EDH: Requiem for That Which Was, and Warning for That Which Is To Come

This article is going to serve both as my personal eulogy for The Mimeoplasm, and provide my thoughts on the EDH banlist update overall, with special focus given to the future of the format, and why alternative plans (such as local banlists) won't work.

For the record, before I get started, I want to state that aside from my knee-jerk rage impulse, I do believe that Primeval Titan is a good ban on power-level terms, -however-, there are many things that I would ban on those same terms before Primeval Titan. I'm looking specifically at Kiki-jiki, Consecrated Sphinx, and Tooth and Nail here; although, there are probably at least a dozen other choices if I really thought about it.

I'm going to begin by providing my Mimeoplasm list. This is, or rather was, my baby. I tuned the everliving hell out of it, tweaked, revamped, re-imagined., re-built. It went "back to the drawing board" at least five times before I was finally happy with it. Without further ado, Mimeoplasm:

1x The Mimeoplasm

1x Reanimate
1x Imperial Seal
1x Nature's Lore
1x Farseek
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Farseek
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Buried Alive
1x Dread Return
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Time Warp
1x Living Death
1x Diabolic Revelation
1x Tooth and Nail


1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Crop Rotation
1x Entomb
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Mana Drain
1x Lim-dul's Vault
1x Forbidden Alchemy


1x Survival of the Fittest
1x Phyrexian Arena
1x Food Chain
1x Rhystic Study
1x Greater Good
1x Future Sight
1x Treachery


1x Sol Ring
1x Candelabra of Tawnos
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Mana Vault
1x Dimir Signet
1x Golgari Signet
1x Simic Signet


1x Hermit Druid
1x Lotus Cobra
1x Loaming Shaman
1x Eternal Witness
1x Yavimaya Dryad
1x Trinket Mage
1x Wood Elves
1x Mystic Snake
1x Wonder
1x Phyrexian Metamorph
1x Glen Elendra Archmage
1x Dimir House Guard
1x Misthollow Griffin
1x Oracle of Mul Daya
1x Body Double
1x Sadistic Hypnotist
1x Seedborn Muse
1x Lord of Extinction
1x Deadeye Navigator
1x Triskelion
1x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1x Draining Whelk
1x Primeval Titan
1x Consecrated Sphinx
1x Sheoldred, Whispering One
1x Tidespout Tyrant
1x Woodfall Primus
1x Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur


1x Snow-Covered Forest
1x Snow-Covered Swamp
1x Snow-Covered Island
2x Forest [to be replaced with future duals]
1x Petrified Field
1x Bazaar of Baghdad
1x Deserted Temple
1x Vesuva
1x Strip Mine
1x Reliquary Tower
1x Alchemist's Refuge
1x City of Brass
1x Reflecting Pool
1x Command Tower
1x Cephalid Coliseum
1x Gaea's Cradle
1x Cabal Coffers
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Underground Sea
1x Tropical Island
1x Bayou
1x Polluted Delta
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Breeding Pool
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Watery Grave
1x Tainted Isle
1x Tainted Wood
1x Yavimaya Coast
1x Llanowar Wastes
1x Underground River
1x Woodland Cemetery
1x Drowned Catacomb
1x Hinterland Harbor


The 2x Forest were probably going to become Guildgates for Golgari and Simic, at least until they printed something better. It should be noted that this is my final list, as in, I hadn't yet bought the Bazaar, Candelabra, or Seal for the deck, and they were currently other cards. However, this is how it would have looked if I'd sunk that last final commitment into it (something I'm glad I did not do, now).

I could talk about how this list is literally perfect for me. It controls, it ramps, and it combos. Those are the three criteria that I look for in pretty much any deck that I play. I enjoy those styles of decks. I could talk about how the deck works, but odds are, if you're reading this, you probably know me. And if you know me, you've probably played EDH with me, so you know how it works in general.

If you haven't, assume that it's going to ramp and control the game until it can pull off something retarded. Also assume that it's resilient enough to handle most disruption. It could combo through some pretty ludicrous board states.

