[SCD] Memory Jar

[perm]

Since Time Spiral has been unbanned for some time, I would like to have a discussion about a card with a similar effect: Memory Jar. It seems to me that the power level is well above that of time spiral, mainly due to being an artifact and being able to be cheated into play.

How do you think it compares to other cards and interactions with cards in legacy? what ramifications would its unbanning have?

[Final Fortune]

The difference between a 4UU Draw 7 and 5 Draw 7 is huge, I'm more or less certain Diminshing Returns would have been banned at 3U. Spiral Tide is probably the best deck in the format ATM, I don't think anybody is going to make that mistake twice.

[Nessaja]

Memory Jar is much better then Time Spiral. Itt's only colorless mana.

Draw 7's are just too scary, I'm fairly certain ANT would become JART.

[perm]

in addition to its colorless mana, it can be cheated into play and cracked as an instant whenever you need to, so the mana can be open for later turns

[honestabe]

You think its a good idead until your opponent has a welder in play. Then it's just degenerate. Not to mention Elves would suck dick for this card

[Admiral_Arzar]

*DOES NOT COMPUTE, BRAIN OVERLOADED, INITIATE SELF-DESTRUCT SEQUENCE*

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Seriously, this card is so ridiculously broken it's not even funny. Especially now that Metalworker and Grim Monolith are back in the format, in which case there's the potential of turn 1 or 2 Jar in MUD decks. Not to mention that giving Storm Combo a colorless, 5 mana, often one-sided Draw 7 is dumb beyond belief. And the interactions with Welder, Academy Ruins, and Kuldotha Forgemaster are also dumb beyond belief. The only saving grave of the situation is that Tinker is currently banned in Legacy, as is Mishra's Workshop. I mean, I play pretty much nothing but Storm Combo (and MUD now that I just finished the deck) but unbanning this card would lead to a Pandora's box of combo decks that the format is just completely unprepared to deal with. I mean, people are bitching and moaning about Spiral Tide, which is quite fair IMO. Imagine what would happen when they have to face a Spanish-Inquisition-style glass cannon (fueled by Jar) with a ridiculous Turn-1 Win percentage. Not to mention that Storm Combo using Jar could play FOW (no need for Ad Nauseum). Honestly, I would much rather they unban Mind's Desire than Memory Jar, it would have less impact on the format, although it would still be degenerate.

[GGoober]

IBTL: You kidding me? Can you imagine how all combo decks would be playing Jars?? All Meandeck MUDs will be playing Jars, everyone not playing Jars will be losing to players playing Jars?

It's x100 times stronger than Time Spiral:
- 1 mana cheaper
- colorless
- it's an ARTIFACT (i.e. works with way too many things, Intuition, Welder, Academy Ruins)
- It's a Jar, it's restricted in Vintage

[Mana Drain]

Really though, the card is significantly better than Ad Nauseum. And if you didn't know, Ad Nauseum is the main engine card in a Tier 1 combo deck.

This is on par with unbanning Mind's Desire. Not quite as stupid as YawWin, but still absurdly stupid card.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Really though, the card is significantly better than Ad Nauseum. And if you didn't know, Ad Nauseum is the main engine card in a Tier 1 combo deck.

This is on par with unbanning Mind's Desire. Not quite as stupid as YawWin, but still absurdly stupid card.

It's far worse than unbanning Desire. At least Desire requires six mana, the color blue, and a chain of spells played before it to actually be good. Jar requires none of these things. It also makes cards like Megrim good, and I can't deal with the possibility of losing to an awful card like Megrim.

[GGoober]

I can deal with the possibility of that because I'm not losing to an awful card Megrim, I'm losing to Jar.

[Koby]

I agree with all the possibilities involving Metalworker, Goblin Welder, Monolith/Key, shenanigans.

Memory Jar is broken, and needs to remain banned. There's a reason why this card was banned within less than 1 month from being printed.

