Channel

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Legality

Format Legality
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Oldschool 93/94 Legal
Planar Constructed Legal
Planechase Legal
Premodern Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Channel

Sorcery

Until end of turn, any time you could activate a mana ability, you may pay 1 life. If you do, gain [[symbol:C].

BotaNickill on Shadow Clone Jutsu

8 months ago

Upvote for the Venerated Rotpriest enthusiasm! I like the interaction with Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief for sure, and I have a playset of her just in case I go back to the darkside (blue), but I am mainly a Selesnya player and my Rotpriest deck builds have been geared that way. I have mostly been playing it on Arena, first in Historic, but now mainly in Timeless. (But I do have a modern vs as well). Access to Once Upon a Time has been nice for consistency, and I've been considering adding Channel for the possibility of castion out most of my hand onm T1 But White offers some noice options for removal, like Swords to Plowshares and Annex Sentry, there's also some great white targeted spells, Defiant Strike, Ephemerate, Gird for Battle, Gods Willing etc. I usually choose to mulligan until I get a rotpriest in my opening hand and at least a land or two and a protection spell. But keeping Rotty on the board is always a challenge as he has a giant target on his back. How has this all worked out for you in Simic with being able to copy the rotpriest?

legendofa on Is WotC Being Cautious About …

1 year ago

In the earliest days, there was Channel giving 19 "free" mana. Force of Will and Necropotence weren't far behind, as a "free" counterspell and "free" draw 19. Life payments then went pretty quiet for a while, until the fetchlands and shocklands came in, followed by Phyrexian mana. Gitaxian Probe and Mental Misstep stand out here. Virtually every time that life payments were allowed to gain an advantage or offset a "standard" cost, it changed the way the game was played.

Basically, you start with 20-40 of a resource that is easily recoverable and is generally spent 1-2 at a time. Even if your opponents are trying to deplete that resource in big chunks, there's no official difference between winning at 20 life and winning at 1 life. You don't get points for having more life left, so might as well use it.

On that line of thought, are there any games where your life total, or the equivalent, is the primary resource?

DrukenReaps on Alternate Ban List

1 year ago

I've never really been a fan of the ban list used for commander. I don't think it addresses potential problem cards the right way. There's always going to be a new problem card printed. I also think there's cards stuck on there that use to be scary and just aren't now. Like when Worldfire came off and no one really cared lol. So I wanted to just go through the mental exercise of designing a new ban list. First thing is I wanted to bring back the old "banned as commander" and therefore have 2 ban lists. The argument I heard most against this is that it's complicated but we play the most complex deck design game in MTG. I think people can handle 2 ban lists. For the banned from the 99 part of the list I was thinking I'd focus on fast tutors and fast mana. Like I said there will always be more problem cards. Many that aren't banned are arguably stronger than banned ones currently. For example Godo, Bandit Warlord + Helm of the Host is arguably easier and more consistent than Cromat + Coalition Victory.

So here are the 2 lists, they do not contain everything. Just wanted to start the idea and see people's thoughts.

Banned as Commander- Braids, Cabal Minion Emrakul, the Aeons Torn Griselbrand Iona, Shield of Emeria Leovold, Emissary of Trest

Banned from the 99- Mox Emerald Mox Jet Mox Pearl Mox Ruby Mox Sapphire Black Lotus Channel Sol Ring Mana Crypt Mana Vault Worldly Tutor Enlightened Tutor Personal Tutor Vampiric Tutor Demonic Tutor Mystical Tutor

I would also simply declare that Companion doesn't work in Commander. So you can play your Lutri, the Spellchaser if you so desire. I think this mechanic as a whole was poorly thought out and poorly tested, hence the changes and bans across multiple formats.

Alesamuel on Equipment

1 year ago

In Oathbreaker rules, your signature spell needs to fall within your commander's color identity. Since Channel is green, it can't be your signature spell if your commander is Karn, Scion of Urza since Karn is colourless. A better suited Signature Spell would be All is Dust or another colorless spell.

TheOfficialCreator on What Commander Do You Think …

2 years ago

TheSnuggleLord I agree strongly that the standardization of the Commander format has led to insane power creep, and this is because Commander occupies a unique design space that should not be catered to excessively just by its very nature.

Vintage has the same card pool as Commander, except that cards that warp the entire game, such as Black Lotus and Channel, are legal, so it's not easy to create cards that sway the direction of the format.

Modern, on the other hand, has a more limited card pool, and didn't really suffer from insane power creep until recently, because cards that are designed for Standard aren't necessarily great for Modern. This obviously changed with the introduction of the Modern Horizons sets, each of which caused massive changes in the Modern format. As it turns out, creating intentionally pushed cards for a given format makes that format much more powerful.

