Flamespeaker is a strong card that gives us potential two card advantage per turn. I agree that it doesn't feel like a natural fit to RDW type decks at first, as its Three CMC can an issue time to time in such deck with low land quantity.
The aim of this article is to test Flamespeaker where I can fully utilize its potential two card advantage and cast these two cards at the same turn. And in that regard, I manage to fulfill my purpose to cast extra cheap burn or creature spells with it.
But, I don't think that RDW type deck is the right shell for it. As Flamespeaker is more a midrange star. Maybe the answer is Jund or Naya midrange as I continue to see as some rogue builds around with it.
I am very skeptical about Wizards plan to shift prize support from DEs to PEs for eternal formats. Not everyone has the time for a PE, and those events can be a long grind. And while it is true PEs offer an amazing chance to play a LOT of vintage (after all, if you care more about playing than winning, you will have a bunch of matches to go through), it also automatically excludes anyone who happens to not be available at that day and time. All in all, I still don't see vintage picking up many players online, which would be a shame.
On a separate note, I am still upset that it looks like vintage will be incredibly expensive. Not as expensive as on paper, for sure, but still. There is no good reason for it to be that way, beyond Wizards (and notably Worth) thinking it should be so. Considering vintage is never going to be as popular as either standard, modern or legacy, it does not even make good business sense for them, they would be better off going for the long tail. Wizards really has to stop thinking about the perceived cachet of old cards when it comes to MODO, it's nonsensical, pushes older formats in a niche and frustrates the players who buy the cards but find it hard to get opponents.
As far as the win condition, for the first two your basically milling the top card until they have nothing left. It sounds like it would take a while, and it does; But when you have 3-5 artifacts milling the top card every turn, and the potential to add more it doesn't take as long as you would think.
The Fetchlands are added as an extra to thin out the deck a little bit, but you only really use Lantern of Insight to shuffle the decks if it's a last ditch effort of giving them something they can kill you with.
While I understand the thought process (Vintage players want higher-stakes events, which we do)--did they have to go about accomplishing that by robbing Peter to pay Paul? The value in those daily events is TERRIBLE--they will fire for a month or two because people want to sling their shiny new moxen, but after that?
Eternal formats are expensive, and the reason that Vintage tournaments like SCGP9 and Bazaar of Moxen work is that the prize support matches the investment it takes to build a deck. I don't think it would be unreasonable to expect eternal formats to offer BETTER prize support than Standard/Modern...just like they do in real life.
DEs are the most accessible way for most people to get into a format. not diving directly into a PE. Not everyone can set aside 6 hours to play a PE even if they want to, and the poor Euro players are at an even greater disadvantage with PEs. I think that DE support should encourage format growth by offering decent prizes (and it doesnt have to be in packs, cool eternal-playable promos are fine)--but if I am a new Vintage player (or new to online) and I join a DE, go 3-1 and get 2 packs...I am probably not coming back. The time investment to play a DE is worth more than 2 packs to me (and a lot of Vintage players as we are predominantly adults with jobs/families/wives). They need to represent at least a reasonable value.
Seems like quite a cool deck idea. Not sure how well it would work in practice seems interesting. My only real concern is that fetchlands and other shuffle effects could make the whole strategy less effective. Also, is the win condition milling? Seems rough if your only milling a few cards per turn.
Nylea goes active every now and again. People tend to send their removal at my double green creatures to hurt my devotion so Nylea doesn't stay online too often. The trample is still awesome even when offline. Testing the Bows in the main deck today, I'll let you know how it goes.
I purposely left out Gemstone Caverns (that thing hardly ever comes out of the opening hand in a 100-card singleton format), but I suppose it could've use some sort of mention. There is that turn zero thing that I'm thinking you're talking about. That won't be happening in Commander, I think.