[Amon Amarth]

LOL JAR. Which other cards have been emergency banned? I think that answer will give you a pretty good feel for the power level of Memory Jar.

[DarthVicious]

LOL JAR. Which other cards have been emergency banned? I think that answer will give you a pretty good feel for the power level of Memory Jar.

Wasn't Mind Twist emergency banned also? Maybe I'm wrong on this, but I do remember it was banned pretty quick.

[KindGrind]

Jar will remain on the ban list ever, and is probably the least unbannable card on the present list.

[(nameless one)]

LOL JAR. Which other cards have been emergency banned? I think that answer will give you a pretty good feel for the power level of Memory Jar.

I'm curious, which cards got emergency banned? I know Skullclamp did right?

[perm]

I'm curious, which cards got emergency banned? I know Skullclamp did right?

I think that was emergency banned in frikkin standard, ha

[Artowis]

I'm curious, which cards got emergency banned? I know Skullclamp did right?

Sadly Skullclamp was around for months and it became a format where nearly every single deck ran it.

The only Emergency Banning (Out of schedule ban) is Memory Jar. It was still legal for 2-3 weeks. It nearly won two GP's despite people just throwing together Jar lists the week of.

[Amon Amarth]

Sadly Skullclamp was around for months and it became a format where nearly every single deck ran it.

The only Emergency Banning (Out of schedule ban) is Memory Jar. It was still legal for 2-3 weeks. It nearly won two GP's despite people just throwing together Jar lists the week of.

Ding Ding Ding! We have a winner! Colorless 1-sided Draw 7's that are easily recurred and are, uh, really good.

[Sims]

Sadly Skullclamp was around for months and it became a format where nearly every single deck ran it.

The only Emergency Banning (Out of schedule ban) is Memory Jar. It was still legal for 2-3 weeks. It nearly won two GP's despite people just throwing together Jar lists the week of.

Josh, wasn't Desire semi-emergency banned? I know it was banned in old 1.5 and restricted in vintage before the set was even legal for play, but was that a regularly scheduled B/R update that it happened?

[perm]

I am happy to say I traded my foil mind's desire and a few other cheap rares for a mishra's workshop...

but yes, its pretty clear that mind's desire is much closer to TS's power level than memory jar

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Jar will remain on the ban list ever, and is probably the least unbannable card on the present list.

While I agree that Jar is definitely too good, it's far from the least unbannable card currently on the list. Necropotence and Yawgmoth's Will as well as Tinker want a word with you, as does Bazaar of Baghdad (you really want Vintage-Dredge in this format?). That's ignoring P9 ridiculousness, even.

[perm]

well yawgwin is by far the best card in the game, even better than black lotus (unless you count like, contract from below, B for draw seven) but I would wager that memory jar is nearly as good as necropetence, and better than some P9 like time walk and time twister. Even if the 7 fresh isn't enough to combo off, the original hand isn't even discarded, which is a pretty huge thing, especially since often times the symmetrical effect isnt worthless when the opponent loses the new cards anyway.

[Gheizen64]

Josh, wasn't Desire semi-emergency banned? I know it was banned in old 1.5 and restricted in vintage before the set was even legal for play, but was that a regularly scheduled B/R update that it happened?

Yeah, it never became legal in Vintage since it was restricted the same day scourge was released.

[Artowis]

Josh, wasn't Desire semi-emergency banned? I know it was banned in old 1.5 and restricted in vintage before the set was even legal for play, but was that a regularly scheduled B/R update that it happened?

They announced it banned in 1.5 and restricted in Vintage before it ever saw play, yes. It was part of a normal announcement cycle though. They simply figured that allowing the card as a 4-of would be idiotic in formats with a bunch of fast mana and cheap card draw.

Memory Jar was pretty much the same reasoning, just with bad timing all around. They threw it into the set and right before it was released for sale they saw all the combo decks were basically 'draw a million cards off these broken draw spells and fast mana', looked at Jar and went ohfuckohfuckohfuck and pulled the plug before another 4 months was lost to perhaps the most degen deck of all time.

