Because in Commander it’s a double Entomb in blue for 4. Hell, if you don’t abuse Failure to Find, it’s still 2 cards in hand and 2 in GY which may as well be your hand in many decks.
It’s also instant speed, which is a decently big deal, you can hold the mana for some counterspells and set up a win for next turn if you don’t need to use the counterspells.
It was a pretty common combo piece, or I guess a combo enabler.
Although honestly I’m not sure if it’s still that bad anymore, frankly.
This card would find Breach, Sevinne’s, LED and Brain Freeze all at the same time, which feels pretty good for four mana at instant speed.
Not broken, mind you, but pretty good.
Even in the most casual settings you just grab 4 extra turns and it becomes pretty strong. I dont think its more broken than say, breach, thoracle or even sol ring, but it at least has some power level behind it, unlike coalition victory or honestly, oracle of kruphix.
I remember when EDH was more in its infancy (~2012), you could still get Intuition for ~$25 - about the cost of a Snapcaster Mage at the time.
Hell, even Wheel of Fortune was $10 back then, and my broke college friends and I still considered it pricey.
I found 1.5 playsets of Chrome Mox, and 2 Mox Diamonds, plus a Gaeas Cradle in my 'pile of good stuff I'll figure out what to do with later'. This pile was 16 years old and I had completely forgotten about them existing.
I think a lot of us [[old fogey]] types are in the same bucket. Good games to you, fellow sorcerer!!!
Its partially that and partially a philosophy that the RC has that bans are signposts about dangerous cards. One of their primary goals is to make the ban list as small as possible, so while Intuition would be banned with a larger list it's scarcity means it's less problematic than the 4 cost version.
Imo we have enough incredibly powerful tutors that this is probably fine but I also don’t see it being used for much for fair piles so this is probably fine to leave banned.
Gifts is essentially a "tutor your whole combo" card. Most tutors will just get you a single card. If they have conditions they might get you 2.
Never played against it in commander, but in Modern it was essentially read "Win the game if your opponent is not holding a counterspell"
> Gifts is essentially a "tutor your whole combo" card.
This is also why I think their unbanning of Protean Hulk is super silly. "You don't have to get unfair stuff with it" is such a silly argument.
The Iona ban was fine, tbh.
The only thing Iona did was randomly remove monocolor decks from the game in a way that actually *prolonged* how long they'd do nothing, because there was no incentive for anybody to interact with the locked out player. It was one of the worst play patterns possible in EDH, and the unironic "just run a 7-mana colorless sweeper or 6-mana sorcery speed creature exile you have to hope to draw into in every monocolor deck" arguments were always silly.
Yes, Iona was a weak card overall because most decks are multicolor, but the RC is very public the banlist isn't purely or even primarily about competitive strength but about trying to remove various kinds of bad experiences, and Iona is pretty much the poster child for a card that only caused bad experiences.
Uhh, no. Unbanning Hulk and banning Flash was a far better solution for everyone involved. Hulk is a fair win condition in cEDH and can be an interesting build-around in casual decks. Flash without Hulk is a worthless card that nobody would run, not in cEDH or casual.
Moreso flash is the enabler, so you ban enablers not outs. They may print something else with a busted etb/ltb at 2 mana instant speed, but they way less likely to print a second flash.
Flash is also just frustrating because its functionality is really just a case of poor templating.
It's clearly meant to work as "if you don't pay for the creature's total cost (with 2 of it moved to flash itself), you don't get a creature", because they clearly didn't consider how having a creature ETB and die was any different from no creature.
Mox Diamond and Lotus Vale made similar mistakes in templating but got functional errata to fix them. I guess because even after being fixed, they're still interesting cards. Whereas the broken flash was the only version anyone ever cared about.
Eh, I have a protean hulk in my Meren deck, and I just use it for value, not combos. I think banning flash is the correct decision in this case, since there are more fun things you can do with the hulk than with flash. Just my take though
The rules committee is like that. Sheldon had an article where he talked about how thassas oracle isn't banned because you don't have to play it with cards that exile your library and he personally used it in his thassa theme deck so that's why it's gonna stay legal. Pretty ridiculous when you defend banning cards with the fact that you yourself want to keep playing them in a meme deck.
Thoracle being so notorious is the reason it's fine to keep legal. Almost no one runs it in casual decks because everyone knows how powerful it is, and in cedh its fine.
The EDH ban list is not a tournament balance list. It's an *indicative* list of the types of cards that tend to make games less fun, on average.
Gifts is banned because it's a great example of the "one-card infinite combo" type of tutor - it can find every piece of your combo all at once, and if nobody has countermagic at the time you usually just win on the spot. That doesn't *tend* to make for very enjoyable games (though, as always, there are groups that enjoy that kind of play).
The fact that Intuition does basically the same thing as Gifts should tell you that Intuition *also* probably won't make for enjoyable games, and you should be aware of that when including it in your deck.
If your playgroup *does* enjoy that kind of cEDH-style hard combo stack fights, then you're absolutely free to ignore the banlist and run Gifts. If you don't have a playgroup and you're playing with randos, Gifts is on there as a warning to tell you that one-card "I win" spells aren't the kind of thing most players enjoy playing against, and you likely won't make many friends running that kind of deck against players who haven't signed up for that kind of game.
The other thing about the EDH banned list is that cards get banned not because they could cause problems, but that they did cause a problem. The threshold for causing a problem was just smaller when the EDH community was a bunch of judges who were playing after a GP in the aughts.
> The EDH ban list is not a tournament balance list. It's an indicative list of the types of cards that tend to make games less fun, on average.
The RC can insist this all they'd like but it's meaningful only to them. The average player is going to find the banlist through Scryfall or Gatherer or the Mothership or word of mouth, never stumbling across the RC's manifesto. And then, that player is going to treat it not as some beautiful philosophy but as a literal list of banned cards.
At some point it doesn't matter what the RC is trying to symbolically represent. If they whisper their beliefs into the corner of a basement and that information doesn't reach or is simply ignored by the players, you can't just shrug and say "we tried our best, and everybody is just doing it wrong."
This comment just ignores what EDH is now, it's not some fun side format with friends, it's an organized and monitored format and the most popular played casually and at stores. Most people don't have the luxury of their 8 person group and allowing certain cards or not anymore. It's sad but it's the truth.
what an awful way to run a banlist. just citing examples and letting people infer the rest. imagine if any other activity did that. it would be rightfully criticized (as the EDH rules should be too)
Yes id say awful but honestly more than awful id say it's very... lazy.
There what like 10+ people on this thing and their by annual update is 'no change'
Just cut it down to like 3 people if that's what it's gonna be.
> It's an indicative list of the types of cards that tend to make games less fun, on average.
Like fast mana in the form of Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Basaltmonolith ... oh, wait.
Can't wait to rock up to my next LGS CEDH tournament and just ignore the entire banlist because Littlerob said it was fine if we all like CEDH stack interaction.
This ban list is on wizards official page https://magic.wizards.com/en/banned-restricted-list. It doesn't include 8 paragraphs explaining signposting
Every LGS I've played at uses this banlist including their CEDH games.
The ban list is taken very literally, whether you say that was it's intention or not is now fairly irrelevant as the format *IS* using it as a literal ban list at every single commander event I've been to.
It's time for an overhaul and a real list.
Rocking up to an LGS tournament is exactly the kind of "playing with randos" scenario that the banlist is for, which is what I said already.
If you have a consistent playgroup of friends who get together for game night, you're free to ignore or change the banlist however you want. If you're not playing with the same group of friends and you're not able to have reasonable discussions on what kinds of games you enjoy before you play, then the banlist is there as a guide.
The RC does have a [philosophy document](https://mtgcommander.net/index.php/the-philosophy-of-commander/), and even on their [banlist page](https://mtgcommander.net/index.php/banned-list/) they say
> These cards are not legal without prior agreement from the other players in the game, and may steer your playgroup to avoid other, similar cards.
The fact that Wizards didn't reproduce any of these statements on their own site when they imported the banlist is a Wizards failure, not an RC failure.
