Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
Well, I agree in part. I do think that the "needs" of Limited are sort of at odds with Standard. And Standard at odds with Modern. And EDH with the rest. And so on. I've said as much before and not coincidentally, Wizards apparently realized/recognized the same sort of thing, which is why I think we see now Brawl/Collectors Boosters/whatever the new model is. One size fits all products just aren't serving the many segmented needs and the pressure on Design seems to have consequences. I'm not trying to make it seem like I am some genius or anything, I'm juts pointing out that this was sort of "in the cards."
Thing is, these bans, well, we don't know their full effect. I saw Todd Anderson streaming last night with the hashtag #StandardSucks, so that is in the air. But what's the net-end effect on sales? We don't know that unfortunately.
Well, that is why we just don't know the end-game here? Is this all leading to higher sales? And higher sustained sales?
If people are complaining, but still buying, then it's a win for Wizards. But I'm not sure if it is or isn't. But I think the thesis is at least valid to consider, that while this is all bad for the actual playing of Standard, it is possible that it better for overall sales. Because, while Standard is likely the biggest segment in-itself, if all other segments see growth and there is only modest decline in Standard, then it's still a net-win.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
The oddest thing is that it seems like they realized this after they had to go through all those bannings, and they did start including safety valves and answers. Problem is, they didn't replace those safety valves and answers when it came to the lands. I can understand not bringing back Field of Ruin, I know some players were sick of it, but then just replace it with Tectonic Edge. It's again why I was sure they were going to print Tectonic Edge, or something like it, to replace Field of Ruin (and the other hate rotating out).
When I bring up why their lack of answers to utility lands, what often gets told me is "Wizards of the Coast didn't realize how good Field of the Dead was." But that's precisely the point. You include cards like that so if you underestimate cards, you have an answer available.
Sure, it's possible Tectonic Edge wouldn't be enough to hold Field of the Dead back (but Field of the Dead, despite its extremely high metagame share, actually only managed a single Top 8 at the Mythic Championship, making you wonder if maybe part of its dominance was simple hype and after the championship it might have died down). But it would have been a safety valve that could have helped, and wouldn't have left me as puzzled as I am by them not having such a card.
Ordinarily Sorcerous Spyglass, which is legal right now, would work pretty well as a "removal" spell for planeswalkers, and it can even be played by anyone. Problem is, they tacked on static abilities to planeswalkers, and Sorcerous Spyglass does nothing to those.The big issue they have now is planeswalkers. Most of the best 'walkers ever printed, in any format, plus a bunch of other good ones, are all in standard right now. And nobody outside of black has a kill spell for them. White is supposed to what, use a 4 mana sorcery speed enchantment as an answer? That half the 'walkers you want to hit with it can destroy or bounce?
Assassin's Trophy will take out any creature that Doom Blade will, and also hits planeswalkers, and in fact anything else. Problem is, it's Black/Green and thus limited in what decks can run it.The other thing they're dealing with right now is just a general lack of decent removal. There isn't even a Doom Blade variant available in standard right now. With the current setup, Angrath's Rampage is probably one of, if not the best removal spell in the format, because it answers a turn 2 Oko or other 'walker, and is still relevant against other stuff.
As a thought experiment, what cards could be unbanned and make new, powerful decks? I'm omitting the most iconic Vintage cards. The best I could come up with is Tinker, Necropotence, Memory Jar, Skullclamp, Survival of the Fittest and maybe Oath of Druids but that probably just enables another boring blue deck thats not all too different from something like Sneak and Show. Tinker and Necro are the most powerful of the cards listed and would probably just be used as combo enablers but their non-combo applications would be interesting i.e. artifact heavy decks and black heavy decks, respectively. Jar, Clamp and Survival are the most likely of these to be unbanned and are clearly powerful, especially Jar now with all the powerful colorless cards like Eldrazi, Karn and Chalice. Also, I guess you could unban Mana Drain to make some sort of Big Blue or XLU style deck too. That might be intersting as well. What do you guys think?
"We are goblinkind, heirs to the mountain empires of chieftains past. Rest is death to us, and arson is our call to war."
They do this every Tuesday or so...they do a potluck, a bouncy house, the whole shebang. Its byob though, so...you know...
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Not Legacy, but some Pioneer bans today:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/article...-announcement/Announcement Date: November 4, 2019
Pioneer:
Felidar Guardian is banned.
Leyline of Abundance is banned.
Oath of Nissa is banned.
Tabletop Effective Date: Nov 8, 2019
Magic Online Effective Date: Nov 5, 2019
The list of all banned and restricted cards, by format, is here.
