Brainstorm
Force of Will
Lion's Eye Diamond
Counterbalance
Sensei's Divining Top
Tarmogoyf
Phyrexian Dreadnaught
Goblin Lackey
Standstill
Natural Order
(@Fox, too) good to read some sense over here. I've already been yelling into the void about it on reddit: I mean fuck DHA from a design- and flavor perspective, but there's just no real case for banning him at this point. Fact is, no deck that plays DHA but not Oko is a problem. A 2-drop that gets answered by every conceivable piece of removal AND GY hate in the format, or just gets blocked dead, should be manageable in a post-Oko world. Card's is obviously very powerful, but at this point there's a bit of hysteria about him I think.
Given that the new set just came out, I guess my hopes are in vain but I would really like some bans in historic and brawl.
I've long given up on standard but historic has been fairly enjoyable until it fully turned into the Uro+Nissa+Krasis and baking with kittens show.
It's so boring.
If it's not a variation of these 2 decks, you get shit gobos which can win from hellbent with Muxus.lol or some stupid combo deck.
Brawl has been actually fun since you don't have to play against 4x of the most aids cards in the format.
However there are some commanders which just provide too much value which you can't do anything about.
Kennrith is the prime example, but there are a few others like Kinnan.
Considering how long people have been stuck at home, I'm surprised that they haven't made any qol bans just to make arena a bit fun to play.
I'm playing lots of historic; went to mythic in 3 weeks and spent about $10.
The one card that is nuts against Uro is Valki, God of Lies. It is so sweet to just take their Uro and then "be" their Uro.
I'll have to check out brawl since I'm only doing draft and historic, right now.
Hidden in this article.
So, maybe Uro for us as well? Or, Valki too? Or, might they just change the rules to address that?
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Hard to imagine Uro gets banned without an Oko ban. As long as Dreadhorde doesn't get banned, RUG will be a clear winner regardless of what they do.
I don't think that they're going to ban Valki. If they do anything about, they'll just change how Cascade works (because casting a 7 mana walker from a cmc 2 cascasde is fucking stupid to begin with). Not that they would do it right away, as there's still money to be made from Valki.
As for Legacy, I would love to see Uro and Oko getting banhammered. Astrolabe and DHA are also on my list, but with lower priority.
Fair points, in fact, we don't know if the meta can adjust for Valki, since it's only been one weekend.
As for Uro/Oko, it is hard to argue, since both are stupidly powerful cards. I am fine if either go and it would not surprise me if both did. They've had their time, honestly. As for Astrolabe, I am still on the fence. Again, it is a powerful card, but I am not against it out of hand. Dreadhorde Arcanist I think is just a really powerful card, but I don't really think it is all that busted.
"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Does it really make sense to ban astrolabe before taking Oko behind the shed and shooting it a million times?
Enabling Wasteland-proof rainbow mana bases is stupid but if you can't turn it into a wincon I'd imagine it to be less annoying.
Also if they ban Uro they also have to ban other things in Arena as well.
Something from the sacrifice deck has to go too because that deck is so stupid that people maindeck hate against it.
I would enjoy a Muxus ban as well because that card is just stupid.
I sounds to me like they are banning oko and considering other things in legacy.
Banning labe in a format with ancient tomb, fetches, and daze makes no sense at all. If you can give up colours for +1 mana and get 3 colours for no cost, getting all the colours for -1 mana is totally fine. The problem is oko gives your lost tempo back for free almost immediately. Labe in 3feri decks or painter is not killing anyone.
So maverick is a pretty good proxy for any fair deck that uses Fetchlands without cantrips over Loam/Mox or Cavern/Vial. This entire way of playing will never be able to stop auto-losing Valki Cannon, and this is now you know they will fix the cascade glitch that results in a 2-drop that is immune to Snare, unkicked Bloodchief's, Eliminate, Decay, EE for 2 etc...
This problem is as profound as Breach was for them.
I believe Uro should belong with a format, and that format has to be Legacy (while Oko has a nice place in Vintage).
I think the ban of Oko is happening, I'm with Reelcheep on this one. It would seem fairly precautious to ban Oko first then take time to see whether Uro needs to go as well. The Note seems to imply they might want to ban Uro right away though... oh well.
Pioneer has many balance & variety issues, I doubt Uro's ban will be enough to give the format a second breath.
