Should Cyclonic Rift be Banned in EDH?
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on Aug. 17, 2019, 9:32 a.m. by DemonDragonJ
The recent banning of Iona, Shield of Emeria and Paradox Engine has me pondering other cards that may be too powerful for EDH format.
In particular, Cyclonic Rift is a very powerful card that I feel is unbalanced because it is very difficult for opponents of a player who casts it to recover if they are unable to respond to it. I have been a victim of that card numerous times, so I know how painful it can be.
What does everyone else say about this? Do you believe that Cyclonic Rift should be banned in EDH?
DemonDragonJ says... #3
enpc, in that case, what qualifies as card as "banworthy," in your mind?
August 17, 2019 10:06 a.m.
ShutUpMokuba says... #4
You can still re-cast everything. According to your logic every boardwipe like Damnation should be banned. The problem with Iona, Shield of Emeria is that it shuts down entirely mono colored decks while Paradox Engine allows too many infinite combos.
August 17, 2019 10:42 a.m.
Honestly, I'm all for as small a ban list as possible. But it's just format warping cards (i.e. Primeval Titan , Sylvan Primordial , Prophet of Kruphix ) as well as stuff like the mox cycle, lotus, etc. That and game resetting cards.
But ultimately, the healthier a format is, the less cards it has on the banlist. And with cards like rift, either somebody is playing it as a game ending spell (i.e. they want an empty board to swing into) or they're using it as a wrath, in which case they probably don't have much getting bounced themselves. And neither situations call for it to be banned.
August 17, 2019 10:45 a.m.
SynergyBuild says... #6
What? No. If we should ban every card that is: "very difficult for opponents of a player who casts it to recover if they are unable to respond to it." then literally every single sweeper, win the game card ( Protean Hulk , Hermit Druid , Demonic Consultation in a Lab-Man build, etc.) and every single one-sided hate card ( Aura of Silence , GAAIV, most stax, etc.) should be banned.
Yes, if you want to add roughly 500 cards to the banlist, you do that.
August 17, 2019 10:49 a.m. Edited.
I mean Commander is also a pretty casual format so you could talk to your local group of just having a ban for cyclonic rift for yourselves.
August 17, 2019 11:42 a.m.
PhotogenicParasympathetic says... #8
Rift is super strong, but not at all banworthy. Blue has a lot of mass-bounce effects, it's the only way blue can answer something on the board. Sure, Rift is the strongest by far of those spells, but the mechanic of one-sided board wiping (for seven mana!) is not unbalanced.
August 17, 2019 11:49 a.m.
If you want to water down the format yeah ban it along with a ton of other stuff like Tooth and Nail
August 17, 2019 12:47 p.m.
ShutUpMokuba says... #11
Also i assure you it's way worse to face someone who plays Triumph of the Hordes .. Just saying...
August 17, 2019 2:06 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #12
DemonDragonJ, to recap what enpc, ShutUpMokuba, Joe_Ken_, PhotogenicParasympathetic, griffstick, TypicalTimmy (who said it so elegantly), and myself, you know, pretty much everyone who responded felt, is that the answer is a resounding no.
While we all had different reasons, I think I can say we there is no reason to ban the card.
Is that an appropriate answer to your question?
August 17, 2019 2:28 p.m. Edited.
SynergyBuild you can add to the list everyone else who glanced at the thread and didn’t respond as well...lol.
The answer is a resounding no, and for all the reasons noted and more.
August 17, 2019 5:07 p.m.
Also like, it's not even that powerful. You can replay your stuff afterwards. You can rebuild too. A turn one Sol Ring can give you a similar advantage, though to a lesser degree.
Most cards, when built around correctly, can be hard to deal with and give a huge advantage. By your logic, we should ban any card that isn't a vanilla creature.
August 17, 2019 7:49 p.m.
ShutUpMokuba says... #18
A very interesting thread would be:" which cards have all the rights to be legal in commander but nonetheless they really piss you off and a part of you would like them to be banned"
August 17, 2019 8:38 p.m.
