Making the Case For & Against Every Gamechanger - Part 2!
Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy by Jason Rainville
Welcome back to Making the Case For and Against Every Game Changer - Part 2! This was split up into two parts for two reasons: for one, I quickly realized how difficult of an exercise this is, meaning it took up more time than I first imagined; I also managed to write quite a lot of words, and breaking it up into two parts makes it somewhat more digestible. Thank you for the feedback on the first installment, I'll address some of it at the end! For now, let's get into the rest of my thoughts!
Red
Red is shockingly short on this list... or perhaps not that shocking at all. It's always been one of the objectively weaker colors in Commander, especially since it already had what would be an obvious addition to the list in Dockside Extortionist
Jeska's Will
For: Jeska's Will
Against: Alright... Jeska's Will
Underworld Breach
For: Underworld Breach
Against: Underworld Breach
Green
Survival of the Fittest
For: If you're interested in abusing every creature known to man, Survival of the Fittest
Against: Despite being a repeatable tutor, Survival of the Fittest
Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
For: Vorinclex is one of very few creatures that makes a game of Commander miserable in no time. If not immediately removed, it forces its controller to a near insurmountable advantage, doubling the mana they receive from lands while halving the mana you can get from yours. It's yet another huge mana card that wins the game without really winning the game, stretching it out for an inevitable few turns as you build out a board that will certainly win while your opponents' gameplans wither on the vine. Not fun, quite game changing.
Against: Did I blink and it became 2014? I can't remember the last time I saw a Vorinclex cast, though my lived experience is by no means all experience. I was there when Vorinclex was the format's number one boogieman though and those days are quite past us. It's the most affordable it's ever been, and people seem to have realized that there are simply better things to be doing with your time. I've also said it before in this and I'll say it again: paying eight mana on an effect should have a huge effect on the game... and that's okay.
Multicolor
On Legendary Creatures Being on the Game Changers List: I love it so, so much. It's like a soft return to banned-as-Commander, labeling some potential commanders as only playable in specific power levels. This is a great application of the technology of the Game Changer list in general, subtly restricting people's options at the most important and easily accessible part of someone's decklist, the Command Zone. There have been other Legendary Creatures on the list before this section, but it has felt most appropriate to talk about it before we go through the gold cards, which... are all just legendary creatures that are usually played as commanders.
Grand Arbiter Augustin IV
For: My spells are cheaper, your spells are more expensive. Perhaps the most egregious mix possible of frustrating game actions you could dream up. Living in the command zone makes this effect even more frustrating, as it's always available to your opponents, and if you remove it he'll be back before you know it. GAA4 is one of the all-timer least favorite, most salty Commanders in history and that could just make him a Game Changer all on its own.
Against: Of all of the options available for legendary creatures to butt out of the game, this one at least seems on the lower power end of things. It does tick the "quite annoying" checkbox, as I said above; it's lived highly in the EDHrec salt scores for generations. And yet... I'm not sure that a commander being taxing to opponents' spells is enough to get it on the Game Changer list to me. He's annoying, a bit frustrating... but a little under-impactful.
Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
For: Yuriko is one of the admittedly greatest Commander design mistakes of all time, thanks to her ability to mitigate the Commander tax, coming back again and again to harry opponents. Add on her potential to quickly lower the life total of opponents and also draw cards, and Yuriko is the very definition of a Commander who gets out of hand quickly.
Against: While it is hard to make a case against Yuriko on the Game Changer list, I can TRY! The main thing I have to say is that the best Yuriko decks rely on other extremely powerful cards to be at their best, and that a deck of all Ninjas with Yuriko seems like it would at least be fun and fair. If we can rely on the rest of the Game Changers list to keep the best cards out of Yuriko, then it seems as if she could be a fair Ninjas-matters Commander with a weird design mistake bundled in along the way while being restricted to only two colors at that.
