Those are exactly my thoughts.

The need of CoW simply to fight other's is disgusting. Life from the loam is already very good, but Fastbond + CoW + Zuran Orb is ridiculously strong and not THAT hard to assemble. Hell, you don't even need Zorb. In my opinion CoW becomes outright mandatory, and quite some cards that are going well with it also, which in turn leads to decks that are even in qiote some cards.

Am I the only one seeing Fastbond as the enabler in all these combos? Crucible is just a colorless way to recover from land destruction, so you don't have to run green or be screwed.

No, I totally agree that Fastbond is a definite stinker in this format and I'm amazed it's never been put on the watch list.

Fastbond seems to be the problem card, not CoW.

Maybe banning that would be a lot more balanced.

Three card combos are never ridiculously strong. Stop it. Zuran Orb is terrrrrrriblllle!

Crucible of Worlds is not a great card. It is definitely not an auto-include in every deck.

In multiplayer, the strongest thing you can expect from CoW is the ability to make a land drop every turn. That is a very good thing, and is well worth three mana, but even that is a two card combo. If you attempt to strip-lock someone in a multiplayer game then you are both guaranteed to lose.

If Fastbond shows up things get nutty, but now you're in the realm of three-card-combo. If your three-card-combo doesn't win you the game, then you're worse than Zuran Orb.

There are no problem cards here. None of the cards even mentioned in this thread are great, aside from Braids and Life from the Loam.

I couldn't agree with RobPro more. Crucible of Worlds isn't the problem, Fastbond is. People tend to not waste their land drop for 5-10 turns or so, just to mana screw 1-2 people. Unless you have Fastbond to go with it, Strip Mine/Crucible isn't going to dominate games. Furthermore, there are 2 card combos that directly win the game, and thus are a lot more degenerate than Crucible/Fastbond/Strip Mine 3 card combo land lockdown.

Make no mistake though, I don't believe Fastbond warrants banning. No more than Earthcraft should be due to Squirel's Nest or Niv-Mizzet due to Ophidian Eye/Curiostiy.

And well put about mass land destruction too. Crucible of Worlds, not to mention Life from the Loam, are necessary for the format as long as you play with people who just refuse to play without cards in their deck that say "sweep all lands".

And to everyone who says Braids should go, totally agree as well.

Now that I slept a night over it, CoW doesn't look that scary anymore. It still feels a bit disturbing, but I think that everyone not agreeing with the decision should do the same. Live with it, adapt to ist, abuse ist.

Hmm, okay, so how about the 2 card combo of fastbond and crucible. I know I know...who in their right mind plays enough lands of the right types to be able to abuse this. I mean...it takes up so many slots...wait no it doesn't! It takes up ZERO slots to put in the necessary synergy to make this a combo. So...no...it's a 2 card combo...and if you get a fetch and ramp up to 10-15 mana on turn 2 it isn't necessary to guarantee a win if you've significantly distorted the board. You're thinking all the way to the finish line, which is a valid way to look at this, but another way is to look at the perversion of the board due to a specific card and then go "hmm...1 green mana made all this mess on turn 2..."

I am not really sure where you are arguing from. Do you think fastbond is the enabler here or crucible? I'm leaning towards fastbond, as there are absolutely -zero- non-degenerate ways you can use this card (yeah, maybe you get 1 or 2 extra lands on turn 1, but I believe that is how it was supposed to be used). Yeah, maybe banning it stops some weird fastbond/crucible 80 land deck type, but it also stops every other deck from splashing green to get fastbond online.

Fastbond, obvi. Crucible's more like "why did you take 5 variety slots and replace them with crucible, strip, waste, ghost and dust" Fuckin' annoying but not game ruining without fastbond.

Well, if evidence shows Fast Bond is a problem worth of banning, then it will perhaps be banned.

Fastbond has literally zero interaction with Crucible of Worlds. You require a third card to be able to do anything productive. Admittedly, there are several different cards that could fill that role, but you still need all three in play at once.

Actually, all you need is multiple lands in your graveyard, which could result from an enemy Armageddon or your own fetchlands or even some cycling lands and/or dredge spells. But yeah, to do anything degenerate requires Fastbond and another card.

All of those things that you mentioned are cards that are not Crucible or Fastbond.

Edit: I'm not suggesting that these cards do nothing. They are often worth playing, and I play them myself (only in one of my decks, though). My only argument is that they aren't excellent, and the decision to free them for play was very correct.

So, what you're saying is "Fastbond is required to do something degenerate with Crucible of Worlds," yes?