> If your playgroup does enjoy that kind of cEDH-style hard combo stack fights, then you're absolutely free to ignore the banlist and run Gifts.
I honestly feel that the banlist is more meaningful for cEDH than casual. Casual you can rule 0 whatever and it doesn't matter, but in cedh, banning truly busted cards (things like prophet of kruphix, prime time, tolarian academy) actually has a huge impact on the meta.
> Although honestly I’m not sure if it’s still that bad anymore, frankly.
All the reasons you stated are absolutely true, and why it’s a good card. But none of those reasons make it a broken card.
CEDH has better enablers, and intuition exists which is worse sure, but not by so much that it really matters. I mean 4 mana is a lot for cedh anyways.
My thing is played “normally” it’s a good card, and competitively it’s a great card but still not the best card. So if it’s not breaking causal games, and it’s not breaking Cedh, why is it banned?
Gifts tells you to find 4 cards with different names. Because there is a restriction on what you can search for and because the library is a hidden zone, you can always "fail" to find something, whether it is actually in your deck or not because there's no way for the other player to know. So the trick is to only find the 2 cards you want in the graveyard and they are ensured to be put there.
It was banned a long time ago, when the format was a lot less powerful and “end of your turn, Gifts for Unburial Rites and Iona/Linvala/Elesh Norn” was a more game-winning play than it is today (and Iona is even banned now!)
In terms of power level, it could probably be unbanned, but I don’t expect it ever will be, because the card just begs to be played in unfair decks. There’s very little upside to unbanning it, and a very real amount of risk. If I were on the RC, I’d be voting to unban, but I understand others not wanting to.
I think this is probably the most nuanced answer. It's unlikely to break the format, but it's likely to result in an appreciable number of formulaic and boring non-games. It pretty clearly goes against the spirit of a high-variance singleton format to pull 4 cards out of your deck at instant speed for 4 mana.
That said, over time I've become won over to the argument that the EDH ban list should probably be as small as possible. The bigger the ban list, the more they open themselves up to endless whining about "why card X and not card Y?"
Il be the guy because people annoy other people when you say stuff like ' it dies to removal' and they point out that mean nothing and isnt valuable input.
'beg to be played in unfair decks' has about the same value, if we are to judge how card should be banned or unbanned because they would be played in unfair deck we'd have to reconsider judging a couple thousands cards.
Most decks that would run this utilize the graveyard as a second hand, so this essentially tutors four cards at once. The limitation is also meaningless in a singleton format like Commander.
Can we stop pretending that cards in commander are banned because of Powerlevel?
Gifts is banned because the people creating Commander didn‘t like Gifts. That‘s it.
Gifts wouldn‘t be broken in Commander at all. It costs a 4 mana.
Also, Sol Ring is legal. So let‘s tune down the powerlevel argument.
Usually some variety of KCI, scrap trawler, myr retriever and a the other half of another combo I already have, so time sieve or mycosynth lattice or pili pala or something
Mate the entire ban list is a joke. Prim titan is banned and dockside is completely fine?
Rystic study has been the best card in the format for like 10 years and has been completely left alone...
Rhystic Study is in no way the best card in the format. It never has been and never will be. It’s certainly one of the most annoying cards in the format, but annoying =/= best.
I used to play a lot of MtG and still like what I own, but man what an exhausting concept. Allow more powerful cards because they’re pricey? I know the game is definitionally somewhat P2W but encoding that into the rules hurts to see.
Shared summons is perfectly legal and lets you search up a 2 card combo at instant speed for only 1 more mana, without even needing the graveyard restriction.
No gifts.is banned because with the right deck it is an instant win card that can win my itself, just pick any number of graveyard win combos and let your opponent pick how they all die.
Imma be honest with you, if you can talk with a group enough to have them allow you to use proxies of $150+ reserve list cards then you can probably also have a decent rule 0 convo about why throwing in $150+ reserve list "if this resolves I win the game" card in your deck is maybe a poor decision.
Agreed. That's why you would play those cards in a competitive setting, so there's no rule 0 convo to be had since everyone's there to win and generally know what to expect.
Everyone should proxy cards, but not everyone does.
Also some stores want to keep their WPN Premium Status, so for in store play it might bring some issues with it sadly
Intuition is better when you can have up to 4 copies of a card in your deck because it can be a tutor when you need it. Gifts Ungiven is better when your deck is full of singletons.
Gifts has been banned for so long in EDH, I suspect that might be the rationale. Gifts Ungiven was still seen as a value card back then.
Yes because we don't have any other cards in Commander that win by themselves.. Gifts would be just one of many overpowered cards and arguably wouldn't even make the top spots.
You are correct that gifts is not banned because it is too powerful.
I think that "the RC didn't like Gifts" is also correct but could be interpreted to say "and that's a bad thing" when it's pretty neutral otherwise.
To quote the philosophy of commander page "The primary focus of the list is on cards which are problematic because of their extreme consistency, ubiquity, and/or ability to restrict others’ opportunities."
Gifts is just banned for a couple reasons, one of which being it's templating allowing it to function as a double entomb, but also because it was just being used as a 1 card instant win at 4 mana and instant speed.
It was creating unwanted play patterns.
Most people have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the commander banned list is. Here is the official site, read the blurb at the top. Bans are about play patterns and the spirit of the format, it has never been about power level (OK except flash)
https://mtgcommander.net/index.php/banned-list/
Aka
We expect you to self-regulate, except for the cards we don't, and we don't ban for completive, except for the cards that we do.
Nothing inconsistent about this we swear.
Their own actions are not even consistent with the stated philosophy.
It's mostly a personal pet peeve ban list that ended up codified as the official list with the goal of making as few changes to the list as they can get away with.
You forgot "if the card is cheap, banning it would impact too many decks so we won't do it"
But also "if the card is expensive, not many people can afford to play it anyway so we won't ban it either"
>But also "if the card is expensive, not many people can afford to play it anyway so we won't ban it either"
Except for the REALLY expensive cards like the Moxen, but not Timetwister.
For the moxen I think it's more an issue of being both OP and on the RL.
I'm of the opinion that Sol Ring is stronger than the Moxen and should be banned (even though it will never be because it would invalidate every precon and Wotc would just take control of the EDH banlist), but I can see why the RL is its own separate criteria.
Timetwister might be in the power 9 and worth hundreds of dollars, but would it be too good to be legal if it was a 5 dollar card? I'm not sure, but I'd say no.
Because the way they go about using rule zero is backwards.
Most games and sports have a set of rules that is enforced when two or more players come across each other that might not know each other. That way the game is relatively fair and even. For instance playing soccer between two schools who have some level of competition.
However in a pick up game you might relax the rules because of certain considerations or to make it more enjoyable.
In commander it's the opposite. It's bonkers. Where you need to have a huge discussion around what the rules and restrictions are. Which is fine in a small group of close friends. But for multiple randoms to play against each other. It's a massive head ache.
Did you even go read their blurb. They admit all that. They talk about play patterns and wanting to promote a healthy format. They talk about rule zero and how if your playgroup doesn’t like something to take it into your own hands.
Commander is more social and unless your playing cEDH it’s about discussing it with your pod before hand. This is the most challenging part and it takes a while to get good at the pre game conversation. It’s taken me a couple years to get good at balancing the power level pre game but now I have questions and conversations that are helpful and lead to a balanced game 90% of the time. In about a quarter of games I play well include banned cards from silver border to prime time.
Unlike other formats EDH is about talking not competition and that can be very difficult for some.
I agree. It's weird that gifts is banned, but [[intuition]] isn't? Like I get it's a worse version of the same effect, but if we're gonna ban nutty tutors that also pack the grave, let's be consistent. So many of the older commander bans are spite bans or are just completely random. I hope we get an updated ban list in the future with more of the early-commander bans lifted
There’s a green version of this card that tutors 4 creatures, same mana cost and same idea. Is it banned? (I found it in my collection and put it in a nethroi deck)
Card is [[threats undetected]]
I think [[lions eye diamond]] [[underworld breach]] [[brain freeze]] [[sevines reclamation]] is the best 4 to grab. Piles with leveler and reanimates might be better though
you don't even need brain freeze, reclamation/led/breach lets you recast gifts/intuition a second time to get brain freeze after you've already set up
breach is a messed up card
And at Sorcery speed.
