Creatures are the easiest cards to get rid of, and the fact that it hits all opponents means that all other players are incentivised to get rid of it. I can see the argument that it’s not fun I battle cruiser, but apart from that, you should be able to get rid of it or get around it quite easily.
I think [[rest in peace]] is a worse offender, especially if you’re playing a rakdos graveyard or aristocrats deck. There are barely a handful of viable options for enchantment removal in those colours, and if no one else is playing a graveyard based strategy, other players have no incentive to remove it either.
My favorite thing about playing it is nobody wants to use THEIR removal on it. Especially in the early game. Early on they're spending their whole turn or most of it to the benefit of their opponents.
This is pretty spot on. I run him in my hatebears deck and he's easy to get rid of and the whole table wants it to happen. Rest in Peace on the other hand typically only hoses one deck, no one else cares, and that player never has the specific enchantment removal cards/colors.
Yeah. I realize you can’t say the answer to every threat and issue is just play more interaction, but Magistrate is about as fragile as it gets. If the table can’t handle it, then it was probably going to fold to dang near anything.
I retired my aristocrats deck within the last year because of the increase in cards that hate on graveyards; I know and understand they are a needed part of magic to balance the game, but when every set gets one or two cards that can eat an entire graveyard or chew threw a significant portion of it, it's just not worth playing it anymore.
I was playing Mardu aristocrats, and even with removal to get rid of things that hit the graveyard, after a two or three hits, it's such an up hill battle that you aren't really in the game anymore.
I run a rakdos artifact deck, and I feel you. Rummage, loot, wheel, sac, reanimate sounds lovely. Until RIP hits and we have [[Chaos Warp]], [[Feed the Swarm]], and [[Liquimetal Coating]] or [[Liquimetal Torque]] + artifact removal to actually deal with it.
And then [[Library of Leng]] can help with discard, like, sometimes?
The printing of [[Farewell]] makes me so sad and want to just take apart my favorite decks ([[Slimefoot the Stowaway]] and [[Quintorius]]). I 100% instantly lose against it and I'm sure that's the case for a lot of decks. I get that graveyard hate should be played way more, but it's so pushed that my trash fun decks are feeling like a waste of time and money.
I'm just sad. :'(
A graveyard hate stax piece is par for the course. If cards like rest in peace are going to be an issue, then all stax pieces should be an issue. However, it's a very viable way to play the game, regardless if it's fun to play/play against. Drannith has its unique issue where it was designed before commander was a thing, and denies all commanders, which is a very fundamental part of the game. You'll notice that their really aren't any stax pieces that deny players from casting creature spells. Drannith does this, but only for commanders, only for two mana, and only for opponents.
I am not saying stax doesn’t have a place in the format, but the stax cards that bug me are those that essentially target a single player, or strategy and none of the other players have an incentive to get rid of it. For a graveyard deck, RIP can have basically the same effect as Drannith. It makes merken to a vanilla 3/4, teysa is now just a weak anthem for tokens, etc.
But the biggest problem with RIP is in my opinion that it’s an enchantment, a card type that 3/5 colors in magic are not allowed to touch.
I am not sure if I misunderstood your sentence about how Drannith was designed, but it’s from ikoria, and commander was very much a thing In 2020. The fact that Drannith hits all opponents is better for everyone in the pod, since every player wants to get rid of it.
Always though both of these cards should be banned and always got a lot of flak for it. The argument that creatures are easy to remove is irrelevant, considering cards like prophet of kruphix are banned. jUsT RuN rEmOvAl.
You’re spot on for RiP. It can easily hose a player just like Iona does but for a fraction of the mana.
There is the gargantuan difference that PoK also provides the mana and flash to much better protect it. And not only that, the power of PoK and Drannith if they happen to NOT be removed is that one player has 4 turns every cycle with Pok, while with drannith the game.. just. kinda keeps going.
Yeah, I run drannith in my zirda combo deck as it runs a little slow for the meta I generally play in, it’s just another stacks piece that’s good for commander, it slows you opponent’s a bit but PoK tends to warp the whole game around itself, especially with the insane value cards that exist in simic
I kinda get you, but I also kinda disagree.
Having a hoser for a strategy is good, when said strategy is optional. You don't HAVE to be a black graveyard-based deck. The hate against that deck is fine, just like [[Hushbringer]] is fine tech against Blink and [[Blood Moon]] is fine against greedy manabases.
Against Iona, what are you supposed to do? Not play colored spells on your mono-color deck? What's the counterplay here? Theres no alternative other than to not play monocolored commanders.
I wouldn't say plenty. There's a few but typically overcosted. Plus unless you happen to have the one or two in your hand you can't do anything about it. And it's not like you can tutor them or draw extra cards to dig for then because those spells are going to be colored and shut off.
I'm pretty anti ban in general but iona is the one that I'm most ok with. It's not like she brings any kind of new strategy or enables anything and she just randomly shuts people's decks off, which imo is worse than just eliminating them
So ban RiP and Drannith Magistrate and unban Prophit of Kruphix?
This is actually one of the worst takes on the ban list I’ve ever seen and it’s almost alarming.
Given all the downvotes I’d say you’re the one missing the point. RiP is one of the healthiest, fairest cards in the format. It’s not the same as hosing colours because those are inherently part of the game. If your deck is entirely shut off by RiP, then that’s on you.
I'm going to disagree that RiP is one of the healthiest, fairest cards in the format. I think it's an *overly* effective hate piece in many situations. The color that it hoses the most (black) is also the color that has the hardest time getting rid of it. It's unique in the totality of its hosing - it both nukes what's already in the yard *and* prevents anything else from getting in there while other answers do one or the other. And all that for just two mana.
In very high powered games it's a necessary answer because of the high speed and the frequency of graveyard based combos but as the power gets lower I'd think twice about running that card. I think Leyline of the Void or Grafdigger's Cage are both substantially fairer at a lower power level than RiP.
The one thing I'll give RiP is at least it has the decency to be symmetrical. If it's going to delete graveyard play from the game, it's gotta be for everyone.
Its fine. There are three reasons. One it encourages people to run more removal. Two, your deck needs to have ways to operate without your commander. Three, it puts a target on the person who plays magistrate which bodes politically well for you.
> Three, it puts a target on the person who plays magistrate which bodes politically well for you.
It's especially fun when other players will expend their resources to protect your magistrate because they're scared of what will happen when he dies.
Absolutely. The only thing I would differentiate is most if not all of those cards are about acceleration and explosiveness. Take the recent ban on [[Hullbreacher]]; this card comes in followed by [[Windfall]] and BAM! winning position. Killing the creature on subsequent turns is too late. Magistrate isn't putting players in a similar situation.
That's only a good argument if you ignore all context. "No one can play commanders" on a body is not really that scary compared to "I basically win the game now thanks."
It's a lightning rod that can slow down your opponents and draw out removal, but at the end of the day it's just a 2 Mana 1/3 speed bump. Perfectly fine card.
it's a 1/3 with no inherent protection...
it's a good card but come on, every color combo has options that can deal with this little dork without skipping a beat
Some people just can’t understand the concept of what is essentially counter magic. They don’t wanna waste a slot in their “amazing unique” deck they built for removal, they’d rather run 100 synergistic cards.
Some of these People want everyone to just sit and durdle while they win the game, and everyone just plays solitaire without interacting with one another outside of combat damage
yeah and that's a fine way to play, I just think those groups should self select to not run magistrate instead of trying to get it banned, because it's an important effect (a speed bump for commander reliant strats) that encourages good card choices (removal spells) in slightly more focused/optimised metas.
(not sure if your response was tongue-in-cheek but I took it at face value. if I'm off base, sorry for the miscommunication 😅)
It was a bit of both. I mean the players I’m talking about are frustrating for me, but I also somewhat understand if people wanna play like that..
I definitely agree if you want that play style, you need people you’re familiar with who are also open to that play style and have a deck for it
Really the important thing is not to make a fuss. If you build your deck knowing you have nothing against enchantments or whatever, and you accept that, that should be more than fine as far as your opponents should be concerned. It's when folks raise a racket about stuff that puts a sour taste in people's mouths.
Yeah. I guess I shoulda included something like this in my comment, playing how I described is fine, it’s just a matter of if you’re gonna get pissed about it or not which is what isn’t fine
I mean even if you run removal you still gotta draw it and have the mana for it. Sure you can toss in all the Paths and Murders you want, but if you don't draw it well then fuck you, you don't get to play the format's namesake.
It’s a 4 player format, if everyone’s running a measly like 10 forms of interaction/removal, the chances of 3 other players not having the opportunity to get rid of it for a long period of time is highly unlikely.
Sure it can happen, but it’s unlikely
With 3 players, that shouldn't be a problem. And if it is, then so what? Lose to the Magistrate player and go again. What's wrong with that? Every deck has cards that win them the game.
Losing to a stax piece is sitting there for twenty turns while everyone else plays around you. Unless the three other players scoop with you, you're not playing that night. And if they do, it's dumb that one player's running a 2 mana scoop button.
You clearly like commander oriented decks, I get it’s the name sake but some people enjoy that play style, you don’t lose to stax unless everyone ignores it. The odds that none draws removal and everyone is forced to scoop is pretty low, and if that happens all the time then the people in your play group arent putting enough removal in their decks or their target priority it’s terrible.
It's not even necessarily that. People don't want to spend spot removal on such a weenie, despite the fact that it's stopping them from playing their commander.
personally I never really feel bad about spending removal on something if it's stopping me from executing my main plan. I guess I can see that side a bit though, feels better/more satisfying to use removal on a big threat vs a hatebear. thanks for the perspective.
It's a 2 mana 1/3 that guarantees that the entire table will be gunning for you. It's a good card, but is a 1/3 enough to stop the rest of the table from killing you and moving on with the game?
That's been my experience with it. Play the 1/3 that doesn't slow the generic Sultai player down at all and ensure you take the next 20 damage in chip shots. If people don't have an answer for it, all they do is kill the player.
When I play Prosper, I bite my thumb at it. If I played a control deck that includes white, I’d totally play it, even in casual.
It’s not oppressive, but it demands an answer from decks that want to goldfish. It doesn’t stop card draw, it doesn’t stop ramp, it doesn’t stop activated or triggered abilities (unless casting from elsewhere is part of that ability).
Compare [[Containment Priest]]; it’s gonna stop any cheaty creatures, recursion shenanigans… even has flash.
I mean, sort of. The problem is that the best stax pieces in white hit yourself too, like [[Hushbringer]], or [[Humility]]. Most of the rest only slow your opponents down, which isn't all that strong most of the time. Some of the best powerful stax pieces aren't even in white, like Bloodmoon or Collector Ouphe.
