This month will mark a sad occasion with the Five Color Ruling Council. John Carter will be leaving the council. As he was one of our most dedicated members, he will be missed, and I wish him well in his endeavors.
It’s that time of the year again. Every three months or so the council has a larger ballot to vote upon. This month, we’ll be voting on three Fifth Dawn cards plus an interesting format change.
The council strives to create the best environment for Five Color. Balance comes only through work, and sometimes only through trial and error. We take comments from the public, combine them with our own ideas, and then make our vote. Input is always welcome.
Five Color is an unsanctioned format where players build decks that use at least eighteen cards of each color, with a minimum deck size of 250 cards. The format uses cards from every Type One legal set, but we have our own Banned and Restricted list because we have a unique environment.
The format is overseen by a nine member council, which votes with a monthly ballot. During my tenure, we have cleaned up a lot of rules, taken some cards off the list in order to streamline things, and tried to make the format as balanced as possible. The format is much cleaner now, then when I first took office. We owe a lot of that to John Carter, by the way, who the impetus behind many important changes.
Then, without further ado, here is July’s Ballot:
July’s Ballot
All Suns’ Dawn is up for Banning
Bringer of the Black Dawn is up for Banning
Eternal Witness is up for Restriction
Change the minimum color requirement to twenty cards of each color.
Let me begin with some general comments.
I am uncomfortable with the way that Five Color has been handling situations recently. I think we may be banning too many cards. A card should be banned only as a last resort. Yawgmoth’s Will was restricted for years before finally being banned. At the beginning of the year, we had just twelve cards on the banned list. That was it, just a dozen cards. That list included ante cards that steal cards permanently, and Shahrazad. Of the twelve cards that were banned when this year started, only nine were banned because of their power. For your information, here are the nine cards so banned:
- Battle of Wits (Obviously too powerful in this environment)
- Earthcraft (A mana engine that proved too abusive)
- Holistic Wisdom (A recursive combo engine that proved too abusive)
- Insidious Dreams (As a tutor for multiple cards, could help you set up for a Wheel of Fortune allowing for a game winning condition to occur. Otherwise would set up an entire combo.)
- Intuition (Post-Odyssey block became simply too powerful)
- Phyrexian Portal (An older card that draws cards for three mana each time, and allows a mini-Impulse every time it does.)
- Survival of the Fittest (Obviously overpowered and a regular tutor effect)
- Wild Research (Recursive tutor effect that simply proved to be too broken)
- Yawgmoth’s Bargain (Another engine card, this time one that draws mad numbers of cards)
Notice a theme? Every card that is one that banned list is either a recursive tutoring effect (Wisdom, Survival, Research), or a tutor that gets multiple cards (Insidious Dreams, Intuition) or an engine that draws a lot of cards (Portal, Bargain) or gives you a lot of mana (Earthcraft). The rule, then, was a card needed to be a recurring tutor, a tutor for multiple cards, or a brokenly good mana or card drawing engine. The only exception to that rule was Battle of Wits, and the sheer power of that in a 250 card deck is simply undeniable.
Here’s my problem with the banned list this year – Five Color has added way too many cards to the list. Here are the banned cards added this year, so far:
Crucible of Worlds
Panoptic Mirror
Parallel Thoughts
Sundering Titan
Yawgmoth’s Will
Do they seem to have the power of their predecessors? In all of the previous years of Five Color, only nine cards made it to the banned list because of their power. In six months, we have already added five more cards. How many more cards are we going to add? Banning a card should be the absolute last result. We should not try to take away options from the players.
Note that, of the five cards above, it’s arguable that none have met our criteria for banning in the past (although Y. Will is very close to Holistic Wisdom, so it is probably at home on the list).
I want to keep the B&R list as clunk-free as possible. Yet, this month we have two more candidates for banning. Will they meet the criteria for banning? How will I vote?