Winota, Joiner of Forces
For: Banned in Pioneer for being too obnoxious, Winota, Joiner of Forces
Against: *static* Hello? Is this thing on? She's a creature. Just remove her and then she costs six and then she costs eight. Facetious, I know. This kind of creature is pretty powerful, yes, but is also the kind of deckbuilding that quickly slots itself into a four type of power level already. You can build a high power Winota deck, even if she's your only Game Changer, with little to no issue, by the power of the card alone. Her inclusion on the Game Changer list doesn't seem that impactful; I argue she should be left to the Bracket vibes system to decide.
Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy
For: Insane mana production. An A + B combo with Basalt Monolith
Against: Nothing. This is my one cheat on this one.
Colorless
The Fast Mana (Chrome Mox, Grim Monolith, Mana Vault, Mox Diamond)
I've gone ahead and bundled all of the "fast mana" artifacts into one large group, because while not all exactly the same, they have many of the same upsides and downsides from one another.
For: Fast mana has one purpose and one purpose only: easily cheating the system that is at the very core of Magic itself. While every card here, Chrome Mox, Grim Monolith, Mana Vault, and Mox Diamond, has a major downside of one variety or another, they still will greatly impact the gameplan of whoever cast them, shooting them forward miles ahead of the rest of the table. The inclusion of these cards, and maximizing them, is the type of deck building that belongs in Tier 4 or above, making these perfect inclusions on the list.
Against: Who cares, dude. Sol Ring is still literally something that we've convinced ourselves is fine just because it has been around for a while; so have these pieces! The only thing keeping these from having the same status is the fact that they've been expensive: their downsides make their power level negligible, and they each carry sneakily high levels of deckbuilding cost to be worth it, especially Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond. This isn't Mana Crypt we're talking about here, which had a joke of a downside, but a batch of cards that cost other cards to be effective and one-time ritual-like effects. These make them less powerful than other options we already have available to us... LIKE Sol Ring. What're we doin' here.
Lion's Eye Diamond
For: Lion's Eye Diamond avoided the Fast Mana distinction because, while also a very powerful mana rock of sorts, it is more of a weirdo combo piece than anything. I've played a LOT of highly powered games of Commander, and people are only cracking this rock in two situations: pure desperation to deploy their commander for the 10th time or because they have an Underworld Breach in play. LED is a Game Winning Combo Piece that purely exists to easily make trivial amounts of mana. Game Changer.
Against: LED is actually the most confusing conclusion of the whole list. It's outrageously, hilariously expensive, the second most expensive Game Changer by quick napkin math. This naturally keeps it out of games, though I can quite literally see this being a path to it being on the banned list. It's only application is in a three-card combo together with another Game Changer, and I'm not sure Underworld Breach, Brain Freeze, and LED combo belongs in Bracket 3 anyways. This is where the Game Changer list as objective rules to follow, as some are so desperate to apply, falls apart a bit, but that's a conversation for another day.
The One Ring
For: At long last, The One Ring is banned in Modern. It may be on its way to banning in Commander, too! Protection for a turn cycle is shockingly relevant, being part of the reason that cards such as Teferi's Protection have gained widespread popularity, but the real good part here is the card draw. Life loss has never been a good deterrent for powerful effects in EDH (see: banned Mana Crypt, again) and The One Ring lets people trade their life for truly explosive card draw - one, two, three, four cards a turn, just like that. Add in copious untapping effects or any other forms of building around it, and it's egregious in no time. Colorless mana is a dime a dozen, anyone can play this, and it instantly changes the game it hits the table and continues over the next several turns. Have I mentioned that it's indestructible yet?
Against: The One Ring is powerful, yes, but it does actually have real downside: its life loss adds up quickly vs. any aggressive deck. If we were attacking each other more, chipping away at life totals, The One Ring would feel more dangerous. However, that usually isn't the case in Commander games, which is fine. There isn't much of an argument to be made here, I'm afraid.