Tyrant-Thanatos says... #21
I agree with the general consensus here that it's not banworthy, and am personally anti-banning in general, but I do take a minor nitpick with the following
I have 5 cards in hand, 7 creatures on the battlefield, 3 stones & 2 enchantments
My opponent casts Cyclonic Rift
My turn comes around,
No it doesn't. Your opponent just cast an instant speed one-sided boardwipe before the beginning of their turn. They untap with a full board-state against an open field of life-totals. You're not getting another turn. But at 7 CMC, that's how things are. If we ban every >6 CMC card that just wins people games, we'll have a loooooong ass list of cards.
August 17, 2019 10:06 p.m.
I believe Cyclonic Rift should be banned for the only reason that is shared with essentially why they banned many other cards, if you have blue in your identity, you are going to have a hard time excusing away not using it (course there is the budget excuse now, weird how it stopped being a junk rare it was only $2 for the longest time).
It it literally in more blue decks than Counterspell or Brainstorm , you can also say it warps the meta by making players favor lower cmc permanents and is a 7 cmc effect that ad naus only hits you for 2 for (ad naus being the other reason to favor low cmc). It also hurts the weakest colors red and white as they are weak on land based ramp and typically build boards with many cards that having bounced hurts.
(this is all my trying to sort out why'd the advisory group would ban it, since they have to sound smart outside of "because we hates it")
August 18, 2019 4:09 a.m.
SynergyBuild says... #23
Demarge No? If you should ban a card based on how in every deck you can play it you should play it, then Mox Diamond , Chrome Mox , Sol Ring , Mana Crypt , etc. should be banned. If you want to ban cards that aren't fast mana, Demonic Tutor , Vampiric Tutor , Timetwister , etc. should be banned, if you want to ban cards that make opponents favor lower cmc cards, then we should ban Ignite Memories , if you want a card that does all of these, we should ban Winter Orb .
Point is, based on the criteria you have layed out, tons of cards should be banned before C-Rift.
August 18, 2019 9:34 a.m.
Last_Laugh says... #24
Ahhh... the obligatory once every 2-3 months ban Rift post. Doesn't need banning, it needs a reprint though so it's not $20+.
August 18, 2019 11:42 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #25
SynergyBuild, yes the responses that I have received here do, indeed, answer my question.
August 18, 2019 11:46 a.m.
SynergyBuild banning mana rocks is like banning basic lands in commander, sure there can be explosive starts, but diamond and chrome mox both have the downsides of losing a card and mana crypt's mini game of will he die to his own crypt is too fun to ban (banning these also greatly hurts red and white, I'm sure some people on the committee really wants to ban Armageddon but it may as well ban Plains ). But quite honestly outside of sol ring (the poster child of commander, banning it is like trying to ban Brainstorm in legacy) all of those mana rocks you can go many lists without seeing a single copy unless you're looking for CEDH, whereas you might see one out of every 10-15 lists in the deckcycle queue that's blue and doesn't have rift (most of the time it's due to budget or not knowing the card existed somehow, not the choice because it's not a good card).
Also unlike all of the cards you mentioned if rift was banned it's price would just plummet, it would plummet so hard it'd make paradox engine's price drop seem reasonably paced, outside of commander rift is a junk dollar rare, the closest two cards to see a drop would be the two tutors, but they both at least still have a home in other places. Course those 3 cards still kinda have a home in oathbreaker now that I think about it.
Honestly I soo wish rift never gets banned as I have nearly 2 playsets of it in my various commander/oathbreaker decks, and would love to drop it down to 1 once they climb above $40. (still kicking my lack of foresight to not randomly trade away the Jace, Architect of Thought I owned for tons of Rifts (many people would have taken a trade of 12 rifts for 1 jace if they had em, some stores might have even taken it).
August 19, 2019 2:25 a.m.
SynergyBuild says... #30
Demarge YES, we agree! Those cards shouldn't be banned, but by your metric they would have been banned before C-Rift, that is why C-Rift shouldn't be banned!
August 19, 2019 7:27 a.m.