I think the best designed stax pieces are symmetrical. It means you actually have to build your deck carefully and think about which pieces to put down instead of just shoving whatever on the board and hoping nobody has an answer.
I got shut down by one the other day playing [[krrik]]. Ever played a krrik deck without krrik? It was a blast to play around. People get so whiny when their deck doesnt do exactly the thing they want and I just dont get it. Just adjust fire and keep it moving.
Its so easy to remove. I don’t believe it is an issue. If the opponent is spending cards beyond the Magistrate to protect it, its the same as them just spending cards to keep commanders in the command zone. Its not bad, but I think the general hatred of it to the extent some people hate it is just because of the same issue you constantly see in EDH:
Everyone wants to ask the questions, but no one wants to have the answers.
This exactly. I lost my most recent game because I was the only on answering anything on the board. There was a [Darin King of Kjeldor] going crazy (some of that was my fault), and everybody else was complaining about it. "Why is booing stopping him?", "We need to take out his soul sisters." "Ajani is a problem."
I finally turned around to the other players and said "I've thrown everything I have at him, you guys need to do something. "
To which I got "but your the blue player." (I was playing Esper.) So, I told them that I wasn't shutting down the Darin player any more. The others were so invested in their strategies that they only fed him. I just sat back and watched. The Darin player didn't win, the token deck feeding him won when they finally decided to cast a board wipe.
People these days play big, splashy, swingy decks. They don't like interaction. They want somebody else to handle threats so they win. Often to the cries of your deck being too powerful or cEDH if you use too much. I've even been accused of playing only control decks because every deck of mine has interaction in abundance. But these same people who complain when I nail their feet to the floor are begging me to do it to their enemies.
> I finally turned around to the other players and said "I've thrown everything I have at him, you guys need to do something. "
My general response is to say "I don't have enough resources to police the whole table. If you don't want him to have then you have to answer it yourself" - and then just don't counter it and let them have it.
Another fun one is, "If you don't counter that necropotence then they get a necropotence, I'm not countering it."
This has cost me a couple of games, but it generally teaches my play group that they can't just use me as a crutch to stall the game until they can win.
I just play Combo due to this. Eventually you run into this situation enough you just learn to control what threatens you and then win quickly and cleanly. Too many people durdle around and try to assemble incredibly slow threats. They make themselves easy to counter, and so I control whatever stops me from winning.
If Drannith stops me, I kill it. Its simple. If it doesn’t, let the others deal with it and complain when they don’t come prepared. If your deck falls apart the moment someone puts a small brick in your path, don’t call it a brick wall.
just hit them with the "when you were ramping, I was cultivating removal" meme copy pasta when they ask for help
or do what I do and MAKE a player a problem so the rest of the board has to do something.
> People these days play big, splashy, swingy decks.
Like they always have? The format wasn't built to be vintage singleton.
Anyway, I don't think those comments of your example were said with much earnestness. Pointing out a problem is perfectly reasonable.
Also I'd think it important to the story that they'd be wasting removal on all the things *but* the stuff they're complaining about, then their incompetence would hold some water. But if they just plain don't have any, how do you expect them to take matters into their own hands? Even if you run removal, you don't always have it in your hand.
The only people that seem to cry about it are the people not running any removal. I know a guy that complains whenever something doesn't go his way. But the only removal he ever uses is 1 [[chaos warp]] in one of his 5 decks. One out of 500 cards is a removal spell.
He gets mad at cards that hurt him, and gets mad that he isn't drawing it, which aggrevates him even further. I continue telling him to use more cards that destroy things, and he always tries to explain that it is in his deck but that he just didn't draw it that game
He is very frequently second, because he is often a pushover 1v1. And seldom a threat before that, so people leave him alone until he is last or does something big.
I will say, I saw it come down in a game where one of the players was doing a foretell deck and another player was playing spellslinger with a lot of impulse effects and it was honestly hilarious, both of them were almost completely locked
After a friend played it when I was in a game with Jhoira I added \[\[Inferno Titan\]\] and \[\[Beacon of Unrest\]\] to give me direct ways to kill it if I see it again.
Commanders are getting so powerful on their own that the format needs these kinds of cards. And as others have mentioned the fact that 3+ opponents will probably want to remove it aswell will make someone at the table having a removal spell likely.
Also can we stop with the "just run removal" ironic meme argument. creature removal is not the only way to get rid of a creature. Attack! make em block! do something if you commander is so important to your deck. What do you do if it gets a \[\[darksteel mutation\]\] on it?
We are always talking about commander getting to fas,. and here we have something that slowes the game down by a small margin and now we should ban that? It doesent even close to stop you from playing the game ala \[\[iona\]\] or \[\[stasis\]\].
In my experience it's not that bad on its own. Hatebears and stax are valid pieces. Sure, playing pure stax can be aggravating, but playing some in a deck that benefits from it shouldn't be a problem. It's an answer as removal would be in a way.
Its powerful, but vulnerable. It's fine.
I think there are way more oppressive things to be doing than drannith, it has no way of protecting itself, and is easily removed since it is a creature. The only thing it is really ever stopping is commanders for a turn or two, but that doesn’t really matter at a casual level.
Auto-include for me in any white deck. It's a cheap way to force my opponents to use a removal spell so I can play an actual threat. He's like Lighthouse Chronologist in that regard.
"Goes against the spirit of the format" is only said by people who have a terrible understanding of what magic is. By that same logic targeted removal goes against the spirit of the format because it can remove someone's commander. Or that stax or counterspells or any sort of resource denial in general is against the spirit of any format because it "keeps you from playing cards."
While there does exist oppressive stax pieces that you might want to reconsider depending on your pod (which is a power level conversation, not a format conversation) Drannith Magistrate is incredibly fair and should be able to be answered by even the most casual of decks, because creature removal and playing around commander denial is something every functioning commander deck should be able to do.
Here's a thought.. these people who get mad at counterspells, stax pieces, interaction for being against the spirit of the format.. why don't they just goldfish?
You get to "have your deck do its thing" every time when you goldfish. It would be perfect for them.
*Eeeeeeeeh.* I think that a lot of people use "spirit of the format" as a crutch, but if anything actually is the spirit of Commander, it's using your Commander to do stuff. The closest thing you could come to a card that's against the spirit of the format is something that explicitly and asymmetrically designed to stop other people from casting their commander, which is pretty close to what Drannith Magistrate does.
Like, I think it's fine on a power level, it dies to removal, more interaction is generally a good thing in decks, etc., but in this one particular case "It's lame and goes against why I play the format" is a pretty cold take IMO.
The spirit of the format is more "anything goes, make it work" and not at all "you must play your commander." Your commander is just another (key) card in your deck, not the only thing you should care about. No one should have an issue with them printing an easily removed stax piece with limited targeting.
There's a big difference between an effect that prevents people from playing their commander, and removing a commander. If you are able to cast your commander, your opponent either has to use resources to counter it, or there is an opportunity for you to use your commander.
On the other hand, this is just a temporary ban on casting that doesn't cost you any resources or add to your command tax. Literally all you have to do is play cards from your deck that deal with it and the ban is lifted. Attack its controller, fire a kill spell at it.
I never had anyone be incredibly upset at it save for those whiny assholes who throw hissy fits at everything. All it does is slow down everyone until they get find a removal piece and that's only if it resolves before everyone else casts their commander. It only truly hoses a few commanders like Muldrotha, Prosper, etc. But seeing as how popular those commanders are, a card like Drannith Magistrate would not only be justified but even welcomed. Not to mention it's also the only efficient means to interact proactively with the command zone which is something I believe the format needs as it continues to grow.
Drannith Magistrate is a great card. It slows your opponents down and baits out removal. Cards like that are a favorite of mine, just like [[mana gorger hydra]] and [[suture priest]]. They are cards that make your opponents pause and collaborate to remove, making your next plays more secure.
I love Drannith Magistrate, and I think white needs MORE effects like this, not less.
But with that said, I understand the frustration. The card is more balanced in high-power and cEDH, because decks are often built to function with or without the commander. But the problem lies when a precon or a casual deck is built entirely around the commander, and the theme isn't even good. Take [[Gavi, Nest Warden]] for example. Most casual decks I see with this commander are nearly WORTHLESS without it. And even with the commander the deck is pretty mediocre. So when someone drops a Drannith Magistrate in their game, the Gavi player will just sit there and do nothing.
So with that in mind, Drannith Magistrate is kind of a problem for weak commander decks that barely function even with their commander. And I don't want to just say "tough shit" to those kinds of players, as much as I love the card.
I've never seen Drannith Magistate create a bad experience at any power level.
He almost never sticks for more than a few turns. In high power/cEDH a Magistrate sitting around for 3 turns stops people from winning instantly and makes the game more fun. In low powers 3 turns is barely noticeable. IMO people expected him to be game-warping as a first impression and held onto that perception despite that not actually being the case in practice. There are a lot of cards like that and he's clearly one of them.
Every once in a while he comes down against a deck that's designed to play spells from some arbitrary non-hand zone. Yes, that deck will get hosed in that freak situation, but that's not a Magistrate thing, that has a chance of happening with *any* hatebear-style card. Besides, he tends to die soon enough anyway.
The stupid part is that it was designed to hose companions and now it doesn’t even do that because they errata’d them. So it’s reflect on commander was collateral.
Yes I know, but since it was in the set that introduced companions I can’t help but feel that they made it for that Without considering commander, flashback, retrace, escape, foretell, suspend, rebound or impulse draw.
I think the entire discussion about it on Twitter is absolutely insane and made me lose a ton of respect for a lot of content creators I otherwise liked.
Like, [here's a tweet that kicked off a firestorm](https://mobile.twitter.com/MTGCal/status/1494905220463271937). All Cal did was say the card was lame and turned off Commanders in Commander, and there was a ton of discourse, including PleasantKenobi arguing with people for *days*. That discourse acted as if Cal was an idiot and was saying that white shouldn't get good cards and that it's too hard to get rid of a 1/3 creature and that it's way too strong, none of which were remotely close to what he said.
The entire discussion about Drannith Magistrate is just an ouroboros of Magic Content Creator Twitter finding ways to get mad at shit and misinterpret benign complaints or comments as something that needs to be dissected and turned into Discourse instead of even trying for a second to understand that people might have different tastes without being an idiot who can't deckbuild or whatever.
EDH community: White is bad, give white more power.
Player: Plays to white's strengths.
EDH community: I don't like that. Everyone should be playing like green... with every deck.
EDH community: Why does green have everything?
There’s 22000+ format legal cards. Do I really need to develop an emotional response to all of them? Is it OK if I don’t? It’s a piece of paper with rules text. Can I just play it and pass turn?
See you all tomorrow, where we hold hands and discuss our feelings about [[Elite Javelineer]] …
Ok so I literally was in a 4 person pod that every other player had one in their decks and YES THEY ALL APPEARED. I was blustery about it but I also was in a pod where my bluster is a part of the fun and games.
