As a CB veteran, it is my duty to share my wisdom.
I think the better solution is to have a vanishing banned list in addition to the base banned list (cards from winner are banned, and you can add in bans for card frequency if you want, possibly make duals/basic lands/storage lands/sac lands/karoos immune from being banned), although those are indeed oversights if you want to set the bar at Inquisition of Kozilek.
Despise and Divest are actually surprisingly potent discard spells as well, but should be fine.
The Rack is definitely the best 1-drop in CB to the point that playing other 1-drops are useless because they are too slow of clocks.I have my doubts about these cards:
- Lion's Eye Diamond (allows for insane combos)
- Eureka (stoppable, but obnoxious, especially with City of Traitors and 2x Chancellor of the Tangle)
- Misthollow Griffin or Force of Will (this combo might be too much to allow)
- The Rack (I forgot about this card. It's pretty insane if you think about it.)
Let us know what you want to do. Shall we ban cards for next round already? Or shall we wait? I'm cool with either.
Eureka is probably fine, as is Force of Will/Misthollow Griffin because the critical weakness is to stare it down and dare it to cast Griffin. Of course double storage land is a counter to that, but then you just play proactive threats to overwhelm the counterspell.
LED is not actually that great in my experience, but I have mostly played 3CB so my viewpoint might be tainted.
Cards you missed:
Mental Misstep is a really dumb card for the same reasons it was banned in Legacy, although being around the presence of other format-warping cards probably makes it more reasonable.
Shrieking Affliction is the other relevant Rack effect, I actually rank it below some creatures in my 1-drop tiering order so it should be fine.
If you want a fairer format, Lotus Petal probably has to go with LED.
Tabernacle makes creatures bad but has a deckbuilding cost.
Field of Ruin is actually not that much worse than Wasteland, but only being functional on turn 2 should make it less problematic than it could be.
Reanimate should actually be fine if you make the discard weak enough.
For future rounds I would suggest setting up a GoogleDoc spreadsheet to make the results easier to follow, because your round 1 was larger than anything I have ever been a part of.
Do you mind explaining? I get that affliction only works if they're one card or less; but it seems that you can get an opponent there with only meagre effort.
Geier Reach Sanitarium
Swamp
Mishra's Factory
Shrieking Affliction
for example drains their hand if they don't play and it hits for 5 if they do.
I'd point out that there are probably better decks at doing this as well.
Or is it because you can't colorless?
Affliction's major issue is that it is a build around requiring other cards to go with it, while the Rack itself is far more proactive and can work with literally anything else that is proactive.
In most cases, something like Chronomaton is a better 1-drop because of the vertical growth potential.
Speaking of which, if Trinisphere is banned, then Sphere of Resistance probably should be as well.
Why? Me and the other guy who ran it were in the middle-of-the-road and several decks either bypass it directly (all storage counter decks, some City of Traitors decks, manland decks); most of the decks I've designed since our results released easily dodge Sphere. Sphere is like the colorless force of will (you have to dedicate a card to casting it; in my case Vein; but City and Tomb are options) and it helps to hose the worst offenders of the format while keeping them legal (unburial rights, eureka, other greedy 4-mana plays, etc)
Just like people played around chalice, you can easily play around sphere. If it warrants a ban, it certainly hasn't proven that yet (which is actually why I don't mind the discard either. Those decks earned their points mostly on the back of The Rack being a better threat than most other threats.)
I think the relative failure of the Sphere hands has to do with playing the resilient slow clocks of Factory/Inkmoth. When I play Sphere of Resistance, I want to pair it with a strong proactive threat like Chronomaton because I want the wins when Sphere is minimally effective, and the vertical growth potential of Chronomaton is the best way to do that. (Given that this is 4CB, two Chronomatons.)
I support the following bans:
The Rack -- (reasons already said by others, too powerful with these format rules)
Cabal Therapy -- (miles better than Thoughtseize: can hit multiples, can be flashed back, doesn't cost life. Should have been banned already)
Blackmail -- (Thoughtseize that can take lands)
Shrieking Affliction -- (it would encourage people to just play Rack decks again, swapping a card, but maybe this could be unbanned later)
I think Eureka is fine. Like Unburial Rites, it's an all-in combo that requires a very specific deck design and affords no protection slots. It beats random aggro but loses to disruption.
I'd unban Show and Tell for the same reason. The combo basically takes all 4 cards. It's more all-in combo like Unburial Rites (which would have been wrecked in our meta).
I think Force of Will+Misthollow Griffin+battery land is fine too. It keeps all-in combo in check, which we need with targeted discard banned. It's only oppressive against all-in decks or other control decks with 1 win condition, but it presents a very slow clock and struggles against fair aggro decks.