Cavern of Souls I straight up dropped the ball on. You got me there. I'll be sure to touch on it in part 3 before I start getting to the utility lands. I guess I could mention Gemstone Caverns too, since it CAN come in early, even though it's unlikely.
The main difference between sylvan and primeval titan was that sylvan hurted every opponent equally. With primus and terastodon you can actually hit only the strongest player. Sylvan had to hurt everybody - if you were mana screwed before, you will be destroyed after sylvan
Great to hear! The 2 of Nylea, God of the Hunt would definitely be the changes that I would make if I were to do it again. That trample ability is too huge not too. How often were you getting Nylea active? Deathtouch + Trample is also amazing if you can get the pieces together. It also means that you only need a Kalonian Tusker, BTE etc alive with the God and the God's Weapon to have an active God as well.
So is Flamespeaker good in RDW? The conclusion to your article isn't very clear and I didn't get much of an impression as to how Flamespeaker played in the decks you presented.
The card doesn't seem like a natural fit for RDW and I find it hard to see exactly what it adds to the deck. Card advantage I guess? Though that depends on it surviving and actually being able to hit the opponent which seems like it wouldn't happen all that often. However, having not played with the card I don't know that for sure. What have your experiences been?
I know nothing about 1v1, except it's probably a cutthroat nightmare. Something akin to Vintage with 100 cards, if you don't properly regulate it (which is what the 1v1 league on Gatherling did). It's part of the discussion I'll publish tomorrow about my wishes for the future of Commander.
Trust me, Navigator is insane. It's the endgame of those decks, mostly with Momir at the helm, so it's very quick to get online. And the difference is that when an effect like that gets online, it's over. If you drop, say, Ulamog, that doesn't guarantee much if not a strong board position and a big target on your back. It's an all-in, you either work towards a win, or you're wiped out of existence.
Instant-wins are just nasty, they leave a bad aftertaste even in a competitive environment (there's a whole range of competitive players, not all share the same ideas, of course). Think Helm of Obedience. You use Zur, fetch Rest in Peace, then you have probably a dozen tutors for the Helm between white, black and blue, and conterspells to back it all up, and then it's over.
Or things like Zur fetching Bitterblossom, then Contamination and possibly locking everyone else out of the game. These are annoying things, it's okay to have them around for a while, but at some point enough is enough. I already had to ban every Time Walk variant, because TimeWalk.dek was so annoying, generating very long games where just one player was actually playing (in some of those decks, the endgame was Laboratory Maniac! Can you imagine how annoying it is to wait until they get there? And you have to hit F6 every extra turn, so you can't even go away and come back later).
I'm not sure where you're getting that I'm worked up about Sylvan Primordial, but okay? My problem with it is poor card design. As I've already said, I don't even want it banned, I just don't want these type of cards to be a recurring trend by Wizards.
I'm a bit shocked that Deadeye is getting banned by you and more curious about the meta. I agree that it's an incredibly powerful combo enabler, particularly because it's so hard to disrupt. I don't know about competitive multiplayer, but I do know a bit about the 1v1 french scene, and without that ban list surely people should be able to combo out in the first 3 turns fairly consistently? Are things like Ad Nauseum / Sol Ring / Mana Crypt allowed? I would think that people would be winning with other methods before Deadeye even became relevant.
I mistyped on the White, I did in fact mean card draw, not card advantage. Sun Titan and Mesa Pegasus are all well and good but they are no substitute to refilling your hand, hitting more lands, drawing into more answers, etc. And I get that tricolor generals are being pushed but I don't think that's a good enough justification to restrict potentially sweet monowhite commanders from having nice things like, well, every other color. I didn't hear grumblings about color pie when Mentor of the Meek came out so I think it's safe to say White can be allowed to draw cards sometimes.
Man, you're really worked up about Sylvan Primordial. :)
I can see now where Menery came from. These opinions are totally out of my experience, and at the end of the day, with Commander, it's all about that (which is an issue when you attempt to have some kind of organized play as opposed to kitchen tables).