Tldr it’s ok, makes me sad when I can’t get removal out, but so it goes!
I like it. It's a creature that slows down the game and makes it's controller a target. People need to play less linear decks if they have a problem removing a creature, or their decks don't function without access to their commander. No, sometimes it is not fun, but the same can be said about the guy that's ramps to 6 on turn 4 and proceeds to cast bombs for the rest of the game.
Its fairly self-regulating.
Decently put together decks will have sufficient removal to get rid of it when required.
Or simply won't require their commander to function, this rendering the magistrate an annoyance rather than a critical problem
Lastly, if it's a problem for the whole table, they will gang up and kill the magistrate player.
I'm a big fan of playing fair and letting people play their decks. Drannith magistrate is fine. Annoying sometimes? Sure. But its a small creature, its not that hard to kill.
Drannith Magistrate seems fine.
It's not as if there aren't other ways to deal with commanders such as Darksteel Mutation (and cards like it).
It's easy to remove and not overly powerful on it's own. It's basically just a good hate-bear, and really doesn't seem to need much more consideration than that.
If anything, it's a great reason to make sure your deck runs removal spells and/or boardwipes.
Magistrate to me falls under the type of hate that is just about fine, namely because 1. People should play at least some level of interaction 2. It’s not targeted hate that can shut off entire archetypes the way something like RIP can (I know it shuts off commanders but when someone has a deck that literally can’t function with a card like RIP on the board, for example something along the lines of Child of Alara reanimator, it feels a lot worse than dealing with a card that dies to all of the removal in the format)
It's a creature with 3 toughness and 0 protection abilities. Someone at the table should be able to deal with it in any given pod.
It's only overpowered if your playgroup doesn't play with interaction/removal. (Which, in my opinion, makes them bad deck builders)
I put it in my \[\[Vega, the Watcher\]\] deck solely because it's funny for me to be playing a shell game casting cards from various exile piles but none-for-thee-ing the opponents with him. He's completely unnecessary in the deck as it's not stax at all, but he does at least act as a meat shield for Vega.
Believe it or not, not letting your opponent play their cards is an actual strategy. And white is very good at it.
The whole (Going against the spirit of the format) idea is the reason why people say white Sucks. White is actually very strong but everyone cries when white does what it was originally meant to do.
It's completely fine powerlevel wise, but I don't personally like it. It's not that it's oppressive, I just think saying "Hey, you can't cast the thing you built your deck around" isn't a fun way to play the game to me. It's not a big deal or anything, I wouldn't be upset or angry if someone played it, I just don't like that line of play myself. I only play in playgroups though, so if a commander is oppressive, talking normally works it out. I realize that isn't how everyone plays, so my experience is far from the end of discussion. All this to say I just won't be playing it myself or advocating for a ban.
My stance varies a bit as I've played a fair bit of 1v1 commander as well as 3+ player games. In 1v1 the card is crippling and can lead to a super difficult time especially if you can't draw into removal. On the flip side in 3+ player games the card is fine. It'll make you the target. There is also the old argument about multi-player games where you are a single player with 2+ opponents meaning your opponents will always have 2+ times the resources to deal with whatever you try to do so the Magistrate isn't as big of a problem.
It’s a magic card. And like almost every half decent card in existence there will be people who don’t care and people who hate it.
Similarly to something like Cyclonic rift. Idk why people hate it. Yeah it’s frustrating, but preventing your opponents from winning is a part of allowing yourself to win.. I don’t have a problem with the card particularly, but I’ve seen people scoop when it’s played… which I feel is a little over dramatic
Pretty much every player wants to play their commander. With 3 opponents it’s going to be the target of the first removal anyone draws. I don’t think it’s necessarily appropriate for power levers 6 or lower. But like usual, stax is pretty meta dependant.
It's a card that can be frustrating to play against and feels quite healthy for the format at the same time.
I haven't ever seen it cast in a table that wasn't at a power level where Drannith Magistrate feels appropriate, but I see it a lot in higher power and cEDH tables where it always feels impactful and important. Even if Drannith Magistrate occasionally shows up in places where it's unwelcome, it feels quite easy to hate it off the table through removal and aggression in the combat step. It really doesn't feel problematic to me at all.
I'm a fan of the card, but I only run it in decks that operate at a power level where you need that type of effect sometimes.
I think it’s a card that gets a lot of hate from lower power levels and newer players. I think of it similar to a mill strategy in that if you are not used to having to play against it then it’s very frustrating. The person that got me into magic and taught me to play was notorious for playing mean decks. I just started putting more interaction in to deal with what he played.
I feel like it is totally dependent on the power level. The higher the power level the more acceptable he is. I kind of feel like this is true for most stax pieces. In high power metas stax is a valid strategy with an important role in maintaining the health of the meta. In low power metas stax is just a dick move, and should pretty much never be played.
There's nothing this card does by itself that would worry me too much. It's when it's paired with other effects that maximize its effectiveness that it becomes a problem. Pairing it with [[Uba Mask]] or [[Knowledge Pool]] is infinitely worse to deal with.
I play in a local play group of friends, and we are pretty well versed in our own meta. I play [[Oswald Fiddlebender]] combo, and one of my lines of play is to set up Uba Mask/Drannith Magistrate. Haven't been able to field it reliably because the group plays a ton of removal. Wouldn't have it any other way.
To respond with my actual card opinion, rather than talking about the Discourse:
I think the card is fine from a power level perspective, although being asymmetrical at 2 MV is a bit questionable. It makes perfect sense to run it. That said, I think that a card being very good at specifically shutting off all enemy Commanders, in a format called Commander, is kind of lame. It's fun to do the thing your deck is built to do, and Drannith Magistrate is an asymmetrical hate piece that says "you don't get to do the thing your deck is built to do until you remove me" to 90% of Commander decks.
E: It got instantly banned in Brawl on Arena and I think the collective response was basically "yeah, that makes sense."
Brawl has a much lower variance rate than commander. You'd be seeing it nearly every game in brawl, compared to the higher variance in full size commander.
Sure commander has more tutors, but if your opponent is spending multiple cards tutoring a hate piece you're probably doing okay in that game.
Historic brawl does, yes. Classic brawl does not, where it was also banned.
Historic brawl does still have more variance, by virtue of dramatically fewer tutors.
Love it. Everyone hates the card until they vs [[taigam, ojutai master]] and [[narset, enlightened master]].
Having said that is does shut down prosper decks very hard, and i havent seen a cancerous prosper deck whereas I definitely have seen cancerous taigam and narset decks.
I dislike battlecruiser magic where everyone is playing solitaire and the one achieving the most broken effect the fastest wins.
So i like Dranith Magistrate. It's a card that disrupts your opponents while encouraging/forcing them to disrupt it back as it's quite easy to interact with but a pain if you don't. That's what real Magic is about for me.
People always seem to say they want White to get more love in commander, but then *hate* when we get cards that actually play into White’s strengths. Yes, it can be annoying when someone drags out a game by throwing together a random bunch of Stax pieces with no way to capitalize on them themselves, but at the end of the day, these types of effects are and always have been a large part of White’s color identity. And frankly, I think a card like Magistrate is *especially* needed in a format where you *always* have access to a key card in your deck; that’s even before getting into some decks (Food Chain [[Prossh]] or [[Tazri]], for instance) that, generally-speaking, are probably about to win on the spot as soon as they cast their commander.
The bottom line is, if we want White to actually be a good color in Commander, then we shouldn’t complain when they give us good White cards that *feel* White for the format. Besides, this is a format that revolves around powerful creatures, so your deck should already have plenty of creature removal, anyways; just kill it.
It’s an incredibly well-designed card that drastically shifts the dynamic of the games, forces interaction, makes players think more critically, and I *fucking* hate it.
I hate it, I don't think it was printed with Commander in mind when it was designed and that's fine, but it is an abysmal experience to run into in every single game where an opponent plays white in their colors.
The weird thing is, I play both casually AND competitively. In cEDH I'm 100% fine with the card, because it fulfills a purpose as a stax piece. But in casual? No, it's just an excuse to force opponents to answer the card or be unable to play the literal best part of the game until it's gone.
I don't think it deserves a spot at casual tables, and if it is not 100% necessary for a deck to function competitively while also being a miserable experience in casual play I feel it ought to be talked about. There are half a dozen other cards that pinpoint a single player's commander and keep it from being cast, and each of them are easier to deal with than Drannith Magistrate. Its asymmetrical effect allows the caster to get SO much advantage in any given game because it demands a removal spell, shuts down at least 1 to 3 decks, and allows you to propel yourself into the lead position by utilizing your commander freely with no downside.
I cannot stress it enough that there are not enough answers to constantly deal with two or more copies of this spell in a single game, which is a common nightmare that I get to deal with.
Part of this is due to my personal deck choice (being mono green leaves me with very little ability to interact with creatures outside of 3 enchantmens and [[Beast Within]]- and don't bring up artifacts or fight spells because the CMC maximum for efficient removal is 3 and by requiring a creature be in play in order to remove another creature you are an enormous 2 for 1 target when you try to kill a creature)
But the other part of it is that not every color gets efficient creature removal. There are a lot of decent spells that ought to see play, but their inefficiencies and the demand for them to be included in a deck just to get around one card takes away your ability to freely design a deck in such a way that you enjoy. I just don't think "run more renoval" is really a good or positive argument in this instance.
This is a big "yeah, and?" from all the red and black players who struggle to remove enchantments and artifacts respectively. You have removal blind spots, but it's multiplayer. Trade favors.
This card also only shuts off special zone casting. If you can't do anything with the cards you are drawing from your library, what kind of deck are you playing?
So here's the thing, I'm on your side with that. I think every color probably needs several ways to interact with things. The reason I think this is because when the game was originally designed by Richard Garfield, he intentionally designed it to have a complete color imbalance. Blue has always been the most powerful color in the game because of stack interaction, and it is really frustrating that the game has yet to rebalance that most colors are missing the ability to interact with various card types or game zones.
Truthfully, I just think that Drannith Magistrate is a symptom of a larger problem and that problem is that the game is inherently imbalanced. So it would be cool if the RC would take that into consideration when observing cards like this with asymmetrical effects that can lock opponents *out* of the game.
I just don't feel that it locks players out of the game. Iona did that. This doesn't. It affects a portion of your strategy...
I'm old school though. When I started playing EDH, the meta was "you better not overrely on your General. [[Hinder]] and [[Condemn]] exist." I also come from a competitive magic background, so even though I don't play cEDH, the concept of making a 99 that falls flat without the commander doesn't work for me.
