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I do this all the time. My Mina and Denn, Wildborn landfall was turned into Rhonas the Indomitable big mana, into Omnath, Locus of Mana big mana storm. My The Locust God wheels&draw deck, at least the red part, got absorbed into Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion . My boros equipment commander used to be Archangel Avacyn  ^Flip, then went jeskai for a bit with Akiri, Line-Slinger / Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist , and then back to boros, with Akiri+ Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist . Athreos, God of Passage split up in Heliod, God of the Sun and Rankle, Master of Pranks . 5c Golos, Tireless Pilgrim enchantress went Klothys, God of Destiny enchantress, while the mana base is currently making its way to Najeela, the Blade-Blossom .

My decks are always in motion, and when I acquire new legendaries, I do like to fiddle around to see if my decks can get more interesting. Of course, it very much depends on the rest of the deck if I'd still consider it the same deck. Klothys enchantress is completely different from Golos enchantress, but the big mana green decks have always played similarly, making 100 mana and pumping a mana dork with Rhonas for lethal is fun, but if you can make 100 mana, your deck is just more suited to be mono G Omnath. Rhonas is still in the 99. When I made boros equipment, we hadn't started the surge of great boros equipment legends yet that we are enjoying now, naturally I found better choices over time for that.

Yeah, I've never met someone who actually enjoyed pedantic semantics the way I do. If you're quitting defending your point because I refuse to play by your rules, you're proving you're not as invested in the argument, and more invested in conflict, like Grubbernaut tried to tell me.

Or you're abandoning ship because you see you were wrong, which is probably a good call '^^

You're right, I might not have used gospel the right way. Let's analyze. So the question I copied was:

"A better question is: with artifacts already so incredibly strong, why would they ever consider offering them something that does the thing they already do best (fast mana) even better? What does the game stand to gain?" (Emphasis mine)

Where does it say that the card itself will be a better version of anything? Grubbernaut is talking about "doing the thing they already do" being better. An artifact for that would read: ": add for each artifact you control" would still be an artifact that does the things artifacts do even better. Because Tolarian Academy is banned in most formats, even an overpriced artifact that does exactly the same as Academy does the thing already better. Prime Speaker Vannifar does the pod thing better, since you're not even paying for activation, just . A card that does better does not equal a better card.

So I apologize for using the word gospel wrong, however historically, lots of battles and wars have been fought in the name of gospels that were mostly messages of love, so I stand by the comparison. You didn't even interpret the question right, even when you're defending it so valiantly.

And what was the context of "better" there? Better fast mana than creatures does? Better than Academy itself? What Grubbernaut was afraid of, was an artifact that taps for mana for the amount of artifacts you control. Because that makes artifact ramp better than it already is, probably better than it should be, considering how much Academy is restricted and banned in every format right now. And he asked why they would print such a card. A card that does better, not a card that is better. Because they still shouldn't.

That was the question I was answering, related to the original Cradle-Circle Druid. The reason they'd print a card like that, is the same reason they printed Nyx Lotus in the revisit to Theros, after printing Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx in the original block. "Hey, 'member this card everyone used to play?" "Oh I 'member, now I need to buy that"

The power level of the card they'll print does not matter, because that's not the reason it would be printed. The only power level that matters is that of the card referenced, because that will be the reason people will want one. The reason the new one is worse than the original is the only reason they can print it in the first place. But if the effect is memorable enough, people will buy & try again.

So I'm sorry I didn't open my answer with "they won't, but..." I thought that was implied when you'd follow the whole topic, not just the exact bit of text I copied and read that as gospel.

It's not that they don't work, EDH decks just don't translate that well to the archetypes we have for 60 card 1v1 constructed. EDH is a lot more open, you can put a lot more creativity in your decks. I hear cEDH youtubers talk about their decks being proactive, reactive or combo decks, which I think is a much better set of archetypes than aggro/control/midrange.

To get to the original question, I think that the engines of your deck define the archetype. There's so many cards you can play in an EDH deck, the way they work together should categorize it. LeaPlath and seshiro_of_the_orochi made excellent points, by naming what your deck does, in as much detail as you're comfortable sharing, you communicate to the public what kind of deck you made, so people know what to expect playing against it, or how to suggest improvements on this site, etc. From Stompy Elf Mana Combo or Equipment Voltron to Steal-Your-Stuff Stax, the function of connecting your deck to an archetype, is letting people know how to play against it, what hands to keep for a fun game. What that means for 1v1 constructed is very different from what it means in Commander, that's why it's probably better to be more specific in your description, as a kind of Rule 0 oneliner. There's literally thousands of different decks that win with a Isochron Scepter / Dramatic Reversal combo, I personally think that's descriptively useless to call the "Archetype" of your deck.

