[Article]Eternal Europe: Unbanning for Fun and Profit

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

A little different look at how we might adjust the format to the influx of Treasure Cruise:

http://www.starcitygames.com/article...nd-Profit.html

PS: Sorry for not reacting to any comments at the moment, being at my parents as I traditionally do for Christmas and New Years means that I don't spend as much time online as I usually do.

[nedleeds]

I stopped reading at "it mainly boils down to the idea that a card should be banned or restricted if doing so makes the format more attractive for the vast majority of players playing said format.". What an awful criteria for a banned and restricted list, one that is totally unquantifiable and self admittedly subjective.

I find losing to a turn 2 Griselbrand unattractive.
I find having to mulligan whilst my opponent casts Brainstorm to cheaply draw 3 and fix his hand unattractive.
I find opening on Ancient Tomb, Vise, Vise attractive on the play.

Happy holidays!

[JBlaze]

Very thought provoking. Once again Carsten thank you for the excellent legacy content

[Bed Decks Palyer]

I only flied through the article.

Goblin Recruiter would be hilarious. Gobbos definitely need some improvment, and instead of new ugly new-ugly-frame prints, this one might be nice.
It'll be interesting to see Tron alongside 8Post in modern. Mono-brown Eldrazis and stuff. Might be fun.
Ponder and maybe even BS in Vintage? I guess... yes.

On what nedleeds quoted: I'm not sure by which metric this should be measured. And

Threads: 27,297 Posts: 836,067 Members: 13,052 Active Members: 1,446

Last time I checked, there are some twenty-thirty people active in the B&R thread. Anything they wrote about any card has no evidential value on whats or what's not fun.

[ESG]

My personal opinion is that aligning B&R announcements with the release of new sets makes it less likely that WOTC will ban or unban cards in Legacy, because WOTC can always say, "Well, let's see how THIS set changes things before we take action." And then that cycle repeats again three months later. There's almost always movement in this format, which some of your other recent articles have hinted at. It's just that deck shifts are a bit slower in this format due to budget constraints and the large number of lower-tier (but still viable) decks. In the absence of bans, though, Legacy's power level has increased by a lot in the past couple years. It's almost startling to look back at the format pre-Cruise, pre-Terminus, pre-Delver, pre-Griselbrand, pre-True-Name. If you were to grant me the ability to ban and unban things overnight, I would definitely ban at least two cards and unban at least two cards, as I'm sure would be the case for most people.

For Modern, where WOTC is a lot more aggressive with bans, I would guess that either Treasure Cruise or Jeskai Ascendancy, or both, will be banned this go-round, and possibly Dig Through Time in addition.

[rlesko]

I really feel like Wizards just need to unban nearly everything except power 9, let the format devolve into chaos, and then re ban the oppressive cards. Or maybe they need to give a fuck about the format first.

[Pastorofmuppets]

Ignore format health, unban Earthcraft.

[thecrav]

My personal opinion is that aligning B&R announcements with the release of new sets makes it less likely that WOTC will ban or unban cards in Legacy, because WOTC can always say, "Well, let's see how THIS set changes things before we take action." And then that cycle repeats again three months later.

Interesting thought. We've been on this schedule for, what, a year now? I had never considered this!

[btm10]

My personal opinion is that aligning B&R announcements with the release of new sets makes it less likely that WOTC will ban or unban cards in Legacy, because WOTC can always say, "Well, let's see how THIS set changes things before we take action." And then that cycle repeats again three months later. There's almost always movement in this format, which some of your other recent articles have hinted at. It's just that deck shifts are a bit slower in this format due to budget constraints and the large number of lower-tier (but still viable) decks. In the absence of bans, though, Legacy's power level has increased by a lot in the past couple years. It's almost startling to look back at the format pre-Cruise, pre-Terminus, pre-Delver, pre-Griselbrand, pre-True-Name. If you were to grant me the ability to ban and unban things overnight, I would definitely ban at least two cards and unban at least two cards, as I'm sure would be the case for most people.

These are really good points. I think the Cruise changes are the post profound of the recent changes and that might be enough to spur action. On the other hand, because the meta takes so long to settle, it's a lot harder to say that it's unambiguously safe to unban something either.