However, then Mental Misstep should be banned. It makes it too easy for the blue control deck to also police 1 drop aggro. FoW decks should be weak to 1 drop decks for the format to be balanced. If they can Misstep one threat, Force the next and then beat the last one with Griffin, then blue is OP and one of the cards needs to be banned. It makes sense to ban Misstep before Force. Force has a major design cost to playing it, either 2-for-1 or the slow Griffin deck, which makes it balanced. Misstep can be fit into any deck with no cost, like The Rack.
I think LED is fine. It's a key piece of all-in combo (Increasing Devotion, Unburial Rites), but it's also not hard to hate out with disruptive decks.
The format is more interesting if we have a Rock-Paper-Scissors of
All-in-combo > 1 drop aggro > control > combo
Actually, this card is a lot less problematic than The Rack.
The Rack works from three cards on, so if you combine it with another threat, you immediately invalidate the option of not doing anything and going for the draw.
Against Shrieking Affliction plus threat, you can spend two cards (land plus answer) to eliminate said threat and still be out of Affliction range.
Also, it's black, which forces us to use black as a deck color. The Rack, on the other hand, can be added to nearly any deck.
By the way: I disagree with your suggestion to validate more turn one combo and killing Misstep.
I feel it would limit the meta to only a few archetypes: turn 1 combo, FoW deck and something that can beat FoW but has trouble against combo.
That feels wrong.
I think we will have more fun if we ban FoW and all turn one combo.
We then still have turn two combo, but it's easily stopped by many things, allowing us to start fighting other battles I don't yet see coming.
So you're suggesting a combination between a fixed banning list and the "bannathon" I suggested on page one?
That's actually not the worst idea. It forces us to keep the meta fresh.
Say: we ban all cards in the decks that gain points for the season, except for lands that can only produce mana.
How does the rest feel about this idea?
if a card like shrieking affliction starts to see a ton of play, i would expect a lot more usage of undiscovered paradise.
-rob
I agree with discard and rack-effect ban ideas, I think they make sense. I still think land destruction in its different forms needs to be closely monitored. Sea's Claim is an interesting disruption that supports Force of Will and disrupts, likely becoming a staple. It opens up Evil Presence a little bit (doesn't pitch to Force) but Smallpox is likely just a better option. I think the evolving nature of this discussion will ensure it maintains interest. I'm just as excited for r2 as I was for r1, and that's a great sign of a fun game.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
I like the idea of a rotating banlist to keep the meta fresh. This time around, Rack decks and FoW decks clearly won, so it would make sense to ban those (or ban Griffin and leave FoW with a drawback).
Few things
is lotus bloom legal?
also, when are round two submissions due?
Finally, can we post the current round decklists or a link to them in the OP? it's going to be hell to find them as the thread grows.
Play 4 Card Blind!
Currently Playing
Legacy: Dark Depths
EDH: 5-Color Hermit Druid
Currently Brewing: [Deck] Sadistic Sacrament / Chalice NO Eldrazi
why cards are so expensive...hoarders
I will look at what everyone would want for bannings and create my own deck soon.
I expect to open submissions for round 2 tomorrow morning (my time) latest.
So far it looks like:
- Mental Misstep will now officially be unbanned, plus a few irrelevant things.
- Blackmail, Cabal Therapy and The Rack get banned.
- All these bannings will be included in one large list.
More plans are in the works, but I don't expect to incorporate them before round 3.
Play 4 Card Blind!
Currently Playing
Legacy: Dark Depths
EDH: 5-Color Hermit Druid
Currently Brewing: [Deck] Sadistic Sacrament / Chalice NO Eldrazi
why cards are so expensive...hoarders
Maybe not, but it definitely didn't break this round.
No, it's too confusing. In the first few pages there was discussion that Misstep would be good for the format, keeping dangerous things in check. I agreed and wanted to have it unbanned, but forgot to mention it separately, creating more confusion than was necessary. So I'm creating a completely new banning list with all relevant cards from the original Legacy banning list, plus the cards that seem to be breaking 4CB. I expect to post this list today or tomorrow morning latest. After that I will PM myself my own deck for round 2 and announce round 2 officially.
We might proceed to progressively ban the cards that gain season points for each round (was suggested a few posts earlier, and seems like a very good idea), but I won't do that just yet. We haven't had time to discuss that idea enough yet for me to get an idea how much support there is for it, and I feel like I should get round 2 out asap, which is taking up enough time as it is.
Lotus Bloom has suspend 3, so it is actually turn 4 when the mana is useful, which should not be a problem at all.
Be careful with the definition of lands that only produce mana if you go this route, because that means half the storage lands would be hit, and they serve an important purpose.
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