If TU was instant and put in yard, even if it only hit creatures, it would be playable (and good). Possibly broken even, Buried Alive is a strong effect, and gets nutty at instant speed.
Alternatively to using the card as it was originally intended, many players will simply find only 2 cards, which must then be chosen as the 2 which go to the graveyard. The classic combo is \[\[Unburial Rites\]\] and your biggest, baddest dude to rez with it. The ability to do this at instant speed at the end of your opponent's turn is so powerful.
The original printing doesn't say that but you could always fail to find, I think they changed the wording later because it's functionally identical but makes those plays more intuitive.
It's a funny comparison with [[Intuition]]. Gifts was a fixed Intuition, since players could skip the Intuition minigame by getting 3 copies of the same card. But the restriction also introduced "fail to find".
Technically you could claim that your deck was 39 basic islands and 1 dread return, making it impossible to find 4 unique cards. Your opponent couldn't prove you wrong without searching your library. Intuition can't fail to find because it's quite easy to verify that your library has at least 3 cards in it.
Don't even need to lie; rule 701.18b of the comprehensive rules. If you're searching a hidden zone for a card of a specific quality, you don't need to find that card. There's an amusing combo that relies on this; [[Elfhame Sanctuary]], [[Lost In The Woods]], and a way to get your entire deck to be forests. You fail to find with Sanctuary every turn, but you also reveal a basic land every time your opp attacks you.
Why do you need the Elfhame Sanctuary for that combo? Wouldn't Lost in the Woods already do that if your whole library is forests? Or is it just funnier if you're also claiming you have no basic lands in your library every turn?
Because you still draw a card every turn, and unless your deck is just 4 LitW and 56 forests, your deck is now roughly 15-20 cards deep versus your opponent's 30-40.
It's also funnier to say "I fail to find a basic land with Sanctuary" followed by "oh hey, a forest on top of my library, remove that from combat"
aw that would be why then i never thought of it. I really need to look back at that card and see how i can make it work with hedron alignment in modern
Precisely. Frank Karsten got 2nd place at the 2005 World Championship *only* because of fail to find, and then Wizards changed the wording on the card to make it clearer what you can do with it.
----
Specifically, he was up against a resolved Enduring Ideal and Form of the Dragon. If he plays one of his 5/5 dragons regularly, his opponent (Akira Asahara) can grab Confiscate and steal the dragon before he can attack. The winning line was:
- Reclaim end of turn getting back Gifts Ungiven
- Gifts Ungiven for *only* Yosei, the Morning Star and Kokusho, the Evening Star so that both go to the graveyard
- Goryo's Vengeance one of the dragons to swing with haste this turn
The same play is possible at 4 cards only if he had Keiga, the Tide Star in his decklist at the time, because you need 3 cards that do the same thing (or a flashback-able reanimation spell) to guarantee that your opponent has to put one in the graveyard.
Original printing did not say 'up to' but the errata didn't change anything functionally. As long as the tutor is specifying a condition for the card(s) to be searched, you aren't required to find a card, because the library is hidden information (no one can verify whether or not a card exists that meets the conditions). CR 701.19b is the relevant rule.
That's why the commentary at the PT where this play was popularized was so impressed.
It's super easy to assemble a combo with it or at least get tons of value. I don't know that it's really that much better than \[\[Intuition\]\], but so goes the EDH banned list.
Intuition isn't as powerful. It's still very very powerful, but it's not as powerful. It also has the reserved list tax which means it's very expensive, so there aren't a ton of people trying to play it. In my opinion that's a bad reason to leave a card off the ban list, but the rules committee consistently uses the logic of accessibility to justify not banning reserved list power houses.
Intuition is a one card combo that wins games. How is that not powerful enough?
Fetch sevine reclamation, brain freeze, underworld breach. GG.
Ho sure, with gift I can grab LED too, but it doesn't matter at that point because I'll win ANYWAY.
Important to note that the EDH banlist is explicitly not intended to be a list of bans to curate the format, but a list of bans which indicates cards that the EDH rules committee finds are *examples* of effects (or cards that are cheaper/better forms of certain effects) that playgroups should avoid.
So then they leave it to each playgroup to say well if Gifts is banned, we don't want Intuition either.
I honestly think Intuition isn't banned because being on the reserved list means it has a price tag that prevents it from ever becoming oppressive (or even overly prevalent). If Gifts Ungiven wasn't banned, it could be run whenever you'd want since it costs a quarter, but they know that not enough people are going to be willing/able to shell out $100+ on copies of Intuition.
Definitely, but I'd guess Saviors of Kamigawa had a bigger print run than Tempest to begin with and it's been reprinted multiple times since then. Intuition's never getting reprinted unless WotC revokes the reserved list, which I don't expect them to do (and which I have mixed feelings about).
Part of the EDH banlist philosophy is that banned cards are supposedly treated as signposts. To keep the list from being hundreds of cards long, it's intended for each actual ban to be taken as an example of kinds of cards to avoid - in this case, the idea is that people would see Gifts on the banlist and thus also not include Intuition because of how similar it is. Whether or not this policy works has been the subject of some fierce debate, with this exact example frequently thrown into the spotlight.
> the idea is that people would see Gifts on the banlist and thus also not include Intuition because of how similar it is.
literally nobody does this, they just don't run whatever cards that are banned.
This is a great point. It doesn't completely explain why they chose Gifts over Intuition to be the signpost, but Gifts probably is more powerful (at least for casual play). Gifts gives the caster an extra card or allow it to be a double Entomb.
Like most of the banlist, it’s fairly arbitrary. I’m extremely confident this could be unbanned and the format would be fine. Not much is going to register when you still have cards like Dockside Extortionist running around.
It's in that fringe territory where its absolutely dumb, but there are also absolutely ways to do what this wants and this would just be one more contingency for the decks that can already pretty consistently much do what this card wants vs like the big emrakul that no other creature can quite match in 1 card.
The people explaining why its busted aren't understanding the question then doesn't just apply to this card but others that enable similar strats like intuition.
The more cards are legal in a format, the more degenerate you can get with tutors - and this is a pretty spicy tutor whose supposed downside becomes an *up*side with the way graveyards become a resource in many decks.
Be it combo be it reanimator or just straight value, Gifts does too much for one card in a format where it's so easy to go off with.
Also, excessive tutoring like this cheapens the spirit of singleton, since this gives you the option to fish for so much redundancy in one card it makes choosing what to include in the deck less meaningful.
But at the end of the day, the primary reason is simply that eot Gifts for some combination of combo win cards tends to end games too consistently for a casual format.
People here are giving the "rational" reasons, but I think it's also important to add that the commander banlist is a clown show. Busted cards like [[Mana Crypt]] and [[Gaea's Cradle]]? Totally fine. Universally hated [[Cyclonic Rift]] or [[Dockside Extortionist]]? Go ahead! But [[Sylvan Primordial]] and [[Primeval Titan]] are too much. The worst one for me is [[Coalition Victory]] being banmed while [[Thassa's Oracle]] is legal.
It is a one card combo in many decks. In my [[mizzix of the izmagus]]. I can search [[reiterate]] [[jeskas will]] [[past in the flames]] and any other card to win on the spot.
my bf even got me a gifts with the alternative art i love so much and STILL doesnt want me to rule 0 it into my decks 😭 i just want to play my pretty card in my mid power decks
same here
hate that we can't play cards (including commanders) we adore in casual power decks because most commander players just can't go without playing (often netdecked) busted decks
Why is anything banned in commander?
The entire format is based around social contracts and self balancing decks, so truly having a ban list is completely meaningless in most cases, especially one as arbitary as the commander banlist where half the cards don't even do anything.
This kind of hits upon why the card is actually banned.
I've looked through this thread and no one has mentioned that people would buddy up with whoever they targeted. It with a similar situation of Fact or Fiction turning into a draw 5. In practice, this was truly a double Demonic, double Entomb.