In short, it was broken. Really, honestly, and truly broken. I'd argue that it fell on the "light" side of broken -- as good as it was, it wasn't going to stack up too well to the REAL piles of broken that run around in this format. I'm looking at you, Five-Color combo and Mono-black Ad Nauseum storm. But for me, it was broken. For our area, it was broken. It was exactly what I wanted to play.

I've been playing since Urza's Saga, although only competitively since Shards of Alara. I have a pretty damn deep card pool, and I have the resources and personal will to be able to expand my card pool to basically whatever I need it to be within reason. I have a slight character flaw where for some reason I have no problem spending ludicrous amounts of money on what are basically aesthetically pleasing pieces of cardboard. Whatever, we all have our vices. Some of us have more than others (shoutout Kyle).

What I'm saying here is that I am in a different class of EDH player from most. EDH gets a lot of fire because it's a ""casual"" format, when in reality it ends up playing more akin to singleton vintage. The ""casual"" players get very angry about the broken nature of the format, and insist that it should just be huge durdle decks battlecruisering their way across the field, while lumbering along at something approximating a Nic Fit mirror (aka two hippos fighting underwater in slow motion. I love that quote). I personally don't enjoy that kind of magic, as shocking as this might be to those of you who are reading this. If it's taking 10 years for anything to happen and the board state is stalled, you're doing something wrong, not something right. Setting that style of play on high and praising it is the first mistake that the EDH format as a whole has made. Sitting there for four hours while four players durdle their way to the finish line is not where I want to be. I fall much more on the side of singleton Vintage, and that is enjoyable magic to me.

I've had the privilege of having a playgroup that shares my opinions. We've got some pretty stupid decks locally, and our collective powerlevel is approaching (but not over) 9000. Mimeo was arguably one of the most powerful of the lot, but when you've got stuff like a pretty close to fully evolved Zur deck, a Kozilek deck that actually has a Mishra's Workshop, Sisay complete with Loyal Retainers, Riku built for combo, Oona built for combo, and so on...it gets awesome pretty quick. I've had a lot of really awesome games with these decks, and I will carry those memories with me into the future. Our games almost never ran too long, but the games where one person just "goes off" are thankfully rare as well. Our decks are largely in-step with each other; if one tries to go off, odds are there's an answer. And if there isn't that game, you just shrug, scoop 'em up, and play again. Thrive in the brokenness. It's a way of playing the game that people have largely forgotten as Vintage has become further and further submerged from the mindset of most players. I'm fairly sure that most of the people towards whom the banlist is directed / constructed with in mind don't even know what vintage is as a format.

So yeah. This brings me to the banlist.

Last night, the EDH Rules Council, consisting of Sheldon Menery, whose name I probably misspelled, as well as other vairous assorted, fairly intelligent people (a lot of whom are actually L4+ judges, I believe), decided that Primeval Titan was NOT too good. They didn't ban him because of power level. They banned him because of this:

"We're going to look at any strategy that we feel is over-represented. As mentioned in the philosophy document, we want diversity in the format. I'd much rather hear someone say "Ooh, that card I never heard of is kind of cool" instead of "Oh, that card. Again." And banning PT doesn't hose the ramp strategy, it just brings it back toward the middle a little bit."

This is the new, revised, updated philosophy behind the EDH banlist. There are a whole lot of ways that this is a horrible thing, but I'm going to start with the simplest: the precedent.

The precedent that this sets is that any card that is a format staple is subject to a possible ban, at any time, because it's too common. At best, this statement encourages unusual card choices and promotes deck diversity, even if the overall goal of the general is largely the same. At worst, it undermines the entire competitive spirit and reduces the format to kitchen table Magic.

This philosophy is, at its core, anti-competitive. Any competitive player (hey, magic. How are you doing over there!?!) is going to naturally want to improve their deck. It's just the way the competitive impulse works. You always strive for betterment. At some point, this impulse will naturally reach the same conclusions as other people who are also trying to make their decks better.