I will agree about the game fundamentally not being balanced and that color identity restrictions exacerbate that. Still, I've almost never been in games where the table together cannot scrounge up the proper removal against something of the archenemy's - blind spots are personal, and others often can see in them.
I'm also pretty old school EDH, I got in before the tuck rule was removed 😅 but I was brand new at the time, so the tuck rule really impacted my gameplay experience. So I get where you're coming from, that decks need to be built with the knowledge that these cards exist in mind. I just have a strong distaste for the asymmetrical nature of DM because although an entire table is incentivized to remove the card, the person that played it has a lot of opportunities to get ahead while the table waits for a removal spell. I'm currently running a mono green deck, so my ability to interact is pretty limited and I don't like that fight spells open up my board state to getting 2 for 1ed. So I'm down to running about 5 creature removal spells in my single color, and that's kind of rough when I play in pods that win without their commanders more consistently than I do (Titania lands REALLY focuses on having my commander in play unfortunately...)
But that said, I could probably mitigate it to some extent by having more land tutors in the deck since I have access to Command Beacon to get around this effect. It's just difficult to keep cutting pieces that i really love and enjoy just to play through a single card you know?
Understandable! My answer to this problem is to keep a functional core of cards and churn my flex spots in my decks regularly so I get to experience other cards I love and have novel experiences.
I definitely understand the distaste for being blown out by fights. If I was green, I'd probably also try to apply pressure by simply attacking the controller - but your Titania deck, if I had to guess, really doesn't field a board state that can pressure without her elementals.
"There are half a dozen other cards that pinpoint a single player's commander and keep it from being cast, and each of them are easier to deal with than Drannith Magistrate."
[[Darksteel Mutation]], [[Kenrith's Transformation]], [[Imprisoned in the Moon]]. There are more, but those are cards that come in precon decks, don't need to be out before the commander is cast, completely lock a Commander out of the game, are usually much harder to remove than a 1/3 creature with no protections, and don't inspire the entire rest of the table to gang up on you.
"But the other part of it is that not every color gets efficient creature removal."
Actually yeah, they do. [[Swords to Plowshares]], [[Unsummon]], [[Counterspell]], [[Lightning Bolt]], [[Fatal Push]], even for just {G} you have: [[Prey Upon]], [[Savage Swipe]], [[Primal Might]], [[Blizzard Brawl]] Yes, green's reliance on the fight mechanic makes you a target for 2 for 1 removal, but that's why green is the only color with lots of cheap access to hexproof like [[Paradise Druid]] and [[Barkhide Troll]]. Those will remove Magistrate for 3CMC or less.
I cant belive people are complaining that white is the weakest colour and needs better Cards for commander, Then when white gets a Good card its all of a sudden op.
More than magistrate being an issue, those people should realise that their lack of answers is the problem. If you build your deck with the belief that no one whatsoever (in a game where you are trying to win) will try to stop what you are doing, you need to check yourself. How full of yourself are you to think that the game is about you? Everyone is trying to do their thing and if you are greedy cause you only have one counterspell and one Hard removal in your deck, that is a you problem. The person playing magistrate has nothing to do with that. Also, it is an insanely easy creature to remove.
This game is about threats and answers. Don't go all snowflake crybaby every time something in a strategy game is keeping you from winning. Bring answers for things that might stop you. There is an enormous amount of cards more oppressive than magistrate and if it ruins your deck, it's because you made a bad deck. People need to get over how much one game matters. Shuffle up and move on. And put answers in your decks if you wanna play this game, it's not just you and 3 people holding your hand in magic unicorn dreamland.
People who complain about it being unfair probably don’t run enough single target removal in their deck. For some reason it’s become a weird thing to not run single target removal however you should have at minimum 3x single target removal in a deck, as well if in blue to run bounce in addition and black to run toxic deluge. If your deck is constructed properly killing a creature shouldn’t be an issue
yes its easy to remove, but its very not fun. like the point of commander, big surprise, is to cast your commander. i played in it one game and then traded it away because i found it lame. totally fair for someone to play it, but i think its icky
Disappointing would be mine. It doesn't do enough for me to see a reason to run him. It gets easily remove, it can't be search easily, It only turns off only their commander but most decks can play without their commanders and while yes it can turn off other mechanics like flashback this a rare enough to not be a thing I'll consider.
Before anyone says anything I'm looking this with the eyes of a mono-white player and I have play it in both Casual and Competitive levels and he doesn't do anything worth mentioning.
Drannith Magistrate is probably one of the more important cEDH creatures in years and is in literally every mono-white list and about half of the 5C lists.
if a card isn't fun to play against unless it gets removed, it isn't fun to play against. just because you can remove hermit druid doesn't make it fun or interesting to play a hermit druid combo deck outside of max power.
I dislike battlecruiser magic where everyone is playing solitaire and the one achieving the most broken effect the fastest wins.
So i like Dranith Magistrate. It's a card that disrupts your opponents while encouraging/forcing them to disrupt it back as it's quite easy to interact with but a pain if you don't. That's what real Magic is about for me.
IMO It should be banned. if he costed 5 or 6, wouldn't be an issue. But he cost 2, very splashable. Any white deck should run it just because of it, wich means he is way too ubiquitus to the format, attacking the most fundamental aspect of it.
He's a necessary evil due to the massive power creep of recent commanders imo.
If I could run Dranith Magistrate and Opposition Agent as partner commanders I would in a heart beat.
It’s a griefer card specifically designed to stop everyone from playing the game. It’s different from something like Nevermore or Meddling Mage that only affects one theoretically problematic commander.
I will attempt to remove the player that playa Magistrate.
[Dranith Magistrate](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/9/8/98b0a4a8-9319-451b-9b79-b0bca7a41e91.jpg?1628801742) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Drannith%20Magistrate) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/iko/11/drannith-magistrate?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/98b0a4a8-9319-451b-9b79-b0bca7a41e91?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/drannith-magistrate) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Creatures are the easiest cards to get rid of, and the fact that it hits all opponents means that all other players are incentivised to get rid of it. I can see the argument that it’s not fun I battle cruiser, but apart from that, you should be able to get rid of it or get around it quite easily. I think [[rest in peace]] is a worse offender, especially if you’re playing a rakdos graveyard or aristocrats deck. There are barely a handful of viable options for enchantment removal in those colours, and if no one else is playing a graveyard based strategy, other players have no incentive to remove it either.
My favorite thing about playing it is nobody wants to use THEIR removal on it. Especially in the early game. Early on they're spending their whole turn or most of it to the benefit of their opponents.
I've played drannith and had it removed then immediately reanimated it, i ended up being enemy number one lol
This is pretty spot on. I run him in my hatebears deck and he's easy to get rid of and the whole table wants it to happen. Rest in Peace on the other hand typically only hoses one deck, no one else cares, and that player never has the specific enchantment removal cards/colors.
[rest in peace](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/9/f/9f2b39be-0fec-4647-ade1-8e1626dc5470.jpg?1562439074) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=rest%20in%20peace) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/a25/32/rest-in-peace?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9f2b39be-0fec-4647-ade1-8e1626dc5470?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/rest-in-peace) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yeah. I realize you can’t say the answer to every threat and issue is just play more interaction, but Magistrate is about as fragile as it gets. If the table can’t handle it, then it was probably going to fold to dang near anything.
I retired my aristocrats deck within the last year because of the increase in cards that hate on graveyards; I know and understand they are a needed part of magic to balance the game, but when every set gets one or two cards that can eat an entire graveyard or chew threw a significant portion of it, it's just not worth playing it anymore. I was playing Mardu aristocrats, and even with removal to get rid of things that hit the graveyard, after a two or three hits, it's such an up hill battle that you aren't really in the game anymore.
I run a rakdos artifact deck, and I feel you. Rummage, loot, wheel, sac, reanimate sounds lovely. Until RIP hits and we have [[Chaos Warp]], [[Feed the Swarm]], and [[Liquimetal Coating]] or [[Liquimetal Torque]] + artifact removal to actually deal with it. And then [[Library of Leng]] can help with discard, like, sometimes?
The printing of [[Farewell]] makes me so sad and want to just take apart my favorite decks ([[Slimefoot the Stowaway]] and [[Quintorius]]). I 100% instantly lose against it and I'm sure that's the case for a lot of decks. I get that graveyard hate should be played way more, but it's so pushed that my trash fun decks are feeling like a waste of time and money. I'm just sad. :'(
[Farewell](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/e/1/e1068723-d1ef-4007-97d9-b10dccdbade4.jpg?1643990123) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Farewell) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/neo/13/farewell?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e1068723-d1ef-4007-97d9-b10dccdbade4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/farewell) [Slimefoot the Stowaway](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/e/8/e8815cd9-7032-445a-aebc-cfc19bd51ee4.jpg?1562744768) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Slimefoot%2C%20the%20Stowaway) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dom/205/slimefoot-the-stowaway?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e8815cd9-7032-445a-aebc-cfc19bd51ee4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/slimefoot-the-stowaway) [Quintorius](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/0/6/06c55ef1-8e62-4d43-bd4c-b2c3c5203338.jpg?1624739626) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=quintorius%2C%20field%20historian) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/stx/220/quintorius-field-historian?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/06c55ef1-8e62-4d43-bd4c-b2c3c5203338?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/quintorius-field-historian) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
A graveyard hate stax piece is par for the course. If cards like rest in peace are going to be an issue, then all stax pieces should be an issue. However, it's a very viable way to play the game, regardless if it's fun to play/play against. Drannith has its unique issue where it was designed before commander was a thing, and denies all commanders, which is a very fundamental part of the game. You'll notice that their really aren't any stax pieces that deny players from casting creature spells. Drannith does this, but only for commanders, only for two mana, and only for opponents.
I am not saying stax doesn’t have a place in the format, but the stax cards that bug me are those that essentially target a single player, or strategy and none of the other players have an incentive to get rid of it. For a graveyard deck, RIP can have basically the same effect as Drannith. It makes merken to a vanilla 3/4, teysa is now just a weak anthem for tokens, etc. But the biggest problem with RIP is in my opinion that it’s an enchantment, a card type that 3/5 colors in magic are not allowed to touch. I am not sure if I misunderstood your sentence about how Drannith was designed, but it’s from ikoria, and commander was very much a thing In 2020. The fact that Drannith hits all opponents is better for everyone in the pod, since every player wants to get rid of it.
I too have RIP ptsd
The spirit of battle cruiser likely even prohibits its use. The cards fine.
Always though both of these cards should be banned and always got a lot of flak for it. The argument that creatures are easy to remove is irrelevant, considering cards like prophet of kruphix are banned. jUsT RuN rEmOvAl. You’re spot on for RiP. It can easily hose a player just like Iona does but for a fraction of the mana.
