Why is Upheaval banned when the following are not...

Apocalypse (cheaper),

Jokulhaups (misses enchantments and planeswalkers? whatever, board and game are both irreparable - and you dont get to save some stuff to recover with)

Obliterate (costs two more, see haups, and UNCOUNTERABLE aside from Timestop or killing the player on the stack)

All three of these cards meet criteria two.


The card usually detracts from the playing experience of everyone in the game. How many can honestly say they have enjoyed playing in a game where one of these three spells has resolved?

Do you like when your opponent's [wrath of god/mind twist/else fun to play] resolves?

Upheaval is banned because the player can usually win. That is, float a ton of mana, play back some cheap stuff, some mana-producers, and discard a few cards, while everyone else starts from square-1.

With Obliterate, all your permanents are gone, so everyone starts from the same point. Apocalypse makes you discard your hand, so that is not really on the same level as Upheaval.

with jokulhaups or any other boardwiper you need the extra cards, which you want to play with your mana floating in your hand.. with Upheaval you will get what you had in play in your hand, making it a sure win...

again due to the mana available in EDH this card is banned.

my 2c

I think it would be good to have the Rules Committee comment on this, specifically, their feelings on comparing it against Jokulhaups.

Both cards allow the caster to float mana prior to resolution, allowing them to play something onto an empty play area.

Upheaval is indeed less annoying to play against. Despite having to discard most of the cards you returned anyway, one can keep a number of lands to get back in the game much more quickly. A player might be able to get in a number of hits with their 5/5, but with all of his or her opponents not missing any land drops, it won't last long.

It's my opinion that Upheaval is also more difficult to abuse. Jokulhaups' advantage to miss enchantments and indestructible permanents can be taken advantage of. Genomancer has such a deck. Is there a way to abuse Upheaval more than Jokulhaups? Maybe, but I can't think of one.

Having won both EDH games in which I had to eat a Jokulhaups, I'm not sure if any of these cards need to be on the banned list.

What does everyone else think?

Extra two mana, land for turn, play Psychatog post Upheaval. tha pretty much guarantees one dead opponant next time that player sees a turn. Though I guess you could argue post Jokulhaups you could plop down a Sarcatog.

I don't understand why upheaval would be banned and none of the other cards. I do not think I have seen an upheaval played in a multi game where other players didnt also float mana to counteract what was going to be played post upheaval. 90% of the time in our games an upheaval= reseting the game with the player that cast playing first, sure sometimes no one has an answer but most of the time someone does just like for any number of cards. Which is better a counteralbe upheaval floating 5 some of which might need to be spent to resoulve the upheaval or an obliterate floating 3?

It may be because the effect is a bounce effect rather than a destroy effect. There is no effective strategic counter to Upheaval because of that.

Say there are 15 permanents you own between play and your hand. Obliterate leaves no permanents in play, but your permanents in hand will still be available to use for recovery. Upheaval will always give you 15 permanents in hand, and you will likely be discarding about 7 or more of them during your turn.

If you hold back, you survive a sweeper, but Upheaval breaks you on discarding. If you overextend, you get destroyed by a sweeper.... and Upheaval still breaks you. Bottom line, there is not a real in-game strategic way to counteract an Upheaval. This means an in-game adjustment to strategy, not a functional action. Counters aren't available to all colors, and having to metagame to "30 cheap creatures.dec" is a little against the intent of the format, is it not?

Good, thought-out post.

You are correct in that, if you're expecting a Jokulhaups, you can improve your recovery by keeping land, whereas with Upheaval this strategy doesn't work.

But, everyone else's recovery from Upheaval will still be always be faster- faster than any opponent would from a Johkulhaups, even if they had been stunting their own development for many turns.

Historically, extended decks went Upheaval, Psychatog, win. One would think you would see this. Then again you could just as easily go 'Haups, Sarcatog. Maybe in this format you go Upheval, Timetwister. That would be annoying and time consuming with all the shuffling.

edited for spelling.

They did use that combo, yes. It's a good way to deal 20 damage in one shot, but falls pretty short of the 50-100 damage needed to win an EDH game. You can't really compare the formats.