RedPillRageMage I looked up the rules information on Harness the Storm , and here is what I found:

(2016-04-08) You choose whether to cast the targeted card as the ability resolves. You can’t wait to cast it later, and there’s no way for your opponents to set up a situation where you have to cast the card but don’t want to.

So in the case of your Remand example: your opponent's spell is on the stack, and you cast Remand , targeting that spell. Casting that will trigger Harness the Storm . You can choose to cast a copy of Remand resolving that trigger. The only targets for your graveyard- Remand are your opponent's spell or your hand- Remand . So you can either counter the opponent's spell, fizzling the Remand you cast from hand, or you can Remand your own Remand , ensuring your opponent's spell will resolve.

In short, your Harness the Storm -spell will be placed on the stack immediately on top of the hand spell, so it's very hard to constructively use a counterspell this way, unless you expect a counter war and there's a spell you really need stopped.

Kazuhahaha none taken, but please be reminded that my answers should be placed into the context of the whole topic, not just the previous post. OP's original suggestion was about if WotC will ever print an artifact that relates to Tolarian Academy the way the new Circle of Dreams Druid relates to Gaea's Cradle . You're not going to convince me that the druid actually does a better job cradling than the cradle, only because it's a creature itself. In that light, responding to Grubbernaut asking why they would ever print a card similar enough to Tolarian Academy to draw the comparison, my answer was: they'll print a worse version that obviously nostalgically reminds of Tolarian Academy that won't break any format due to some costs or restrictions. You know, the way The Biblioplex is not quite Library of Alexandria .

Pay more and deal with entire game-winning stacks of spells and abilities, and you get Summary Dismissal , which can counter the Storm trigger, something Disallow can't do.

On top of that, it exiles the spells instead of just countering them, working even through a Boseiju, Who Shelters All -like can't-be-countered effect. If we go by power, it's hard to beat that.

When you cast a Morph and copy it, you'll just get a token copy of the 2/2 morph creature, right? But the token has no backside, you can't turn it face up. So while yes, Volo will always trigger when you cast a morph, because the morph has no creature type to share with others in play or in the graveyard, but the copy will never be more than a 2/2 creature without types or abilities. Not sure if that's worth it building with Volo over something like Animar, Soul of Elements .

I personally think the coolest challenge of Volo is the search for utility creatures without overlapping types, without easy cheats. Lots of bounce and Regrowth effects to control the contents of your graveyard and battlefield, if you do decide to play multiple instances of the same type. Maybe Mutate, to hide types already in play.

Please don't waste food by throwing it at other players, use Ghirapur AEther Grid and recycle every turn ;)

Pact of Negation is the default "I'm comboing off this turn, and if you try to interfere, I got this up my sleeve, because there will be no next upkeep"-counterspell. Its function is much more defensive and therefor different from actual Counterspell , which' main use is to stop your opponent from progressing the game, not just to stop them interfering with your plans. It's typically played in decks that draw their entire library, like modern Ad Nauseam -combo decks, where Counterspell , while iconic, doesn't see much play outside of EDH anymore, mostly because there's many better options fitted for your specific needs nowadays, as this discussion shows.

Another cool idea to use Pact of Negation is Hive Mind -shenannigans to troll out non-blue decks.

The best counterspell is the one you can keep in hand because your opponent is trying to play around it.

I feel Mental Misstep needs to be in the discussion somewhere, because it's actually powerful enough to be actually restricted in Vintage, and banned almost everywhere else. So:

1 . Mental Misstep

2 . Force of Will

3 . Mana Drain

4 . Chalice of the Void - debatable to call a counterspell, but it literally counters spells.

5 . Hard to choose between Daze , Pact of Negation , Force of Negation or Fierce Guardianship , so I'll just go with Negate , for its omniprescence and reliability in every format from limited to commander and everything in between.

My wildcard goes to Mana Tithe . Noone expects the Mana Tithe !

I found that, I usually kill people with damage before I kill them with the Stadium in go-wide decks. I'm still running it though, it makes great stories :D

Grubbernaut "A better question is: with artifacts already so incredibly strong, why would they ever consider offering them something that does the thing they already do best (fast mana) even better? What does the game stand to gain?"