I can only tell you that in my own experience, which involves 75 competitive multiplayer events organized in the past year and a half, featuring a pool of about 100 different players, Sylvan Primordial was essentially an afterthought, nobody ever won a table because they had it in the deck, nobody complained about it when it was legal, nobody complained when it was banned (mostly the reaction was, "Uh? Really?"). It was just there, now it's not, nothing changed in the dynamics of the decks or the meta of the tournament.
Whereas I've got to the point where tomorrow I'll have to ban Deadeye Navigator (along a few other things) because it's become just too disruptive in the meta. Ramping a few basic lands when you already have 7+ mana is one thing, but you don't win out of a couple basics; Navigator/Palinchron ends the game right there, and with the tutoring power of Simic (or 5-color, many Commander Spikes like to use Sliver Queen just because they'd like to have Demonic Tutor and Stoneforge Mystic in there), the question is not even if you'll get there, but just how many turns the other players have to kill you first.
I'm a committed green player, and I can tell you I don't particularly miss Primordial, while I'm more excited about the M15 guy who's a monogreen Harmonic Sliver (something that I sorely missed).
As for white, you were talking about card drawing, not generically card advantage. White has plenty of card advantage. Mesa Pegasus, Hero of Bladehold, Sun Titan, and so on. It also has a few great tutors that feel specific of the color. Monowhite is not played much, but in general they're not pushing towards monocolored commanders – they actually push towards 3-colored ones, in the tradition of the original Elder Dragons. Elesh Norn decks are played in SUNCOM, anyway, won tables and one event.
If you've seen my Pennypincher Deckbuilder articles, you know I'm a sucker for cheap decks. I just built one of these for about $12. I went with that first list you posted, took out the Wild Beastmasters, replaced them with 2 Nylea, God of Hunts and a fourth Reverent Hunter. I cut the two Plummets in the sideboard and just went with three Bows of Nylea. Like I said, only $12 and some change.
I'm considering bringing the Bows into the main, since deathtouch can really make a difference and can allow you to alpha strike with some of the smaller guys in the deck as well. Nylea is a beating with its auto-trample, and the pump effect is certainly relevant. I find myself winning around turn 5 or 6 on average. Yet to see a nuts draw that let me come close to winning on turn 3.
To answer your question, kuma, I got the combo twice - my German friend let me (made me?) combo all the way out to the upkeeep win (my plan was to flip 100 coins), my last opponent conceded one game to the assembled pieces. Worship won another game, and I think I beatdown for the rest as I can't really recall anything special. It was a fun deck for the environment.
I'm not equating all green ramp to Boundless Realms. I'm pointing out that, unlike your Caged Sun, Vorinclex, and Mana Reflection, there's too few ways for players to interact with an opponent's abundance of mana in the form of basic lands. Your other 3 mana sources can and will be destroyed, which balances out the risk vs. reward cost of them. Ramping with Cultivate is no risk, all reward.
You can answer everything Green throws out... if you're Blue. Then you can use Countermagic to stop things like Sylvan Primordial and Genesis Wave. Otherwise no, there's quite a few things Green can ramp out to that you have little ways of answering efficiently.
Looting isn't really card advantage. Like I said, the Wheel cards are very good, because you can use them when you have no cards in hand to really get ahead. Red is also getting real card advantage in the form of "exile for a turn" triggers like new Chandra and Prophetic Flamespeaker. It's a step in the right direction.
My own experience, and I know others can back me on this, is that mono White is the weakest monocolor you can play in Commander. No other color feels so frustratingly limited in power and it's all due to running out of gas. Artifacts help prop the color up in ramp and card draw but that's still leagues behind the other colors, too much so.
White does have the best removal, it's true, but go ahead and play mono-color White and tell me you couldn't do better as mono Green, Blue, Black, or even Red. I think not allowing White to have card advantage is an outdated concept that lacks creativity. I'm not saying give them the BEST card draw, but they should have something. Mentor of the Meek is one example of card draw within the color pie. I'm sure there's more options out there to explore.