I stopped reading at "it mainly boils down to the idea that a card should be banned or restricted if doing so makes the format more attractive for the vast majority of players playing said format.". What an awful criteria for a banned and restricted list, one that is totally unquantifiable and self admittedly subjective.

Banning/restricting cards based on quantifiable, objective means isn't all it's cracked up to be. Look at what happened after Brainstorm was restricted in Vintage and tournament attendance plummeted. The card was indeed a 4-of in every blue deck, but people enjoyed those decks and they weren't single-handedly dominating the meta. Similarly, Trinisphere was restricted explicitly for being unfun and very few people were upset by it. Even people who thought it didn't deserve restriction were mostly subdued in their reaction to it.

Now that it has been floating around for a while, the Vintage crowd understands that the card does good things for the format, and bad things to the format. While it does serve a role of keeping combo decks in check, it also randomly destroys people on turn one, with little recourse other than Force of Will. And those games end up labeled with that heinous word—unfun. Not just “I lost” unfun, but “Why did I even come here to play?” unfun. The power level of the card is no jokes either, which is a big reason why I don't feel bad about its restriction.

Link

Carsten - Really good article as usual. Thanks for sticking up for Brainstorm in Vintage.

[Lord Seth]

Suggesting unbans for Legacy but no mention of Mind Twist, a card that's generally agreed to be safe?

Some random thoughts on the Modern banned list suggestions you made:

Ancestral Vision: I 100% agree that this should be unbanned. I've always been of this opinion, and it seems thanks to Treasure Cruise that other people are starting to realize that maybe in a format where you can kill on turn 4, drawing a few cards on turn 5 isn't that overpowered. The only decks that want this card are control decks anyway, which is a type that's very marginalized in Modern due to the lack of good card draw for them.

Bloodbraid Elf: I don't know if I'd go so far as to say Siege Rhino is a better Bloodbraid Elf, but it's still hard to believe one is banned while the other isn't. If Jund was still putting up great results I could see that as an argument, but Jund has basically vanished because Siege Rhino is so good that there's really no reason to go Jund instead of Junk. The card was really only banned as a scapegoat for Deathrite Shaman anyway. Unban it.

Some people have brought up the possibility of people running Bloodbraid Elf and Ancestral Vision together and hoping to cascade into it. While I'm sure some people will try to do this, on the whole it's not that impressive because cascade is so anti-synergistic with counterspells, which is what you'd want to be playing if you're running Ancestral Vision. The disruption you want in your deck if you're running cascade is discard, not counterspells, and that puts you into Black, so you really have to force yourself into 4 colors just so you can occasionally cascade into Ancestral Vision. At best, it's a decent combination, but hardly broken.

Cloudpost: You say this is a "slightly better" Urzatron. If so, Force of Will is a "slightly better" Misdirection. There's a pretty sizable difference in power between GR Tron and 12-Post.

Let's not forget that in a format where things like Blazing Infect or fully-powered Storm were legal, 12-Post was a Tier 1 deck. To be fair, it did have Green Sun's Zenith back then, which did wonders for its consistency. So perhaps, with that card gone (and also Punishing Fire, which some 12-Post decks did play), the deck would be safe to come back. GR Tron certainly has taken a tumble, so it's not like we're introducing a better version of what's already a Tier 1 deck. That said, I'm unconvinced that GR Tron is necessarily bad at the moment. With the rise of Birthing Pod (almost a bye) and UR Delver (slightly in GR Tron's favor), I think it's actually pretty good. I think it might just not be seeing much play.

Another problem with 12-Post is that it'd absolutely kill off control, and control is already struggling (one of the reasons I support an Ancestral Vision unban). 12-Post eats control decks alive even more than GR Tron does. I think Cloudpost might be okay to bring off in the future, but in the present there's far safer unbans, such as Ancestral Vision and Bloodbraid Elf. I'd bring Sword of the Meek off before Cloudpost.

Glimpse of Nature: I think this one is too good. It lets decks win too rapidly (I believe some people have tested it out and have confirmed it breaks the speed rule), and that's something they've made clear they don't want in the format. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean it'll be a great deck. They have shown that, as stated in the rules, only top-tier decks that win too quickly get banned, which is why Infect has continually escaped a ban. The same might be true about Elves. But I doubt there's any desire on their part to take that risk.

