Mindslaver and Magister Sphinx are a lot more powerful in 1v1, like a LOT more powerful.
It COULD be because of Sharuum as a general, though. Food for thought.

Entomb EOT Magister, then Sharuum into it. You take 30, then 10 in the air next turn.

Okay, after much deliberation there really isn't a lot that you have to watch out for in 1v1 with powered up decks. Because there are now too many infinites to count the only real problem is acceleration, you cannot stop an infinite or a combo win. Thus, your problems are:

1) Sol Ring
2) Mana Crypt

Summarizing the last 500 1v1 games, there are really only two reasons that the game becomes imbalanced at an early stage. Workshop decks must be metagamed against the same as in Vintage; there is no other artifact or mana accelerant including Rofellos that will consistently win the game like the two listed above. The core problem is that 1v1 or dueling decks are based on the concept of a "winning trade" the same way that chess players are constantly trying to trade a knight for a queen or a pawn for a rook. Thus, by accelerating the trade process on one side it becomes impossible for the other side to make back the trade because each turn one side makes better trades with their cards and mana than the other. The crux of the issue is that a recovery is impossible because a pivotal spell, any pivotal spell, cannot be ensured to resolve and thus must not be considered in the equation. Cards like Mind Twist and Mindslaver merely implement the advantage in a brutally efficient manner but are not the issue. The issue is the imbalance of the system due to a couple of cards for 1v1 that actually DO swing the match.

What this means is twofold. 1) in duels it is even more important to ensure that both of the above are not present. 2) in duels, most of the banlist can be thrown out because infinites cannot be prevented and sway of the stars is just a bad way to implement an advantage you could win with more easily. This means that 1v1 edh is more like vintage or extended, but it also means that 1v1 edh needs to embrace what 1v1 looks like with its 1v1 banlist. No banning high cost spells that have lower equivalents for 1v1 play, no complaining about metalworker's ban or sundering titan's existence, 1v1 is about how to milk an advantage and there are very few cards that will imbalance the system for 1v1 play. So...do I mind Mindslaver in 1v1? No, I mind the fact that people who lose in 1v1 think for some reason that there is a right or wrong way to lose and to win. If you are winning, you get to pick what you win with. Period. If you are winning because of an unstoppable advantage (sol ring, mana crypt, metalworker, roffelos+mantle) that advantage should be banned from 1v1 play. It's pretty simple, the banlist for 1v1 is actually going to be smaller than the full EDH banlist and for good reason. 1v1 is much closer to vintage.

So what are your thoughts on:

Metal Worker

Roffelos

Roffelos enablers (Staff of Domination, Umbral Mantle, Sword of Paruns)

Crucible of Worlds

Banned and should probably be banned but I haven't seen evidence supporting this conclusion (no deck can consistently pull off an uncounterable landlock that I've seen, braids obviously excepted).


Banned for 1v1, or you can ban rofellos, but he's not bad without infinites he's actually kinda silly But you better be packing some heat.

Recently, I've been having my doubts about whether or not Metalworker should stay banned in MULTIPLAYER. I understand why he got hammered in 1v1 games, but in the reality that is MP he doesn't appear to be all that broken what so ever. If anything, he simply makes decks featuring Karn as a general better in a MP environment.

Other powerful generals do indeed benefit from him, like Sharuum(probably) and Arcum. But they already are strong enough as it is, but not enough to win MP games all the time. Please don't think I'm biased in any way, I play non of the generals above personally, I've simply observed games with all of them.

In short, I think that in MP this fella is relatively easy to deal with and people see his ability coming from miles away.

Metalworker isn't broken in the slightest, in multiplayer or 1v1. People have been pointing out how silly this ban is in comparison to Rofellos since it was made, but to no avail. I really don't believe there's any reason to ban him--Rofellos is a better accelerator with much broader applications (more decks play heavy green than play enough artifacts to support Metalworker, and that's not even counting the general issue). I think the combo with Staff of Domination may have had some influence on the banning...but in that case Staff of Domination would be by far the better ban, seeing as it's easily the stupidest part of the Rofellos deck as well.

There was a big thread on this subject that I read all the way through, and I never saw a single decent argument in favor of this ban. I'm pretty sure that the only reason Metalworker remains banned is that someone doesn't want to admit that they made a mistake.