It's unfair to compare a card that sees use in competitive formats to one that was banned in the format it was made for. Sylvan Primordial was worse than Primeval Titan ever was. You play it, fetch Maze of Ith and a regular land, and.. ? Then you get two more lands when you attack next turn if nobody has an answer? Meanwhile Sylvan comes in, blows up 3 important things, ramps you 3 lands, immediately. The only answer was countermagic. And you didn't even need to abuse it, you just did what Green always does. Turn 2 rampant growth / nature's lore / whatever. Turn 3 explosive vegetation / azusa / oracle / skyshroud claim. Turn 4 Sylvan Primordial, blow up 3 lands, ramp 3 lands, and you've taken an enormous lead. That's not abuse, that's exactly how Sylvan is meant to be played.
Green has dozens of ways of blowing up noncreature permanents, but none so stupidly efficient as Sylvan, especially not while ramping you as well. Sylvan Primordial costs less than Woodfall Primus even, and it blows up 3 things instead of 2 (eventually) and ramps you 3 lands for the fun of it. And Woodfall Primus is very strong and heavily played.
Deadeye Navigator is a combo card that requires 8 mana before you can safely put him on the field, and even then you still have a turn to find an answer before he does any real work, unless the player is going infinite mana. Sylvan Primordial is a one card enormous game swing can't be disrupted outside of countermagic / torpor orb for 7. That's the difference to me.
Thank you for your comments.
Flamespeaker is a strong card that gives us potential two card advantage per turn. I agree that it doesn't feel like a natural fit to RDW type decks at first, as its Three CMC can an issue time to time in such deck with low land quantity.
The aim of this article is to test Flamespeaker where I can fully utilize its potential two card advantage and cast these two cards at the same turn. And in that regard, I manage to fulfill my purpose to cast extra cheap burn or creature spells with it.
But, I don't think that RDW type deck is the right shell for it. As Flamespeaker is more a midrange star. Maybe the answer is Jund or Naya midrange as I continue to see as some rogue builds around with it.
I dont see the high prices. VMA prices are already crashing hard. Seems like the format will be cheaper than modern.
I am very skeptical about Wizards plan to shift prize support from DEs to PEs for eternal formats. Not everyone has the time for a PE, and those events can be a long grind. And while it is true PEs offer an amazing chance to play a LOT of vintage (after all, if you care more about playing than winning, you will have a bunch of matches to go through), it also automatically excludes anyone who happens to not be available at that day and time. All in all, I still don't see vintage picking up many players online, which would be a shame.
On a separate note, I am still upset that it looks like vintage will be incredibly expensive. Not as expensive as on paper, for sure, but still. There is no good reason for it to be that way, beyond Wizards (and notably Worth) thinking it should be so. Considering vintage is never going to be as popular as either standard, modern or legacy, it does not even make good business sense for them, they would be better off going for the long tail. Wizards really has to stop thinking about the perceived cachet of old cards when it comes to MODO, it's nonsensical, pushes older formats in a niche and frustrates the players who buy the cards but find it hard to get opponents.
In 2hg, Desecration Demon trigger often doesn't work -- it won't let opponents sac creatures to tap Demon.
The last version has Tezzeret as an alternative win condition.
As far as the win condition, for the first two your basically milling the top card until they have nothing left. It sounds like it would take a while, and it does; But when you have 3-5 artifacts milling the top card every turn, and the potential to add more it doesn't take as long as you would think.
The Fetchlands are added as an extra to thin out the deck a little bit, but you only really use Lantern of Insight to shuffle the decks if it's a last ditch effort of giving them something they can kill you with.
While I understand the thought process (Vintage players want higher-stakes events, which we do)--did they have to go about accomplishing that by robbing Peter to pay Paul? The value in those daily events is TERRIBLE--they will fire for a month or two because people want to sling their shiny new moxen, but after that?
