Ban This Sick Filth! - Prophet of Kruphix

Hello Zoners, and welcome to my humble column. I'm Tom, I'm new around here, and in this regular feature (hereby abbreviated to BTSF because seriously, who's got the time to keep typing that out?) I'm going to be looking at some of the Commander community's least favourite cards and asking whether they are truly as banworthy as they're purported to be. We're getting the party started with the oft-maligned Prophet of Kruphix, but first, let's recap the banlist criteria put forth by the rules committee, under whose guidelines a card can be banned if it;

Creates Undesirable Games / Game Situations.

Warps the Format Strategically.

Produces Too Much Mana Too Quickly.

Interacts Badly with the Structure of Commander.

Creates a Perceived High Barrier to Entry.

So, given that the PoK is one of the two cards I see most ban requests for (to the surprise of absolutely nobody, the second is Deadeye Navigator), how many of those criteria can we apply to the card?

 Wacky waving inflatable arm tube woman!

Creates Undesirable Games / Game Situations

This one's pretty much a given. As anyone who has seen one played can attest, the Prophet has an instant warping effect on the game. It rapidly devolves into a race to copy, steal or murder the Prophet and either gain her enormous advantages or prevent other players from untapping with her on the board. I've seen players use the their carefully hoarded board wipes just to be rid of this one card, and if that isn't indicative of an "undesirable game situation" then I don't know what is. When an entire game of Magic is derailed by a single card every time it sees play, that's an issue.

Warps the Format Strategically

Commander is a pretty difficult format to warp thanks to the rules regarding colour identity. PoK's two-colour nature makes it difficult to sleeve it up into the huge number of decks that, say, Primeval Titan found its way into. While there are no shortage of generals who can gleefully become downright abusive with Prophet in the deck, ex: Animar, Momir Vig, Prime Speaker Zegana - it's still situational enough that I can't honestly say it's warping the format. Individual games in which it sees play, absolutely, but it isn't impacting the format as a whole by it's very existence.

Produces Too Much Mana Too Quickly

Ha! Yeah, let's just go ahead and put a big ol' tick in that box. Untap all your lands on every other player's untap step? In terms of mana generation the Prophet pushes you far, far ahead of the table as well as being in the right colours for actual ramping and counterspells to keep other players behind.

Interacts Badly with the Structure of Commander

This one's debatable. It's more akin to interacting badly with the structure of Magic itself rather than the format-specific rules. PoK makes the turn structure largely meaningless if the controlling player can actually protect it for a few turns, as the incredible increase to mana generation and the ability to drop creatures with Flash means that every turn is also your turn.

Creates a Perceived High Barrier to Entry

We shall safely ignore this one, given that it's from a set so recent that some stores are still carrying Theros boosters, and that SCG lists the price at under two dollars with 27 currently in stock. Black Lotus it ain't.

So, how does it stack up? Is the Prophet deserving of all the ire? Is a ban impending?

"I say thee NAY!"

On balance, despite the obvious problems shown above, I find myself leaning towards keeping Prophet around. One key factor in this is that well-worn maxim that it "dies to removal", and in fact is almost guaranteed to do so. While the warping effect it has on a game is undeniable, it's also quite easy to dispose of. It isn't a key piece of any super-janky combo that I can think of, it just enables other combos to be put into place faster. Is it annoying to have a resolved Prophet on the table with no answers in hand? Sure as hell is. Is it irreparably busted? Not so much. If you can play it, resolve it, and protect then unless your deck is very, very bad you're probably going to win the game on the strength of your mana flow alon. However, the same can be said for a few other cards as well, and I don't see anyone calling for an immediate Crypt Ghast ban.

I appreciate that the RC haven't taken steps to ban Prophet. It may be incredibly powerful and extremely annoying, but it absolutely isn't format breaking, and I'm glad we don't have a format where cards earn a ban simply because players don't want to have to deal with them.

Until next time gang, remember to keep a Doom Blade in reserve!

Pass the turn.