All B/R update speculation.

[Lemon]

Perhaps I'm missing something important here, but why does everyone seem to have such a thing against Underworld Breach? Isn't it all of the cards that stop interactive magic (Silence, Orim's Chant, Veil of Summer, Teferi Time Raveler) the real problems? I don't see people calling for a Belcher ban, so it isn't the fact it can combo fast with protection. Is it just the fact that it's being played a lot?

[pettdan]

Isn't it all of the cards that stop interactive magic (Silence, Orim's Chant, Veil of Summer, Teferi Time Raveler) the real problems?

You want to ban Silence, seriously?

I'll address this again, from my point of view this is an apparent misconception. The spells you list are not uninteractive. If they had split second, then I would agree. But they don't. They all use the stack and can be interacted with. They actually increase the interaction, because they pressure your opponent to interact with them. Edit: and they increase interaction by encouraging diversification into permanent-based interaction. It's not suprising that Maverick is better positioned now than in a long time.

[Fox]

Perhaps I'm missing something important here, but why does everyone seem to have such a thing against Underworld Breach? Isn't it all of the cards that stop interactive magic (Silence, Orim's Chant, Veil of Summer, Teferi Time Raveler) the real problems? I don't see people calling for a Belcher ban, so it isn't the fact it can combo fast with protection. Is it just the fact that it's being played a lot?

You have answered your own question, you can't play whack-a-mole and ban every card that a truly broken one can exploit. One ban >>> 2+ bans

[Lemon]

You have answered your own question, you can't play whack-a-mole and ban every card that a truly broken one can exploit. One ban >>> 2+ bans

Except the actual card Underworld Breach doesn't interact at all with the protection package outside of escaping Spell Pierce or Flusterstorm. The whole "Silence-The-Opponent-Before-Going-Off" can slot into any A+B combo deck. So banning Underworld Breach won't do more than patch the problem until another combo comes around that can splash white (almost any of them). So once again, what exactly is it about the card Underworld Breach that is broken?

[Fox]

So once again, what exactly is it about the card Underworld Breach that is broken?

Yawgmoth’s Will is banned in legacy and restricted in vintage. That it is among one of the most wildly broken effects in magic is an established observation.

Any time you see a card that allows you to get butchered by an opposing strategy, and topdeck a card that not only reverses everything but also allows you to win on the spot *with as little as just that card in your hand*, you know you’re looking at a problem.

All those Silence-style effects you have an issue with sit in a hand doing nothing until the payoff is in the hand as well. They also have to be in hand (as in you have to actually have a hand through discard) when you topdeck the payoff. Also, all the ones that cost 1 mana are countered by Chalice and foster strategies that are naturally weak to Chalice (you’re behind in this matchup, and these cards help you get even further behind).

[Noctalor]

Except the actual card Underworld Breach doesn't interact at all with the protection package outside of escaping Spell Pierce or Flusterstorm. The whole "Silence-The-Opponent-Before-Going-Off" can slot into any A+B combo deck. So banning Underworld Breach won't do more than patch the problem until another combo comes around that can splash white (almost any of them). So once again, what exactly is it about the card Underworld Breach that is broken?

Storm used to run Silence effects as protection, and decided to move on discard willingly.
Running one or the other has pros and cons, currently Veil shuts down discard.

Breach is a strong card, probably too strong, the deck is able to nuts and win turn 1/2, play the long game, have a transformational sb and basicly the best sb answers.
The deck is close to a better omnitell, you pay the price of always needing 3 cards to go off, and being exposed to gy hate and such, but on the other hand you get insane benefits, mostly being able to be less predictable and having an insta kill combo that avoids reb and flusterstorm

[Mr. Safety]

I listened too and Bryant's guess was that it'll get banned in 5-6 months, I'm pretty sure [edit: this was in the Eternal Glory podcast from March 4th actually, but should be a similar view one would think], it seemed like a quick guess though and not a heavily contemplated one. I listened to the Everyday Eternal podcast yesterday and they also seemed to think it will get banned in a while, as I interpreted them, not now. My guess has been it might get banned in 2-3 months. Advocating a ban now seems early. I think it's like with the Karn ban discussion from a year back, I was not one of the people saying it should get banned (everyone who did should probably learn from that example) and while I think Breach seems to motivate it better it is still a bit early. Players are adjusting their decks and learning how to play against it, the deck is still evolving. Maverick won the challenge yesterday, right? That is the most clear proof I can imagine that it is too early to ban the card, the meta is adjusting, the deck is adjusting, everything is adjusting, it seems a bit foolish to ban it now. Not that I have the full picture, I don't, but I also get this impression from all the podcasts I listened to [edit: well, it may be that I remember what I want to hear].