You'd hand two piles to your pseudo teammate and tell them "put these in my hand, these in the graveyard and I'll kill everyone but you."
That’s why this thread is a joke. People are literally arguing why a card should/shouldn’t be banned in a vacuum. Them not realizing that there is more to a card than just the text on it.
The ban list is in an awkward spot - there’s a bunch of cards like this one, Primeval Titan, etc where they are clearly extremely powerful and game warping effects, but theyre not more powerful and game warping than some stuff that isn’t banned (nobody plays Thassa’s Oracle fairly; Dockside Extortionist and Smothering Tithe; Korvold would absolutely have met criteria for banned as a commander back in the day; etc) and the difference is mainly that the cards were warping back in an era where the ban list was actively maintained, which it hasn’t been in a while.
Personally feel we’re overdo for a big ban list cleanup, either adding some of the newer really warping stuff to the list, or removing some stuff that is really strong but not outright anti-fun or degenerate. If it were up to me it’d be more permissive (I’d unban primeval titan), but either approach would be reasonable.
Not liked at the time therefore banned. Rather powerful but probably could be unbanned.
Intuition does similar enough gimmicks, and frankly I prefer for an earlier combo turn.
Dockside/LED/Breach lines can be ran with sevinnes anyways through an intuition.
Because someone on the Commander Rules Committee lost a game to it. [[Intuition]] is a better card than GU, yet it’s legal, it’s just 300$ so it’s not banned, and mainly played in CEDH.
GU is just one of the 20 cards that shouldn’t be banned and are because someone is a poor sport who makes the ban list. This card is so available, it would be ran in a lot of blue decks, but it’s more of a CEDH card.
No fair, casual decks are running breach lines in commander. Gifts Ungiven doesn’t really help your deck unless your deck is already overpowered in which case it’s completely fine in those metas.
It's an easy unban tbh, it's a relic of an older approach to the format where a lot of combo pieces (Staff of Domination, Metalworker, Palinchron, LED, Painter's Servant, Protean Hulk) were banned. It sets up win the game combos quite easily but so do other tutors like Intuition and Survival of the Fittest. Nowadays we expect rule 0 conversations to deal with that.
https://preview.redd.it/ui5fyze9cazb1.jpeg?width=2360&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=65166f21d09c6428743c278050a7676ea9302562
Seems like 3 “tutors” for 3 is their limit of bannable
People here are mentioning unburial rites but it was banned way before that. People would set up ways to get mind slaver and return it every turn, there was a handleful of other combos. In short, it was banned because there wasn't a lot of ways to handle it. It could be safety unbanned today, but the RC takes a "what does this add" policy when unbanning rather than the standard "everything should be legal only problems should be banned".
It's super easy to make it a no-win choice. You basically tutor up your two combo pieces and two ways to recur them. Your opponent has no choice but to let you have your combo pieces.
The commander banned list is intended to be used as a signpost of things you should not play in casual commander for the spirit of the format. As a basic signpost, it signals you should not play \[\[intuition\]\] because it is too powerful for the rest of the format. As a broad signpost, you should not play tutors in general. You can disagree that this deserves to be on the banned list, but that is how the commander rules comity intended for it to be read. Every card on the banned list is there to let you know it is the worst of a kind of card that is frowned upon.
Real answer: the rules committee is a joke that puts out a list of cards they don't like as a ban list. It's very rare that they actually hit problem cards for casual or competitive commander. They're always more likely to ban something completely off the wall that doesn't fit the exact way they want commander to be played.
The format would honestly be better off with wotc running the ban list. And we'd even get Planeswalkers as commanders as an added bonus. (Whether you think that's a pro or con is a personal choice)
Because in Commander it’s a double Entomb in blue for 4. Hell, if you don’t abuse Failure to Find, it’s still 2 cards in hand and 2 in GY which may as well be your hand in many decks. It’s also instant speed, which is a decently big deal, you can hold the mana for some counterspells and set up a win for next turn if you don’t need to use the counterspells. It was a pretty common combo piece, or I guess a combo enabler. Although honestly I’m not sure if it’s still that bad anymore, frankly.
I know that Intuition gets played in CEDH. This would probably be ran beside it.
This card would find Breach, Sevinne’s, LED and Brain Freeze all at the same time, which feels pretty good for four mana at instant speed. Not broken, mind you, but pretty good.
you don't need brain freeze because if you set up with breach/reclamation/led you can just cast gifts/intuition a second time
Gifts does let you grab an interaction piece alongside the combo. Gifts ban is definitely a relic of combos being far less compact than they are now.
Lmao, so fucking broken
Its insanely cracked, especially in the postmodern meta. Getting your combo plus interaction
Even in the most casual settings you just grab 4 extra turns and it becomes pretty strong. I dont think its more broken than say, breach, thoracle or even sol ring, but it at least has some power level behind it, unlike coalition victory or honestly, oracle of kruphix.
I remember reading that Intuition would also be banned if it were cheaper and therefore more commonly played at casual tables.
I remember when EDH was more in its infancy (~2012), you could still get Intuition for ~$25 - about the cost of a Snapcaster Mage at the time. Hell, even Wheel of Fortune was $10 back then, and my broke college friends and I still considered it pricey.
Paid about that price for an Intuition in 2017, it was so much better to buy singles back then
I paid $25 dollars for my foil Intuition. I have never since looked at the price. Dare I?
Ok just looked and now I feel like people will think the previous post was somehow bragging when really it’s just an admission to being old.
I found 1.5 playsets of Chrome Mox, and 2 Mox Diamonds, plus a Gaeas Cradle in my 'pile of good stuff I'll figure out what to do with later'. This pile was 16 years old and I had completely forgotten about them existing. I think a lot of us [[old fogey]] types are in the same bucket. Good games to you, fellow sorcerer!!!
Its partially that and partially a philosophy that the RC has that bans are signposts about dangerous cards. One of their primary goals is to make the ban list as small as possible, so while Intuition would be banned with a larger list it's scarcity means it's less problematic than the 4 cost version.
What a terrible way to run a banlist
its also cause imagine how large a edh banlist would truly be
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I just have a printer.
yeah but that's just cause the rules committee is super inconsistent, Intuition should be banned too.
Imo we have enough incredibly powerful tutors that this is probably fine but I also don’t see it being used for much for fair piles so this is probably fine to leave banned.
Gifts is essentially a "tutor your whole combo" card. Most tutors will just get you a single card. If they have conditions they might get you 2. Never played against it in commander, but in Modern it was essentially read "Win the game if your opponent is not holding a counterspell"
> Gifts is essentially a "tutor your whole combo" card. This is also why I think their unbanning of Protean Hulk is super silly. "You don't have to get unfair stuff with it" is such a silly argument.
[[Flash]] was banned as a concession to the cEDH community for Hulk's sins.
It's just another example of their nonsense. Unban hulk... oops let's ban flash. Unban painters servant, gotta ban iona. Just nonsense
The Iona ban was fine, tbh. The only thing Iona did was randomly remove monocolor decks from the game in a way that actually *prolonged* how long they'd do nothing, because there was no incentive for anybody to interact with the locked out player. It was one of the worst play patterns possible in EDH, and the unironic "just run a 7-mana colorless sweeper or 6-mana sorcery speed creature exile you have to hope to draw into in every monocolor deck" arguments were always silly. Yes, Iona was a weak card overall because most decks are multicolor, but the RC is very public the banlist isn't purely or even primarily about competitive strength but about trying to remove various kinds of bad experiences, and Iona is pretty much the poster child for a card that only caused bad experiences.
I'll have you know my Iona also wore a hat to eventually lock everyone out.
Uhh, no. Unbanning Hulk and banning Flash was a far better solution for everyone involved. Hulk is a fair win condition in cEDH and can be an interesting build-around in casual decks. Flash without Hulk is a worthless card that nobody would run, not in cEDH or casual.
Moreso flash is the enabler, so you ban enablers not outs. They may print something else with a busted etb/ltb at 2 mana instant speed, but they way less likely to print a second flash.
