So, why did they change him from Griselbrand to Griselbanned? (cute term courtesy of Jav) Sheldon Menery explained that Griselbrand was extremely similar to Yawgmoth's Bargain (already banned in the format) and the card is notorious for being overpowered because you get the cards exactly when you want them, compared to Necropotence, where you only get the cards at the end of your turn. This subtle difference separates these two cards from the banhammer. Drawing cards at the end of your turn doesn't allow you to float mana and cast an infinite combo or give you enough time to lay down your Venser's Journal or Reliquary Tower, so you won't be able to keep any cards in excess of 7. If you go back to the Griselbrand Article I wrote in May, I mentioned that this creature does everything and buys you a bag of chips afterwards. If your opponents target your mana development, the card draw-ing power helps you find more Extraplanar Lens abilities to replace it. If your opponents try to destroy him, he can easily draw you into a reanimation spell to get him on the battlefield again. The biggest problem is Lifelink. He fuels himself and requires little to no work replenishing your life total other than swinging into the red zone. One of the major gripes I've heard about Griselbrand EDH was it's ability to win extremely fast. Mono-Black players would use mana rocks to quickly ramp into a turn 3-5 Griselbrand and draw out their entire deck to find whatever infinite combo they wanted to win with that game. Kinda degenerate.
Unfortunately, I haven't had the pleasure to play against a Griselbrand deck, so it's difficult to gauge exactly how powerful it was as a Commander or even in the list of 99. After playing him in my Teneb, the Harvester EDH deck and against him in my friends' EDH decks, I think he's an extremely strong creature, but I never felt he was too overpowered. I assume our playgroup didn't really try to break the card other than just playing him for fun and drawing the occasional 7 cards with him. At the end of the day, I'll live on. I understand why my favorite card in Avacyn Restored was banned, but it doesn't amend a broken heart. Farewell, Griselbrand; I hardly knew ye.
Sundering Titan. The fuck? Where did banning this card come from? I mean, I'm not complaining at all. This card is all kinds of unfair. If the ability just triggered when it entered the battlefield, I could kind of get behind it, but leaving too? I can't even exile/bounce this thing to prevent the trigger? Yeah, this one had to go. I'm surprised the banning came so late on this guy. I figured they'd let it slip by like other offenders like Mind Twist and Contamination. Overall, Sundering Titan can make games completely unplayable for opponents, since he shoots 5 different lands when he enters and leaves the battlefield. Sundering Titan is also extremely degenerate in popular blink strategies that use Cloudshift and Momentary Blink to access multiple Sundering Titan triggers to one-sided Armageddon the board. With each concussive hit, Sundering Titan decreases your opponents' resources and effectively suppresses their ability to stop or interact with your board. I'm glad he's gone and the day I see this titan in another EDH match, it'll be a day too soon.
After all the commotion over these bannings. Wizards earlier this morning announced their seasonal bannings. Nobody got the axe. The notorious bad guy in the room, Standard U/W Delver escaped without losing a hair and that has mixed feelings across the Standard environment, but ultimately I think it's a good reason. According to the magicthegathering.com Daily Articles (click HERE to see it!), they claim statistically, Delver wins a little under 51% of the time and they feel the format is diverse enough that Delver and non-Delver decks can live in harmony. Honestly, I think Delver is ruining the format, so much so that you have to print Cavern of Souls to help fight against Snapcaster Mage. Seriously? I think Snapcaster Mage is the true villain and it's almost unfathomable to ban it because they already screwed control magic for the next year with the Cavern, so what do they do now? It's also rather disappointing that may have to ban yet another Blue card. I don't know if we see a clear cut bias towards Blue, but this is getting a little old.
The craziest thing we see after today is the unbanning of Land Tax in Legacy.
With Legacy becoming an increasingly more difficult format to get into because of the cost of pricey engines like Show and Tell, Natural Order, Candelabra of Tawnos, and the dual lands, Legacy as a format is in limbo of not having enough cards to support the format. Interestingly enough, WotC looked to Land Tax as a potential player on the Legacy scene. A card that's been banned since 2004, Land Tax focuses primarily on basic lands and interacts with relatively well-priced cards like Seismic Assault, Life from the Loam, Knight of the Reliquary, and Mox Diamond (although somewhat pricey). Currently, Land Tax doesn't do anything for the more popular decks like RUG Delver, Maverick, Dredge, etc, so it's perfectly poised to be a Tier 2 archetype, potentially Tier 1 if someone manages to break the card. This enchantment is an extremely powerful effect, potentially drawing you 4 cards/turn under ideal circumstances, so it's likely some deck builder will find the right cohesion of engines and lands to make Land Tax an automatic 4x of in a Legacy archetype. We've already seen the power of cheap/powerful enchantments in Legacy with Survival of the Fittest, so Land Tax might be well positioned to take the format by storm.
My biggest gripe with the unbanning is the price. Before the banning, Land Tax was a stable 8-10 dollars for a white-bordered copy and about 15-20 for a Legends copy. After the unbanning, copies were sold out everywhere and you couldn't find a copy for any less than $40. As I'm writing this, the card is around 25 on the low. As a huge Commander staple and a vital piece to non-Green decks for getting mana fixing and lands in hand, this card is a linchpin in White decks for achieving some consistency. The price jump will make it more difficult to obtain for EDH players, so I'm hoping the price stabilizes around 15-20, so players can pick up a copy if they need it.
Seems like we covered everything, right? Well, there was a small piece of information that Sheldon Menery mentioned in his post on the Commander bannings. 'remember that there is ongoing Kokusho testing, so no decision will be made on it until the September update' -Sheldon. Did he just say.. Kokusho?? One of my favorite dragons of all time might be legal in Commander? Hooray!! I'm really excited if they bring this drain everyone for 5, gain a billion life dragon back into Commander and let me sleeve up my own copy. I think this card is extremely dangerous in multiples, but we're playing in a format where you can only play 1 copy. Furthermore, we already have Exsanguinate, which is arguably more difficult to fight against with the Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth/Cabal Coffers interaction. Since there are more Clone effects in the format with new additions, Phyrexian Metamorph, Evil Twin, and Sakashima's Student, the EDH Rules Committee may feel there are enough answers for opponents to kill Kokusho. Hopefully their testing is in favor of rising the Evening Star from exile.
Overall, this is how I feel:
+0 Griselbrand Ban in EDH/Commander
+1 Sundering Titan Ban in EDH/Commander
+0 No Standard Bans
-1 Land Tax Unbanning in Legacy
+1 Kokusho, the Evening Star Potential of Unbanning from EDH/Commander
I can't say I'm thrilled, but the new format changes will have to do for now. We'll see what the next round of bans has in store for us come September and the results from Standard tournaments to determine the fate of U/W Delver. Until the next bramble, Magic players!
Can't get enough brambling content? Check out the Bramble On Series on the MTG Casual Network Archive!
-David J.
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