Trade Secrets Banned! :(
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on April 22, 2013, 10:48 a.m. by smash10101
Trade Secrets is banned and Staff of Domination is unbanned. Thoughts?
Personally, I really like my Trade Secrets in my Zedruu the "Goodhearted" deck, but I guess that's where catch and release will go now. Not sure if the staff is going anywhere for me, but I guess it opens up some crazy interactions.
Ah I see. Obsidiandice announced it, they just haven't actually updated either version of the list yet.
April 22, 2013 11:37 a.m.
I want to see Epochalyptik's thoughts.
Also, here is the link.
April 22, 2013 11:38 a.m.
I can understand their reasoning for the ban. Generally speaking I see Trade Secrets happening one of two ways any time I or someone else casts it.
1/ It is cast by someone on themselves while Mindslavering the person who owns the card. They keep choosing to draw two, while the Mindslavered opponent keeps choosing not to use the 'may' draw 4, giving massive card advantage to the one with Mindslaver
2/ It is cast by someone with no maximum hand size on someone else at the table with no maximum hand size, so they happily draw the majority of their deck and, as the rationale said on the MTG forums: turns a 4-player game into a 2-player game.
April 22, 2013 11:42 a.m.
I'm more curious on what people think of Staff of Domination being unbanned. Card can do some serious combo work.
April 22, 2013 11:53 a.m.
The unbanning of it seems weird. It was banned because it was a huge combo piece, but it's been unbanned only because there are even more combos now? How does that fix the original problem?
April 22, 2013 11:57 a.m.
Epochalyptik says... #8
The logic behind the Trade Secrets ban is solid. That card often becomes "we both draw until we hit Reliquary Tower ," and it has a tendency to exclude the non-chosen players from the rest of the game. You could argue that there are cards that are less fun, but there are few that are more damaging to multiplayer games.
Staff of Domination does have legitimate applications as a utility card, but it will invariably be played in the very combos that initially got it banned. The RC's assessment is correct, though. There are tons of more viable combos out there, and they will continue to be the most powerful options. The fact that Staff of Domination is an artifact does make it more flexible because any deck can abuse it, but I do think it will see fair play.
Devonin says... #2
Er...where exactly did you see that?
Wizards didn't do any updates to the MTGO Commander banned/restricted list, and I'm over at mtgcommander.net's deck construction page and the newest thing on the banned list there is Worldfire.
April 22, 2013 11:36 a.m.