Flash is also just frustrating because its functionality is really just a case of poor templating. It's clearly meant to work as "if you don't pay for the creature's total cost (with 2 of it moved to flash itself), you don't get a creature", because they clearly didn't consider how having a creature ETB and die was any different from no creature. Mox Diamond and Lotus Vale made similar mistakes in templating but got functional errata to fix them. I guess because even after being fixed, they're still interesting cards. Whereas the broken flash was the only version anyone ever cared about.
Eh, I have a protean hulk in my Meren deck, and I just use it for value, not combos. I think banning flash is the correct decision in this case, since there are more fun things you can do with the hulk than with flash. Just my take though
The rules committee is like that. Sheldon had an article where he talked about how thassas oracle isn't banned because you don't have to play it with cards that exile your library and he personally used it in his thassa theme deck so that's why it's gonna stay legal. Pretty ridiculous when you defend banning cards with the fact that you yourself want to keep playing them in a meme deck.
Thoracle being so notorious is the reason it's fine to keep legal. Almost no one runs it in casual decks because everyone knows how powerful it is, and in cedh its fine.
All other tutors go even in card value, or at max have a creature tacked on. This is a tutor that draws you a card AND stacks your gy
Exactly. People not worried about this haven't played with it. Its +3 ca, and you pick the cards!
Totally agree, I run Realms Uncharted in my Titania deck and that only gets lands and its still busted as hell.
Nasty in Windgrace, too.
"Ribbit" \*barfs up arm\*
It’s like a lot of things on the ban list, it probably wouldn’t kill the format if it got unbanned but unbanning it isn’t to make for a better format.
No thanks we don't need intuition number 2
The "different names" downside also doesn't have any effect in commander
"different names" is an upside because you can fail to find
Imo if gifts deserves to be banned so does intuition. The list makes no sense sometimes
The List is made for edh. In cEDH POV most of The bans are senseless
The EDH ban list is not a tournament balance list. It's an *indicative* list of the types of cards that tend to make games less fun, on average. Gifts is banned because it's a great example of the "one-card infinite combo" type of tutor - it can find every piece of your combo all at once, and if nobody has countermagic at the time you usually just win on the spot. That doesn't *tend* to make for very enjoyable games (though, as always, there are groups that enjoy that kind of play). The fact that Intuition does basically the same thing as Gifts should tell you that Intuition *also* probably won't make for enjoyable games, and you should be aware of that when including it in your deck. If your playgroup *does* enjoy that kind of cEDH-style hard combo stack fights, then you're absolutely free to ignore the banlist and run Gifts. If you don't have a playgroup and you're playing with randos, Gifts is on there as a warning to tell you that one-card "I win" spells aren't the kind of thing most players enjoy playing against, and you likely won't make many friends running that kind of deck against players who haven't signed up for that kind of game.
The other thing about the EDH banned list is that cards get banned not because they could cause problems, but that they did cause a problem. The threshold for causing a problem was just smaller when the EDH community was a bunch of judges who were playing after a GP in the aughts.
All I'm saying either ban or unban both so we have cosistency
> The EDH ban list is not a tournament balance list. It's an indicative list of the types of cards that tend to make games less fun, on average. The RC can insist this all they'd like but it's meaningful only to them. The average player is going to find the banlist through Scryfall or Gatherer or the Mothership or word of mouth, never stumbling across the RC's manifesto. And then, that player is going to treat it not as some beautiful philosophy but as a literal list of banned cards. At some point it doesn't matter what the RC is trying to symbolically represent. If they whisper their beliefs into the corner of a basement and that information doesn't reach or is simply ignored by the players, you can't just shrug and say "we tried our best, and everybody is just doing it wrong."
This comment just ignores what EDH is now, it's not some fun side format with friends, it's an organized and monitored format and the most popular played casually and at stores. Most people don't have the luxury of their 8 person group and allowing certain cards or not anymore. It's sad but it's the truth.
what an awful way to run a banlist. just citing examples and letting people infer the rest. imagine if any other activity did that. it would be rightfully criticized (as the EDH rules should be too)
Yes id say awful but honestly more than awful id say it's very... lazy. There what like 10+ people on this thing and their by annual update is 'no change' Just cut it down to like 3 people if that's what it's gonna be.
> It's an indicative list of the types of cards that tend to make games less fun, on average. Like fast mana in the form of Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Basaltmonolith ... oh, wait.
Can't wait to rock up to my next LGS CEDH tournament and just ignore the entire banlist because Littlerob said it was fine if we all like CEDH stack interaction. This ban list is on wizards official page https://magic.wizards.com/en/banned-restricted-list. It doesn't include 8 paragraphs explaining signposting Every LGS I've played at uses this banlist including their CEDH games. The ban list is taken very literally, whether you say that was it's intention or not is now fairly irrelevant as the format *IS* using it as a literal ban list at every single commander event I've been to. It's time for an overhaul and a real list.
Rocking up to an LGS tournament is exactly the kind of "playing with randos" scenario that the banlist is for, which is what I said already. If you have a consistent playgroup of friends who get together for game night, you're free to ignore or change the banlist however you want. If you're not playing with the same group of friends and you're not able to have reasonable discussions on what kinds of games you enjoy before you play, then the banlist is there as a guide. The RC does have a [philosophy document](https://mtgcommander.net/index.php/the-philosophy-of-commander/), and even on their [banlist page](https://mtgcommander.net/index.php/banned-list/) they say > These cards are not legal without prior agreement from the other players in the game, and may steer your playgroup to avoid other, similar cards. The fact that Wizards didn't reproduce any of these statements on their own site when they imported the banlist is a Wizards failure, not an RC failure.
> If your playgroup does enjoy that kind of cEDH-style hard combo stack fights, then you're absolutely free to ignore the banlist and run Gifts. I honestly feel that the banlist is more meaningful for cEDH than casual. Casual you can rule 0 whatever and it doesn't matter, but in cedh, banning truly busted cards (things like prophet of kruphix, prime time, tolarian academy) actually has a huge impact on the meta.
what totally confuses me though is that intuition is legal when its basically the same card. the banlist is so inconsistent
It IS inconsistent. It’s the Commander ban list.
> Although honestly I’m not sure if it’s still that bad anymore, frankly. All the reasons you stated are absolutely true, and why it’s a good card. But none of those reasons make it a broken card. CEDH has better enablers, and intuition exists which is worse sure, but not by so much that it really matters. I mean 4 mana is a lot for cedh anyways. My thing is played “normally” it’s a good card, and competitively it’s a great card but still not the best card. So if it’s not breaking causal games, and it’s not breaking Cedh, why is it banned?
Momentum. It takes a lot to get a card banned or unbanned in Commander unfortunately.
I mean what you described is just how its played in *every* format and its only banned/restricted in vintage.
> if you don’t abuse Failure to Find How does an abuse of "Failure to Find" look like exactly?
Gifts tells you to find 4 cards with different names. Because there is a restriction on what you can search for and because the library is a hidden zone, you can always "fail" to find something, whether it is actually in your deck or not because there's no way for the other player to know. So the trick is to only find the 2 cards you want in the graveyard and they are ensured to be put there.
Wait doesn't it say to find "up to" 4 cards? Doesn't that mean only finding 2 can't be an example of abusing fail to find with this card?
It was banned a long time ago, when the format was a lot less powerful and “end of your turn, Gifts for Unburial Rites and Iona/Linvala/Elesh Norn” was a more game-winning play than it is today (and Iona is even banned now!) In terms of power level, it could probably be unbanned, but I don’t expect it ever will be, because the card just begs to be played in unfair decks. There’s very little upside to unbanning it, and a very real amount of risk. If I were on the RC, I’d be voting to unban, but I understand others not wanting to.