Next Pioneer B&R Announcement: November 11, 2019
Over the past weeks, we've been thrilled to watch the community embrace the launch of the new Pioneer format. As we've previously stated, our plan is to watch the evolution of the metagame closely and make agile changes as needed, with possible updates each Monday for the time being. Our goal with these early changes is to promote diverse deck strategies and healthy gameplay, whether or not there is a clear overpowered deck.
In this case there are two decks that are head and shoulders above the field: Four-Color Copy Cat and Green Devotion Ramp. These two decks have earned the most 5-0 league finishes on Magic Online and have problematically high win rates against the field. Both decks feature play patterns that would reduce metagame diversity over time. Based on Magic Online data, we don’t believe that regular metagame pressure alone will be enough to keep these strategies in check. As a result, we are banning Felidar Guardian, Leyline of Abundance, and Oath of Nissa.
The Felidar Guardian/Saheeli Rai combination threatens metagame diversity by requiring decks to present specific types of early interaction while developing their own strategy or else immediately lose the game. Rather than allow this combination to warp deck building and the metagame around it, we're choosing to ban a card. Of the two options, Felidar Guardian is the most likely to break again with existing or future cards.
Leyline of Abundance not only enables explosive ramp starts on its own but also provides two devotion for no mana cost to power up Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. Our hope is that in the long term, Nykthos can add diversity to the metagame as a part of fun and healthy devotion strategies. Therefore, we're choosing to ban Leyline of Abundance as the card that enables the deck's fastest, most powerful opening turns.
As a powerful card-selection tool that also brings other synergies by leaving a permanent on the battlefield, Oath of Nissa has been a strong contributor to the strength and consistency of these and other strong decks. It's likely that Oath of Nissa would continue to exacerbate problematic strategies going forward. It also greatly contributes to the consistency of strategies that utilize a large number of three-mana planeswalkers in a way that can create unhealthy play patterns. For these reasons, we believe Pioneer will be a more fun and diverse format without Oath of Nissa.
Note that we will continue to make Pioneer announcements every Monday—whether or not we have changes—for the time being. Eventually, Pioneer updates will become aligned with our normal banned and restricted announcements. We'll announce when that switch will take place in the final weekly Pioneer format announcement.
We'll be watching closely for the next steps in the development of the metagame. We look forward to watching you all continue to enjoy this amazing new format!
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Makes you wonder Leyline of Abundance hasn't caught on in Legacy or Modern. Is it really that bad? It seems pretty silly with mana dorks or fetch/GSZ for Dryad Arbor, based on what it could pull of cards in Pioneer.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Wait, they banned bad-Ponder? What a great start for a format lol.
The green Devotion lists looked pretty strong so this isn't surprising that they hit a piece of that deck but I wasn't expecting two. Ditto for Felidar Guardian since the CopyCat deck has a pretty solid plan B.
"We are goblinkind, heirs to the mountain empires of chieftains past. Rest is death to us, and arson is our call to war."
I look at it as more of that they understand more now how powerful cantrips are and are much more willing to nip them in the bud before it gets out of hand. This one also fixed Mana and added to devotion counts, so it's very good
Yeah, but like it's basically the same thing as Adventurous Impulse, and really close to Incubation // Incongruity and Commune with Dinosaurs. You can't just keep banning the type of card you are actively putting into most limited environments. Sure Oath finds PWs, but it also doesn't fuel delve at the same speed as these other three; this is clearly an Oko problem. WotC doesn't exactly have the best track record for developing cards for limited/standard that don't screw up older formats, and banning a card you're definitely going to basically reprint is short-sighted format management.
Edit: this green land-trip idea has shown up in every limited environment without disruption dating back to at least Aether Revolt/Kaladesh stuff right?
Not only is Oath of Nissa just better in a vacuum than all the cards you listed (planeswalker/any creature is clearly better than 'Dinosaur', let's be real), it has a lot of weird incidental upsides
- Adds devotion
- You can pick it up with teferi
- You can flicker it (admittedly with cat banned this is less of an issue)
- Fixes mana
You do have a reasonable point and a lot of people are wondering why OUAT is also not banned under the same reasoning but all of these other cards are clearly much worse.
Just because Ponder/Preordain are banned in modern doesn't mean they have to ban Serum/Sleight/Opt
It's not even clear how obnoxious Oath would be in the new version of the format with no Cat/Leyline but the ban seems reasonable
Oko's gone.. In brawl
I have and it's just an interesting dynamic where the most dominant color is green! Prior to first ban the deck to beat was Green Stompy and post first ban it was green stompy and it will probably be green stompy until Nykthos gets banned but they expressly stated they don't want to ban it. So next casualty will probably be OUAT.
What card is OUAT?
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