I'm not advocating a ban, I.m just making a from-the-hip prediction that it will be banned this time around. I think with the banning of W6 in legacy has set a slightly more aggressive ban approach to legacy. W6 had longer in the format, but I wasn't the only one surprised when it got banned after only about 6 months in the format. They could easily use this as a prisoner-exchange kind of swap with Earthcraft (which is less powerful than Breach, by a fairly large margin.)

[Noctalor]

Breach is gone.

[jmlima]

Breach is gone.

I like that they now feel the need to provide tips to players on how to deal with certain cards (re to Pioneer):

This is especially true post-sideboard, where many decks have access to Damping Sphere and other answers.

[Fox]

Breach is gone.

And so we restart the clock on “it’s time to ban Oko.” On the plus side they’ve left Veil alone so nobody has to sit through the stupidity of Hymn -> Snap Hymn -> into you lose to Oko [b/c there is no card you can topdeck to claw back into the game] that every 4-5c would be doing with Veil gone.

[pettdan]

Rather than allowing these decks to become a large part of the competitive metagame before likely still needing to make a change in the near future, we're choosing to ban Underworld Breach now.

This seems like a new one, "we think we'll need to ban it later so we'll ban it now".

[H]

Well, that sure was a quick hook on Breach, but the deck did seem pretty strong. Banning LED would have been terrible, from my perspective, killing Bomberman, various Storm decks and Dredge builds that are pretty well and fine by my reckoning.

I'm glad that Oko and the rest of the Snow-Green gang live on, so we can see just how the meta shakes out from here.

[bruizar]

This seems like a new one, "we think we'll need to ban it later so we'll ban it now".

I hope the next step is, "we think this will get banned sooner or later, so we will not print it in the first place"

They basically admit that they knew Breach was broken in half. It seems WOTC is taking the whole video games industry and Silicon Valley lean approach a bit too seriously, just ship the product with bugs and patch it with an update later. Essentially selling packs with the implicit promise that you can play with the cards you purchase, only to yank them out from under you after you spent your money on packs/singles.

[Wrath of Pie]

The quick ban on Breach seems to be an admission that Magic Online is indeed the focal point of Legacy from their perspective. Makes sense because the data is more relevant due to the format being more accessible online.

The criteria we'll be looking at include overall and matchup-by-matchup win rates, success in tournaments, population in the metagame, and community sentiment playing with and against these decks.

I'm curious if this applies beyond Pioneer, my best guess is that the answer is yes.

[Barook]

And so we restart the clock on “it’s time to ban Oko.”

I'm surprised they didn't swing the banhammer on it already. That card is busted, miserable to play against and is widespread enough to justify a ban.

[Ronald Deuce]

This seems like a new one, "we think we'll need to ban it later so we'll ban it now".

That's pretty much what they did with Gitaxian Probe and Mystical Tutor.

[Barook]

That's pretty much what they did with Gitaxian Probe and Mystical Tutor.

They took their sweet time to ban Probe, though.

[H]

They took their sweet time to ban Probe, though.

Well, I think there has been a paradigm shift with regards to the swiftness of banning things, generally, now. Along with the change to the frequency of announcements. There probably is a little bit of a shift in the philosophy of it as well, but it's still fairly inscrutable, even in the most obvious of cases.

[FTW]

That's pretty much what they did with Gitaxian Probe and Mystical Tutor.

Mystical Tutor was banned because of Ad Nauseam.

The 2 most oppressive decks at the time were ANT and UB Reanimator (they had recently printed Ad Naus and unbanned Entomb). Banning Mystical Tutor fixed both problems at once. They decided it was better to just weaken their consistency by removing the glue that held them together than outright banning every combo enabler and archetype. The timing made sense. They had to do something about ANT.

As for choosing Mystical Tutor over another card, it was already a 4x in basically every combo deck with blue cards (ANT, Reanimator, High Tide, Doomsday, Hulk Flash before banning), functionally close to Vampiric Tutor, and only stood to get better over time every time another broken spell got printed. But those decks were already a problem.

[sdematt]

Mystical Tutor was banned because of Ad Nauseam.

The 2 most oppressive decks at the time were ANT and UB Reanimator (they had recently printed Ad Naus and unbanned Entomb). Banning Mystical Tutor fixed both problems at once. They decided it was better to just weaken their consistency by removing the glue that held them together than outright banning every combo enabler and archetype. The timing made sense. They had to do something about ANT.

As for choosing Mystical Tutor over another card, it was already a 4x in basically every combo deck with blue cards (ANT, Reanimator, High Tide, Doomsday, Hulk Flash before banning), functionally close to Vampiric Tutor, and only stood to get better over time every time another broken spell got printed. But those decks were already a problem.

But Oko isn't a problem because of the Oko's gentleman's agreement, right? ;)