Eternal formats are expensive, and the reason that Vintage tournaments like SCGP9 and Bazaar of Moxen work is that the prize support matches the investment it takes to build a deck. I don't think it would be unreasonable to expect eternal formats to offer BETTER prize support than Standard/Modern...just like they do in real life.
DEs are the most accessible way for most people to get into a format. not diving directly into a PE. Not everyone can set aside 6 hours to play a PE even if they want to, and the poor Euro players are at an even greater disadvantage with PEs. I think that DE support should encourage format growth by offering decent prizes (and it doesnt have to be in packs, cool eternal-playable promos are fine)--but if I am a new Vintage player (or new to online) and I join a DE, go 3-1 and get 2 packs...I am probably not coming back. The time investment to play a DE is worth more than 2 packs to me (and a lot of Vintage players as we are predominantly adults with jobs/families/wives). They need to represent at least a reasonable value.
I see what you did there ;)
Seems like quite a cool deck idea. Not sure how well it would work in practice seems interesting. My only real concern is that fetchlands and other shuffle effects could make the whole strategy less effective. Also, is the win condition milling? Seems rough if your only milling a few cards per turn.
A winning vintage deck without Wasteland? Is that really possible? Given all the talk about how no Wasteland in VMA would doom the format online ;-)
Vintage/Legacy Premier Events pay out $609 worth of product at MSRP, not $699.
Nylea goes active every now and again. People tend to send their removal at my double green creatures to hurt my devotion so Nylea doesn't stay online too often. The trample is still awesome even when offline. Testing the Bows in the main deck today, I'll let you know how it goes.
I purposely left out Gemstone Caverns (that thing hardly ever comes out of the opening hand in a 100-card singleton format), but I suppose it could've use some sort of mention. There is that turn zero thing that I'm thinking you're talking about. That won't be happening in Commander, I think.
Cavern of Souls I straight up dropped the ball on. You got me there. I'll be sure to touch on it in part 3 before I start getting to the utility lands. I guess I could mention Gemstone Caverns too, since it CAN come in early, even though it's unlikely.
Thanks for the comment!
You forgot Gemstone Caverns(which is mostly for some weird combos, but still)
And you forgot Cavern of souls which is like primal beyond but better
The main difference between sylvan and primeval titan was that sylvan hurted every opponent equally. With primus and terastodon you can actually hit only the strongest player. Sylvan had to hurt everybody - if you were mana screwed before, you will be destroyed after sylvan
Great to hear! The 2 of Nylea, God of the Hunt would definitely be the changes that I would make if I were to do it again. That trample ability is too huge not too. How often were you getting Nylea active? Deathtouch + Trample is also amazing if you can get the pieces together. It also means that you only need a Kalonian Tusker, BTE etc alive with the God and the God's Weapon to have an active God as well.
So is Flamespeaker good in RDW? The conclusion to your article isn't very clear and I didn't get much of an impression as to how Flamespeaker played in the decks you presented.
The card doesn't seem like a natural fit for RDW and I find it hard to see exactly what it adds to the deck. Card advantage I guess? Though that depends on it surviving and actually being able to hit the opponent which seems like it wouldn't happen all that often. However, having not played with the card I don't know that for sure. What have your experiences been?
I know nothing about 1v1, except it's probably a cutthroat nightmare. Something akin to Vintage with 100 cards, if you don't properly regulate it (which is what the 1v1 league on Gatherling did). It's part of the discussion I'll publish tomorrow about my wishes for the future of Commander.
Trust me, Navigator is insane. It's the endgame of those decks, mostly with Momir at the helm, so it's very quick to get online. And the difference is that when an effect like that gets online, it's over. If you drop, say, Ulamog, that doesn't guarantee much if not a strong board position and a big target on your back. It's an all-in, you either work towards a win, or you're wiped out of existence.