Trinisphere
For: Trinisphere makes games miserable, slowing them to a complete crawl. A good environment for nice and fun games this does not create, and it's not even an interesting type of Stax effect, either. Every spell suddenly costing a minimum of three mana makes the game unplayable, and if the controlling player can't even leverage it by turning it off (via tapping), it will create the world's longest game. A weird insurance where it isn't even "the game's over but not technically" over, Trinisphere incentives the worst people to create a non-fun game for no reason.
Against: Trinisphere creates player removal. Let the hatred flow through you. You want the Trinisphere player to stop playing Magic. You don't need the Game Changer list to tell you that. It's simple.
Lands:
Big Mana Lands (Serra's Sanctum, Gaea's Cradle, Ancient Tomb)
Another category of cards that I'm lumping together here: all three are lands that punch well above their weight in mana making production, though Ancient Tomb seems more innocuous than the other two.
For: Cheating on mana remains one of the most game breaking things you can do in Commander, and these lands incentivize building around them in one way or another. They reward your entire design aiming towards maximizing your value from these lands, from decisions as small as making Talismans better in Ancient Tomb decks to bumping your creature count and running specific untap effects you never would otherwise with Gaea's Cradle. Very definition of the type of stuff one would want to see on the game changer list.
Against: Giving players incentive to build around powerful effects is not necessarily bad; Cradle and Sanctum are two of the most iconic lands in EDH history for good reason. They reward smart deckbuilding and also incidentally incentivize lower-color Commander decks as well, as using large gluts of single-color mana is difficult to do in three-plus color-identity decks.
Glacial Chasm
For: Players actively removing themselves from a game is pretty boring. Glacial Chasm, while having a high life cost over time, removes you from combat for turns in a row, while also preventing any other kind of damage. This aligns well with some of the other stated goals of the bracket system in the realms where we're worried about game changers, Glacial Chasm stops our main win condition since combos are off the table - just killing.
Against: Glacial Chasm is a land that makes people not be able to attack you and prevents damage done to you. It also puts you down one land when it enters the battlefield. It costs 12 life over three turns and 20 over four turns. It doesn't tap for any mana. Mildly frustrating in certain situations for sure - especially if one does go all in on abusing it, but if my opponents put this into play, I'm celebrating.
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
For: The only thing more annoying than not being able to attack your opponent or having to pay an extra mana for all of your spells is to have to pay an extra mana for every creature you want to keep around... on every one of your upkeeps. Rancid, rancid gameplay patterns that should be kept far, far away from the average EDH game.
Against: I raise an argument I used several times in Part 1 - in practicality, the Game Changer list has a very limited number of slots on it, as players need to be able to easily view and remember it while deckbuilding and even while playing. There is nothing that I feel more strongly than this: placing an extremely niche, non-mana-producing land that costs, on the lower end of things, two thousand dollars is the definition of a waste of a slot. Hopefully it's making a slow transition to the ban list, because that's where this ancient design mistake belongs. If it won't be there, take it off the list and we can side eye anyone who chooses to play it anyways.
Thank you for reading both this and part 1! I do think by the end I realized that I, at least in part, have a flawed premise. Some of these cards simply don't have a good reason to not be on the list, and this was a bit restrictive to play with. Furthermore, as many of you raised in the comments on my first piece, not only does this obviousness detract from the rest of the thoughts. As Stephen Bahl pointed out, I'm only able to make an attempt at a paper thin argument for many and realistically only had strong thoughts about 15 or so. I also, too often, I think, approached the Game Changer list as something of a ban list (this is, really, how it exists in my head) when in reality it is a list of cards that have a large effect on a game or on a larger deck in general, and largely only for consideration within a specific range of the bracket system, which itself is in beta and only applies to a specific subsection of EDH play.
Regardless, it was a fascinating, challenging, and stretching exercise (all 6,800 words of it) for me to partake in and I truly hope you enjoyed thinking - and exploring the deficiencies of my premise - along with me!