Every green EDH deck is made better by adding a Primeval Titan.

This is a true statement. I can't honestly think of an EDH deck that has green in it that would -not- be made better with a Primeval. Even hardcore tribal Elf or Thallid decks are improved by his presence. Maybe I should say His Presence. It thins on coming into play and on attacking, and if you have any powerful lands to access (Gaea's Cradle, Coffers, etc), it tutors them up and put them into play for you. If you're really nice to it, He'll even make you a sandwich while you play. He seriously does everything.

But look at the format. Primeval Titan is far from the only card like this.

It's been said that every EDH deck starts with a Sol Ring.

This is also a true statement. I can't honestly think of an EDH deck that does NOT run a Sol Ring (although apparently they exist). Some may use it better than others, I'll grant, but everyone runs it. It's 2 mana every turn for the rest of the game, with a simple 1 colorless down payment. It actually nets you a mana the turn you play it! It's banned in every format except Vintage, and it's restricted there. What does this say about the power level of this card?

Every black EDH deck is made better by adding a Demonic Tutor [Vampiric Tutor] [Imperial Seal].

And on, and on, and on. Every color has these. I've got some interesting stats for you. This thread on Salvation: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=388001 contains the 200 "best" cards in the format, as decided by a script that went through 1065 submitted EDH decks and picked out the cards that appeared the most often. I'm just going to list the top 20 here:

746 Sol Ring
499 Lightning Greaves
395 Sensei's Divining Top
362 Solemn Simulacrum
334 Demonic Tutor #
319 Eternal Witness #
289 Skullclamp
285 Darksteel Ingot
271 Phyrexian Arena #
244 Oblivion Stone


229 Expedition Map
229 Swords to Plowshares #
229 Swiftfoot Boots
229 Primeval Titan ************
223 Acidic Slime #
218 Caged Sun
214 Austere Command #
205 Cultivate #
202 Diabolic Tutor #
200 Duplicant


Notice Primeval Titan's place on this list. Even when you take into consideration the color split of the 1065 candidate decks, it's still pretty far down there. And look at all of these other staples that appear in basically every deck that can run them, marked with an #. If you go down the next 20, you see this:

200 Beast Within #
199 Sun Titan #
196 Phyrexian Metamorph #
195 Path to Exile #
195 Coalition Relic
190 Mystical Tutor #
189 Vampiric Tutor #
184 Damnation #
183 Enlightened Tutor #
183 Kodama's Reach #

176 Gauntlet of Power
174 Hinder #
174 Sakura-Tribe Elder #
154 Oracle of Mul Daya #
154 Yavimaya Elder #
154 Crucible of Worlds
154 Trinket Mage #
154 Extraplanar Lens
153 Rite of Replication #
151 Fact or Fiction #


How long before all of these cards are a thing of the past? Probably a good while if we're being honest here. However, everyone should just get used to the idea that ANY of these cards (or others further down on the list) could get banned at any time without adequate reasoning or explanation, but rather simply just because "they're too common and we want EDH to be diverse, goddamnit."

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As I see it, this banlist update was largely inevitable, because of two primary concerns:

1) This format, as others, is ruled by a vocal minority.

People have been spewing vitriol about Primeval Titan for months, complaining about how it ends games on resolution and so on. Now Primeval is banned. I don't see this as a coincidence, and it reminds me an awful lot of Survival in Legacy. Did Survival really need to be banned? Probably not. The meta likely could have adapted, and Survival would -possibly- still be part of the format today. I'm not sure that it would be, but possibly. One of the main arguments behind banning Survival, namely that it gets closer to being broken with every printed creature for the rest of the game, holds true. All tutor engines are only as good as the cards they can find, after all. However, I largely blame the speedy ban of Survival on the vocal minority headed up by Evan Erwin, who screamed bloody murder until Wizards listened. This is just the way people work, however, and while it pays to be aware of it, there is little one can do about it.

