Yes, I know they're both banned in vintage for silly reasons, but I honestly don't see the need for either of them to be banned in EDH just for that reason. Particularly since it's a singleton format.

There's a combo that uses Worldgorger Dragon, Animate Dead, Entomb, and an instant speed kill spell to generate infinite mana on turn 2-ish. Yeah, that's great, but requiring two specific cards being played and resolving to generate infinite mana isn't nearly as cheap as, say, anything you can do with Rofellos and an untap effect like Umbral Cloak or whatever it's called. So the precedent of unbanning Rofellos sides with the unbanning of Worldgorger as well, particularly since it isn't that great of a card other than that combo and would only see use in very niche decks to limited success.

As for Library of Alexandria, it isn't good in a format like EDH at all. The amount of times one would end up with exactly seven cards in their hand is low. Sure, if you drop it turn one you can tap it on your next turn to draw a card, but if you are keeping yourself at seven cards just so you can draw more you're probably going to end up losing anyhow since that requires playing nothing but land every turn. Another thing to keep in mind is that it is, again, only a single card in 100, and drawing cards at the expense of playing things is generally a detriment in multiplayer games. I can see possible reasons for banning it in 1v1, but definitely not multiplayer.


So please, discuss. I'm completely against the banning of cards that shouldn't absolutely be on the list, and I feel that neither of these deserve it. And yes, I did register on the forum just to post this topic.

This isn't even funny; it's just wrong.

How many decks currently play Reliquary Tower? About 75%? More? Imagine that instead of having Tower on the battlefield, you have Library. In some situations, neither of them do anything more than tap for 1. In the situations where your Tower is more than that, your Library will be as well (unless you have both of them in play at the same time and aren't able to cast or discard down to 7, in which case you're either under Stasis or you've already won the game and you're just messing around).

Library would be an auto-include in every deck (with very little exaggeration) if it were unbanned, and would thus make the format less appealing to people without a Library who don't feel like spending over $150 on one card just to begin playing a format that has no sanctioned tournaments.

Library is bonkers.

I agree worldgorger is sooo much weaker than rofellos. General + 1 card kills someone. Worldgorger plus THREE cards kills someone (ie it's a 3 card combo).

Rofellos doesn't win on turn 2, not even with the god-hand (best case is turn 3 with Umbral Mantle and either a suspended Search for Tomorrow or Llanowar Elves into Harrow to generate infinite mana). WGD makes two specific cards, a kill spell (of which there are a semi-infinite number), an X spell (likewise), and two lands a turn-two win. (Keep in mind, WGD doesn't need to be - and in fact can't be - in your hand.) I wouldn't be surprised to see Rofellos get axed again (it got unbanned mainly because it had never been tested), and WGD is at least as bad.

As for Library: there is nothing in the entire paragraph you wrote about it that is accurate. A sizable number of decks can keep a full hand without much difficulty. (Even my Goblins deck manages to do so sometimes. And Goblins aren't known for card draw or holding back.) If you're drawing two cards a turn, you don't have to play only land in order to stay at 7. And card draw is absurdly good in multiplayer - more threats and more answers are always good things, especially when the card draw costs 1 mana (the price of not having the Library available for anything else). Mind's Eye is often cited as one of the few true auto-includes in an EDH deck, and Library is at least as good.

Sol Ring catches some grief for being too swingy a card (though I don't think there's been anything more than halfhearted suggestions of bannings); Library is a thousand times more so. If one player hits it in the opening hand and no one else gets it reasonably early, that player is going to win 99% of the time.

Library most certainly doesn't cause anyone to win right off the bat. Even in a perfect situation where someone plays it turn one and gets to use it every single turn without tempo loss, it still sets them back on mana (albeit only slightly, but still), puts a huge target on their head, and is much less card advantage than something like, say, Mind's Eye. In most cases I'd even rather have Ancestral Vision on turn one, just because it would net me the same number of cards over the next few turns AND doesn't require the additional "mana investment." Then you can go ahead and play however much you want without worrying about cards in hand, etc.


Turn three godhand win with Rofellos requires him, umbral mantle, and two acellerants. Worldgorger win on turn two or three or whatever requires entomb, animate dead, an instant speed kill, and an x spell. Also assuming missing no land drops on both.

Rofellos is much easier to do this with, as only one of his necessary cards is specific (the mantle) while the worldgorger combo has two. Also more cards in the combo, etc. It takes a perfect godhand, which is silly because most combo decks win with a perfect godhand and haven't been banned yet, like storm. And really, if you're gonna ban a piece of worldgorger combo, ban entomb, not him.

outside of WGD or a sharuum deck, when is entomb the problem card? WGD is the card that gets targeted not only by entomb, but also animate dead. i would love to have this combo back, but it gets too degenerate too soon. i'm not saying that there's not other quick degenerate combo's, but this one is a little much.

i don't have an input on library, i know its pretty bonkers, but i think the reason its banned is because of its price. i think in a 100 card singleton format its not as good as regular constructed play, i see your point. i'm not quite sure if its ban-worthy, other than the fact that its expensive. use the magus?