Green Sun's Zenith: The Deathrite Shaman example is apt; a mana dork on turn 1 that loses no real strength as the game goes on. The card just has too much versatility. If they banned Dryad Arbor they could unban it, though, but swap bans are problematic for a number of reasons. Also, do we really need a card that'll make Birthing Pod decks even better? (Birthing Pod did run Green Sun's Zenith before its banning)

[Zombie]

Green Sun's Zenith: The Deathrite Shaman example is apt; a mana dork on turn 1 that loses no real strength as the game goes on. The card just has too much versatility. If they banned Dryad Arbor they could unban it, though, but swap bans are problematic for a number of reasons. Also, do we really need a card that'll make Birthing Pod decks even better? (Birthing Pod did run Green Sun's Zenith before its banning)

Yes. Yes we do. I want to play a toolbox deck that can actually find stuff. A deck that has 4 cards total that find stuff isn't it, really. o_o

[lyracian]

"Imperial seal" could be interesting but I am not convinced it would be safe, there are lots of card draw options with Brainstorm, Prope and Top to allow you to draw the card on the same turn. For example Infernal Tutor does not allow you to find silver bullets such as "Dread of Night" or "Massacre"; maybe you want to put "Past in Flames" on top and "Thought Scour" it to the yard to cast. Now I am not a dedicated storm player so these may not end up being the best ideas but adding seal to me only makes Combo decks better. As much as I like playing control decks I think Mana drain would be a bad idea. Sure most of the time you are only going to get 2-3 mana but dropping a daze proof Jace on turn 3 with mana open for Spell Pierce sound powerful and if you do live the dream and drain a cruise you can main phase entreat enough angles to (most likely) win the game. Overall thought I would rather see the format improved by printing new cards like Containment Priest than adding old hard to find cards to the Legacy pool.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Overall thought I would rather see the format improved by printing new cards like Containment Priest than adding old hard to find cards to the Legacy pool.

This. With emphasis on "new cards like Containment Priest" rather than bringing back €€€ cards like Mana Drain or stupid stuff (choose your option of Griselbrand, TC, etc.)
Would Mana Drain become a must for blue controls in Legacy? Hard to say, but even as a singleton or a pair, it'll be extremely expensive affair.

[Lemnear]

It's hard to believe some cards landed on the list here.

Mana Drain: the only reason this card appears safe is the low manacost in average of Legacy playable cards atm, but countering Cruise, Jace, Terminus, GSZ or other cost-reduced cards which see Legacy play is absurd to fuel your own spells. It is/was a game-ending advantage to Drain a 4cc+ Spell in Vintage and I asume it's quite silimar in Legacy. Jace, Trinket Mage, Salvager, SDT, hardcast Miracles would enjoy, but I'm not convinced the push-pull effect of Countertop (cheap spell defense) plus Drain (mana heavy spell defense) is good for the format.

Imperial seal: an unbanning is financial madness even more than Drains and this alone is a reason to keep the card banned. Aside from monetary reasons, it mirrors the Mystical Tutor problem for combo, but even worse as it gives combo decks the option to grab Griselbrands, Sneak Attacks while also being playable in Midrange decks like Junk with the old "The Rock and his Millions" deck being the Ancestor of Tutor fueled midrange (even if it was Vampiric). With SDT and Probe in the format, Imperial Seal is crazy.

Necropotence:of course, I can't go without this one here. Something that flies under the Radar is, that Necro is playable in Bxx Midrange since the printing of DRS. If decks have no business to cast turn 2/3 Liliana of the Veil, it isn't much of a stretch to cast Necro instead and instead of forcing both players into an attrition/topdeck war, providing a lethal cardadvantage for refueling or pushing your opponent against the wall. History already proved this concept with the very first Necro deck feat. Discard plus Hypnotic Spectre (and Black Knight afaik). I'm not sure we want to see Necro setting up Batterskull/Jitte lifegain and Vice versa. On top of all you get a old/new storm engine (Which I would not support with FoW btw.). Carsten, playing the Mini-Tendrils AND several PIF seems pretty redundant, if I look at your old article. Necro works awesome with Probe and Wish to reach 9-10 storm after passing the turn once without the danger of clunky draws including several 3cc+ spells. Just my testing experience :)

[Bed Decks Palyer]

It's hard to believe some cards landed on the list here.