2) This format is defined by a dichotomy at its core.

I think that this was actually a trichotomy at one point, before French split off. You have three main subsets of people that play EDH: those who play casually, those who play 1v1 competitively, and those who play multiplayer competitively. Note that I don't mean competitive here in the sense of sweeping tables on turn three necessarily. I'm using the term in the sense that you are playing competitively if you want to play a tuned, powerful list. Casual players are perfectly content sitting there with their Doubling Seasons and Primordial Hydras. Competitive players can do better things with Doubling Season, and will actively try to replace their Primordial Hydra in their endless quest to improve their deck.

As I said, French already split off, so let's excise the 1v1 players from the discussion.

The Casual vs Competitive debate has raged in a lot of games, and EDH as a format of Magic is certainly no exception here. I've been on both sides of the argument at various points in various games. There was a long time where I actively chose to play with a group of people that I just enjoyed playing with during Burning Crusade in WoW. Despite being competitively-minded myself, I chose to align myself with a group of casual players, and I eventually got bit in the ass for it due to a conniving member that joined later and just hated my guts, apparently. So you might say I'm biased against casuals. But I certainly understand the appeal of being content with where you are, of playing at a lower-level and not having to put the effort in.

But Casual players should not be making policy for Competitive players. Casual players often utilize their own banlists anyway, as anyone who's ever payed at a kitchen table will tell you. Casuals tend to get angry at specific cards that they perceive as unfair (whether they actually are or not) and ban them irregardless of the official banlist, whereas Competitive players will just grit their teeth and find a way around it. Shaping an official banlist with the Causal players in mind is a horrible idea, because you're comparing apples to oranges.

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So to sum up to this point, this is a bad ban in two ways: it caters to a casual crowd, and it sets a dangerous precedent that any EDH staple could be banned at any time, with the only provocation being that of a vocal minority, virtue of the fact that it's a staple by definition.

I will concede that it's not a HORRIBLE ban by power-level considerations. I believe that there are cards that are worse for the format that are currently unbanned, and I also believe that there are a lot of answers to the Primeval Titan problem that just simply don't see play, or as much as they should, at any rate. There are also those players who use Primeval Titan in a fair manner, and although this is a dangerous argument because of the extent to which it can be applied, it's worth mentioning. Obviously, the Mimeoplasm deck I presented above is not one of those decks. However, there are plenty of EDH decks that have one or two utility lands at most to get with him, and then he proceeds to just get basics or other harmless lands if he happens to stick around for more than a turn.

Okay, now, for the actual philosophy document itself.

There are a few more passages here that I would like to highlight:

"The Rules Committee's goal for Commander is for it to be different than other Magic games. Where competitive formats seek to balance the playing field for all styles and strategies, we want to encourage a style of game that is more open and directed towards all players having a good time regardless of who wins. This is summarized as: "Create games that you'd love to remember, not the ones others would like to forget.""

For me, the games I love to remember are those that would probably horrify other people. A recent example comes from the EDH tournament that Lycoming College's playgroup hosted. In the winners' pod, I was matched up vs Ulamog (with Workshop), Oona (with Candelabra), and budget Rafiq (without Eldrazi Conscription, but with Sovereigns). Ulamog has at least one infinite combo in it, and Oona has Palinchron, which is all I really need to say about that. These are serious decks. Ulamog ended up getting somewhat mana-screwed, but I was quickly public enemy number one, even after Ulamog had me on virtual lockdown courtesy of a fast Relic of Progenitus. Most of the game was all three of them ganging up on me. Rafiq was doing more of the damage, with a Primeval equipped with Sword of Feast and Famine, Lox. Hammer, and Greaves. I still won, after having to try to go off with something like four different combos, and through Rafiq who had drawn something like 30 cards off of a Consecrated Sphinx. I had to Tendrils someone just to stay alive. Etc. This is a game that I'll remember. It was awesome. For me, EDH decks being broken and acting like singleton vintage ARE the games I love to remember.