I think it could make sense. I do not see the 'default best cards wasteland-proof rainbow mana base' deck becoming less annoying or ubiquitous while killing multiple other decks. Unlock all the different 3 color control/mid range decks, basic lands, and make non-basic hate relevant ffs. Starting with Astrolabe lets weirdos who enjoy playing Oko/Uro/Dreadhorde continue to use those cards and not ragequit Legacy (but by all means ban them anyway). Does anyone really LOVE their Astrolabes? Please... Also I hope everyone is off the weak argument that it makes Legacy more affordable - the 3 color control decks should all be playing basics with minimal duals anyway or get risk getting punished. We even have prismatic vista now.
I'm happy to see any 2019+ cards go. If we have to balance it out between Snowko/Rug then ban Astrolabe and Dreadhorde. Wouldn't miss Oko/Uro one bit either.
It's even more profound, so I expect a rules nerf even sooner.
Underworld Breach was very powerful but at least interactive and complex to pilot. There were dozens of ways to disrupt or interact with the combo that led to complex decision trees for both the Breach pilot and the opponent. Breach's design opened up entire metagames over how it tried to fight predicted hate and how to hate it out around that board plan. Hallmark fair decks like Maverick and D&T did very well against it, once they adapted their hatebear suite. So did other random fair decks like Lands and EldraziPost. If fair decks are highly favored against a combo deck, the format can't be THAT unhealthy.
Breach was still unfair because it was a Vintage deck in Legacy with Oath/Will-like "oops I win", but at least there were games of Magic happening and next-level boarding tricks.
In contrast, Valki is a turn 1 planeswalker cannon that's very linear to pilot and allows for much less interaction. Fair decks like Maverick don't stand a chance.
I think one of the biggest problems Legacy has is that it often takes too long to ban obviously problematic cards to the point where they stay around for years. DTT comes into mind, being legal for an entire year. Or SDT's reign of terror for several years straight. DRS is a bit more complex, as it also had the benefit of policing the format.
A card that's fighting with Oko for deck slots is just as problematic as Oko itself and has to go.
If you still don't realize that Oko is the clear and obvious ban,, then it's time you listened to Bruce Springsteen: you can't start a FIRE without a spark. In this song he is clearly talking about Astrolabe being mostly unplayable with Oko losing his spark, and the cascading decline of decks' abilities to use Uro, DHA, Veil, Ice Fang.
#DesparkOko
What problem are we trying to address? What are we optimizing for?
What problems are mitigated by banning Card X or Card Y that aren't mitigated more by banning Brainstorm? ("WotC won't ban Brainstorm": What makes you think they read this thread in the first place?)
What problem?
You shouldn't be able to cascade into a "2 cmc" card that doesn't have 2 cmc for cards like Decay, Bloodchief's Thirst, Spell Snare, EE, etc. Either the card has just one CMC that applies to both faces or only the front face is seen. It's just a dumb loophole.
Oh --- hopefully my comment didn't sound like I was calling you out, since I wan't intending to. I was more trying to understand the mindset of banning Oko/Uro/Astrolabe/Dreadhorde. I honestly can't think of any reasonable criterion for banning any of those that doesn't apply twice as much to Brainstorm.
The loophole you're complaining about is nonsense, of course, and I wouldn't shed a tear if they closed it. But to some extent Legacy is about finding nonsense interactions to abuse; if the way of abusing them involves enough hoops to jump through and constraints on deck building, then it's seen as fun and fair.
As long as we're talking about it, though, what would be wrong with Cascade + Valki being the best deck? What are we worried about, format diversity? It's Legacy. Great players would still be able to good results with medium decks if they wanted to prove a point.
The main issue with Tibalt is that it's a broken non-blue card and that's absolutely haram to legacy players. It should join SDT and DRS in the banlist so people can enjoy their skillful plays with Delver/Oko/Uro/8 cantrips/8 forces in peace.
You do understand that Valki Cannon is devastating anything non-blue and fair right? Blue decks don't actually give a crap about Valki; it's not that hard to add Stifle and SB BEB +/- upping copies of FoN. There is zero difference between Valki Cannon and Oops for us blue mages - but I guarantee you that there's one helluva difference between Valki Cannon and Oops if your deck is anything remotely resembling Maverick.
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