DirkGently wrote: ↑6 days ago
yeti1069 wrote: ↑1 week ago
I'm generally talking about cEDH from a Yuriko perspective, where FBP is a fantastic card, but I've seen some other cards that care about stats come up. There are -2/-2 and even some -3/-3 effects floating around. I've run
Crippling Fear on and off, for example. I've seen
Cut Down. I'm currently running
Spinning Darkness.
DirkGently wrote: ↑1 week ago
Stuff like lightning bolt comes up on rare occasions - hence 99% and not 100%.
I don't think I've seen any of those cards played irl (though their usage rates on EDHrec do indicate that someone is playing them - maybe it's just cEDH though, idk).
I play Crippling Fear in a couple of EDH decks outside of cEDH. It's a great card, and getting (somewhat) better as the format speeds up (and we see more impactful creatures at lower mana values, which tend to have lower toughnesses).
Cut Down was pretty good in constructed play, I believe. In cEDH, many of the most-played creatures and top commanders fall under that combined 5 for the card. I haven't played it, because the creatures I've been most worried about don't (such as Kraum).
Yeah. All of this. a 3/4 is HUGE in cEDH. Flying as well. Nadu doesn't use its own life much, but the commander makes it very difficult to pressure life as well. Nadu is free to play Gilded Drake without having to worry about getting hit with the 3/3 flyer afterwards.
I have a really hard time reconciling the "cEDH needs to run more removal because Nadu needs to die immediately" argument with the "it's relevant that Nadu can prevent a 3-damage attack" argument.
I'm not understanding what you're having difficulty with here.
Most creatures in cEDH are relatively small.
There are several decks that want to attack for value.
Pressuring life totals, while not always relevant, can make a real impact.
Nadu blocks nearly every commander in the format, along with most of their creatures as well.
cEDH players don't run nearly enough removal. Look at any selection of non-Yuriko cEDH decks. Most rely on counterspells and chasing their own wincons before something becomes an issue.
Removal with an almost 0 opportunity cost
I wouldn't consider a 1 mana 1/1 with no other abilities to be "almost zero opportunity cost".
In a deck that wants a certain density of 1 mana creatures, the cost of running FBP is pretty low. It's basically trading evasion, for a sort of psuedo-evasion + removal. It's been pretty rare for its lack of actual evasion to be an issue.
It can also be used politically alongside other attackers when known info: if you block my 1-power dude with your 2-toughness dude, I will play this and kill your 2-toughness dude after combat. Or, you play it before combat and force them to make the choice of blocking and losing their creature or letting it through.
How is that political? If it works just the same as in 1v1 magic, I don't see how the word "political" is on the table.
Political in the sense that it is using table talk to accomplish a goal rather than casting/activating a card. Also, it can be used in the same way that I recently used an Orcish Bowmasters: let my guy through, or I kill your creature. Not only that, but if you let it through, I can use this ability to kill a different creature someone else has.
I like to think that cEDH players are generally like the weathervane of appropriate, bannable cards: if the most cutthroat and optimized players are saying it's a problem, it probably is and going to be.
I don't buy it. Flash was not a problem in casual tables and was never going to be. And all the cEDH players I see whining on reddit tend to say that non-flash banned cards shouldn't be banned, paradox engine in particular. I see basically no relation between what cEDH players have a problem with, and what causes problems in normal commander games.
There is some alignment on the Nadu question, but I don't think cEDH players are the lone canary in the coalmine - we've got a coalmine packed full of canaries on every point of the competitive spectrum. If anything I think I see the highest proportion on don't-ban advocates on the cEDH side.
I agree that cEDH players are not a good measuring stick for what should or shouldn't be banned in casual EDH. There are plenty of cEDH cards that are reasonable, or even bad in EDH, and if you're not playing with people hellbent on playing the leanest, most efficient ways to win (within their chosen strategy), a lot of cards are just fine outside of the competitive environment.
I haven't seen Nadu outside of cEDH yet, and I suspect that it will get socially relegated to cEDH-only, the same way so many other cards do. I know that when I sit down with my Tymna+Tevesh Szat cleric tribal deck, a "discussion" regularly ensues as to my sensibilities for bringing a cEDH deck to a casual table, because both individually and jointly, those are viewed as cEDH cards. Playing Dockside in a regular EDH game also often garners similar sentiments, although Dockside has a reasonable argument for banning on both sides of the line. No one is playing
Demonic Consultation in casual EDH. I suspect Nadu will go that way as well.
While I don't necessarily think it needs to be banned, even from a cEDH perspective, at least as far as my experience against it has gone, thus far, I will note that at the cEDH event I played this past weekend, it seemed like any table with a Nadu ended up going to time.