I will note here that the RC is doing a good job of keeping the "griefer" cards largely out of the format. Stuff like Upheaval, Sway of the Stars, Shaharazad, and Biorhythm should never be unbanned, because all Magic players have a troll lurking in them somewhere. Worldfire is questionable, but probably should be banned. There are a few other cards in this vein, too, like Decree of Annihilation and Obliterate, which should be added.

Again, though, the problem here is the philosophy behind this blurb, not the blurb itself. On the surface, what Sheldon is saying here makes perfect sense and is quite reasonable. But the last sentence, as a summary of the paragraph, elucidates the subjective problem here. There is an assumption that the RC can somehow guess how people want to play their EDH games. And maybe I'm the one that's in the minority here. It's always a possibility. But I know that my vision of the format and the RC's vision of the format no longer match.

Here's Sheldon's description of the reasons why a card might get banned:

"

* Creates Undesirable Games / Game Situations. Some cards produce the kinds of games we'd like to avoid, and we see them as creating a negative experience for a majority of the player base. They tend to be anticlimactic wins out of nowhere, unexpected combos that end an otherwise enjoyable game, or creating situations which completely take play of the game away from the other players. This includes some cards that have a casting cost far too low for their effect or whose abilities simply break the format at any cost.
* Warps the Format Strategically. Commander decks are about variety, and if a strategy becomes sufficiently omnipresent that the games become very similar even across different playgroups, we may need to try to rein in the presence of that deck.
* Produces Too Much Mana Too Quickly. Commander is a format about epic plays, but the turn 10 epic play happening on turn 3 is deflating. Limited acceleration is good, but we don't want the format to turn into "who can go off earliest," so we rein in large quantities of early mana.
* Interacts Badly with the Structure of Commander. Magic is not designed with Commander in mind, and the different rules, especially the presence of the commander in the command zone, can create degenerate or unfortunate situations. This is also why some cards are acceptable as one of the 99 but not as commanders.
* Creates a Perceived High Barrier to Entry. Because it's a non-competitive format, we don't want players to feel as though they need to spend a great deal of money to be able to play. It is not sufficient for a card to simply be expensive—expected ubiquity and the availability of suitable replacements are also considered. This rule is mostly invoked for cards fifteen or more years out of print and is unlikely to impact the list further.

"

Let's look at this piece by piece.

Bullet 1: Kiki-jiki, Power Artifact, Food Chain, Palinchron, Mindslaver, etc. Not an exhaustive list, but it's a start. There are a ton of these.

Bullet 2: This is reasonable, and I have no problem with it.

Bullet 3: Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Grim Monolith, Sol lands, Workshop, Azusa, etc. Obviously Black Lotus and the Moxen need to remain banned, and would be the more egregious offends in this category. But the fact remains that even without Primeval Titan, this is an impossible category to control. The only way to control this is for the other decks in the meta to actively adopt methods of controlling ramp strategies inherent within them, and most of the ways of doing this are widely regarded as "un-fun," thanks to a decade of propaganda by WotC. Looking at you, Stone Rain.

Bullet 4: Again, I'm fine with this. Most of these are fixable via simple errata, like Riftsweeper. I don't see a lot of cards that fall under this category as needing banned. Banning certain legends as generals is perfectly understandable and necessary.

Bullet 5: Oh, where do I start. Bazaar, Workshop, Imperial Seal, revised Dual Lands, Candelabra, Moat, P3K cards, etc. Note that this bullet is only applicable to Casual players. It's an explicit warning that those of us who have access to these cards may lose them at any time, if they start to be perceived as necessary. You can obviously make an argument that Imperial Seal is not necessary. You can run Vampiric Tutor, Cruel Tutor, and a host of less attractive options. But if you want the best list you can ave, you probably need a Seal at some point. I think that the only cards that are actively in danger in this category are the Revised duals, as those are ubiquitous enough to be seen as a barrier to entry. People try to play without them, but if you're running 3 or more colors, it becomes a losing proposition very quickly. There are a lot of cards that have no replacement (see Moat, Bazaar, and Workshop), but I don't think they're in any immediate danger just because they aren't seen as being necessary to play the format.