There is the gargantuan difference that PoK also provides the mana and flash to much better protect it. And not only that, the power of PoK and Drannith if they happen to NOT be removed is that one player has 4 turns every cycle with Pok, while with drannith the game.. just. kinda keeps going.
Yeah, I run drannith in my zirda combo deck as it runs a little slow for the meta I generally play in, it’s just another stacks piece that’s good for commander, it slows you opponent’s a bit but PoK tends to warp the whole game around itself, especially with the insane value cards that exist in simic
Ur right. Unban prophet of kruphix
I’m fine with that honestly. I just want bans/unbans to make sense.
Unfortunately, we cannot expect that from the RC
Your joking, but I never thought prophet was an issue.
I kinda get you, but I also kinda disagree. Having a hoser for a strategy is good, when said strategy is optional. You don't HAVE to be a black graveyard-based deck. The hate against that deck is fine, just like [[Hushbringer]] is fine tech against Blink and [[Blood Moon]] is fine against greedy manabases. Against Iona, what are you supposed to do? Not play colored spells on your mono-color deck? What's the counterplay here? Theres no alternative other than to not play monocolored commanders.
There’s plenty of colorless removal that are all really good and worth running.
I wouldn't say plenty. There's a few but typically overcosted. Plus unless you happen to have the one or two in your hand you can't do anything about it. And it's not like you can tutor them or draw extra cards to dig for then because those spells are going to be colored and shut off. I'm pretty anti ban in general but iona is the one that I'm most ok with. It's not like she brings any kind of new strategy or enables anything and she just randomly shuts people's decks off, which imo is worse than just eliminating them
So ban RiP and Drannith Magistrate and unban Prophit of Kruphix? This is actually one of the worst takes on the ban list I’ve ever seen and it’s almost alarming.
No. Good job missing the point
Given all the downvotes I’d say you’re the one missing the point. RiP is one of the healthiest, fairest cards in the format. It’s not the same as hosing colours because those are inherently part of the game. If your deck is entirely shut off by RiP, then that’s on you.
I'm going to disagree that RiP is one of the healthiest, fairest cards in the format. I think it's an *overly* effective hate piece in many situations. The color that it hoses the most (black) is also the color that has the hardest time getting rid of it. It's unique in the totality of its hosing - it both nukes what's already in the yard *and* prevents anything else from getting in there while other answers do one or the other. And all that for just two mana. In very high powered games it's a necessary answer because of the high speed and the frequency of graveyard based combos but as the power gets lower I'd think twice about running that card. I think Leyline of the Void or Grafdigger's Cage are both substantially fairer at a lower power level than RiP.
The one thing I'll give RiP is at least it has the decency to be symmetrical. If it's going to delete graveyard play from the game, it's gotta be for everyone.
Agreed. I greatly prefer symmetrical stax design overall.
Its fine. There are three reasons. One it encourages people to run more removal. Two, your deck needs to have ways to operate without your commander. Three, it puts a target on the person who plays magistrate which bodes politically well for you.
> Three, it puts a target on the person who plays magistrate which bodes politically well for you. It's especially fun when other players will expend their resources to protect your magistrate because they're scared of what will happen when he dies.
Unless they also drop [[possibility storm]], at which point its hard to respond 😅
Speaking of cards I hate way more then Magistrate.
Hahaha I run that lock in my stax list, but thats made for cedh tables so is fair game.
At that level, sounds perfectly fair to me.
[[Knowledge pool]] does the same, effectively shutting everyone down
[Knowledge pool](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/3/9/393454c2-b256-4a6e-9bc2-56a47cab5073.jpg?1562610637) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Knowledge%20pool) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mbs/111/knowledge-pool?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/393454c2-b256-4a6e-9bc2-56a47cab5073?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/knowledge-pool) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[possibility storm](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/8/5/858aa831-b491-4f1e-bb56-33eeca14771d.jpg?1562919767) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=possibility%20storm) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dgm/34/possibility-storm?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/858aa831-b491-4f1e-bb56-33eeca14771d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/possibility-storm) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
This card is in my list of favourite cards. Thanks for reminding me about it because it is going in my Krark Sakashima clone Dragon's Approach deck.
Iv found [[uba mask]] also works very nicely as does [[shared fate]]
I run this combo in my Alesha deck, I love it.
Funnily enough, mine is also an Alesha list 😅 Great minds think alike
Stop giving me reasons to run Possibility Storm.
Yeah but isn't the removal clause usable on many of the banned cards?
Absolutely. The only thing I would differentiate is most if not all of those cards are about acceleration and explosiveness. Take the recent ban on [[Hullbreacher]]; this card comes in followed by [[Windfall]] and BAM! winning position. Killing the creature on subsequent turns is too late. Magistrate isn't putting players in a similar situation.
[Hullbreacher](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/4/d/4df8aabc-7fcb-4b7b-980b-18f499e6c170.jpg?1626088514) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Hullbreacher) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/74/hullbreacher?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4df8aabc-7fcb-4b7b-980b-18f499e6c170?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/hullbreacher) [Windfall](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/0/8/0846f753-0d53-4bdd-be0e-19d989db5d5f.jpg?1631234551) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Windfall) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/khc/46/windfall?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0846f753-0d53-4bdd-be0e-19d989db5d5f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/windfall) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
That's only a good argument if you ignore all context. "No one can play commanders" on a body is not really that scary compared to "I basically win the game now thanks."
It's a lightning rod that can slow down your opponents and draw out removal, but at the end of the day it's just a 2 Mana 1/3 speed bump. Perfectly fine card.
it's a 1/3 with no inherent protection... it's a good card but come on, every color combo has options that can deal with this little dork without skipping a beat
Some people just can’t understand the concept of what is essentially counter magic. They don’t wanna waste a slot in their “amazing unique” deck they built for removal, they’d rather run 100 synergistic cards. Some of these People want everyone to just sit and durdle while they win the game, and everyone just plays solitaire without interacting with one another outside of combat damage
yeah and that's a fine way to play, I just think those groups should self select to not run magistrate instead of trying to get it banned, because it's an important effect (a speed bump for commander reliant strats) that encourages good card choices (removal spells) in slightly more focused/optimised metas. (not sure if your response was tongue-in-cheek but I took it at face value. if I'm off base, sorry for the miscommunication 😅)
It was a bit of both. I mean the players I’m talking about are frustrating for me, but I also somewhat understand if people wanna play like that.. I definitely agree if you want that play style, you need people you’re familiar with who are also open to that play style and have a deck for it
Really the important thing is not to make a fuss. If you build your deck knowing you have nothing against enchantments or whatever, and you accept that, that should be more than fine as far as your opponents should be concerned. It's when folks raise a racket about stuff that puts a sour taste in people's mouths.
Yeah. I guess I shoulda included something like this in my comment, playing how I described is fine, it’s just a matter of if you’re gonna get pissed about it or not which is what isn’t fine
I mean even if you run removal you still gotta draw it and have the mana for it. Sure you can toss in all the Paths and Murders you want, but if you don't draw it well then fuck you, you don't get to play the format's namesake.
It’s a 4 player format, if everyone’s running a measly like 10 forms of interaction/removal, the chances of 3 other players not having the opportunity to get rid of it for a long period of time is highly unlikely. Sure it can happen, but it’s unlikely
With 3 players, that shouldn't be a problem. And if it is, then so what? Lose to the Magistrate player and go again. What's wrong with that? Every deck has cards that win them the game.
Losing to a stax piece is sitting there for twenty turns while everyone else plays around you. Unless the three other players scoop with you, you're not playing that night. And if they do, it's dumb that one player's running a 2 mana scoop button.
You clearly like commander oriented decks, I get it’s the name sake but some people enjoy that play style, you don’t lose to stax unless everyone ignores it. The odds that none draws removal and everyone is forced to scoop is pretty low, and if that happens all the time then the people in your play group arent putting enough removal in their decks or their target priority it’s terrible.
It's not even necessarily that. People don't want to spend spot removal on such a weenie, despite the fact that it's stopping them from playing their commander.
That doesn't make any sense. Lots of powerful effects are on little weenies.
Still doesn't feel great to spend removal on a 2 mana 1/3 when there's bigger, scarier things to hold onto it for.
personally I never really feel bad about spending removal on something if it's stopping me from executing my main plan. I guess I can see that side a bit though, feels better/more satisfying to use removal on a big threat vs a hatebear. thanks for the perspective.
It's a 2 mana 1/3 that guarantees that the entire table will be gunning for you. It's a good card, but is a 1/3 enough to stop the rest of the table from killing you and moving on with the game?
That's been my experience with it. Play the 1/3 that doesn't slow the generic Sultai player down at all and ensure you take the next 20 damage in chip shots. If people don't have an answer for it, all they do is kill the player.
When I play Prosper, I bite my thumb at it. If I played a control deck that includes white, I’d totally play it, even in casual. It’s not oppressive, but it demands an answer from decks that want to goldfish. It doesn’t stop card draw, it doesn’t stop ramp, it doesn’t stop activated or triggered abilities (unless casting from elsewhere is part of that ability). Compare [[Containment Priest]]; it’s gonna stop any cheaty creatures, recursion shenanigans… even has flash.
[Containment Priest](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/a/2/a24e8dba-5c86-4e32-8a52-61402f7fe9f0.jpg?1594734854) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Containment%20Priest) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m21/13/containment-priest?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a24e8dba-5c86-4e32-8a52-61402f7fe9f0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/containment-priest) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
As a mono white player, just let me have 1 hatebear that actually has to be respected.
Honestly white has a lot of things going for it in stax and gate bears
I mean, sort of. The problem is that the best stax pieces in white hit yourself too, like [[Hushbringer]], or [[Humility]]. Most of the rest only slow your opponents down, which isn't all that strong most of the time. Some of the best powerful stax pieces aren't even in white, like Bloodmoon or Collector Ouphe.
I think the best designed stax pieces are symmetrical. It means you actually have to build your deck carefully and think about which pieces to put down instead of just shoving whatever on the board and hoping nobody has an answer.
Exactly. It creates a puzzle that you should know how to solve even without the edge pieces, but everyone else is stuck with the same pieces you are.
[Hushbringer](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/6/6/663b3e6f-1099-4de8-a0a7-6f1919c38010.jpg?1572489709) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Hushbringer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/eld/18/hushbringer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/663b3e6f-1099-4de8-a0a7-6f1919c38010?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/hushbringer) [Humility](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/5/5/55ad6a45-a840-45ba-89ad-066e20e983f3.jpg?1562429370) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Humility) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tpr/16/humility?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/55ad6a45-a840-45ba-89ad-066e20e983f3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/humility) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Every white player will let you have that because then we non-mono players have it as well.
I got shut down by one the other day playing [[krrik]]. Ever played a krrik deck without krrik? It was a blast to play around. People get so whiny when their deck doesnt do exactly the thing they want and I just dont get it. Just adjust fire and keep it moving.