I hate the price argument for library so much.

Library is $120 and is banned.

Mishra's Workshop is $180 and is legal.
Bazaar of Baghdad is $170 and is legal.
Timetwister is $180 and is legal.
Grim Tutor is $120 and is legal.


I'm honestly not sure WHY it is banned. It doesn't seem OVERLY ridiculous in multiplayer.
Rhystic Study may cost mana, but it will draw you three times the amount of cards.

Also, everyone, don't forget Worldgorger's "oops no other targets, game is a tie" scenario.

touche.

On Dragon:

Compare it to Protean Hulk. You don't have to Flash the Hulk down on turn two for it to be stupid, instead it creates this inevitability that takes away from the potential fun of the card and the game. Dragon is potentially fun but more potentially dumb.

On Library:

It's an auto-include in every deck. Auto-includes are fine (Sol Ring) but shouldn't cost over $100. The perception that you need to spend that much money just to build an EDH deck isn't desirable and is one of the reasons Moxen and Lotus are banned. There is something to be said for the price of it in that context. Not every deck needs Imp Seal, Bazaar, etc. Every deck should play Library.

*cough* bullshit.

First off, I am demanding that my playgroup unban library because there are infinites floating around. An infinite combo > library. Period. Rofellos can be played with umbral mantle and the rules committee doesn't care. In fact, they are making no concession to make the format more fun, they're doing the opposite and taking the "fun" cards like library and saying no, you don't have fun with $100 expensive crappy cards. What you can do, however, is take these 3 $8 cards and put them together to wipe out the board instantly and cataclysmically end the game. What an "accessible" format, but is it more fun for this consideration? Do you think the guy with library is "ruining your game" by drawing ONE MORE CARD per turn?

Seriously?

So maybe I'm not playing the "jizz your infinite load all over EDH" game that you guys are playing down in Florida, but hey the last time library ruined my game it was a 1v1 game and these rules aren't about that. "He used library to get too many infinite combo pieces to wreck us" is not a valid argument to keep a card banned. At this point Library really is just "caught in the crossfire" and needs to be unbanned. It's expensive, it's crappy, it's EDH quality. If you're making some craptastic duel banlist, sol ring before library. But honestly, don't pretend your games are getting 'ruined' by library, envy is not the reason the banlist exists. You do not ban a card because it makes people jealous when it doesn't even IMPACT an 8 person table. It doesn't...f'ing...do anything...and I'd rather have the blue honden out 99% of the time or rhystic.

Worldgorger is a completely different beast, there is no reason to ever play worldgorger except for combo purposes. Play a shivan dragon if you're not going to combo, it's a crappy overcosted dragon with a crappy ability. Worldgorger has one purpose in this world, and it is not a good purpose for EDH so it deserves its ban. If there were...anything else it did...anything at all that was beneficial or fun...but srsly there isn't. It's evil.

I have no problems whatsoever with Library being unbanned. Sure, you would be able to play it in every deck, but you don't have to. I'll certainly will not buy it for $100+ because some people say it's a must-play.

And, what yawg said:

It isn't that Library is "better" than Rhystic Study or Mind's Eye, it's that it costs nothing to cast and takes up a land slot in the deck that makes it an auto-include in every deck.

It isn't the price tag alone, it's the price tag in conjunction with the fact that every deck is better with one than without one that makes it bannable.

Getting back to my actual point, if Mox & Lotus were unbanned, would you play them? Would their desirability color the format in a negative fashion?

Edit: Moxen are OK, at best, in most EDH metagames. OK, if you're playing some modified Storm deck they're gravy but for the average deck they give you an equal tempo boost as Sol Ring and die to the first sweeper that reads 'artifacts'. Where's the argument that these cards are 'too broken' for EDH? Hell, they're often worse than Library, they don't dig, they don't make CA, they don't go infinite or find infinite stuff.

Why do you think Mox & Lotus are banned? Because of the perception that you have to be playing these cards in every deck. Library, in an EDH context, is often better than Mox Pearl and creates the same perception.

Library is costly and being unbanned will detract from the advantage that people don't perceive edh as an expensive format.

QFT.

And the suggestion that Entomb should be banned over Worldgorger is ridiculous. Why ban the card that has non-combo applications when you can ban the card that's almost certainly useless outside of the combo?