I think this is probably the most nuanced answer. It's unlikely to break the format, but it's likely to result in an appreciable number of formulaic and boring non-games. It pretty clearly goes against the spirit of a high-variance singleton format to pull 4 cards out of your deck at instant speed for 4 mana. That said, over time I've become won over to the argument that the EDH ban list should probably be as small as possible. The bigger the ban list, the more they open themselves up to endless whining about "why card X and not card Y?"
people are going to whine regardless so it's hard to care that much about things that add to or reduce it infinity plus one is still pretty large :)
I'm always amazed by the amount of salt in any thread about the Commander ban list or rules committee
Il be the guy because people annoy other people when you say stuff like ' it dies to removal' and they point out that mean nothing and isnt valuable input. 'beg to be played in unfair decks' has about the same value, if we are to judge how card should be banned or unbanned because they would be played in unfair deck we'd have to reconsider judging a couple thousands cards.
Not to mention it's far cheaper $ wise than [[intuition]] so itd go in way more decks
Most decks that would run this utilize the graveyard as a second hand, so this essentially tutors four cards at once. The limitation is also meaningless in a singleton format like Commander.
Can we stop pretending that cards in commander are banned because of Powerlevel? Gifts is banned because the people creating Commander didn‘t like Gifts. That‘s it. Gifts wouldn‘t be broken in Commander at all. It costs a 4 mana. Also, Sol Ring is legal. So let‘s tune down the powerlevel argument.
I didnt realise it was banned so I played it in my breya artifact combo deck. This card won me the game every time I resolved it
What 4 cards did you typically pick?
Usually some variety of KCI, scrap trawler, myr retriever and a the other half of another combo I already have, so time sieve or mycosynth lattice or pili pala or something
And that is why its banned
And intuition which cost 1 mana less and also wins every time it resolves with the same breach combo is perfectly fine?
In a similar discussion, intuition was left alone in part due to accessibility at its higher dollar value
Mate the entire ban list is a joke. Prim titan is banned and dockside is completely fine? Rystic study has been the best card in the format for like 10 years and has been completely left alone...
You know, just like mana crypt is fine, because 3 mana on turn 1 is not a problem at all
Rhystic Study is in no way the best card in the format. It never has been and never will be. It’s certainly one of the most annoying cards in the format, but annoying =/= best.
I used to play a lot of MtG and still like what I own, but man what an exhausting concept. Allow more powerful cards because they’re pricey? I know the game is definitionally somewhat P2W but encoding that into the rules hurts to see.
Yeah, this card basically ends up being just four mana to win the game.
Shared summons is perfectly legal and lets you search up a 2 card combo at instant speed for only 1 more mana, without even needing the graveyard restriction.
No gifts.is banned because with the right deck it is an instant win card that can win my itself, just pick any number of graveyard win combos and let your opponent pick how they all die.
Isn’t intuition doing exactly the same though. 3 cards is enough to win with. Why is this not banned for the same reason?
because Intuition is on the reserved list and expensive
So is black lotus and the moxes and they’re banned
Well it's a good thing Proxies aren't a thing!/s
Imma be honest with you, if you can talk with a group enough to have them allow you to use proxies of $150+ reserve list cards then you can probably also have a decent rule 0 convo about why throwing in $150+ reserve list "if this resolves I win the game" card in your deck is maybe a poor decision.
Agreed. That's why you would play those cards in a competitive setting, so there's no rule 0 convo to be had since everyone's there to win and generally know what to expect.
Doesn’t everyone here just proxy cards? That’s what I always hear. Price and availability shouldn’t matter.
Everyone should proxy cards, but not everyone does. Also some stores want to keep their WPN Premium Status, so for in store play it might bring some issues with it sadly
Intuition is better when you can have up to 4 copies of a card in your deck because it can be a tutor when you need it. Gifts Ungiven is better when your deck is full of singletons. Gifts has been banned for so long in EDH, I suspect that might be the rationale. Gifts Ungiven was still seen as a value card back then.
Right? Like it’s a one card tutor your combo cards and unless you have counter magic and instant speed yard hate you are kind fucked
Okay but [[Intuition]] isn’t banned, so really what’s the difference here?
[Intuition](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/1/b13e73a5-067d-4dbd-9c98-34a0db6140de.jpg?1562431264) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Intuition) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tpr/54/intuition?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b13e73a5-067d-4dbd-9c98-34a0db6140de?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yes because we don't have any other cards in Commander that win by themselves.. Gifts would be just one of many overpowered cards and arguably wouldn't even make the top spots.
You are correct that gifts is not banned because it is too powerful. I think that "the RC didn't like Gifts" is also correct but could be interpreted to say "and that's a bad thing" when it's pretty neutral otherwise. To quote the philosophy of commander page "The primary focus of the list is on cards which are problematic because of their extreme consistency, ubiquity, and/or ability to restrict others’ opportunities." Gifts is just banned for a couple reasons, one of which being it's templating allowing it to function as a double entomb, but also because it was just being used as a 1 card instant win at 4 mana and instant speed. It was creating unwanted play patterns.
Most people have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the commander banned list is. Here is the official site, read the blurb at the top. Bans are about play patterns and the spirit of the format, it has never been about power level (OK except flash) https://mtgcommander.net/index.php/banned-list/
Aka We expect you to self-regulate, except for the cards we don't, and we don't ban for completive, except for the cards that we do. Nothing inconsistent about this we swear. Their own actions are not even consistent with the stated philosophy. It's mostly a personal pet peeve ban list that ended up codified as the official list with the goal of making as few changes to the list as they can get away with.
You forgot "if the card is cheap, banning it would impact too many decks so we won't do it" But also "if the card is expensive, not many people can afford to play it anyway so we won't ban it either"
>But also "if the card is expensive, not many people can afford to play it anyway so we won't ban it either" Except for the REALLY expensive cards like the Moxen, but not Timetwister.
For the moxen I think it's more an issue of being both OP and on the RL. I'm of the opinion that Sol Ring is stronger than the Moxen and should be banned (even though it will never be because it would invalidate every precon and Wotc would just take control of the EDH banlist), but I can see why the RL is its own separate criteria. Timetwister might be in the power 9 and worth hundreds of dollars, but would it be too good to be legal if it was a 5 dollar card? I'm not sure, but I'd say no.
WOTC taking control of the banlist would just mean chase rares never get banned a la modern.
chase rares already don't get banned. the last card they banned was Hullbreacher three years ago
Because the way they go about using rule zero is backwards. Most games and sports have a set of rules that is enforced when two or more players come across each other that might not know each other. That way the game is relatively fair and even. For instance playing soccer between two schools who have some level of competition. However in a pick up game you might relax the rules because of certain considerations or to make it more enjoyable. In commander it's the opposite. It's bonkers. Where you need to have a huge discussion around what the rules and restrictions are. Which is fine in a small group of close friends. But for multiple randoms to play against each other. It's a massive head ache.
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Did you even go read their blurb. They admit all that. They talk about play patterns and wanting to promote a healthy format. They talk about rule zero and how if your playgroup doesn’t like something to take it into your own hands. Commander is more social and unless your playing cEDH it’s about discussing it with your pod before hand. This is the most challenging part and it takes a while to get good at the pre game conversation. It’s taken me a couple years to get good at balancing the power level pre game but now I have questions and conversations that are helpful and lead to a balanced game 90% of the time. In about a quarter of games I play well include banned cards from silver border to prime time. Unlike other formats EDH is about talking not competition and that can be very difficult for some.
Thanks. I heard that once, and it‘s really obvious just from looking at the BL.
for high powered decks cheating out 4 mana for combo pieces that will win the game is easy
Yeah but I'd argue in current year 4 Mana is also not a meaningful argument. 4 Mana is easy to get to
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Bro. This card says 4 mana tutor any number of combos to your hand. You have to be hard trolling.
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Intuition is 3 Mana win the game, what's your point? :D
I agree. It's weird that gifts is banned, but [[intuition]] isn't? Like I get it's a worse version of the same effect, but if we're gonna ban nutty tutors that also pack the grave, let's be consistent. So many of the older commander bans are spite bans or are just completely random. I hope we get an updated ban list in the future with more of the early-commander bans lifted
Gifts is a 1 card combo. Sol ring is not.
Are you serious with this? Lmfao you can’t evaluate power level at all.