Instant-wins are just nasty, they leave a bad aftertaste even in a competitive environment (there's a whole range of competitive players, not all share the same ideas, of course). Think Helm of Obedience. You use Zur, fetch Rest in Peace, then you have probably a dozen tutors for the Helm between white, black and blue, and conterspells to back it all up, and then it's over.
Or things like Zur fetching Bitterblossom, then Contamination and possibly locking everyone else out of the game. These are annoying things, it's okay to have them around for a while, but at some point enough is enough. I already had to ban every Time Walk variant, because TimeWalk.dek was so annoying, generating very long games where just one player was actually playing (in some of those decks, the endgame was Laboratory Maniac! Can you imagine how annoying it is to wait until they get there? And you have to hit F6 every extra turn, so you can't even go away and come back later).
I marked down your achievement, BoB.
I'm not sure where you're getting that I'm worked up about Sylvan Primordial, but okay? My problem with it is poor card design. As I've already said, I don't even want it banned, I just don't want these type of cards to be a recurring trend by Wizards.
I'm a bit shocked that Deadeye is getting banned by you and more curious about the meta. I agree that it's an incredibly powerful combo enabler, particularly because it's so hard to disrupt. I don't know about competitive multiplayer, but I do know a bit about the 1v1 french scene, and without that ban list surely people should be able to combo out in the first 3 turns fairly consistently? Are things like Ad Nauseum / Sol Ring / Mana Crypt allowed? I would think that people would be winning with other methods before Deadeye even became relevant.
I mistyped on the White, I did in fact mean card draw, not card advantage. Sun Titan and Mesa Pegasus are all well and good but they are no substitute to refilling your hand, hitting more lands, drawing into more answers, etc. And I get that tricolor generals are being pushed but I don't think that's a good enough justification to restrict potentially sweet monowhite commanders from having nice things like, well, every other color. I didn't hear grumblings about color pie when Mentor of the Meek came out so I think it's safe to say White can be allowed to draw cards sometimes.
Man, you're really worked up about Sylvan Primordial. :)
I can see now where Menery came from. These opinions are totally out of my experience, and at the end of the day, with Commander, it's all about that (which is an issue when you attempt to have some kind of organized play as opposed to kitchen tables).
I can only tell you that in my own experience, which involves 75 competitive multiplayer events organized in the past year and a half, featuring a pool of about 100 different players, Sylvan Primordial was essentially an afterthought, nobody ever won a table because they had it in the deck, nobody complained about it when it was legal, nobody complained when it was banned (mostly the reaction was, "Uh? Really?"). It was just there, now it's not, nothing changed in the dynamics of the decks or the meta of the tournament.
Whereas I've got to the point where tomorrow I'll have to ban Deadeye Navigator (along a few other things) because it's become just too disruptive in the meta. Ramping a few basic lands when you already have 7+ mana is one thing, but you don't win out of a couple basics; Navigator/Palinchron ends the game right there, and with the tutoring power of Simic (or 5-color, many Commander Spikes like to use Sliver Queen just because they'd like to have Demonic Tutor and Stoneforge Mystic in there), the question is not even if you'll get there, but just how many turns the other players have to kill you first.
I'm a committed green player, and I can tell you I don't particularly miss Primordial, while I'm more excited about the M15 guy who's a monogreen Harmonic Sliver (something that I sorely missed).
As for white, you were talking about card drawing, not generically card advantage. White has plenty of card advantage. Mesa Pegasus, Hero of Bladehold, Sun Titan, and so on. It also has a few great tutors that feel specific of the color. Monowhite is not played much, but in general they're not pushing towards monocolored commanders – they actually push towards 3-colored ones, in the tradition of the original Elder Dragons. Elesh Norn decks are played in SUNCOM, anyway, won tables and one event.