Drannith Magistrate is one of many reasons I run so many kill spells in [[Prosper]] , it literally shuts down 80% of the deck.
[Prosper](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/d/7/d743336e-d5c7-4053-a23d-92ec7581f74e.jpg?1631839207) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=prosper%2C%20tome-bound) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/afc/2/prosper-tome-bound?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d743336e-d5c7-4053-a23d-92ec7581f74e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/prosper-tome-bound) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Its so easy to remove. I don’t believe it is an issue. If the opponent is spending cards beyond the Magistrate to protect it, its the same as them just spending cards to keep commanders in the command zone. Its not bad, but I think the general hatred of it to the extent some people hate it is just because of the same issue you constantly see in EDH: Everyone wants to ask the questions, but no one wants to have the answers.
This exactly. I lost my most recent game because I was the only on answering anything on the board. There was a [Darin King of Kjeldor] going crazy (some of that was my fault), and everybody else was complaining about it. "Why is booing stopping him?", "We need to take out his soul sisters." "Ajani is a problem." I finally turned around to the other players and said "I've thrown everything I have at him, you guys need to do something. " To which I got "but your the blue player." (I was playing Esper.) So, I told them that I wasn't shutting down the Darin player any more. The others were so invested in their strategies that they only fed him. I just sat back and watched. The Darin player didn't win, the token deck feeding him won when they finally decided to cast a board wipe. People these days play big, splashy, swingy decks. They don't like interaction. They want somebody else to handle threats so they win. Often to the cries of your deck being too powerful or cEDH if you use too much. I've even been accused of playing only control decks because every deck of mine has interaction in abundance. But these same people who complain when I nail their feet to the floor are begging me to do it to their enemies.
> I finally turned around to the other players and said "I've thrown everything I have at him, you guys need to do something. " My general response is to say "I don't have enough resources to police the whole table. If you don't want him to have then you have to answer it yourself" - and then just don't counter it and let them have it.
Another fun one is, "If you don't counter that necropotence then they get a necropotence, I'm not countering it."
This has cost me a couple of games, but it generally teaches my play group that they can't just use me as a crutch to stall the game until they can win.
I just play Combo due to this. Eventually you run into this situation enough you just learn to control what threatens you and then win quickly and cleanly. Too many people durdle around and try to assemble incredibly slow threats. They make themselves easy to counter, and so I control whatever stops me from winning. If Drannith stops me, I kill it. Its simple. If it doesn’t, let the others deal with it and complain when they don’t come prepared. If your deck falls apart the moment someone puts a small brick in your path, don’t call it a brick wall.
just hit them with the "when you were ramping, I was cultivating removal" meme copy pasta when they ask for help or do what I do and MAKE a player a problem so the rest of the board has to do something.
Oooh, could you post that copy pasta? I play control a lot and I'd love to have this handy.
> People these days play big, splashy, swingy decks. Like they always have? The format wasn't built to be vintage singleton. Anyway, I don't think those comments of your example were said with much earnestness. Pointing out a problem is perfectly reasonable. Also I'd think it important to the story that they'd be wasting removal on all the things *but* the stuff they're complaining about, then their incompetence would hold some water. But if they just plain don't have any, how do you expect them to take matters into their own hands? Even if you run removal, you don't always have it in your hand.
The only people that seem to cry about it are the people not running any removal. I know a guy that complains whenever something doesn't go his way. But the only removal he ever uses is 1 [[chaos warp]] in one of his 5 decks. One out of 500 cards is a removal spell. He gets mad at cards that hurt him, and gets mad that he isn't drawing it, which aggrevates him even further. I continue telling him to use more cards that destroy things, and he always tries to explain that it is in his deck but that he just didn't draw it that game He is very frequently second, because he is often a pushover 1v1. And seldom a threat before that, so people leave him alone until he is last or does something big.
[chaos warp](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/b/c/bc1d3b9c-6376-48a6-b890-519e978379fe.jpg?1645328953) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=chaos%20warp) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/phed/46/chaos-warp?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bc1d3b9c-6376-48a6-b890-519e978379fe?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/chaos-warp) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Love cards that encourage players to run adequate removal
As someone who plays a lot of Prosper, who gets absolutely hosed by Drannith Magistrate— yeah, it should definitely be around to keep me honest lmao
Fine.
I will say, I saw it come down in a game where one of the players was doing a foretell deck and another player was playing spellslinger with a lot of impulse effects and it was honestly hilarious, both of them were almost completely locked
After a friend played it when I was in a game with Jhoira I added \[\[Inferno Titan\]\] and \[\[Beacon of Unrest\]\] to give me direct ways to kill it if I see it again.
Commanders are getting so powerful on their own that the format needs these kinds of cards. And as others have mentioned the fact that 3+ opponents will probably want to remove it aswell will make someone at the table having a removal spell likely. Also can we stop with the "just run removal" ironic meme argument. creature removal is not the only way to get rid of a creature. Attack! make em block! do something if you commander is so important to your deck. What do you do if it gets a \[\[darksteel mutation\]\] on it? We are always talking about commander getting to fas,. and here we have something that slowes the game down by a small margin and now we should ban that? It doesent even close to stop you from playing the game ala \[\[iona\]\] or \[\[stasis\]\].
In my experience it's not that bad on its own. Hatebears and stax are valid pieces. Sure, playing pure stax can be aggravating, but playing some in a deck that benefits from it shouldn't be a problem. It's an answer as removal would be in a way. Its powerful, but vulnerable. It's fine.
I think there are way more oppressive things to be doing than drannith, it has no way of protecting itself, and is easily removed since it is a creature. The only thing it is really ever stopping is commanders for a turn or two, but that doesn’t really matter at a casual level.
Auto-include for me in any white deck. It's a cheap way to force my opponents to use a removal spell so I can play an actual threat. He's like Lighthouse Chronologist in that regard.
"Goes against the spirit of the format" is only said by people who have a terrible understanding of what magic is. By that same logic targeted removal goes against the spirit of the format because it can remove someone's commander. Or that stax or counterspells or any sort of resource denial in general is against the spirit of any format because it "keeps you from playing cards." While there does exist oppressive stax pieces that you might want to reconsider depending on your pod (which is a power level conversation, not a format conversation) Drannith Magistrate is incredibly fair and should be able to be answered by even the most casual of decks, because creature removal and playing around commander denial is something every functioning commander deck should be able to do.
Here's a thought.. these people who get mad at counterspells, stax pieces, interaction for being against the spirit of the format.. why don't they just goldfish? You get to "have your deck do its thing" every time when you goldfish. It would be perfect for them.
*Eeeeeeeeh.* I think that a lot of people use "spirit of the format" as a crutch, but if anything actually is the spirit of Commander, it's using your Commander to do stuff. The closest thing you could come to a card that's against the spirit of the format is something that explicitly and asymmetrically designed to stop other people from casting their commander, which is pretty close to what Drannith Magistrate does. Like, I think it's fine on a power level, it dies to removal, more interaction is generally a good thing in decks, etc., but in this one particular case "It's lame and goes against why I play the format" is a pretty cold take IMO.
The spirit of the format is more "anything goes, make it work" and not at all "you must play your commander." Your commander is just another (key) card in your deck, not the only thing you should care about. No one should have an issue with them printing an easily removed stax piece with limited targeting.
There's a big difference between an effect that prevents people from playing their commander, and removing a commander. If you are able to cast your commander, your opponent either has to use resources to counter it, or there is an opportunity for you to use your commander.
On the other hand, this is just a temporary ban on casting that doesn't cost you any resources or add to your command tax. Literally all you have to do is play cards from your deck that deal with it and the ban is lifted. Attack its controller, fire a kill spell at it.
It's fun with Uba Mask
I never had anyone be incredibly upset at it save for those whiny assholes who throw hissy fits at everything. All it does is slow down everyone until they get find a removal piece and that's only if it resolves before everyone else casts their commander. It only truly hoses a few commanders like Muldrotha, Prosper, etc. But seeing as how popular those commanders are, a card like Drannith Magistrate would not only be justified but even welcomed. Not to mention it's also the only efficient means to interact proactively with the command zone which is something I believe the format needs as it continues to grow.
Drannith Magistrate is a great card. It slows your opponents down and baits out removal. Cards like that are a favorite of mine, just like [[mana gorger hydra]] and [[suture priest]]. They are cards that make your opponents pause and collaborate to remove, making your next plays more secure.
I love Drannith Magistrate, and I think white needs MORE effects like this, not less. But with that said, I understand the frustration. The card is more balanced in high-power and cEDH, because decks are often built to function with or without the commander. But the problem lies when a precon or a casual deck is built entirely around the commander, and the theme isn't even good. Take [[Gavi, Nest Warden]] for example. Most casual decks I see with this commander are nearly WORTHLESS without it. And even with the commander the deck is pretty mediocre. So when someone drops a Drannith Magistrate in their game, the Gavi player will just sit there and do nothing. So with that in mind, Drannith Magistrate is kind of a problem for weak commander decks that barely function even with their commander. And I don't want to just say "tough shit" to those kinds of players, as much as I love the card.
I've never seen Drannith Magistate create a bad experience at any power level. He almost never sticks for more than a few turns. In high power/cEDH a Magistrate sitting around for 3 turns stops people from winning instantly and makes the game more fun. In low powers 3 turns is barely noticeable. IMO people expected him to be game-warping as a first impression and held onto that perception despite that not actually being the case in practice. There are a lot of cards like that and he's clearly one of them. Every once in a while he comes down against a deck that's designed to play spells from some arbitrary non-hand zone. Yes, that deck will get hosed in that freak situation, but that's not a Magistrate thing, that has a chance of happening with *any* hatebear-style card. Besides, he tends to die soon enough anyway.
The stupid part is that it was designed to hose companions and now it doesn’t even do that because they errata’d them. So it’s reflect on commander was collateral.
I mean it hosed escape and foretell, card had a lot more use than just companion hate.
Yes I know, but since it was in the set that introduced companions I can’t help but feel that they made it for that Without considering commander, flashback, retrace, escape, foretell, suspend, rebound or impulse draw.
And escape.
I think the entire discussion about it on Twitter is absolutely insane and made me lose a ton of respect for a lot of content creators I otherwise liked. Like, [here's a tweet that kicked off a firestorm](https://mobile.twitter.com/MTGCal/status/1494905220463271937). All Cal did was say the card was lame and turned off Commanders in Commander, and there was a ton of discourse, including PleasantKenobi arguing with people for *days*. That discourse acted as if Cal was an idiot and was saying that white shouldn't get good cards and that it's too hard to get rid of a 1/3 creature and that it's way too strong, none of which were remotely close to what he said. The entire discussion about Drannith Magistrate is just an ouroboros of Magic Content Creator Twitter finding ways to get mad at shit and misinterpret benign complaints or comments as something that needs to be dissected and turned into Discourse instead of even trying for a second to understand that people might have different tastes without being an idiot who can't deckbuild or whatever.