Well that's easy to answer, lots of cards are printed whose only function is: "hey, remember this broken old card that was really good in other formats in the past? Wanna play with it again?" Like Prime Speaker Vannifar is referring to Birthing Pod , Gilded Goose being a warped Birds of Paradise , Growing Rites of Itlimoc  ^Flip as Gaea's Cradle , every Magus of the XXX ever, etc.

Nostalgia sells packs.

Xenagos, the Reveler already was a Gaea's Cradle on a stick, and nobody ever got excited over that. Circle of Dreams Druid 's biggest hype is being an Elf, for untap shenanigans with Wirewood Symbiote and the like.

I guess a Tolarian Academy -artifact would probably look a lot like Nyx Lotus , counting artifacts instead of devotion. Even then, I don't expect one in a Standard set the upcoming year, they've printed way too much Treasure Token generation recently to risk even a watered down version.

jaymc1130 there's plenty opportunity to tap out past turn 1 in cEDH:

Force of Will , Force of Negation , Pact of Negation , Fierce Guardianship , Deflecting Swat , Misdirection ...

Notion Thief also has flash, right? And I was taught that it's better to draw cards than to ramp, so Notion Thief should be at least as big of a problem as Hullbreacher ... However, 4 mana is significantly more than 3 in formats that care about being efficient, and spending resources on ramping might be worse than spending them on securing cards in hand, but Wizards should have known that ramping without spending extra resources is among the most broken things in Magic, they've known that since the original Moxen.

Azdranax cEDH is not a separate format. It's a different philosophy on the same format. It's using the rules of EDH (which is a casual format by definition, as you can read here ) with the mindset of a competitive format like Legacy. By definition, cEDH is a misinterpretation of how the format is supposed to be played. The most competitive players, however, are usually the most vocal about what they don't like, and have gotten really good at kicking up enough ruckus to change what they don't agree with. That's how Flash got banned. The RC doesn't typically consider cEDH because they don't regulate the format to be compatible with cEDH. cEDH is a just a community response, that explicity uses the exact same rules for differently-themed games. I think that's also why Opposition Agent is not banned in EDH, because that is specifically only dangerous in cEDH, and a lot less potent against some Ally tribal deck, or whatever casual battlecruise deck EDH was intended for as a format.

If you're looking for a 100 card singleton format that's aimed at competitive play and doesn't use a casual banlist, try Canadian Highlander. It uses the Vintage banlist, which means just no Shahrazad , dexterity cards, ante cards and cards with the Conspiracy type. But if you want to play Commander of any kind, you're bound by the RC's banlist, by virtue of format philosophy.

It's technically still an artifact :p

Well I think we can't avoid discussing Old Gnawbone itself in this specific case that's determined by flavor over function. In D&D and many other fantasy settings, the trope exists of dragons raiding the land, amassing vast amounts of treasure, which is why they're iconic boss monsters with hoards of loot that's worth risking the extinction of your entire adventurers' party. I really like a dragon that 'steals' treasure, but true to the trope, there should be a reward for killing it. Old Gnawbone is lacking in that department.

How it ended up as mono green is beyond me though.

I think I remember discussing along in that topic, arguing that Hullbreacher was probably worse than Oppo Agent (which apparently feels true to the RC) and that Oppo Agent without the steal is exactly what the format needs '^^

I still think Agent would be a lot cooler as a card if it only dictated what your opponent finds, instead of taking it for yourself to play.

Yeah if everyone tries to win the same way, Opposition Agent gets better. That's why its mere existence invites you to be creative, should shake up the meta, and punishes players for just copying what's good and popular. Punishes people for optimizing their greedy 4/5-color mana bases with all 10 fetches. If you don't run Thoracle Consultation, they can't find your pieces for themselves to use. Your sultai deck can take my Sword of Feast and Famine when my Open the Armory gets Oppo Agented. Good luck with it, I'll smash your face with a Colossus Hammer anyway.

I'm optimistic in my views of thàt being Oppo's intended purpose, shaking up the format and breeding creativity to deal with that card's existence. Instead, we mostly got complaints from players with uniform top-tier lists that got punished for playing what everyone else is playing. Those are the exact players the card is meant to punish, I have a hard time feeling sorry for them '^^

As mentioned, Hullbreacher 's utility is a lot less reliant on your opponent's deck to abuse with silly results, and therefor a lot more pressing as a problem. I do feel a bit sad that I never got to resolve one in real life after purchasing one, due to the practical difficulties of live play in quarantaine times, but I understand the ban.