[Rico Suave]

Jar decks are obscene, and though they revolved around Memory Jar you have to keep in mind that a typical Memory Jar deck around that time looked like this:

4 Mox Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 LED
4 Dark Ritual
4 Mana Vault
4 Ancient Tomb
X Rainbow Lands

4 Memory Jar
4 Brainstorm
4 Tinker
4 Vampiric Tutor
X copies of Mystical Tutor, Yawgmoth's Will

So while Memory Jar is good and still too powerful for Legacy, it's important to distance the card Memory Jar from the deck based on Memory Jar. Seriously what card isn't good when put into a deck with Tinker, YawgWill, tons of 1-mana tutors, Brainstorm, fast mana, etc. Any claims that Jar is "uber broken" or "better than Time Walk or Necro" are not able to make this differentiation.

[dahcmai]

Heh, you forgot the random Megrims. God, I hated how that deck could actually use one of my most hated cards. I hate megrim because it's hard to convince newer players that it sucks.

I really never thought Yawgwin was all that bad except in Vintage where it really shined. It was barely playable in standard. I had pros for testing partners and no one really came up with much for it. We had an interesting Enchantress deck using it, a really early Dryad Gro, and a bad version of Bargain. It didn't do much for those decks. Then again, we were playing with Tinker, Bargain, and Replenish in Standard. It was kind of broken anyway.

Jar was flat insane. What's funny is the first deck we came up with to play with Jar was Elves. It was pretty stupid in elves since you could just dump elves, cast Jar, dump elves, dump jar, and so on. You could wrath that deck all day and it laughed it off like nothing. The Megrim tinker thing came later.

[Captain_Morgan]

Jar is evil, about the only "draw shit for free" that would work is probably Land Tax since it has limits, easily removable, and ect.

[Grollub]

I really never thought Yawgwin was all that bad except in Vintage where it really shined. It was barely playable in standard. I had pros for testing partners and no one really came up with much for it. We had an interesting Enchantress deck using it, a really early Dryad Gro, and a bad version of Bargain. It didn't do much for those decks. Then again, we were playing with Tinker, Bargain, and Replenish in Standard. It was kind of broken anyway.

Barely playable in standard? DrainGeyser, Napster and Sabre Bargain among others would like a word with you.

[dahcmai]

None of which did all that great. Bargain was the only one who could use it and even then it wasn't by far needed in it.

[Grollub]

None of which did all that great. Bargain was the only one who could use it and even then it wasn't by far needed in it.
Not to sound like an ass but, did you play competetive standard back then? Napster took Nationals, and was by most players regarded the strongest deck at that time. DrainGeyser when it broke out was a complete beast (as in the only "bad" match up being the mirror) and among one of the most broken standard decks of all time: 4 Necropotence + 4 Yawgmoth's Will was straight up silly to say the least.

It was equally busted in Extended at the time by the way: Free Spell Necro and Black Tide (which some even considered better than the Spiral variant) being some of the abusers.

[Forbiddian]

Hope they don't unban Memory Jar.

[Solar Ice]

Hope they don't unban Memory Jar.

Don't worry, no one in their right mind in charge of the ban/res list will even consider unbanning it.

[Nidd]

Don't worry, no one in their right mind in charge of the ban/res list will even consider unbanning it.
You do know they banned Survival, do you?

[Rico Suave]

I really never thought Yawgwin was all that bad except in Vintage where it really shined. It was barely playable in standard. I had pros for testing partners and no one really came up with much for it.

Then they weren't pros, now were they?

[Solar Ice]

You do know they banned Survival, do you?

Touche. :P

In seriousness though, Jar is one of the most broken cards ever printed and we all know how WotC feels about combo. Mind's Desire would be a safer unban than Jar. ( I'd love it if they unbanned Desire..)