SynergyBuild if you were to go onto edhrec compared to rift out of all of your mentioned cards only Sol Ring beats it in use (because wotc prints a metric ton of them each year it seems) and the next highest is Demonic Tutor which is used less than half as often and is the most used black card. Timetwister is so uncommonly used, it is half as common as players using Cancel .
In fact if you dig into those numbers it's almost like blue is a color used mainly to cast rift and counterspell, black is to tutor, green is to ramp, white is to cast Swords to Plowshares , red is Blasphemous Act . And of these rift is the only card that can just open up a game to end.
August 19, 2019 8:41 a.m.
GhostChieftain says... #32
Demarge while you make some solid points, I have to mention that Demonic Tutor is hands down better at closing out a game than Cyclonic Rift . Just tutor for your win con and ignore what your opponents have on board, or find removal (rift for example) so you can safely use your win con.
August 19, 2019 8:58 a.m.
Yes. Absolutely.
Everyone here is comparing it to wrath. But its not wrath. It clears ONLY the opponents board. And while yes, people can get around the wrath clear (invincible) that is a combo.
Rift is a one-card-groan fest. It's just uninteresting in the worst way and usually just makes a long game longer.
December 18, 2019 4:16 p.m.
ShutUpMokuba says... #34
ataraxic89 also In Garruk's Wake destroys only opponent's creatures and PW but no one cares about it.
December 19, 2019 5:13 a.m.
It also sees little play. Because 9 to kill creatures is worthless in black. You can do so for less in black and getting 9 mana in black is often a slow roll.
In Garruk's Wake is in 8% of decks on EDHREC. Cyclonic Rift is in forty eight fucking percent of decks.
Clearly, its a vastly inferior card for its color, And yes. Color matters.
Unless you think Harmonize and Concentrate are equivalent.
December 19, 2019 10:54 a.m.
Last_Laugh says... #36
Ahhh... the obligatory once every 2-3 months ban Rift post. Doesn't need banning, it needs a reprint though so it's not $20+. Yes, this is exactly what I said about 3 months ago lol. It still stands.
December 19, 2019 10:59 a.m.
What really needs to happen, is better/creative & appropriately scaled punishment spells with a variable upside. EDH cards have slowly been shifting to this direction as far as the realm of punishment goes. The problem I experience typically with punishment is the lack of upside or self-advancement, this is why I love "punishment" via something like Heartwood Storyteller . Anyway, maybe a red instant that reads something like "draw a card for each permanent that left the battlefield, then play one card for free", something like this that often has a payout, but the payout is much larger for some dumb riftlike thing, maybe some sort of bounce punisher enchantment with some upside. I think the game could just use more general beneficial punishment for game delays, bounces, & exiling - however that would be done.
December 19, 2019 12:04 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #38
ShutUpMokuba, there are several significant differences between Cyclonic Rift and In Garruk's Wake : first, the rift is an instant, whereas the wake is a sorcery; second, the rift forces players to replay all their cards quickly, or else they must discard their hands, forcing the players to decide which cards to keep and which to not (unless they have an effect that modifies their maximum hand size), whereas the wake sends all permanents that it can affect directly to their owners' graveyards, sparing them the agony of choosing which to save; third, the wake affects only creatures and planeswalkers, whereas the rift affects all permanents, meaning that players shall lose their mana-generating artifacts, which are invaluable in EDH format.
December 19, 2019 5:46 p.m.
ShutUpMokuba says... #39
DemonDragonJ i'm not saying that In Garruk's Wake is better. I was only pointing out that saying that Cyclonic Rift is a good card mainly because it doesn't affect yourself is a short-sighted statement. The card is good because of the combination of all the points you have listed.
December 20, 2019 11:04 a.m.
GhostChieftain says... #40
Rift is not a problem. People playing without any actual wincons, that also play a bunch of boardwipes and control are the problem. Idc if you rift away my entire board because I get to keep the pieces that I want most. Idc if you stop my lethal swing, or my combo that will kill you. Idc if you keep your board and end the game on your own terms. Just as long as the game doesn't take 3 hours to finish. If you play things like this, you need to also have a way to close out the game.
Once again, rift is not the problem. Peoples' deckbuilding is.
December 20, 2019 11:15 a.m.
