I am staring a post here to discuss the possibility of banning Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.
RoE has been out for a while now and many of us have had a chance to test them out. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is the nastiest among them. Its annihilate 6 plus protection from color spell is almost impossible to deal with. Especially with many great board sweeper running around, we hardly have six or more creatures(or any thing) on the board, and this means Emrakul will most likely hite 6 lands. I have seem many times it is just devastating and almost impossible to come back from one hit.

I know it is a great creature and it's alot of fun to have him on your side, but on the other side it is just purely not fun.

So what do you guys say?

I feel like ripping out my intestines with a fork after seeing all these ban threads and posts.

Ah fuck it. I'll just give you a rundown of cards that answer Emrakul off the top of my head so I dispel the myth that he's "almost impossible to deal with"

- ANY Wrath effect
- ANY Edict spell
- Duplicant
- Shriekmaw
- Bone Shredder
- Big Game Hunter
- Oblivion Ring
- Faceless Butcher
- Sower of Temptation
- Gilded Drake
- Helm of Possession

Note how all of these cards are excellent standalone cards, so the excuse of "but you have to dilute your deck with specific answer cards that are dead outside of stopping Emrakul!" is not valid.

Number of times I've seen Emrakul in play in standard: 2.
Number of times I've seen Emrakul in play in EDH: 0.

Number of Wrath effects that kill Emrakul in standard: 2.
Number of Wrath effects that kill Emrakul in EDH: ∞

There are plenty of answers to Emrakul. Either it's decently along in the game, so you someone should have an answer (Disk or something), or it's not being cast but being cheated into play, in which case there's less of an issue because there's no extra turn, or someone made a shitton of mana really early, in which case it's prolly a fluke and you shuffle up and play again.

I really don't think that a creature that costs 15 mana should be banned. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, it's undercosted (even at 15, dear gods). Sure, it dodges removal and counters. But it's still a creature. Still dies to wrath. Still needs to use the red zone to win.

If annhilator is that much of a problem, run disencentives to attack or some cheap token producers. Plenty of ways to deal with him, just gotta think outside the box a little.

If anything, I would like to see cards UNBANNED rather than banned. Hopefully Metalworker finally gets unbanned this June after watching his buddies Tolarian Academy and Rofellos run around and generate wads of mana for well over a year now.

Number of games that end when Emrakul is cast turn 6 or earlier? Not all, but some.
Number of people that are now dead permanently when Emrakul starts attacking? Usually 2.

How hard is it to cast Emmy before turn 7? Not very.

Emrakul is all in when he comes down.
Anything past 6 and people are more ready for him. Even then, he is usually killing someone.
But honestly what else would you expect out of a 15/15 monster for 15? He fits this format and you don't have to break him, he just has a very commanding board presence.

I for one am going to start playing bribery- heck even Gather Specimens- far more often.

Has the playability on Time Stop gone up?

I'd just like to add the following to the list:

Child of Alara
Academy Rector & any control magic spell
Academy Rector & Journey to Nowhere, Oblivion Ring
Noble Benefactor & everyone's personal preferred removal
Reveillark & Nekrataal effects

Also, when someone plays any of the huge Eldrazi the rest of the table really have to do a Zendikar and just all in to kill or remove it. They are the biggest target anyone can paint on themselves.

And I think Emrakul is female.

Don't forget good ol' Icy Manipulat0r (or Puppet Strings or Tawnos's Coffin or Aether Spellbomb or...)

I just refer to them as "it". Assigning gender to eldrazi just seems... wrong.

Well, they all have spawn and, with the exception of Ulamog, this suggests them being of the female persuasion.

However, there's a pretty big hole in my arguament in that Ulamog's spawn is generated by a spawnSIRE which suggests that:
*they are all guys who can pro-create/spawn/generate and that in its-self is worrying as R&D are taking one of the very last things left in this game for ladies (birth) and giving it to guys. I mean, the cleavage isn't really there for the ladies, was it now? And, Beastbreaker of Bala Ged aside, there's a gender demographic not digging Magic art.
*gender isn't important (so I can call Emrakul "She") as they are both male & female.
* or (and this is my favourite reason) the flavour text Archon of Redemption & Windborne Charge both refer to Emeria (thus Emrakul) as female.

*Bah-ZING-ah!!*

Let's not forget one of my personal favourite cards in Ensnaring Bridge.

I did a turn 5 bribery at an event last week. I then attacked the guy I took it from. Sure I lost Emrakul when he scooped, but at least nobody had to deal with her/it anymore.

May I also note that the lovely spell Mindbreak Trap does not counter, but instead removes it from the game on the stack.

Blue has some fantastic answers (Mindbreak Trap, Bribery, Time Stop, etc)
White has some fantastic answers (Rout, Wrath, Blazing Archon, etc)
Black has some fantastic answers (Decree of Pain, Diabolic Edict, Sadistic Sacrament, etc)
Green and Red seem to lack really good answers (I mean, sure there's Bend or Break or Whirlwind, but other than that...),

but...

Those lack of answers are made up entirely by the fact that artifacts may have the best combination of answers!
Oblivion Stone, Nevinyrral's Disk, Jester's Cap, Ensnaring Bridge, Meekstone, etc.

EDIT: Hurf durf, I kan noe spellz

I don't know about you guys but I have had the wonderfully terrible pleasure of facing down an Emrakul, twice in EDH (both times hardcasted). He (she?) is not fun at all. He (she?) made me go all squirmy inside. And yes, whiled there may be a lot of answers to Emrakul in the format, when no one does at least two players are pretty much dead (in game): and every subsequent turn it gets harder and for the table to answer him. Smart players who want to protect him and other Eldrazi should be running Greaves and Shield of Kaldra. I really hope you're all running Hallowed Burial.

People complain about how Sundering Titan should be banned and I think Emrakul is worse. If you deal with Titan than a max of 10 lands gets nuked. If he's not he's just a 7/10 that can be chumped. Not only is Emrakul harder to deal with but when he/she does stick around that's game. Mid to late game people have fewer Wraths in hand because they've been used up and early game off of accel he's devastating to a land base. This is from personal experience and testing.

The case for banning (for me at least) is not based on how easy it is to answer, but for me, it's the WTF factor when he hits the table. For me that's about as high as the scale goes. Cards that say "Wrath me or die in a slow death" are not healthy for the format and turn people away.

And I have never ever seen a Mindbreak Trap in EDH.

I think you misspelled AssDickSick Sacrement

Well, then maybe you ought to start playing it. It's a good answer to lots of different things, not the least of which is Eldrazi
Edit: You know that WotC is only going to go and create more sets, some of which will probably contain creatures that are just as powerful, if not more so.

Now, I'm not on the RC but as I understand it, the criteria for banning is not jut overt power level, it's also a measure of unfunness and meta warping, neither of which have had remotely enough time to shake out. So to speak.