Maybe so, I just suspect that everyone would throw it in. Protean Hulk isn't very useful if you don't combo. Gifts grabbing Black Market Connections and some other powerful casual card is fantastic. So I think every blue deck runs it, even if they don't plan on comboing with it, just like a lot of casual decks might run tutors or animate dead, even if they don't have a worldgorger dragon to go with it. IMHO.toctheyounger wrote: ↑1 year agoI don't personally think this is the sort of card that casual players will even look to turn to, personally. It comes with a bit of a skill test on both sides and involves a level of brewing that most casual players are not really going to commit to; frankly, you don't run it unless you have specific lines you want to play, and by that merit it pretty much is only going to see play at like high power to cedh tables, I'd be very surprised to see it at a lower level, outside of pubstomping and we don't enable that. If casuals want this sort of effect, they already have it. And that's a great card in it's own right.Venedrex wrote: ↑1 year agoAlso, from a non combo perspective, why do we want casual players having another tool to eliminate the fun singleton nature of the format. All tutors do is make games more stale, whether you grab a combo or just some bleh value engine or more casual win condition. Isn't one of the number one complaints about EDH how tutors are making games worse and people are actively trying to run less of them to make games more fun?
And before you say, it's a fun game, I don't think giving my opponent two of the four best cards in their deck is a fun game.
So why add another one?
The thing about fun is it means different things to different people. Personally, I'd love it in the format to enable my Varina build to do more, because there's no way my wallet stretches to Intuition. It's the sort of card that would have a variety of applications, and yes, most of them are probably degenerate, but probably not all. Some people enjoy that, some people don't, as long as those don't mix we're all good, baby.
My personal thoughts are I'd love to see it unbanned for some of the same reasons you'd like it to stay banned. I think you've gotta give people the benefit of the doubt to use it respectfully. By which I mean don't bring a gun to a knife fight. Yes, it's strong, yes it will enable combos, but at this point keeping those out of the format is a fool's errand, and I don't think it's the sort of card that's really going to yuck anyone's yum. I know it's not a direct comparison, but in terms of power level, Protean Hulk has been around the last few years now, and that thing literally only combos. I don't see it at casual tables ever. I think this is a similar card in that you know exactly what you're doing with it, and if you're being irresponsible with it and making people miserable that's on the brewer, not the card.
This is all kind of irrelevant anyway, as far as I know this card isn't even on the radar to enter the format again.
Playing Protean Hulk and not combo is like painting a target on yourself while getting some big creatures. Gifts can be played just for generic value and it's dang good. Compare gifts to Chemister's Insight. Four mana for two cards (1 if you count the card you spent) vs (four mana for 1 card tutored not randomly drawn and whatever 2 cards in your bin is worth) No comparison.