An EDH deck would be much better off laying out one or more large guys post-massremoval - creatures that can deal lots of damage turn after turn - and trying to ride them to victory.

Maybe i can make it "short" to say why Upheavel is totally nuts in any "slow" multiplayer format (at least the most formats):

You make ofcourse some decks that have any advantage of the upheavel, something like UG (a little aggro/Controll with Cards like Roar of the Wurm, Genesis and Garruk and so on).

Thats example 1) UG (Which is one of the worser examples in terms of brokenes)
You play your normal aggro plan, maybe u beat 1 player to like 20 life than all players have flooded the board, you have like 6 mana and go with Upheavel, than u drop land, play a 1drop and maybe discard some Flashback alla call of the herd/roar of the wurm, madness like Rootwalla or Genesis or Dredge like Gravetroll. Than you have a nice advantage and the game is resetet so u can play Beatdown again what u want.
The thing is that "maybe" other decks can have a little advantage of Upheavel too, but most not and if you have more than 6 mana (which is really worst cast if you play Upheavel) than you play land+your bigger stuff, which they dont have.

Example 2) More broken example
If you play something like reanimator in UBXYZ what u want is to reset the game, than get the discard you maybe needed or just that your reanimated Akroma can finish everyone off (really less cards beat white Akroma, Swords to Plowshare, maybe Gilded Drake, in the end really not much cards you want to play), funnier it gets if u play Terravore(which UG can play too ofcourse), and beat the hell out of people which discard lands (you will discard lands ofcourse).

Example 3) Brokeness
Really strong Upheavel gets which a Deck with really much Artefact mana, something like, Grim Monolith+Thran Dynamo and than beat you with Upheavel + Smoke Stack so everyone is finished forever (you ofcourse replay you mana artefacts and have nearly no problem).

So Upheavel really is broken if u want it to be, random decks get random effects, but a deck that want to abuse a card gets a lot more.
Apokalypse compared kills you out of the game, so you will never ever play Apokalypse (at least if you are not on drugs).
Playing Obliterate is possible, and can ofcourse be good if u have some enchantment that can seal the deal. Obliterate is a card u can play if u think you can get a good number of possible "finisher draws" out of it, but Obliterate is not broken, simply because that "finishers draws" are really unlickly, with Upheavel its easy as hell and u ALWAYS get an advantage, not only with some good draw.


And ofcourse you can say a card that costs more than 7 mana is "normally" unlickly to be a strong card, Biorhytmn is a card i wouldnt ban, simply because it costs hell of mana and can kill you the same it can win you games (and you wont play cards that kill you if u play them, simply because your goal is to win games). On the other site you play the card ofcourse only if the board got Wrathed and only you have a creature, but in the end someone destroys the creature (u not even can be sure if they are tapped out, Snuff Out, Black Pact and the like), and ofcourse the win comes very very slow if u dont boost in it with a bad ass Mono Green Rofellos Draw or something.

But before u misunderstand i talk from the perspectiv of a 1on1 OR a 2on2 or something, not a 8player Free for All (which i dont like because its totally combo nuts format).

So comparing Upheavel with a Red Board Sweeper is like comparing Ancestral Recall with Browbeat (you may draw 3 card with both, but the Ancestral costs less, is blue, gives you ALWAYS 3 cards and is so the better card, from Browbeat u get the worst, or never know what u get).

The problem i see from most of the peops playing this format is that they think playing big creatures is good (and ofcourse its what makes formats fun), but if you play multiplayer Combo Decks always are the better choice (or some Stax like decks that beat all opponents and stop them from doing anyhing), its always a matter of how fast u can go off and kill everyone, if u make that before round 4 its stronger than ANY creature deck you can play, and dont say that the players gang the combo player, the thing is if 3 of the 7 players go combo you may stop 1 but still lose to the other 2, and so you have won nothing.

Upheaval, float mana, drop Iron Maiden.

Yes. Even if you don't have 18 mana floating, just floating two mana and going, Sol Ring, Ingot, go puts you so far ahead of everyone else.

Try doing that with 'Haups or Apocalypse.