Last_Laugh says... #41
I've had Jokulhaups be far more backbreaking than Rift. Marchesa, the Black Rose ... especially with only 1-2 creatures coming back is a painfully slow finish.
December 20, 2019 11:35 a.m.
No one plays Jokulhaups
And again, it affects everyone, not just the opponents.
December 20, 2019 12:13 p.m.
GhostChieftain says... #43
At worst imo, rift deserves a soft ban in some select playgroups if it notoriously makes your games take too long. Before that happens though, suggest to the person playing it to either put in an actual way to win or just take out rift. I have personally played with and against it ever since it came out and despite having multiple playgroups that I have been part of since it was made, I have never had any issue with it. Help your friends learn how to better use it, then if that doesn't work houserule a soft ban if your issues persist. Same goes for any issues with players who play locks that don't have a win con.
The board wipe is never the issue.
December 20, 2019 12:28 p.m.
Last_Laugh says... #44
@ataraxic89 - I guess you're calling me no one (thanks for acknowledging my superiority). Just remember next time... 'No One' is perfect!
December 20, 2019 12:53 p.m.
Again.. I say we just need more bomb punishers with upside. Maybe something with haste stapled on it for when conditional punishments aren't being met
December 20, 2019 7:20 p.m.
Judo_Cthulhu says... #46
Happy New Year!! I'm perfectly content to drag this argument on perpetually. It is probably the most banworthy of all board wipes for several reasons:
- It's a 7 CMC instant speed game changer. Absolutely negligible cost in many commander setups and strongly crippling effect to a huge variety of commander setups.
- As an interrupt, it shapes the way all other players build decks to an absurd degree. Everyone should be prepared for an occasional board wipe, but nobody wants to load down every deck with counterspells and countermeta just because of one card. I remind everyone this is a casual format. I have a monoblue board wipe based deck and I purposefully didn't put cyclonic rift in it because no one would ever play against it. (Let that sink in...)
- It is ludicrously easy to fetch/retrieve because of its base CMC. There's a huge number of izzet and dimir color decks that can cast and recast add infinium and a large number of decks that can start the overload cast from turn 2 onward.
- It hits ALL NONLAND PERMANENTS YOUR OPPONENTS. All of the above wouldn't be nearly as bad if it only affected creatures or one specific card type at a time, or even hit all nonland permanents. The only real defense against it is turning permanents into lands, which is tricky to say the least. This makes it much stronger than almost every other boardwipe in the game currently. In terms of CMC to effectiveness, it is the strongest board wipe.
January 1, 2020 2:49 a.m.
In the past 7 days I’ve played 11 games, of those games I have been cyclonic rifted 9 times. All 9 times that player has gone on to win on their next turn which happens to be just after they played it on someone’s end step. As game warpers go cyclonic rift is the only one sided instant speed board wipe in the entire format, on top of that it’s in a colour designed to be able to protect its own spells from counters. Last game someone cyclonic riffed after he destroyed another blue players lands so he couldn’t counter. It forces every player to play blue lest ye get cyclonic rifted. It means blue players don’t have to think about their decks, they don’t have to worry because if worse comes to worse they just cyclonic rift. I hate the card and as a frequent blue player who refuses to play it I can win plenty of games without it thank you. I hope it gets banned and we can all get to enjoy the social casual fun commander games without there being quite so much need to try and guarantee wins in every game.
March 16, 2020 9:45 p.m.
griffstick says... #48
@ Quorvis Talk to you playgroup about playing less blue decks.
March 16, 2020 10:12 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #49
Quorvis I don't have knowledge on your metagame, but this seems extremely circumstantial and anecdotal when asking about a major change to the format.
March 16, 2020 10:15 p.m.
Judo_Cthulhu says... #50
If banning cyclonic rift, a card for which there are multiple substitutes in the decks you guys already have flash in, (don't deny it) dramatically changes the overall meta of the game it should not be in it. It's a lazy overpowered answer in the answer color.
enpc says... #2
No, Cyclonic Rift is annoying but not banworthy. It also encourages good deck building when playing against it, so I endorse that.
August 17, 2019 9:57 a.m.