Necropotence:of course, I can't go without this one here. Something that flies under the Radar is, that Necro is playable in Bxx Midrange since the printing of DRS. If decks have no business to cast turn 2/3 Liliana of the Veil, it isn't much of a stretch to cast Necro instead and instead of forcing both players into an attrition/topdeck war, providing a lethal cardadvantage for refueling or pushing your opponent against the wall. History already proved this concept with the very first Necro deck feat. Discard plus Hypnotic Spectre (and Black Knight afaik). I'm not sure we want to see Necro setting up Batterskull/Jitte lifegain and Vice versa. On top of all you get a old/new storm engine (Which I would not support with FoW btw.). Carsten, playing the Mini-Tendrils AND several PIF seems pretty redundant, if I look at your old article. Necro works awesome with Probe and Wish to reach 9-10 storm after passing the turn once without the danger of clunky draws including several 3cc+ spells. Just my testing experience :)

As much as I wanted to not write a single word about Necropotence (it was an obvious bait), I need to support this. There are lots of spectacular/broken draw engines already and I don't think that Legacy needs another one, especially one that over and over again and again proved to be a terrible design mistake through many years and several formats. All that the original article was about is true, yet Necro is such a rubbish that even though it would make for some really nice games, the fact that there will be blow outs with turn1 Drit->Skull is enough to leave it where it is.
Otoh, there's Grisly that works the same and is a win con in itself and doesn't have all the clauses that make Necropotence bad. While NSkull->SFM->BSkull is a gg most of the times, it is a three cards combo that initially eats some life without doing much (ok, except for drawing cards...), while it has all the troubles of creature-based strategies. If there's something to match tempo CA engines (like TC and friends), control CA stuff (JTMS, Termnus, CB/Top), then maybe Necro would be fine. Except that I don't think that it'll end in some NecroKnights 2.0 but rather a Firestorm.dec of ICE-5ED-WTH Type II, this time with the "minitenrils the sucker out of game" maintheme.
I'd rather see Grisly gone than Necra back.

I should have tested the Necropotence first, but frankly, I lack time for this. I think tha this card deserves ban and in fact I love to see Grisly killed too. The "life for power" flavor of black is reasonable, but except for Bob, the resutls are pretty often awful. If there'd be something betwen Skull/Bargain and Greed, than that's what I'd support.

[death]

Unban Mana Drain so I could play Gemstone Caverns.

Caverns. Island, go. Counter your Treasure Cruise, on my turn 2 I hardcast Omniscience hahaha

[maharis]

I should have tested the Necropotence first, but frankly, I lack time for this. I think tha this card deserves ban and in fact I love to see Grisly killed too. The "life for power" flavor of black is reasonable, but except for Bob, the resutls are pretty often awful. If there'd be something betwen Skull/Bargain and Greed, than that's what I'd support.

Erebos, God of the Dead is a build-around, but it's a curiosity. I think there's a black devotion/stompy/helm-leyline deck out there.

I could see Necro being OK. It would be an interesting build-around fair engine and has a lot to compete with in Storm decks. It does monkey a bit with PiF. You ritual into it turn 1, draw 3, pass, then win is the idea, right? That has to beat Force of Will and hatebears.... and you can't use cards in your GY with LED. I dont know, maybe. I would play it in Pox so what do I know.

As for the rest of the cards:

Earthcraft is fine.
Survival is fine.
Recruiter is probably fine, it might be slow to resolve at times like Doomsday, but people don't tend to bring those kinds of decks to long tournaments anyway.
Imperial Seal... I get the sorcery aspect of it, but what deck is playing this and not Probe, Brainstorm, Ponder, Top... Seems a little dangerous and it would have to be reprinted and that's not going to happen at $1k per copy. I would file it under fine, but a pipe dream
Mana Drain: I think it's too powerful, but it is NOT reserved, so it could be reprinted, therefore price is no dealbreaker. I disagree that it wouldn't help Miracles because you could hardcast trapped Terminus in your hands with it. Also Jace, small Entreats if you have 3 white... It would be hilarious to snap off a Cruise with it though.

Don't play enough vintage to comment, but in Modern...