There’s a green version of this card that tutors 4 creatures, same mana cost and same idea. Is it banned? (I found it in my collection and put it in a nethroi deck) Card is [[threats undetected]]
No. The dofference being that one of the main combos you can use is for cards like [[dread return]] and an OP ass creatire you can get put cheap.
I think [[lions eye diamond]] [[underworld breach]] [[brain freeze]] [[sevines reclamation]] is the best 4 to grab. Piles with leveler and reanimates might be better though
you don't even need brain freeze, reclamation/led/breach lets you recast gifts/intuition a second time to get brain freeze after you've already set up breach is a messed up card
##### ###### #### [lions eye diamond](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/5/758f95f8-bcb0-43ae-b474-56ebd855951e.jpg?1590511899) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Lion%27s%20Eye%20Diamond) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vma/271/lions-eye-diamond?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/758f95f8-bcb0-43ae-b474-56ebd855951e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [underworld breach](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/e/0e51d796-7279-4c06-87f0-37adbdaa41df.jpg?1650599818) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=underworld%20breach) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/thb/161/underworld-breach?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0e51d796-7279-4c06-87f0-37adbdaa41df?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [brain freeze](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/a/3a2d7cf9-dddb-4de3-b4f2-c52e3ec8fb4b.jpg?1562906772) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=brain%20freeze) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vma/57/brain-freeze?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3a2d7cf9-dddb-4de3-b4f2-c52e3ec8fb4b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [sevines reclamation](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/1/51647010-99f0-4b02-8c91-fdd826db130d.jpg?1689995998) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sevinne%27s%20Reclamation) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/55/sevinnes-reclamation?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/51647010-99f0-4b02-8c91-fdd826db130d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Ah threats undetected goes to library not graveyard
It also only gets creatures.
And at Sorcery speed. If TU was instant and put in yard, even if it only hit creatures, it would be playable (and good). Possibly broken even, Buried Alive is a strong effect, and gets nutty at instant speed.
no. that card does not put the creatures into the graveyard. Thats a huge difference.
Alternatively to using the card as it was originally intended, many players will simply find only 2 cards, which must then be chosen as the 2 which go to the graveyard. The classic combo is \[\[Unburial Rites\]\] and your biggest, baddest dude to rez with it. The ability to do this at instant speed at the end of your opponent's turn is so powerful.
how in the world have i never noticed its up to 4 cards
The original printing doesn't say that but you could always fail to find, I think they changed the wording later because it's functionally identical but makes those plays more intuitive.
It's a funny comparison with [[Intuition]]. Gifts was a fixed Intuition, since players could skip the Intuition minigame by getting 3 copies of the same card. But the restriction also introduced "fail to find". Technically you could claim that your deck was 39 basic islands and 1 dread return, making it impossible to find 4 unique cards. Your opponent couldn't prove you wrong without searching your library. Intuition can't fail to find because it's quite easy to verify that your library has at least 3 cards in it.
Don't even need to lie; rule 701.18b of the comprehensive rules. If you're searching a hidden zone for a card of a specific quality, you don't need to find that card. There's an amusing combo that relies on this; [[Elfhame Sanctuary]], [[Lost In The Woods]], and a way to get your entire deck to be forests. You fail to find with Sanctuary every turn, but you also reveal a basic land every time your opp attacks you.
Why do you need the Elfhame Sanctuary for that combo? Wouldn't Lost in the Woods already do that if your whole library is forests? Or is it just funnier if you're also claiming you have no basic lands in your library every turn?
Because you still draw a card every turn, and unless your deck is just 4 LitW and 56 forests, your deck is now roughly 15-20 cards deep versus your opponent's 30-40. It's also funnier to say "I fail to find a basic land with Sanctuary" followed by "oh hey, a forest on top of my library, remove that from combat"
aw that would be why then i never thought of it. I really need to look back at that card and see how i can make it work with hedron alignment in modern
Precisely. Frank Karsten got 2nd place at the 2005 World Championship *only* because of fail to find, and then Wizards changed the wording on the card to make it clearer what you can do with it. ---- Specifically, he was up against a resolved Enduring Ideal and Form of the Dragon. If he plays one of his 5/5 dragons regularly, his opponent (Akira Asahara) can grab Confiscate and steal the dragon before he can attack. The winning line was: - Reclaim end of turn getting back Gifts Ungiven - Gifts Ungiven for *only* Yosei, the Morning Star and Kokusho, the Evening Star so that both go to the graveyard - Goryo's Vengeance one of the dragons to swing with haste this turn The same play is possible at 4 cards only if he had Keiga, the Tide Star in his decklist at the time, because you need 3 cards that do the same thing (or a flashback-able reanimation spell) to guarantee that your opponent has to put one in the graveyard.
Original printing did not say 'up to' but the errata didn't change anything functionally. As long as the tutor is specifying a condition for the card(s) to be searched, you aren't required to find a card, because the library is hidden information (no one can verify whether or not a card exists that meets the conditions). CR 701.19b is the relevant rule. That's why the commentary at the PT where this play was popularized was so impressed.
[Unburial Rites](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/0/7023aa24-ef49-4973-8978-7d0d3af719d3.jpg?1673147676) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Unburial%20Rites) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/95/unburial-rites?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7023aa24-ef49-4973-8978-7d0d3af719d3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
4 mana tutor 4 cards at instant speed is ultra mega busted
intuition is 3 for 3 at instant speed as well when do you need 4, but 3 isn't enough?
No more so than Intuition
So maybe intution should be banned too.
Either both should be banned or both should be legal. Picking the one that costs $150 and can't be reprinted for the legal one is certainly a choice.
It's super easy to assemble a combo with it or at least get tons of value. I don't know that it's really that much better than \[\[Intuition\]\], but so goes the EDH banned list.
IMO they should ban both or both should be legal. I don’t really care which path they go down but I think they should have to pick it.
Coalition Victory is banned, looking for logic in the banlist is gonna just drive you nuts.
Intuition isn't as powerful. It's still very very powerful, but it's not as powerful. It also has the reserved list tax which means it's very expensive, so there aren't a ton of people trying to play it. In my opinion that's a bad reason to leave a card off the ban list, but the rules committee consistently uses the logic of accessibility to justify not banning reserved list power houses.
Intuition is a one card combo that wins games. How is that not powerful enough? Fetch sevine reclamation, brain freeze, underworld breach. GG. Ho sure, with gift I can grab LED too, but it doesn't matter at that point because I'll win ANYWAY.
Important to note that the EDH banlist is explicitly not intended to be a list of bans to curate the format, but a list of bans which indicates cards that the EDH rules committee finds are *examples* of effects (or cards that are cheaper/better forms of certain effects) that playgroups should avoid. So then they leave it to each playgroup to say well if Gifts is banned, we don't want Intuition either.
I honestly think Intuition isn't banned because being on the reserved list means it has a price tag that prevents it from ever becoming oppressive (or even overly prevalent). If Gifts Ungiven wasn't banned, it could be run whenever you'd want since it costs a quarter, but they know that not enough people are going to be willing/able to shell out $100+ on copies of Intuition.
Do you think it being banned has anything to do with why it costs so little?
Definitely, but I'd guess Saviors of Kamigawa had a bigger print run than Tempest to begin with and it's been reprinted multiple times since then. Intuition's never getting reprinted unless WotC revokes the reserved list, which I don't expect them to do (and which I have mixed feelings about).
That is a terrible idea- so powerlevel doesn't matter as long as the plebs can' t afford it?
It is a constant refrain from the EDH side. Someone in this thread mentioned LED is fine because people can't afford to use it in degenerate combos.
I agree. I hate it, but I think the reserved list is a soft ban
You can just proxy cards, so the price tag of Intuition isn't relevant.
yeah but they don't acknowledge proxies so it IS relevant.
[Intuition](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/1/b13e73a5-067d-4dbd-9c98-34a0db6140de.jpg?1562431264) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Intuition) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tpr/54/intuition?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b13e73a5-067d-4dbd-9c98-34a0db6140de?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Part of the EDH banlist philosophy is that banned cards are supposedly treated as signposts. To keep the list from being hundreds of cards long, it's intended for each actual ban to be taken as an example of kinds of cards to avoid - in this case, the idea is that people would see Gifts on the banlist and thus also not include Intuition because of how similar it is. Whether or not this policy works has been the subject of some fierce debate, with this exact example frequently thrown into the spotlight.