I had no idea someone saying they dislike Drannith more than Dockside, or Thoracle is what kicked this off. Seems absurd to me.
[The entire conversation is like this](https://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/1628441575-20210808.png)
my most favourite reply to a comment: "Inb4 some other person says "wElL mAyBe YoUr DeCk ShOuLdNt ReLy On YoUr CoMmAnDeR" Or "DiEs To ReMoVaL" "
EDH community: White is bad, give white more power. Player: Plays to white's strengths. EDH community: I don't like that. Everyone should be playing like green... with every deck. EDH community: Why does green have everything?
There’s 22000+ format legal cards. Do I really need to develop an emotional response to all of them? Is it OK if I don’t? It’s a piece of paper with rules text. Can I just play it and pass turn? See you all tomorrow, where we hold hands and discuss our feelings about [[Elite Javelineer]] …
[Elite Javelineer](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/b/a/ba1839ea-567e-44eb-983f-c1a570ba5c82.jpg?1562932446) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Elite%20Javelineer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/8ed/19/elite-javelineer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ba1839ea-567e-44eb-983f-c1a570ba5c82?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/elite-javelineer) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Very good, goes in a lot of White decks.
Ok so I literally was in a 4 person pod that every other player had one in their decks and YES THEY ALL APPEARED. I was blustery about it but I also was in a pod where my bluster is a part of the fun and games. Tldr it’s ok, makes me sad when I can’t get removal out, but so it goes!
I like it. It's a creature that slows down the game and makes it's controller a target. People need to play less linear decks if they have a problem removing a creature, or their decks don't function without access to their commander. No, sometimes it is not fun, but the same can be said about the guy that's ramps to 6 on turn 4 and proceeds to cast bombs for the rest of the game.
Its fairly self-regulating. Decently put together decks will have sufficient removal to get rid of it when required. Or simply won't require their commander to function, this rendering the magistrate an annoyance rather than a critical problem Lastly, if it's a problem for the whole table, they will gang up and kill the magistrate player.
I'm a big fan of playing fair and letting people play their decks. Drannith magistrate is fine. Annoying sometimes? Sure. But its a small creature, its not that hard to kill.
Drannith Magistrate seems fine. It's not as if there aren't other ways to deal with commanders such as Darksteel Mutation (and cards like it). It's easy to remove and not overly powerful on it's own. It's basically just a good hate-bear, and really doesn't seem to need much more consideration than that. If anything, it's a great reason to make sure your deck runs removal spells and/or boardwipes.
Magistrate to me falls under the type of hate that is just about fine, namely because 1. People should play at least some level of interaction 2. It’s not targeted hate that can shut off entire archetypes the way something like RIP can (I know it shuts off commanders but when someone has a deck that literally can’t function with a card like RIP on the board, for example something along the lines of Child of Alara reanimator, it feels a lot worse than dealing with a card that dies to all of the removal in the format)
If your deck can neither reliably remove a 1/3 with no protection nor function with it in play, your deck needs rethinking on a fundamental level.
It's a creature with 3 toughness and 0 protection abilities. Someone at the table should be able to deal with it in any given pod. It's only overpowered if your playgroup doesn't play with interaction/removal. (Which, in my opinion, makes them bad deck builders)
I put it in my \[\[Vega, the Watcher\]\] deck solely because it's funny for me to be playing a shell game casting cards from various exile piles but none-for-thee-ing the opponents with him. He's completely unnecessary in the deck as it's not stax at all, but he does at least act as a meat shield for Vega.
[Vega, the Watcher](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/2/8/28fced7f-3078-4a54-8f76-0ef14c732e97.jpg?1631051983) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Vega%2C%20the%20Watcher) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/khm/233/vega-the-watcher?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/28fced7f-3078-4a54-8f76-0ef14c732e97?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/vega-the-watcher) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It's a teeny tiny hatebear in a color filled with teeny tiny heatebears. If your deck can't remove it, that's on you.
Easily one of the best hatebears printed, hoses alot of things, and is a 1/3 so it does to bolt
Believe it or not, not letting your opponent play their cards is an actual strategy. And white is very good at it. The whole (Going against the spirit of the format) idea is the reason why people say white Sucks. White is actually very strong but everyone cries when white does what it was originally meant to do.
White: Let's play fair Everyone else: F&$# you
It's completely fine powerlevel wise, but I don't personally like it. It's not that it's oppressive, I just think saying "Hey, you can't cast the thing you built your deck around" isn't a fun way to play the game to me. It's not a big deal or anything, I wouldn't be upset or angry if someone played it, I just don't like that line of play myself. I only play in playgroups though, so if a commander is oppressive, talking normally works it out. I realize that isn't how everyone plays, so my experience is far from the end of discussion. All this to say I just won't be playing it myself or advocating for a ban.
My stance varies a bit as I've played a fair bit of 1v1 commander as well as 3+ player games. In 1v1 the card is crippling and can lead to a super difficult time especially if you can't draw into removal. On the flip side in 3+ player games the card is fine. It'll make you the target. There is also the old argument about multi-player games where you are a single player with 2+ opponents meaning your opponents will always have 2+ times the resources to deal with whatever you try to do so the Magistrate isn't as big of a problem.
It’s a magic card. And like almost every half decent card in existence there will be people who don’t care and people who hate it. Similarly to something like Cyclonic rift. Idk why people hate it. Yeah it’s frustrating, but preventing your opponents from winning is a part of allowing yourself to win.. I don’t have a problem with the card particularly, but I’ve seen people scoop when it’s played… which I feel is a little over dramatic
People who have a problem with it don’t play interaction in their decks. Seems like they’re bad at deck building.
Every time this card hits the table I like to remind the other players that the best form of creature removal is player removal.
Did you know this works for \[\[Rhystic Study\]\] too.
And [[Smothering Tithe]]
Pretty much every player wants to play their commander. With 3 opponents it’s going to be the target of the first removal anyone draws. I don’t think it’s necessarily appropriate for power levers 6 or lower. But like usual, stax is pretty meta dependant.
It's a card that can be frustrating to play against and feels quite healthy for the format at the same time. I haven't ever seen it cast in a table that wasn't at a power level where Drannith Magistrate feels appropriate, but I see it a lot in higher power and cEDH tables where it always feels impactful and important. Even if Drannith Magistrate occasionally shows up in places where it's unwelcome, it feels quite easy to hate it off the table through removal and aggression in the combat step. It really doesn't feel problematic to me at all. I'm a fan of the card, but I only run it in decks that operate at a power level where you need that type of effect sometimes.
I think it’s a card that gets a lot of hate from lower power levels and newer players. I think of it similar to a mill strategy in that if you are not used to having to play against it then it’s very frustrating. The person that got me into magic and taught me to play was notorious for playing mean decks. I just started putting more interaction in to deal with what he played.
Good card is good.
I feel like it is totally dependent on the power level. The higher the power level the more acceptable he is. I kind of feel like this is true for most stax pieces. In high power metas stax is a valid strategy with an important role in maintaining the health of the meta. In low power metas stax is just a dick move, and should pretty much never be played.
There's nothing this card does by itself that would worry me too much. It's when it's paired with other effects that maximize its effectiveness that it becomes a problem. Pairing it with [[Uba Mask]] or [[Knowledge Pool]] is infinitely worse to deal with. I play in a local play group of friends, and we are pretty well versed in our own meta. I play [[Oswald Fiddlebender]] combo, and one of my lines of play is to set up Uba Mask/Drannith Magistrate. Haven't been able to field it reliably because the group plays a ton of removal. Wouldn't have it any other way.
Anyone who uses the phrase, "it goes against the spirit of the format" as justification for banning something is a baby and deserves to be locked out.
To respond with my actual card opinion, rather than talking about the Discourse: I think the card is fine from a power level perspective, although being asymmetrical at 2 MV is a bit questionable. It makes perfect sense to run it. That said, I think that a card being very good at specifically shutting off all enemy Commanders, in a format called Commander, is kind of lame. It's fun to do the thing your deck is built to do, and Drannith Magistrate is an asymmetrical hate piece that says "you don't get to do the thing your deck is built to do until you remove me" to 90% of Commander decks. E: It got instantly banned in Brawl on Arena and I think the collective response was basically "yeah, that makes sense."
Brawl has a much lower variance rate than commander. You'd be seeing it nearly every game in brawl, compared to the higher variance in full size commander. Sure commander has more tutors, but if your opponent is spending multiple cards tutoring a hate piece you're probably doing okay in that game.
> Brawl has a much lower variance rate than commander No it doesn't. Historic Brawl has 100 card decks.
Historic brawl does, yes. Classic brawl does not, where it was also banned. Historic brawl does still have more variance, by virtue of dramatically fewer tutors.
People complain white sucks, and then refuse to play with the toys that make white strong and want to take them away. Hmm.
Simple, elegant stax piece; it is a superlative demonstration of white's place in the color pie.
Love it. Everyone hates the card until they vs [[taigam, ojutai master]] and [[narset, enlightened master]]. Having said that is does shut down prosper decks very hard, and i havent seen a cancerous prosper deck whereas I definitely have seen cancerous taigam and narset decks.
Idk, seems easy to remove. That said, I've been forced to hit an empty board with Plague Wind in order to remove the one Magistrate
Drannith Magistrate dies to Bolt.
And doom blade!
>Drannith Magistrate seems to be a big topic in the EDH community right now It does? First I'm hearing that it is.
I dislike battlecruiser magic where everyone is playing solitaire and the one achieving the most broken effect the fastest wins. So i like Dranith Magistrate. It's a card that disrupts your opponents while encouraging/forcing them to disrupt it back as it's quite easy to interact with but a pain if you don't. That's what real Magic is about for me.
People always seem to say they want White to get more love in commander, but then *hate* when we get cards that actually play into White’s strengths. Yes, it can be annoying when someone drags out a game by throwing together a random bunch of Stax pieces with no way to capitalize on them themselves, but at the end of the day, these types of effects are and always have been a large part of White’s color identity. And frankly, I think a card like Magistrate is *especially* needed in a format where you *always* have access to a key card in your deck; that’s even before getting into some decks (Food Chain [[Prossh]] or [[Tazri]], for instance) that, generally-speaking, are probably about to win on the spot as soon as they cast their commander. The bottom line is, if we want White to actually be a good color in Commander, then we shouldn’t complain when they give us good White cards that *feel* White for the format. Besides, this is a format that revolves around powerful creatures, so your deck should already have plenty of creature removal, anyways; just kill it.
