vault would be banned from the power 9. 18:40 I think that coalition victory is incredibly unique in it's function, and to say "oh this is only on the banlist to signal that "I win" cards are bad" is a very silly notion. That card isn't banned because it says "I win" on it, there are 31 other cards legal in EDH that say that, it's banned because it wins on the stack with a single card, no board state, and no telegraphing. There is simply no other card in magic that does that. It's bad, but the banlist has never been about bad or good, it's been about wether or not the card is a problem that they want to get rid of. They might say that they do signposts, but they don't ban cards that don't deserve the ban. I personally don't think that any of the other 31 "You win the game" cards are even remotely close to what Coalition Victory does to the format. 19:26 and this is why I don't think that Coalition Victory is a signpost. There aren't any other cards that just allow you to win on the spot out of nowhere in commander. Thassas is not a 1 card combo, a 2 card combo, especially in the context of a banlist is very tricky, because you have to think about what card you're banning, does that card on it's own have fair play patterns that are better to keep in the format than the negative play patterns you're taking out... It's not a simple question. 19:33 I think lots of casual commander players DO play thassa's oracle, they just don't pair it with forbidden tutors to empty their library. They might do old hulk style combos (not with hulk probably) with dread return and self mill, or just draw their library manually with X spells or whatever, and then cast/blink thoracle. That's the main problem with banning thassa's oracle, it has a perfectly alright normal play pattern in an Azami deck, it just is bullshit when you play it with forbidden tutors. 43:00 I think that the "it takes so long" part of paradox engine was only the reason why it became a problem, the reason it got banned was because it was colorless. Nadu doesn't really have the silhouette of a card that gets banned, and if it does end up getting banned it's because it's playrate becomes overwhelming. 45:18 Nadu lead singer with shuko gloves, Bristly Bill is on guitar with a paradise mantle cloak, Seeker of Skybreak on bass, Aphetto Alchemist on drums with lightning greaves on, and the logo and mascot are a scute swarm. 48:00 I'm definitely of the mindset of "everything is pretty good right now" but I'd ban something silly to start chaos. Like I'd ban Dreamstone Hedron and then refuse to explain why.

We've Done it where player 1 does not get a free mulligan and that's been pretty effective

I agree with just about everything in the video, but saying Bowmasters is a net positive for the fornat is a terrible take. You even said it yourself in regard to it and Sheoldred: they dont punish the player drawing the cards enough to stop them from doing so. Bowmasters punishes the decks playing creatures, which are the ones more suited to punishing Rhystic decks by pressuring their life totals, deploying stax pieces, providing mana advantage to combat the card advantage, etc.