Golos wins by itself. Ramos doesn't. Fetching any land which, aside from the utility, essentially brings down the commander tax to one mana, makes Golos insurmountable to beat at times.
That's not a 'win by itself' tho? At least, not in the same way the rules committee states is the reason for unbanning worldfire.
Derevi and Yuriko can ignore commander tax entirely, and Derevi doesn't even require an alternate body to bounce.
Golos perhaps requires an arbitrarily 'more-than-normal' amount of interaction burden from opponents, but while I agree that tutoring out any land each time he ETBs (which should have been cast, not 'just' any ETB/flicker), especially ANY land (i.e. urborg, yavimaya, field of the dead, Cradle, Cavern of Souls, etc) instead of just basics is pretty degenerate, from what I understand (I don't have a Golos deck), any type of 'instant-win' in Golos is similar to narset, englightened master, only with less protection?
One could argue it's easier/safer to activate Golos as opposed to having to swing with narset (tho you don't have to connect), maybe?
It depends on the type/power level of one's deck (of which I agree golos is too...flexible in letting you build basically whatever you want, compared to something like Morophon or Ramos caring about tribes/spell-slinging, respectively), but I'm not sure Golos is more degenerate, than, say, Chulane, Kenrith, or Korvold.
Especially Chulane, lol.
In general the amorphous nature of commander makes it really hard to have a reasonable conversation about this stuff and makes it really frustrating any time something is banned. When a format is competitive and clearly defined, it's easy to measure out whether something is "too good" for a format. But with the commander that the RC seems to envision, where house rules govern whether something is too competitive or unfun to be playable, people are going to be having different expectations of the cards and format. Johnnys playing jank piles with golos are going to feel wronged when other degenerate stuff like Chulane is fine but golos isn't. Overall the RC's mismanagement of the format becomes more and more of a problem every year as the game gets pushed more, the format grows in popularity, WOTC designs more explicitly towards it and more wishboard-like mechanics get introduced. There really is no good argument for why companions are allowed but lessons aren't.
Yeah, one of the youtube commander channels I watch kinda touched on this - either have a banlist or don't, or at the least, try to be (more) consistent, both to make more logical 'sense', as well as more an effort to avoid all the 'sheldon bans based on his own play experience' memes.
Having a 'shadow' ban list for stuff like Armageddon only goes so far, and using rule zero, while well-intentioned, has shifted to a sort of 'excuse' over the years on the RC's part for being super slow to react/police the format, as well as highlight the differences between players in what the 'rule zero' talk pre-game actually means (such as 'my 6 power Korvold deck is actually a 9 compared to your Azorius bird tribal)
Like.... take Coalition Victory being banned but Tooth and Nail being fine - I get the 'feels bad' aspect of playing Coalition in a 5-color commander deck, both from the perspective of an opponent (you insta-lose if you're all tapped out and don't know it's coming), and for the player when it doesn't hit, especially since everyone will hold up removal/target you over anything else, especially if your commander is out after the one time you win with it.
It kinda seems like the RC's rationale for 'well you can interact with Kiki-Jiki or Triskelion from entwined Tooth-and-Nail' also applies just as much to the requirements for Coalition victory - both are going to require instant-speed removal or counterspells, and while lands are 'somewhat' harder to target 'fairly' due to the social impetus around commander, hitting most, if not all, 5-color commanders is relatively simple unless they've stocked up all-out on protection spells and/or boots/greaves.
But then again, it's also at least partially due to Wizards moving to embrace commander, and in so doing, start the power-creep/pushed cards feedback loop with, either by design or not, not holding the keys to the banlist themselves (so far).
OTOH, while I'm not a fan of companions (few, if any, of the 'restrict' clauses offset the power inherent in the actual card if properly built around, not to mention having guaranteed access to a second card, even if over-costed - one of my friends has a nasty Ayli/Lurrus lifegain-while-recurring enchantment based removal ), they're at least one-offs.
Lessons, while generic and mostly overcosted/not pushed, would just generically increase the game from 100 cards to 100 + several common cards + a few colored lessons, and some decks would be 'better off' due to the deck's strategy, comparatively speaking, considering what each of the unique 'color-associated' lessons doing different things - there'd be no reason not to run any of them.
It's why I advocate for different commander formats even though everyone always wants to laugh the idea away. If we knew like with modern "this format threatens wins on turn 4" it would be MUCH simpler to balance. Make ACTUAL ban lists for this shit to Match the formats. Easy. Rule zero is such a cop out to balancing anything yet they still have a pointless list
Yup, Rule 0 exists in literally every game that was ever made, it doesn't need to be a listed fucking rule to begin with. If you don't want to properly curate the format, let wotc fucking do it.Exactly. It's pretty bullshit to lean on rule 0 in anything but a tightly knit local play group. And even then, you're putting the burden of feels-bad on the players who will get outvoted on rule 0 stuff. Kitchen table players can still play whatever they want, but at least have some baseline structure to the format that is consistent.
Sure, should be fine, though note that if you haven't had any experience with graveyard sets, the fact that you have to pay more attention to the graveyards may throw you off. Though in a Prerelease, you should run into enough less-experienced players that you won't be at a disadvantage.I'm toying with getting into Magic (again). Is this a good set to do it with? Thinking about doing the pre-release.
Still trying to decide if I should go back to printed with this (love werewolves) or wait for Kamigawa (my favorite block) Ixalan was fun but haven't gone back since.