AV is fine.
BBE is fine.
Cloudpost is probably OK, but Tron is good enough and I don't think it's worth opening the can of worms with Cloudpost.
Glimpse is probably OK too, I don't think Elves is good in modern because of the key cards you mentioned that it's missing. I'd be more annoyed with it as an Affinity draw engine.
GSZ would be fine if Pod wasn't already obnoxious. Granted I wish SFM and DRS were legal in modern, but that might be too hard on blue.

[btm10]

It's hard to believe some cards landed on the list here.

Mana Drain: the only reason this card appears safe is the low manacost in average of Legacy playable cards atm, but countering Cruise, Jace, Terminus, GSZ or other cost-reduced cards which see Legacy play is absurd to fuel your own spells. It is/was a game-ending advantage to Drain a 4cc+ Spell in Vintage and I asume it's quite silimar in Legacy. Jace, Trinket Mage, Salvager, SDT, hardcast Miracles would enjoy, but I'm not convinced the push-pull effect of Countertop (cheap spell defense) plus Drain (mana heavy spell defense) is good for the format.

This. The biggest issue I have with Drain is that even if you're not Draining Treasure Cruise or Dig Through Time, you're still getting giving blue-based midrange/control decks a mana boost at exactly the right time for them to abuse it. "Living the Dream" doesn't have to be hitting their 8 mana spell. Having a 2 mana spell like Young Pyromancer Drained into TNN+Jitte or Stoneforge --> Sword--> hardcast Sword or Jace through Daze on turn 3 is likely game over. Drain may be as slow as Counterspell, but giving Blade decks in particular a colorless Dark Ritual that doesn't otherwise require them to change any slots is quite dangerous already, and that's ignoring other things it would enable.

Also, Having tested Enchantress with 2 Earthcraft (and purchased two Korean Earthcrafts), I really want to see the card unbanned. Enchantress with Earthcraft would probably be a tier 1 deck in the current meta - it's at least a full turn faster than it is without Earthcraft, and already has good matchups against Miracles and Blade decks - especially since UWr Blade has replaced Esper as the Blade deck deck of choice, and its UR Delver matchup is good as well. And because all the deck does is draw cards and manipulate its library, it's likely the most consistent nonblue deck we're likely to get. This one is all upside.

[Admiral_Arzar]

I agree with (and have no real reservations against) Earthcraft and Goblin Recruiter. Survival is iffy for me - while there are plenty of answers for it, you still run into the "answer plan A, get killed by plan B anyways" scenario where you stop Survival but die to dudes. This issue is that Survival's backup plan is much better than that of Elves, Imperial Painter, Food Chain, or Aluren because Survival plays actual beat-down creatures rather than comboy things or lock pieces.

I'm a little hesitant about Mana Drain. Full disclosure though, I dislike blue as it is in modern Legacy and don't like the idea of giving it even more tools (this is the same reason I would like a card notably absent from your article - Black Vise - to be unbanned). Imperial Seal I think would be an interesting add to the format, but I would rather see combo engines like Necro or Mind's Desire unbanned first. Seal would also need a mass reprint before it could be unbanned - not just an appearance at rare in some special product (this applies to Drain as well). I think you're onto something with Necro - a lot of the fear of that card I think is just knee-jerk reactions from a time long gone (same applies to Desire, which has never been legal as a 4-of in this format). If we're going to start going off the deep end here, I would like to see an unban that would make MUD a format pillar - Mana Vault or even Workshop. The reason for this is that MUD is the natural predator of blue decks with greedy mana curves, and unlike Dredge it actually plays real games of magic and can be interacted with in normal ways.

EDIT: As I alluded to earlier, I found the lack of mention of Black Vise a little odd. Same goes for Mind Twist, which is generally assumed to be the safest card on the list.

[Lord Seth]

Yes. Yes we do. I want to play a toolbox deck that can actually find stuff. A deck that has 4 cards total that find stuff isn't it, really. o_o

No, we really don't. We don't need to give what's already probably the best deck in the format, Birthing Pod, more tools.

It's like unbanning Gush in Legacy in terms of how it just benefits what's already the best decks.

Not that it matters what either of us think. Aaron Forsythe apparently said that Green Sun's Zenith had a "grave" for itself in Modern, so we're not going to see it unbanned anytime soon.