If we want to get to the root of why creature decks don't see much play it would probably be important to discuss the fact that most decks win through a combo line backed up by free interaction.
i'd argue that bowmaster didn't hit creature decks. it hit green though. because the biggest advantage green provided was mana dorks. now we can't play like 8 of them and suddenly the deck have double the ramp pieces like non green decks. the only reason we care is that that was the only advantage of green. i mean naya and abzan decks are not good and were not good at most players hands. yeah people like tukka exist and had made tayam a real deck a month before the printing of bowmaster, but i think that green still offers a lot of great tutors and many layered creature combo decks seem to still be part of the format. also blue farm the premier deck of the format that doesn't run green is a tymna deck, which means it runs fairly a lot of creatures. not as many as kenrith or 5c sisay do but still enough. also kinnan is still doing fairly well and it is still in the top 10 of the format.
Thanks for watching! I generally agree with that other than saying it didn’t hit creature decks haha your other points I can get with though. My main thing with Bowmasters is that its existence by itself kills (well maybe not kills but severely hurts/limits) an entire archetype of creatures just by the fact that it exists. I just don’t think a 2 mana creature should be so powerful that it by itself warps the way every deck in the format evaluates creatures in deck building, the 1 toughness check pushes a lot of otherwise good cards out of the format like Dorks, Notion Thief, etc and punishes already struggling decks like the examples of Naya decks and Abzan like you said. Kinnan is kind of an outlier with creature decks I think mostly because Kinnan himself is just an extremely powerful card, and even then Kinnan has been falling out of favor a bit in recent months. His results in 2024 have been somewhat lacking
@@FarNorthMtG i won't argue that kinnan has started falling off. i think many people want to run him in the 99 of a temur cell that has thrasios. and i won't argue that bowmaster is not busted. the card is insane. i just wanted to point out how it mostly hurt green specifically since it wasn't uncommon for green decks to keep double dork hands like non green decks would keep land a zero mana rock and a talisman or arcane signet. the card is format warping. however i'd argue that from set the one ring is by far the most insane card they printed. it is almost like they printed another rhystic study. in general that set was insane for all eternal formats. i just hope that people don't find more cards to break from the set as time moves on. personally i would be down for more bans in edh, since most of the problematic cards are not present in our casual tables, but affect cedh.
@@hellNo116 For sure! I def play Kinnan in my Dargo/Thras list and he does work there. TOR was also a card I had on my radar when making this video. Ultimately, I decided against it as my main criteria for bans wasn't necessarily overall power but for cards that can punish certain strategies or are oppressive within the overall format. TOR is definitely crazy but idk if I'd say it falls into that category yet but I could probably be persuaded haha It's honestly so weird to me that the RC doesn't do more with the format. Thanks again for watching and sharing thoughts with me! Appreciate it :)
I think Oracle is the biggest reason why there should be separate banlists. Not so that things can be banned in cEDH that aren't banned in casual, though that may happen, but so that Oracle and Dockside and Jeweled Lotus could be banned in casual, etc.
If we want to get to the root of why creature decks don't see much play it would probably be important to discuss the fact that most decks win through a combo line backed up by free interaction.
i want to agree with you on oracle but then people bring it to casual and ruins the experience
i'd argue that bowmaster didn't hit creature decks. it hit green though. because the biggest advantage green provided was mana dorks. now we can't play like 8 of them and suddenly the deck have double the ramp pieces like non green decks. the only reason we care is that that was the only advantage of green. i mean naya and abzan decks are not good and were not good at most players hands. yeah people like tukka exist and had made tayam a real deck a month before the printing of bowmaster, but i think that green still offers a lot of great tutors and many layered creature combo decks seem to still be part of the format. also blue farm the premier deck of the format that doesn't run green is a tymna deck, which means it runs fairly a lot of creatures. not as many as kenrith or 5c sisay do but still enough. also kinnan is still doing fairly well and it is still in the top 10 of the format.
Thanks for watching! I generally agree with that other than saying it didn’t hit creature decks haha your other points I can get with though.
My main thing with Bowmasters is that its existence by itself kills (well maybe not kills but severely hurts/limits) an entire archetype of creatures just by the fact that it exists. I just don’t think a 2 mana creature should be so powerful that it by itself warps the way every deck in the format evaluates creatures in deck building, the 1 toughness check pushes a lot of otherwise good cards out of the format like Dorks, Notion Thief, etc and punishes already struggling decks like the examples of Naya decks and Abzan like you said. Kinnan is kind of an outlier with creature decks I think mostly because Kinnan himself is just an extremely powerful card, and even then Kinnan has been falling out of favor a bit in recent months. His results in 2024 have been somewhat lacking
@@FarNorthMtG i won't argue that kinnan has started falling off. i think many people want to run him in the 99 of a temur cell that has thrasios.
and i won't argue that bowmaster is not busted. the card is insane. i just wanted to point out how it mostly hurt green specifically since it wasn't uncommon for green decks to keep double dork hands like non green decks would keep land a zero mana rock and a talisman or arcane signet.
the card is format warping. however i'd argue that from set the one ring is by far the most insane card they printed. it is almost like they printed another rhystic study. in general that set was insane for all eternal formats. i just hope that people don't find more cards to break from the set as time moves on.
personally i would be down for more bans in edh, since most of the problematic cards are not present in our casual tables, but affect cedh.
@@hellNo116 For sure! I def play Kinnan in my Dargo/Thras list and he does work there.
TOR was also a card I had on my radar when making this video. Ultimately, I decided against it as my main criteria for bans wasn't necessarily overall power but for cards that can punish certain strategies or are oppressive within the overall format. TOR is definitely crazy but idk if I'd say it falls into that category yet but I could probably be persuaded haha
It's honestly so weird to me that the RC doesn't do more with the format. Thanks again for watching and sharing thoughts with me! Appreciate it :)
@@FarNorthMtG it was a well thought out video. glad to have seen it.
I think Oracle is the biggest reason why there should be separate banlists. Not so that things can be banned in cEDH that aren't banned in casual, though that may happen, but so that Oracle and Dockside and Jeweled Lotus could be banned in casual, etc.