No Because:
RaiRai wrote:
Points:
1. He has a high mana of Seven cmc and if bolted, he is boned
Bolted? he is a 7/7 so lightning bolt doesn't kill him. Even if he is being murdered the damage is already done. He has a CMC of 8 (which was one of the biggest complaints about him btw) but there are too many ways to cheat him out or recur him that the cmc doesn't matter
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2. Griselbrand runs out of steam later in the game unless lifegain is involved
Later in the game doesn't happen, the player draws 21 cards on the spot at least and goes on to win from there. Google the legacy deck called tin fins to see how he ends the game.
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3. His ability presents a significant drawback of paying life in exchange for card draw, which early game is helpful but peters out once the life total is low.
A common misconception for players is that paying life for cards is bad. 1 life for 1 card is an incredible rate and any veteran player knows that. His ability is not a drawback.
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4. Blue Control will take every advantage to do to copy, control and or clone him, making his board presence less threatening
Blue control will be too slow, the grislebrand player already has everything they need to win. In addition, being a prime clone target is actually part of the reason prime time and sylvan primordial are banned. One of the ban list criteria is "warps the game strategically". If the right strategy when encountering a card is that you must clone, control or kill it, then it warps the format strategically
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5. A Griselbrand deck would require Lifegain oriented cards in order to make repeated use of his ability
The main ban list criteria Grisel breeches is that he interacts badly with the format. We start at 40 life, which means you get 4 activations before you even need to think about your life total. thats 28 cards in hand immediately when he hits the board. Plus he has lifelink himself, so you don't even need to work to get a source of lifegain, because it comes stapled onto the card.
In summary, Griselbrand:
1. Warps the format strategically by making the game revolve around who can get and keep one in play (similar to prophet, prime time and primordial)
2. Interacts badly with the starting life total of 40 which makes the pay 7 life part of his ability almost irrelevant
3. Is incredibly powerful compared to it's costs.