If you've seen my Pennypincher Deckbuilder articles, you know I'm a sucker for cheap decks. I just built one of these for about $12. I went with that first list you posted, took out the Wild Beastmasters, replaced them with 2 Nylea, God of Hunts and a fourth Reverent Hunter. I cut the two Plummets in the sideboard and just went with three Bows of Nylea. Like I said, only $12 and some change.
I'm considering bringing the Bows into the main, since deathtouch can really make a difference and can allow you to alpha strike with some of the smaller guys in the deck as well. Nylea is a beating with its auto-trample, and the pump effect is certainly relevant. I find myself winning around turn 5 or 6 on average. Yet to see a nuts draw that let me come close to winning on turn 3.
To answer your question, kuma, I got the combo twice - my German friend let me (made me?) combo all the way out to the upkeeep win (my plan was to flip 100 coins), my last opponent conceded one game to the assembled pieces. Worship won another game, and I think I beatdown for the rest as I can't really recall anything special. It was a fun deck for the environment.
I have no tact, and I don't know Blippy, but I think good articles deserves to be read.
I'm not equating all green ramp to Boundless Realms. I'm pointing out that, unlike your Caged Sun, Vorinclex, and Mana Reflection, there's too few ways for players to interact with an opponent's abundance of mana in the form of basic lands. Your other 3 mana sources can and will be destroyed, which balances out the risk vs. reward cost of them. Ramping with Cultivate is no risk, all reward.
You can answer everything Green throws out... if you're Blue. Then you can use Countermagic to stop things like Sylvan Primordial and Genesis Wave. Otherwise no, there's quite a few things Green can ramp out to that you have little ways of answering efficiently.
Looting isn't really card advantage. Like I said, the Wheel cards are very good, because you can use them when you have no cards in hand to really get ahead. Red is also getting real card advantage in the form of "exile for a turn" triggers like new Chandra and Prophetic Flamespeaker. It's a step in the right direction.
My own experience, and I know others can back me on this, is that mono White is the weakest monocolor you can play in Commander. No other color feels so frustratingly limited in power and it's all due to running out of gas. Artifacts help prop the color up in ramp and card draw but that's still leagues behind the other colors, too much so.
White does have the best removal, it's true, but go ahead and play mono-color White and tell me you couldn't do better as mono Green, Blue, Black, or even Red. I think not allowing White to have card advantage is an outdated concept that lacks creativity. I'm not saying give them the BEST card draw, but they should have something. Mentor of the Meek is one example of card draw within the color pie. I'm sure there's more options out there to explore.
It's unfair to compare a card that sees use in competitive formats to one that was banned in the format it was made for. Sylvan Primordial was worse than Primeval Titan ever was. You play it, fetch Maze of Ith and a regular land, and.. ? Then you get two more lands when you attack next turn if nobody has an answer? Meanwhile Sylvan comes in, blows up 3 important things, ramps you 3 lands, immediately. The only answer was countermagic. And you didn't even need to abuse it, you just did what Green always does. Turn 2 rampant growth / nature's lore / whatever. Turn 3 explosive vegetation / azusa / oracle / skyshroud claim. Turn 4 Sylvan Primordial, blow up 3 lands, ramp 3 lands, and you've taken an enormous lead. That's not abuse, that's exactly how Sylvan is meant to be played.
Green has dozens of ways of blowing up noncreature permanents, but none so stupidly efficient as Sylvan, especially not while ramping you as well. Sylvan Primordial costs less than Woodfall Primus even, and it blows up 3 things instead of 2 (eventually) and ramps you 3 lands for the fun of it. And Woodfall Primus is very strong and heavily played.
Deadeye Navigator is a combo card that requires 8 mana before you can safely put him on the field, and even then you still have a turn to find an answer before he does any real work, unless the player is going infinite mana. Sylvan Primordial is a one card enormous game swing can't be disrupted outside of countermagic / torpor orb for 7. That's the difference to me.