Let’s take a look and see:
All Suns’ Dawn (Up for Banning):
Let’s get this out of the way first, All Suns’ Dawn is better than Restock, a card that is on the restricted list. To be fair, Restock is barely on the restricted list. There have been several movements to trim some of the fat from the restricted list, and most people cite Restock as one of the cards that go. On a power scale, Restock is very close to the line. This, then, is hardly reason enough to ban All Suns’ Dawn.
Mox Sapphire is better than Mox Crystal, yet we do not ban the Sapphire. All Suns’ Dawn has to be broken on its own merits to warrant more than mere restriction.
Some of those who argue that All Sun’s Dawn should be banned claim that it is similar to Yawgmoth’s Will in power. Maybe some accept that claim at face value, but I do not. All Suns’ Dawn will never combo with Fastbond, it will never allow you to play ten cards in a turn. It also costs two more than Will does. It will never return an artifact, a land, or two cards of a color. The Dawn is no Will.
I have played with All Suns’ Dawn since getting it out of my first Fifth Dawn case. There are times when I stare down at my graveyard and see.”Strip Mine, Mind Stone, Impulse, Chartooth Cougar, Mana Leak, and Fabricate.” Sure, I can return a Fabricate and a Cougar, but it’s hardly a broken spell.
Assume there is a power grid that you can use to assess the power of cards:
100% Chaff ——————————————————–100% Power
No, somewhere on that line, is where restricted cards are found. And somewhere is where banned cards are found. For example, like this:
100% Chaff————————————————-R|——————B|
Where the R designates where the power of a restricted card begins, and B designates where a banned card begins. Typically, people debate a card if it falls close to the banned or restricted line. Each individual may have a slightly different view of where the lines should be placed, or of where certain cards may fall in relation to the lines. In other words, I might argue for the restriction of Restock, when you think that it should remain free and unfettered.
However, it is easy to see where cards approximately are, in relation to each other. For example, as mentioned earlier, All Sun’s Dawn is obviously more powerful than Restock. Restock is one of those cards on the line between restriction and unrestriction.
On the other hand, Yawgmoth’s Will is on the line between being banned and being restricted. All Suns’ Dawn is less powerful and less abusable that Yawgmoth’s Will. Let’s take a look at our line, now, with us placing Restock and Will.
100% Chaff————————————R|–|Restock————B|—|Will
Now, since All Suns’ Dawn is significantly better than Restock, and significantly worse than Will, it probably falls near the middle, between Restock and Yawgmoth’s Will. Therefore, All Suns’ Dawn falls within the restricted area, not the banned area.
The graphs are fun, but let’s talk frankly, without lines or anything. All Suns’ Dawn is significantly weaker than Yawgmoth’s Will and certainly doesn’t deserve to be compared to it. The Suns’ Dawn simply does not have the same level of power as other cards on the Banned list. However, action should be taken on All Suns’ Dawn. It should be restricted. As such, I Vote for Restriction of All Suns’ Dawn.
Bringer of the Black Dawn (Up for Banning):
I’ll vote to restrict a creature if it’s necessary, but I do not like it. A veritable cornucopia of creature removal runs around the environment. Therefore, creatures generally cannot control the board like other permanents can.
The problem with the Black Bringer is his recursive tutoring effect for no mana. Imagine the following example:
I play Bringer of the Black Dawn, tell you to go. On your turn, you desperately try to find creature removal, but to no avail. I take my turn. During my upkeep, I go from twelve life (because you had already dealt me damage) to ten life, and I put Time Warp on top of my library. I take another turn by playing Time Warp, and attack with a 5/5 trampler.
I can repeat this loop three more times, getting all four copies of Time Warp on my library and attacking. That alone should do it. If it doesn’t, I can play a cheap Time Walk one turn, then recur it and a Time Warp with, say, Restock (All Sun’s Dawn would not work here, by the way) Time Walk and Time Warp, play the Time Walk, then the following turn get a cheap life gaining spell like Heroes’ Reunion while playing Time Warp to take another turn. Heroes’ Reunion will give you three or four more turns of beatdown.
