#thassa's oracle

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Thassa's Oracle

Artist: Jesper Ejsing TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Thassa's Oracle by Lauren YS

[mtgaddicted]

You have no idea how tired I am of that fucking xards, and the RC literally saying to me "we don't givena fuck about what happenes in cEDH, Thassa's oracle is not a problem in casual commander because of rule 0" while even in casual tables if the deck is blue + black the chances of seeing the combo are so high that I kid you not I lost at least once per day during the entirity of september against it... IN CASUAL GAMES!!!!!

Ah, but just rule 0 apparently... fucking bullshit... I mean, if thassa's oracle needed to be on the field or something like that to work, but as it is only a deck playing blue can stop it and it makes me sick...

[jqlgirl]

A Personal Message to the cEDH Community

Bona fides: I’m a Level 3 Magic judge and have been judging since 2009. I’ve judged tournaments of all formats and all levels from FNM to the Pro Tour. I understand how decks, formats, and metagames work and can absorb such information quickly. I’ve also been playing EDH since before it was called Commander and have been a member of the Commander Advisory Group since its inception last year.

So, let’s talk about cEDH and Flash in particular. While there have been calls to ban this card due to its cEDH implications since Protean Hulk’s unbanning in 2017, the furore has reached something of a desperate and fevered pitch in the weeks since Thassa’s Oracle was revealed. This anger redoubled this past monday when the Commander Rules Committee announced no changes to the Commander banlist in its quarterly update.

I understand the effect that Thassa’s Orcale will have on cEDH’s metagame when combined with Flash/Hulk combos. From everything I’ve heard, it puts the format in something of a solved state and reduces viable deck diversity down to a single combo that is virtually immune to interaction outside of Stifle and its ilk. It seems to me that the only matter that isn’t yet settled is if it’s better to use it with a Consultation package or a Cephalid Breakfast package. The correct answer is probably just to run both to ensure maximum flexibility.

At any rate, these FishHulk decks are going to make the format stale and no fun whatsoever. In any other format, this is beyond the pale of what would lead to a banning for competitive balance. However, Commander isn’t like other formats in that its banlist exists for a completely separate reason to that of competitive balance. Rather, the Commander banlist exists to attempt to set a baseline expectation of what is and isn’t acceptable in the format and to remove elements from the format that players at an average power level would be able to abuse to the detriment of those they play with.

Many RC and CAG members, myself included, sympathize with the concerns of the cEDH community in regards to Flash, Oracle, and its metagame issues in general. We have heard your concerns and have been in conversation with luminaries of the cEDH community almost continuously in the past few months. We understand the nature of the problem, but we have our own concerns about how making a ban solely for the benefit of cEDH players would be perceived by the broader community and if it would actually serve to “fix” that end of the format. We worry that it would just be a bandaid over a deeper wound and that we would all end up in the same position again in six months or a year. 

Additionally, while Flash may not see much casual play, there is nothing to say that recent printing of cards such as Arena Rector or Nyxbloom Ancient won’t lead to it seeing wider adoption in the community. While I’m personally of the opinion that Flash should be banned, that opinion isn’t universal among the RC and CAG, and many wish to be more cautious about making such a change. What if the next card to break cEDH is something like Sol Ring or Cyclonic Rift? Should such broadly played cards be banned for the sake of the competitive edge of the format? These are the questions we have been considering.

The one thing that is absolutely set in stone for the RC is that the banlist will never serve the purpose of attempting to regulate the format for tournament play. That isn’t what the format is meant to do and is antithetical to its goals. Magic is full of lots of other formats that revolve around tournaments and Commander is meant to be a haven away from the unfriendly elements of those events. (While many players enjoy these elements of the game, many others don’t and come to commander to get a break from them.)  In light of this, a ban for competitive balance isn’t likely to be allowed. Even if such bans did happen, they would reshape commander into a format unrecognizable to those who love it for the strange quasi-broken mess that it is right now.

As far as I’m concerned, there’s no clear answer to the problems that exist in cEDH right now. While a Flash ban would make this better for now, I feel like some other best strategy would emerge and lead to similar problems soon enough. I also don’t think that cEDH should split off from the rest of the Commander community to become its own format, as that isn’t something that the cEDH community wants.

To everyone in the cEDH community who is upset with the RC and CAG for seemingly not addressing these issues, I feel your pain and understand your anger. You fear the loss of something that you love and there seems to be nothing you can do about it. I would ask that you give us a modicum of your trust and understanding, however. Your voices aren’t being ignored and we have been doing nothing but considering these problems since before the announcement on Monday. The RC moves slowly, perhaps slower than it should, but achieving workable change takes time. I can promise you that I personally will do my utmost to continue listening to the cEDH community and sharing those concerns with the rest of the CAG and RC. I want to find a solution to this issue that will work for all of the EDH community, both casual and competitive.

If anyone wants to talk to me about this issues, you can reach me here on tumblr, on twitter (@jqlgirl) or on discord (JqlGirl#9431). Thank you for your time.

-- Charlotte Sable

[scapeshift]

Thassa's Oracle by Lauren YS

[yoshifawful64]

[phulkor-resource]

Micromancer combo is a deck I definitely need to check. This is the first list from @Xenowan

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Thassa's Oracle

Artist: Jesper Ejsing TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link