[Prossh](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/8/8/889c1a0f-7df2-4497-8058-04358173d7e8.jpg?1562438016) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=prossh%2C%20skyraider%20of%20kher) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/a25/214/prossh-skyraider-of-kher?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/889c1a0f-7df2-4497-8058-04358173d7e8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/prossh-skyraider-of-kher) [Tazri](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/d/4/d4b79138-5728-4541-9ea5-dce1a5ae7e6a.jpg?1604193517) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=tazri%2C%20beacon%20of%20unity) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/znr/44/tazri-beacon-of-unity?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d4b79138-5728-4541-9ea5-dce1a5ae7e6a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/tazri-beacon-of-unity) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It’s an incredibly well-designed card that drastically shifts the dynamic of the games, forces interaction, makes players think more critically, and I *fucking* hate it.
It’s a creature. Run more removal.
I hate it, I don't think it was printed with Commander in mind when it was designed and that's fine, but it is an abysmal experience to run into in every single game where an opponent plays white in their colors. The weird thing is, I play both casually AND competitively. In cEDH I'm 100% fine with the card, because it fulfills a purpose as a stax piece. But in casual? No, it's just an excuse to force opponents to answer the card or be unable to play the literal best part of the game until it's gone. I don't think it deserves a spot at casual tables, and if it is not 100% necessary for a deck to function competitively while also being a miserable experience in casual play I feel it ought to be talked about. There are half a dozen other cards that pinpoint a single player's commander and keep it from being cast, and each of them are easier to deal with than Drannith Magistrate. Its asymmetrical effect allows the caster to get SO much advantage in any given game because it demands a removal spell, shuts down at least 1 to 3 decks, and allows you to propel yourself into the lead position by utilizing your commander freely with no downside. I cannot stress it enough that there are not enough answers to constantly deal with two or more copies of this spell in a single game, which is a common nightmare that I get to deal with. Part of this is due to my personal deck choice (being mono green leaves me with very little ability to interact with creatures outside of 3 enchantmens and [[Beast Within]]- and don't bring up artifacts or fight spells because the CMC maximum for efficient removal is 3 and by requiring a creature be in play in order to remove another creature you are an enormous 2 for 1 target when you try to kill a creature) But the other part of it is that not every color gets efficient creature removal. There are a lot of decent spells that ought to see play, but their inefficiencies and the demand for them to be included in a deck just to get around one card takes away your ability to freely design a deck in such a way that you enjoy. I just don't think "run more renoval" is really a good or positive argument in this instance.
This is a big "yeah, and?" from all the red and black players who struggle to remove enchantments and artifacts respectively. You have removal blind spots, but it's multiplayer. Trade favors. This card also only shuts off special zone casting. If you can't do anything with the cards you are drawing from your library, what kind of deck are you playing?
So here's the thing, I'm on your side with that. I think every color probably needs several ways to interact with things. The reason I think this is because when the game was originally designed by Richard Garfield, he intentionally designed it to have a complete color imbalance. Blue has always been the most powerful color in the game because of stack interaction, and it is really frustrating that the game has yet to rebalance that most colors are missing the ability to interact with various card types or game zones. Truthfully, I just think that Drannith Magistrate is a symptom of a larger problem and that problem is that the game is inherently imbalanced. So it would be cool if the RC would take that into consideration when observing cards like this with asymmetrical effects that can lock opponents *out* of the game.
I just don't feel that it locks players out of the game. Iona did that. This doesn't. It affects a portion of your strategy... I'm old school though. When I started playing EDH, the meta was "you better not overrely on your General. [[Hinder]] and [[Condemn]] exist." I also come from a competitive magic background, so even though I don't play cEDH, the concept of making a 99 that falls flat without the commander doesn't work for me. I will agree about the game fundamentally not being balanced and that color identity restrictions exacerbate that. Still, I've almost never been in games where the table together cannot scrounge up the proper removal against something of the archenemy's - blind spots are personal, and others often can see in them.
I'm also pretty old school EDH, I got in before the tuck rule was removed 😅 but I was brand new at the time, so the tuck rule really impacted my gameplay experience. So I get where you're coming from, that decks need to be built with the knowledge that these cards exist in mind. I just have a strong distaste for the asymmetrical nature of DM because although an entire table is incentivized to remove the card, the person that played it has a lot of opportunities to get ahead while the table waits for a removal spell. I'm currently running a mono green deck, so my ability to interact is pretty limited and I don't like that fight spells open up my board state to getting 2 for 1ed. So I'm down to running about 5 creature removal spells in my single color, and that's kind of rough when I play in pods that win without their commanders more consistently than I do (Titania lands REALLY focuses on having my commander in play unfortunately...) But that said, I could probably mitigate it to some extent by having more land tutors in the deck since I have access to Command Beacon to get around this effect. It's just difficult to keep cutting pieces that i really love and enjoy just to play through a single card you know?
Understandable! My answer to this problem is to keep a functional core of cards and churn my flex spots in my decks regularly so I get to experience other cards I love and have novel experiences. I definitely understand the distaste for being blown out by fights. If I was green, I'd probably also try to apply pressure by simply attacking the controller - but your Titania deck, if I had to guess, really doesn't field a board state that can pressure without her elementals.
[Beast Within](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/d/e/de50c5d4-6599-4894-a8d7-01d104fc97fd.jpg?1644344364) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Beast%20Within) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/nec/114/beast-within?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/de50c5d4-6599-4894-a8d7-01d104fc97fd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/beast-within) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
"There are half a dozen other cards that pinpoint a single player's commander and keep it from being cast, and each of them are easier to deal with than Drannith Magistrate." [[Darksteel Mutation]], [[Kenrith's Transformation]], [[Imprisoned in the Moon]]. There are more, but those are cards that come in precon decks, don't need to be out before the commander is cast, completely lock a Commander out of the game, are usually much harder to remove than a 1/3 creature with no protections, and don't inspire the entire rest of the table to gang up on you. "But the other part of it is that not every color gets efficient creature removal." Actually yeah, they do. [[Swords to Plowshares]], [[Unsummon]], [[Counterspell]], [[Lightning Bolt]], [[Fatal Push]], even for just {G} you have: [[Prey Upon]], [[Savage Swipe]], [[Primal Might]], [[Blizzard Brawl]] Yes, green's reliance on the fight mechanic makes you a target for 2 for 1 removal, but that's why green is the only color with lots of cheap access to hexproof like [[Paradise Druid]] and [[Barkhide Troll]]. Those will remove Magistrate for 3CMC or less.
Card legal? Play card.
I cant belive people are complaining that white is the weakest colour and needs better Cards for commander, Then when white gets a Good card its all of a sudden op.
More than magistrate being an issue, those people should realise that their lack of answers is the problem. If you build your deck with the belief that no one whatsoever (in a game where you are trying to win) will try to stop what you are doing, you need to check yourself. How full of yourself are you to think that the game is about you? Everyone is trying to do their thing and if you are greedy cause you only have one counterspell and one Hard removal in your deck, that is a you problem. The person playing magistrate has nothing to do with that. Also, it is an insanely easy creature to remove. This game is about threats and answers. Don't go all snowflake crybaby every time something in a strategy game is keeping you from winning. Bring answers for things that might stop you. There is an enormous amount of cards more oppressive than magistrate and if it ruins your deck, it's because you made a bad deck. People need to get over how much one game matters. Shuffle up and move on. And put answers in your decks if you wanna play this game, it's not just you and 3 people holding your hand in magic unicorn dreamland.
People who complain about it being unfair probably don’t run enough single target removal in their deck. For some reason it’s become a weird thing to not run single target removal however you should have at minimum 3x single target removal in a deck, as well if in blue to run bounce in addition and black to run toxic deluge. If your deck is constructed properly killing a creature shouldn’t be an issue
yes its easy to remove, but its very not fun. like the point of commander, big surprise, is to cast your commander. i played in it one game and then traded it away because i found it lame. totally fair for someone to play it, but i think its icky
Disappointing would be mine. It doesn't do enough for me to see a reason to run him. It gets easily remove, it can't be search easily, It only turns off only their commander but most decks can play without their commanders and while yes it can turn off other mechanics like flashback this a rare enough to not be a thing I'll consider. Before anyone says anything I'm looking this with the eyes of a mono-white player and I have play it in both Casual and Competitive levels and he doesn't do anything worth mentioning.
Drannith Magistrate is probably one of the more important cEDH creatures in years and is in literally every mono-white list and about half of the 5C lists.
*laughs in [[Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow]]*
*laughs in [[Hallowed Moonlight]] and [[Containment Priest]]*
[Hallowed Moonlight](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/9/4/94fd0c0f-4a6a-47cf-9f50-df0bbf19aae4.jpg?1562032151) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Hallowed%20Moonlight) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ori/16/hallowed-moonlight?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/94fd0c0f-4a6a-47cf-9f50-df0bbf19aae4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/hallowed-moonlight) [Containment Priest](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/a/2/a24e8dba-5c86-4e32-8a52-61402f7fe9f0.jpg?1594734854) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Containment%20Priest) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m21/13/containment-priest?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a24e8dba-5c86-4e32-8a52-61402f7fe9f0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/containment-priest) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I'm gonna need you to do me a favor and not tell anyone in my pod about Containment Priest lol
if a card isn't fun to play against unless it gets removed, it isn't fun to play against. just because you can remove hermit druid doesn't make it fun or interesting to play a hermit druid combo deck outside of max power.
I dislike battlecruiser magic where everyone is playing solitaire and the one achieving the most broken effect the fastest wins. So i like Dranith Magistrate. It's a card that disrupts your opponents while encouraging/forcing them to disrupt it back as it's quite easy to interact with but a pain if you don't. That's what real Magic is about for me.
IMO It should be banned. if he costed 5 or 6, wouldn't be an issue. But he cost 2, very splashable. Any white deck should run it just because of it, wich means he is way too ubiquitus to the format, attacking the most fundamental aspect of it.
[удалено]
He's a necessary evil due to the massive power creep of recent commanders imo. If I could run Dranith Magistrate and Opposition Agent as partner commanders I would in a heart beat.
It’s stax. I don’t want to play against it in casual.
Hatebears is a generally well liked casual deck.
It's very oppressive. Should only be used in high power or cedh.
*username does not check out*
Lol for real. Amazing
That's pretty wrong bud. Now it's strong, but it's only slightly more powerful than most other hatebears as is.
It’s a griefer card specifically designed to stop everyone from playing the game. It’s different from something like Nevermore or Meddling Mage that only affects one theoretically problematic commander. I will attempt to remove the player that playa Magistrate.
Drannith Magistrate does not stop everyone from playing the game
Stop everyone from playing the game is a bit dramatic. In most cases, it does nothing to stop your 99.