Innistrad sets (there's another innistrad set coming out in november) will mark the end of the year of double faced cards and I feel like going back to paper after that will be much less of a hassle. I play on arena so I don't mind, but I feel like all the DFCs and the day/night stuff is just going to be a bookkeeping nightmare in paper.
Golos only offers bad choices to the opponents kill it and it will just be replayed for another potentially busted land. Let it live and it might just end the game on the spot.That's not a 'win by itself' tho? At least, not in the same way the rules committee states is the reason for unbanning worldfire.
Derevi and Yuriko can ignore commander tax entirely, and Derevi doesn't even require an alternate body to bounce.
Golos perhaps requires an arbitrarily 'more-than-normal' amount of interaction burden from opponents, but while I agree that tutoring out any land each time he ETBs (which should have been cast, not 'just' any ETB/flicker), especially ANY land (i.e. urborg, yavimaya, field of the dead, Cradle, Cavern of Souls, etc) instead of just basics is pretty degenerate, from what I understand (I don't have a Golos deck), any type of 'instant-win' in Golos is similar to narset, englightened master, only with less protection?
One could argue it's easier/safer to activate Golos as opposed to having to swing with narset (tho you don't have to connect), maybe?
It depends on the type/power level of one's deck (of which I agree golos is too...flexible in letting you build basically whatever you want, compared to something like Morophon or Ramos caring about tribes/spell-slinging, respectively), but I'm not sure Golos is more degenerate, than, say, Chulane, Kenrith, or Korvold.
Especially Chulane, lol.
Sure, should be fine, though note that if you haven't had any experience with graveyard sets, the fact that you have to pay more attention to the graveyards may throw you off. Though in a Prerelease, you should run into enough less-experienced players that you won't be at a disadvantage.
The day/night cycle introduced in this set is also something you'll have to keep track of, but it's something both players will be keeping their eyes on, so it shouldn't be a problem.
Golos only offers bad choices to the opponents kill it and it will just be replayed for another potentially busted land. Let it live and it might just end the game on the spot.
I wouldn't mind seeing Yuriko and Derevi banned too. Just don't come after my Eminence commanders, I've got 3 decks lead by those (Ur-Dragon, Edgar, Oloro)!
If I could ban any commander it might be Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh. Nothing good ever comes from that little shit.
Ok but Commander is still the 'rule 0' format, in theory. He's a commander that you can literally build any way that you want to, which is why he's the most popular. He's really good at just everything, but it's not like he's busted in the majority of those decks.The thing with Golos, as I understand it, is that he's just too much value, so he fits into a lot of decks that really should prefer other commanders, EG Dragons. Dude is at least as good a Dragon tribal commander as the Ur-Dragon, and that's a little fucked.
Stuff like Maze's end decks are interesting enough. The fact that he's good and 5 color seems like a poor reason to ban a commander.Golos's play pattern is pretty linear, made easier by rule 0 which actively discourages you from interacting with your opponents' lands. Not sure what you find cool but, in my opinion, 5c goodstuff decks are rarely interesting. Having access to five colors does not necessarily propagate creative deckbuilding.
Yeah, i feel like wotc is so scared of making good cheap playable burn in standard. There does seem to be more cards taht are allowed to hit face in these last few sets but theyre always eithe rso puny or overcosted.Went 7-2 in Sealed with a WB deck. I wanted to go RW, but I had the odd situation of the decent red cards caring about instants/sorceries but the only red removal being 3x Immolation. Which is normally fine, but Smoldering Egg isn't a fan. Black offered removal and way more interactions.
The decayed -> sacrifice outlet flow is pretty nice, and coven was way easier to trigger than I imagined. I crushed most of my opponents. I only had Celestus Sanctifier to care about day/night, but once that was out, I was switching between day and night regularly like a pro, until my opponent killed it.
That isn't what I was complaining about, lol. Immolation is a good bit of removal, just not an instant or sorcery.went 7-2 with a RW aggro/burn type of deck. I definitely eked out some wins i should not have at all thanks to light up the night going face.
Yeah, i feel like wotc is so scared of making good cheap playable burn in standard. There does seem to be more cards taht are allowed to hit face in these last few sets but theyre always eithe rso puny or overcosted.
It happens during the untap step, where you can't put anything on the stack except triggered abilities. In addition, transforming is a special action that doesn't go on the stack. So no, you have to kill it on your turn.does night/day go on the stack as something you can react to? i.e. i pass without playing anything and before their creatures transform on their turn i use an instant to kill one?
It happens during the untap step, where you can't put anything on the stack except triggered abilities. In addition, transforming is a special action that doesn't go on the stack. So no, you have to kill it on your turn.
With a card like Unnatural Moonrise, that makes it night, you can respond to the spell, but once the spell resolves, you can't respond to each transformation.
man, draft is real weird right now. Every deck im up against is removal tribal. How are these people all able to draft every removal spell? surely that means SOMEONE isnt getting the removal spells lol. Also seems like a generally bad strategy to waste your tempo on a one for one when theres so much recursion in the format.
There's a lot of good removal in this set. Much more than normal. And all of it except for the one red spell is 4 mana or less.man, draft is real weird right now. Every deck im up against is removal tribal. How are these people all able to draft every removal spell? surely that means SOMEONE isnt getting the removal spells lol. Also seems like a generally bad strategy to waste your tempo on a one for one when theres so much recursion in the format.
They need to hurry up and give us a Liesa story. She was my favorite even before she existed in the game (BW/Orzhov/Silverquill/Etc are my colors).Returning legends article
The Returning Legends of Innistrad: Midnight Hunt
Familiar friends (and terrible horrors) return in Innistrad: Midnight Hunt!magic.wizards.com