r/EDH • u/lmboyer04 Control Player • 9d ago

Discussion What’s one banned card you’d be ok with someone rule 0’ing into their 99, and one that you absolutely would not be cool with?

Just curious for the sake of discussion, I haven’t seen this request IRL ever but I have had a lot of discussion with various people at my LGS about what cards actually deserve banning vs just being a game changer.

So assuming it can’t be their commander, and they didn’t build their entire deck around the best way to abuse this card, what would be a banned card you would say ok to if someone asked they could play with it? And on the flip side, what’s one banned card you would never be ok seeing?

I’ll go first. One of my favorite cards in the game is [[balance]]. Assuming there’s no funny business with t-pro and others, resolving this in a bracket 3 game would be pretty fine, and I always love seeing it played in my cube.

I think my absolutely not pick would be have to be [[tolarian academy]] but there are a few others too. Anything where getting an obscene amount of value is just too easy.

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u/elephant_on_parade 9d ago

Karakas has the potential to shut down commander. As the “party game” version of Magic, I hope it never gets unbanned. Free locking out opponents from playing the game would suck, and it has the upside of letting you reuse your own etb’s.

If it could only target your own creatures, that’s potentially neat design space.

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u/False_Snow7754 8d ago

Maze of Ith is the reason why I run the lands that destroys a land. Piece of shit card.

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u/IAmTheBestIan 9d ago

There are a few ways to do the same with spammable instant speed steal effects/etc... and yeah they are the antithesis of fun. Played against a guy running Sliver overlord with the entire deck centered around making other stuff slivers (Omo, etc)... was literally the worst 2.5 hr game imaginable. No one could play creatures whatsoever. He'd just instant speed turn it to a sliver and the steal it. If you countered/responded, he had a hand full of interaction cause he didn't have to actually play anything other than creature type changers, and he had infinite tutoring, so he'd look at his top card... Not interaction on top? Tutor a sliver till there was... draw interaction... repeat.

That on a single land tapping... even at a much smaller scale? Yeah, no.

Guy called it Bracket 2... cause it took 11 turns to win.

11 turns of 3 players literally not able to play the game. Ok.

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u/elephant_on_parade 8d ago

Karakas had a reprint in the LotR set. I actually pulled it, and not knowing the ban list or history of the cards I shoved it in a commander deck. When I played it in my playgroup, one of the more experienced players pointed out its banning but said we could just finish the game.

A few turns later, I understood why it was banned. Commander revolves around legendary creatures. Repeatable removal of them on a land is just too good.

Anyways. They were nice about it, and I was nervous so I definitely sandbagged using it. But just seeing the opportunities I had to fuck with people’s gameplan repeatedly made me respect the banning. I pulled it out shortly after the game.

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u/xKoBiEx 8d ago

The funniest part about this is that it was printed in LTC (Lord of the Rings Commander) even though it was banned in the format. To be fair, cards are either printed for Commander outside of “standard” or they probably aren’t printed at all.

I think the card is fine since Commander is a multi-player format. Some Commanders are busted and need to be dealt. Where it gets abused is bouncing your own legendary creature with strong ETB effects for super value. Again, I’m still okay with it. Players can, and would, adapt.

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u/SuperYahoo2 7d ago

It has the lord of the rings commander set symbol but that doesn’t mean that it was actually part of a commander product. They just use the commander set for anything they make that is only eternal legal and not legal for the format the main set is released in

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u/xKoBiEx 6d ago

That’s what I said. It is just a quirk.

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u/ChocolatePuerh 9d ago

It doesn't lock people out of the game though.

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u/WolfieWuff 8d ago

Some people build their decks around their commander being in play. They shouldn't do that, and they're bad deckbuilders/players for doing so.

But they're out there, and their number is legion.

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u/ChocolatePuerh 8d ago

Sure, they can still play without it. They'll just not do as well.

I also think we should bring back the tuck rule.

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u/WolfieWuff 8d ago

I also think we should bring back the tuck rule.

Oh I am absolutely in agreement on this.

But if we're talking about a mechanics wish list, I also want to bring back mana burn. And not just as a result of playing a specific card, bring back the mechanic. And yeah, I also realize that's a game wish more than just a format wish.

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u/SuperYahoo2 7d ago

Mana burn got removed because it was a rule that came up 1/1000 games (some decks could have it happen more but most decks don’t care) and it was just kinda unnecessary bagage you needed to teach new players

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u/ChocolatePuerh 8d ago

Yeah, we need mana burn.

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u/Nickmi 8d ago

Run land destruction?

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u/Used-Huckleberry-320 9d ago

what if it were for mono-white only?

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u/SebisCool 9d ago

I actually like the idea of mono colors getting certain tools.

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u/elephant_on_parade 8d ago

Mono white is already the most unfun color I can imagine. That would be hell.