Readers!

This week I wanted to do something a little different. I know that we have been building around recent previews every week but that is not a process that will ever end. As we take on our Sisyphean task of creating decks for each new Legendary creature, we get farther and farther behind and I have decided to tackle this problem by contributing to it. If you were hoping for a quirky new 75% decklist from me based on some broken new Simic commander, you're going to have to be a bit more specific. If you were hoping for a controversial opinion, however, I am going to skate as close to one as I can without telling anyone else they should do the same thing as me. This is my own personal decision and I am going to walk you through my reasoning so you can either tell me why you think I'm wrong or why more people should listen to me. Do I have your undivided attention?

I don't want to include Sol Ring in my decks anymore.

If you can't accept the premise that I am going to mean what I say in this piece, you're going to roll your eyes a lot. I am glad you're still reading, though - roughly 75% of the people who come across this article are going to skip reading it and write 11 paragraphs in /r/EDH based on the title alone. That's actually where 75% theory got its name, believe it or not. Everyone whose knees jerked when they read this are probably going to say a few things. They'll mention Sol Ring is banned in Legacy, so it must be good enough to play in our casual format. They might mention how The Command Zone's data indicates a turn 1 Sol Ring gives you a significant advantage and a substantially increased probability that you will win the game. They'll remind me that it gives you 4 mana on turn 2, as if I hadn't done the math.

I won't argue any of those points, in fact, I concede all of them. The problem with Sol Ring isn't that it isn't good, it's that it isn't fun for me. The game changes when someone plays an early Sol Ring, and it's not always for the better.

I accept the premise that a turn 1 Sol Ring puts you way ahead. I think that may be its worst quality - a turn 1 Sol Ring gives you an emblem that says "Until someone else does something worse, you're the Archenemy." I don't win Archenemy games because I don't build for being the Archenemy. Being messed with the most early because you got off to a faster start that you may or may not have capitalized on doesn't appeal to me. Do you relish that heat? Super, I recommend you don't cut your Sol Rings. Do you like to be ignored a bit and get a few pieces of your Doomsday Ray pointed at the Moon before you flip it on and alert earth's mightiest heroes? I recommend keeping a low profile as long as you can. A turn 1 Sol Ring is kind of like littering in front of your parole officer; it may not be enough to get you busted, but it's going to get you a lot of scrutiny you don't want. My decks don't want the heat, so I stay out of the kitchen, the kitchen being where they hand out Sol Rings and mix up a big batch of confusing metaphors.

I don't love "staples" as a concept, second of all. I realize there are a lot of cards that it makes sense to play and which are so fundamental to the format that people play them without question. A lot of those cards are Artifacts, because of course they are; Artifacts are not bound by color identity. One good thing about not liking to include a ton of staples in my list is that I stopped playing Duplicant and Mind's Eye before everyone else realized those cards aren't as good anymore. I used the extra deck space to add pet cards. I tend to not run Swiftfoot Boots or Lightning Greaves despite liking having alive creatures just because I inevitably get to my last few cuts and rather than agonize, I will make a very easy cut and remove something I am never happy to draw, and I am realizing that I never really want to draw a Sol Ring.

If I have a Sol Ring early, I feel this little twinge of reluctance when I play it. People always comment, make the same tired joke about me stacking my deck, and focus on me. Whether or not that means I am ahead is irrelevant to me. I cannot express enough that this argument is entirely based on how Sol Ring makes me feel. Is that super rational? Well, no, but so what? I play Commander to have fun and a card that makes me not have fun gets the boot. Over the 9 years this series has run, I have expressed a personal distaste for face-down tutors, though I always recommend my readers play them if they like them. I began to realize that Cyclonic Rift was a card I never wanted to Overload. I began to realize that I'd rather open up a 24-hour day care in my house than ask people "Do you pay the 1?" every 9 seconds. I don't dislike good cards because they're good, I dislike them because I don't want to play Magic that way. I have been fully aware that it's good and fine, actually, to not play cards you don't like to play. For some reason, though, Sol Ring always felt sacrosanct. I went through my decks looking to snap off cards I didn't enjoy drawing. Smothering Tithe, Dockside Extortionist - any card, really, that made people act like I am the biggest threat at the table. I don't get mad when someone plays a Smothering Tithe against me, I don't care what you do, but I don't like how much Tithe makes me slow down everyone else's turn.

I used to roll my eyes when people would say that Temple of the False God is sometimes a Sol Ring, which I used to think was poppycock. Temple of the False God has made me mulligan more hands than Serum Powder. It's bad early. It's best in Green decks and Green decks don't want it. I have come to realize that it's actually poppycock because comparing Temple of the False God to Sol Ring implies that it wants to be like Sol Ring but does a bad job. The thing is that Temple is better played after the first 5 turns or so, which makes me tend to dislike having it in my opening hand. Conversely, if I draw a Sol Ring any time other than in my opening hand, it feels like I bricked. It doesn't matter to me whether Sol Ring is objectively fine on turn eight, I would rather draw a fun spell or a useful creature.

Am I salty about losing to Sol Ring? I'm of the opinion that I have never lost to a Sol Ring - perhaps it led to a game state where I was a turn slow to stop them, but I don't blame Sol Ring for that any more than I blame the land they played it with. This is purely about dopamine, and if Sol Ring gives you a shot of the good stuff, jam it all night, you won't hurt my feelings. But Sol Ring is a card that I realized I don't want to play in the first few turns, and I don't want to play it later, and that's all the times there are. If I never feel good casting it, why is it in the deck?

I am OK with this piece being divisive - I think it may be divisive in a way that some might not expect. I think it might divide the audience into the two camps: those who want to win the game and those who want to do the thing. If Sol Ring helps people who want to do the thing do the thing, play it. Every "win the game" player would be a fool to cut Sol Ring, but I think if you want to do a thing and Sol Ring doesn't help you do that thing, you'd be a fool not to take it out. Mana helps everyone do everything, and Sol Ring gives you 2 mana. But what has it done for you lately?