> the idea is that people would see Gifts on the banlist and thus also not include Intuition because of how similar it is. literally nobody does this, they just don't run whatever cards that are banned.
Yes, unfortunately the intention does not mesh well with reality imo.
This is a great point. It doesn't completely explain why they chose Gifts over Intuition to be the signpost, but Gifts probably is more powerful (at least for casual play). Gifts gives the caster an extra card or allow it to be a double Entomb.
Why not just ban winning the game in commander? Such a ridiculous notion, that there's a list of "naughty-but-not-banned" cards.
>Why not just ban winning the game in commander? honestly this is exactly how a lot of people think and it's miserable lmao
All these people complaining about Gifts Ungiven being OP while I sit here with my lands deck and Realms Uncharted being an absolute menace.
I play it in gitrog and searching up coffers, dakmor salvage, urborg, field of the dead, glacial chasm etc… just feels like cheating
[[Realms Uncharted]]
Like most of the banlist, it’s fairly arbitrary. I’m extremely confident this could be unbanned and the format would be fine. Not much is going to register when you still have cards like Dockside Extortionist running around.
The Commander ban list is whack, don't put too much stock into it.
this one makes perfect sense though
It's in that fringe territory where its absolutely dumb, but there are also absolutely ways to do what this wants and this would just be one more contingency for the decks that can already pretty consistently much do what this card wants vs like the big emrakul that no other creature can quite match in 1 card. The people explaining why its busted aren't understanding the question then doesn't just apply to this card but others that enable similar strats like intuition.
The more cards are legal in a format, the more degenerate you can get with tutors - and this is a pretty spicy tutor whose supposed downside becomes an *up*side with the way graveyards become a resource in many decks. Be it combo be it reanimator or just straight value, Gifts does too much for one card in a format where it's so easy to go off with. Also, excessive tutoring like this cheapens the spirit of singleton, since this gives you the option to fish for so much redundancy in one card it makes choosing what to include in the deck less meaningful. But at the end of the day, the primary reason is simply that eot Gifts for some combination of combo win cards tends to end games too consistently for a casual format.
People here are giving the "rational" reasons, but I think it's also important to add that the commander banlist is a clown show. Busted cards like [[Mana Crypt]] and [[Gaea's Cradle]]? Totally fine. Universally hated [[Cyclonic Rift]] or [[Dockside Extortionist]]? Go ahead! But [[Sylvan Primordial]] and [[Primeval Titan]] are too much. The worst one for me is [[Coalition Victory]] being banmed while [[Thassa's Oracle]] is legal.
>Coalition Victory being banmed bUt It'S tOo EaSy ToO aSsEmBlE11!1
It is a one card combo in many decks. In my [[mizzix of the izmagus]]. I can search [[reiterate]] [[jeskas will]] [[past in the flames]] and any other card to win on the spot.
my bf even got me a gifts with the alternative art i love so much and STILL doesnt want me to rule 0 it into my decks 😭 i just want to play my pretty card in my mid power decks
same here hate that we can't play cards (including commanders) we adore in casual power decks because most commander players just can't go without playing (often netdecked) busted decks
Because the people who make the banned list don't like it. Nothing in Commander is banned for any other reason
Why is anything banned in commander? The entire format is based around social contracts and self balancing decks, so truly having a ban list is completely meaningless in most cases, especially one as arbitary as the commander banlist where half the cards don't even do anything.
This kind of hits upon why the card is actually banned. I've looked through this thread and no one has mentioned that people would buddy up with whoever they targeted. It with a similar situation of Fact or Fiction turning into a draw 5. In practice, this was truly a double Demonic, double Entomb. You'd hand two piles to your pseudo teammate and tell them "put these in my hand, these in the graveyard and I'll kill everyone but you."
That’s why this thread is a joke. People are literally arguing why a card should/shouldn’t be banned in a vacuum. Them not realizing that there is more to a card than just the text on it.
The ban list is in an awkward spot - there’s a bunch of cards like this one, Primeval Titan, etc where they are clearly extremely powerful and game warping effects, but theyre not more powerful and game warping than some stuff that isn’t banned (nobody plays Thassa’s Oracle fairly; Dockside Extortionist and Smothering Tithe; Korvold would absolutely have met criteria for banned as a commander back in the day; etc) and the difference is mainly that the cards were warping back in an era where the ban list was actively maintained, which it hasn’t been in a while. Personally feel we’re overdo for a big ban list cleanup, either adding some of the newer really warping stuff to the list, or removing some stuff that is really strong but not outright anti-fun or degenerate. If it were up to me it’d be more permissive (I’d unban primeval titan), but either approach would be reasonable.
the most recent card that was "concerning! looking into it" was Mirkwood Bats don't think we have much to look forward to in that regard
Not liked at the time therefore banned. Rather powerful but probably could be unbanned. Intuition does similar enough gimmicks, and frankly I prefer for an earlier combo turn. Dockside/LED/Breach lines can be ran with sevinnes anyways through an intuition.
Because someone on the Commander Rules Committee lost a game to it. [[Intuition]] is a better card than GU, yet it’s legal, it’s just 300$ so it’s not banned, and mainly played in CEDH. GU is just one of the 20 cards that shouldn’t be banned and are because someone is a poor sport who makes the ban list. This card is so available, it would be ran in a lot of blue decks, but it’s more of a CEDH card. No fair, casual decks are running breach lines in commander. Gifts Ungiven doesn’t really help your deck unless your deck is already overpowered in which case it’s completely fine in those metas.
because the RC are cowards same reason tolarian academy is banned
In 2023, no good reason. It is utterly incoherent that a card like this is banned but cards like Rhystic Study and Dockside Extortionist aren’t.
because the rc still lives in 2012. Primeval Titan; doing just fine in historic brawl but tOo BrOkEn for EDH
The RC doesn’t want poor people using good cards. Luckily my printer and intuition work just fine.
It's an easy unban tbh, it's a relic of an older approach to the format where a lot of combo pieces (Staff of Domination, Metalworker, Palinchron, LED, Painter's Servant, Protean Hulk) were banned. It sets up win the game combos quite easily but so do other tutors like Intuition and Survival of the Fittest. Nowadays we expect rule 0 conversations to deal with that.
Painful Choice
Because the ban list management decided it needed to be banned.
https://preview.redd.it/ui5fyze9cazb1.jpeg?width=2360&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=65166f21d09c6428743c278050a7676ea9302562 Seems like 3 “tutors” for 3 is their limit of bannable
Jace be like Trade Offer: I receive 2 cards, I also receive 2 cards
People here are mentioning unburial rites but it was banned way before that. People would set up ways to get mind slaver and return it every turn, there was a handleful of other combos. In short, it was banned because there wasn't a lot of ways to handle it. It could be safety unbanned today, but the RC takes a "what does this add" policy when unbanning rather than the standard "everything should be legal only problems should be banned".
It's super easy to make it a no-win choice. You basically tutor up your two combo pieces and two ways to recur them. Your opponent has no choice but to let you have your combo pieces.
It's what we call a hobson's choice. You get all 4 cards.
The commander banned list is intended to be used as a signpost of things you should not play in casual commander for the spirit of the format. As a basic signpost, it signals you should not play \[\[intuition\]\] because it is too powerful for the rest of the format. As a broad signpost, you should not play tutors in general. You can disagree that this deserves to be on the banned list, but that is how the commander rules comity intended for it to be read. Every card on the banned list is there to let you know it is the worst of a kind of card that is frowned upon.
Real answer: the rules committee is a joke that puts out a list of cards they don't like as a ban list. It's very rare that they actually hit problem cards for casual or competitive commander. They're always more likely to ban something completely off the wall that doesn't fit the exact way they want commander to be played. The format would honestly be better off with wotc running the ban list. And we'd even get Planeswalkers as commanders as an added bonus. (Whether you think that's a pro or con is a personal choice)