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So, where do I go from here, and what's my message?

Well, Sheldon has this to say:

"We believe that both official Commander and local variants can successfully coexist. What works in the broader audience may not resonate around your local game shop or kitchen table. We encourage you to modify both philosophy and banned list locally to suit your own needs while being aware that when you travel outside your local area, perhaps even on the other side of town, you'll need to be ready to play with the official rules, including the appropriate spirit. Likewise, when new players enter your playgroup they may have expectations closer to this official philosophy, and it will usually help the transition to discuss why they/you do things a particular way."

Absolutely not. Something a lot of people have been suggesting on my Facebook is that we should create our own local banlist. There's a massive problem with this: people have subjective biases and are not going to be able to objectively accept why a card needs to be banned. One of my locals has Imperial Painter built, and loves it to death. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that he would kick and scream until Painter's Servant was unbanned in our local meta if we were to look into this as an option. Or the hardcore Pyromancer's Ascension fan who would refuse to play unless Panoptic Mirror was unbanned. And so on. Note that these are caricatures based on the actual people -- I doubt that Tyson would care that much about Panoptic Mirror. But every playgroup has people who would. The Kozilek/Ulamog player would want Metalworker unbanned. This isn't even getting into cards that -should- be banned but aren't. Once you introduce the ability to generate a local banlist, everyone who plays in the area will demand input, and the result will either be just plain catastrophic, or will result in hard feelings at best.

Another major problem with local banlists is that our local area is composed of a confederation of something like six unique playgroups, all with wildly different card availabilities and philosophies. What Lock Haven University's group agrees to will likely not be the same thing that Lycoming College's group would agree to, or what Bellefonte's group would agree to, or State College's, or Williamsport's, or Bloomsburg's. At that point you end up having a royal mess of banlists, as you'd need one for each playgroup, and then one for the United Confederation of Playgroup. It would get frustrating and impossible to keep track of, plus, there's the added problem of what happens when you go outside your playgroup. I don't have a deck built because I can only legally play it against four people. I have it built because I have the expectation that I can take it anywhere and play it with anyone. An official banlist is the only good banlist, because it comes from a purportedly objective authority that is not local, we have no impact upon, we don't know personally, and we can blame when something goes wrong.

So, my message:

Stick with the official banlist. It's the only way that we can actually play the game in good conscience, because it's the only way that your decks can be relevant for more than just the local area, which you may or may not stay in. If we constructed a local banlist, and I kept playing EDH, whenever I leave the area, I won't be able to play EDH at that point because my deck will no longer be legal. Official banlist or bust.

Be ready for any beloved/integral/staple card to get banned on a whim for nebulous reasoning based on what someone else thinks of the way the format should be, as opposed to how the format is. There are lists on Salvation that you can read for yourself. If your deck contains cards that are among the best in their color, just be warned that your deck could lose a key piece at any moment.

These two items are facts of life if you desire to play EDH. Short of creating a subset of EDH akin to French with Vintage-style play purposefully in mind (which would be a monumental effort), there are no other options, and the feeling of choice that Sheldon presents in his document is merely an illusion.

For me, this means the end of EDH. I am unwilling to subject myself to the whims of the Rules Council as specified and interpreted by their statement of philosophy, and I am unwilling to accept that cards can get banned for popularity reasons as opposed to power-level reasons. I am further unwilling to commence or partake in the shitstorm that would occur if we tried to make a local banlist, and I currently have neither the time, the interest level, nor the influence to dedicate to creating a separate brand of EDH that I would actually be comfortable playing in.

And so, to those of you who carry on, I wish you many great games yet to be played, and an equal number of excellent memories yet to be forged. Enjoy it while you can.