Commander sets pushed the power level of the Commander format as a whole further forward each and every time they were released, which isn't necessarily bad until you release a new Commander-tailored set of pushed cards every single set. Then it becomes an issue.

amarthaler on Midnight (in the) Guard’n of Gond and Evil

2 years ago

Nice deck build! Should throw in a Channel just because :D

Epicurus on When did you start playing, …

2 years ago

My first deck was a blue/white weenie deck, with Flying Men, Savannah Lions and Counterspells. I quickly started running mono-white weenie, which is why to this day I get offended when people badmouth white. That first white weenie is actually still together 30 years later, it just gets updated every few years or so. And it still wins more often than not. Armageddon + Howling Mine + a crap load of creatures that only cost one mana = a lot more powerful than people want to give it credit for. More than half of the cards in that deck were pulled from packs of Revised (3rd Edition) that I bought back then; including the cards I listed above, as well as Swords to Plowshares.

I'm with Fuzzy003 on the power creep thing. However, just like I said in a previous comment about another topic, it's really always been that way. Back in the day, if you weren't playing black/blue draw/control or Suicide black, you weren't going to win any tournaments. The only real combo was Channel + Fireball , but a good lockdown control deck was nearly impossible to beat (besides the fact that Channel was one of the first non-ante cards ever banned, because it was too easy to win with it).

I did once own a turn 2 Guilty Conscience + Stuffy Doll deck. It won every game I played. As such, it was pretty boring. I never competed with it, because it was Vintage legal, and I didn't have Power 9 cards with which to make it a turn 1 deck. So I ended up selling it (which I've regretted ever since, because this was before Commander drove up the prices of the four Plateau in there from $75/each to well over $300/each, and the Wheel of Fortune in there that I had pulled from a pack jumped from $40 at the time to I-don't-wanna-know how much it is now).

The best I ever did at a competition was getting 3rd place out of 50 people back in ('95/'96?) with a budget Goblin tribal deck, that ran such beauties as Goblin Balloon Brigade and Keldon Warlord, hahaha. Of course, my Wheel of Fortune and Sol Ring were in that deck, as well as the Howling Mines, but remember, that's when WoF listed at a whopping $10. I believe that I even had a couple Juggernaut in there. And I beat some very competitive decks with all that jank. It was awesome.

I decided to post this story partly because the last couple of y'all made me nostalgic for the old days. Also, though, to say that:

  • a) it's kinda annoying to me, having been playing as long as I have, that everyone plays Commander now. I miss the old 60 card constructed formats. I have a lot of fond memories playing 8-player games in what was basically Legacy format (though you can call it "casual" or "kitchen table" if you like). Not to mention how much Commander format has inflated prices of individual cards.

  • b) I personally find infinite combos to be a nuisance, and wish that more people shied away from them in casual play. Honestly, it's more about variety and creativity than anything else. I'm tired of looking at the 31 flavors of Thassa's Oracle decks, for example. Like, someone will be like "Hey, check out my new (insert legendary creature here) deck." And I say "oh, I love that guy! What's the theme?" And they reply with something like "It's (insert creature type) tribal, with synergies built around (insert mechanic)... and it wins by going infinite with XYZ and casting Thassa's Oracle." And then, when I say "Oh, so it's a Thassa's Oracle deck," they get butthurt, because they think they're being creative in their construction of a deck that wins using exactly the same card as a million other people's decks. "But, but, MY Thassa's Oracle deck is different!"

I don't mean to be a downer or an old fogey, I just appreciate a bit more creativity than that. Always have. And since there's a finite number of ways to go infinite in any given color combination, and a finite number of wincons that flow from those infinite combos, decks that do so all look the same to me. Just a bunch of fetch, removal and draw surrounding a combo. 50% of the deck is setting up and executing the combo, and the other 50% is protection/denial/removal. So what percentage is leftover for theme?

Anyway, that's this old man's grumpy gripe about the state of the game these days. The old budget Goblin deck wouldn't stand a chance anymore. Although, I would put my White Weenie against any 60-card casual deck you'd want to try to throw at it ;)

But I don't want that rant about Commander or infinite combos to be the final takeaway from my post here. Fact is, I've ultimately enjoyed the journey. The ups and downs are as much a part of that journey as they are with anything else in life. Here I am, still playing a game that I learned before I had pubes. And still enjoying it. And I taught my kids to play it, and they love it too (though, maybe I should have gotten them into drugs instead, because it would probably be a cheaper hobby, hahaha). And I've been around the block long enough to know that nothing lasts forever, so I hope to keep on enjoying it until kids don't like it anymore and it ends up fading away.

Like I said in a previous comment, I was really excited about Neon Dynasty. I haven't seen anything from New Capenna yet that has me as excited, but time will tell. And The Brothers' War has me stoked. In other words, to hell with my complaints about the state of the game these days. Let's throw some damn cards! Turn 'em sideways! Play on!

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