How about this;
Metalworker is a cheap way to allow Blue based decks to generate huge amounts of mana, and Blue has access to a majority of the broken things in Magic.
Rofellos is a cheap way to allow Green to generate huge amounts of mana, and Green has access to ... fatties.

And before you even mention Staff:
Blue can tutor for pretty much anything, draw huge amounts of cards, bounce, counter, take extra turns and tap.
Green can tutor for creatures and make tokens. Mostly at sorcery speed.

It was not my intention to even bring Roffelos into this. While it's true he's a strong general, it's also true that he is one of the very few playable, competitive generals Green has. This bann list has taken this into consideration, it's been said that they are in the business of improving the game, not ruining it for an entire color. Also, Roffelos is far from strong in MP.

Anyway, back on Metalworker and blue. In reality, he may indeed give blue an edge, but in what way? Non of the competitive blue generals, with Arcum as an exception(who isn't really blue anyway), play enough artifacts to consider adding this guy. Also, their lists are already pretty tight as it is, without the addition of a 1/2.

Khymera: In 1v1 games, where Sol Ring and Crypt are banned, having access to a ton of mana early on does seem rather strong. So I'm only saying that this guy is an average creep on a 5+ table who can sometimes provide some advantage and sometimes just block a fattie.

Metalworker is:
- slower than Rofellos
- FAR less consistent
- Easier to kill
- Requires an extreme committment to artifacts more than Rofellos just requires a committment to green

Rofellos is by far the superior accelerator.



This statement is so blatantly wrong it makes me wonder if you've ever played a Rofellos deck that's more than just "LOL TIMMY CARDS".

For starters, let's go with off the top of my head Plow Under, Primal Command, Mishra's Helix, and Woodfall Primus. All of which are backed up by all sorts of recursion spells. Rofellos is a very disruptive general when he's actually optimized. Only bad Rofellos decks play nothing but Timmy-tastic creatures and no disruption.

I also like how you failed to mention both Umbral Mantle and Sword of the Paruns, both of which automatically win the game for Rofellos.

Tidespout Tyrant really needs to be evaluated for 1 vs 1. In a deck that spits it up very reliably (Like Mormir Vig can) combined with a bunch of cheap creatures and reusable spells (like Mark of Eviction for more fun and profit), once this hits the field if it's not stopped immediately it's GG.

Tidespout hits the field. If extra mana is available, bounce the nastiest threats on the board, then proceed to bounce lands until your opponent is under complete lockdown. Mormir Vig can reliably get it out on turn 6-7 without mana accell. Toss in just a bit of mana accel like Sol Ring and Overgrowth and complete domination happens much earlier.

Once the owner of the deck realized how powerful this card is in a duel, I'm prety sure the deck is unbeatable except for a deck designed to combo out on turn 3-4 or a deck designed to beat it.

So... if Tidespout Tyrant is coming down on turn 5, we can safely assume that your opponent at the very least has very few cards in hand (since they all went into either acceleration or Entomb into Zombify kinda thing). They probably are tapped out as well, especially if they played it from hand, so this seems pretty open for removal whether that be a counterspell, Wrath or Terror. If you're playing 1v1 and don't have removal of some kind... well... either you should put some in your deck or you're playing "a deck designed to combo out on turn 3-4".

Mormir vig and the deck in general is designed with card acceleration in mind as well. A 2 cost U/G creature that allows drawing another U/G creature. As the deck relies on bounce, all the owner needs to do to protect Tidespout is play a spell. Granted this slows Tidespout down as it must be replayed, but it's a means of evading. If it wasn't for the high cost, it would be almost like having Braids as a general.

I dunno... Maybe it does require a better deck to take care of since it is expensive. But the trick is it doesn't even require a good draw. Mormir vig can make it show up regularly.

You are aware that the RC doesn't take 1v1 play into consideration, right?

That's true, but really all it means here is that this subforum is not really for the RC right now. This is the duels/2HG section. Discussion of what cards are overpowered in 1vs1 is exactly what belongs here.

100%
It just sounded like he was asking the RC for rules modification. That's my mistake if I inferred incorrectly.