If you have the mana (Or a Dream Halls) and want to go infinite, take a look at Beacon of Tomorrows, which will shuffle itself back into your library after each use for more turn-taking brokenness. Toss in a Time Stretch and a Beacon of Immortality, and you have a nigh-infinite number of turns at your fingertips.
You could kill somebody with 500 life before running out of turns. You could also use the extra turn to set up a Spellbinder/Savage Beating combo that kills in one turn. Heck, you can set up just about anything you heart desires. Let’s stay clear of the casual stuff for a bit, though.
The simple and inescapable fact is that, if you untap with a Bringer out, you’ll almost assuredly win (unless you are at two or less life). Are there ways of handling a Bringer? Of course, but it meets all of the qualifications of a banned card – it is recurring tutor effect a la Wild Research or Survival of the Fittest. As such, Bringer deserves to be banned. Vote for the banning of Bringer of the Black Dawn.
Eternal Witness (Up for Restriction):
I really like Eternal Witness and I am glad that it was printed. It is way better than Regrowth, but it is also harder to cast as well, with that extra Green mana. Adding a creature to the classic effect is a lot of fun for me. What’s next, a demon that tutors for a card when he comes into play? A one-drop artifact creature that taps for two colorless mana? How about a White creature that, when he comes into play, goes and gets three basic lands if an opponent controls more lands than you?
Eternal Witness, being more abusable that Regrowth, should definitely be restricted. There just doesn’t seem like much of a debate over that. Remember that many Five Color decks run base-Green to smooth out their mana base. These decks can easily pay the extra Green mana. Eternal Witness makes Anarchist look like a diseased hooker.
The newest Witness is the easiest of the votes this month, and is really the closest thing to a no-brainer we have. Vote for Restriction of Eternal Witness.
Vote to Raise the Minimum number of Cards Required per Color to Twenty:
Raising the bar a little on the use of colors in Five Color is an interested step to take. There are several reasons given why we might want to take this move. Let’s examine them in detail.
The first reason is that it creates synergy with the online version of Five Color in Magic: the Electronic. They have always required twenty cards of each color, and people who are introduced to the format that way then have to adjust to an eighteen card minimum. Although this is a bonus, it doesn’t seem like much of one to me. If adjusting the minimum is bad for the format, then I could care less about any congruence with the online format.
A second reason is the ease if its use. Requiring eighteen cards seems a bit arbitrary. Twenty is a multiple of four – which is the maximum number of copies of a spell typically allowed in Magic. Therefore, twenty seems a much rounder number. Despite twenty appearing to be a more attractive figure, if moving to twenty cards ends up being bad for the format, then I do not wish to do it.
The question, then, is whether moving to twenty cards is or is not a good thing for the format itself. This is the third argument made by some in favor of the change – that Five Color needs to up the minimum number of colors.
When Five Color was created and the minimum threshold created as well, there were not all of these ways to”cheat” a color requirement like there are today. If you do not want to play Red at all, simply play four Fire / Ice, four Chartooth Cougar (for the appropriate dual land of your choice), two Squee, Goblin Nabob, four Order/Chaos and four Scrap (or any other cycling card for colorless mana). Cheating a color like this is very possible, yet seems disingenuous to the format.
Raising the color requirement bar won’t keep people from playing that strategy, but it may make that strategy slightly less successful. Any change that promotes the use of playing with all five colors in a format named Five Color is alright with me. I’d be fine with twenty-four cards required in each color.
I believe that moving to a requirement of twenty cards per color is a good thing for the format. It lessens the impact of people who try to”cheat” a color by not playing that color. Additionally, it has other benefits, like congruence with the online format, that are helpful consequences of making the change. As such, I’ll Vote in Favor of Adjusting the Minimum Numbers of Cards per Color to Twenty.
That’s it for this month. No matter how the votes turn out, I hope that our format grows stronger. It’s a lot of fun, and well worth the effort we put into it.
Until Later,
Abe Sargent