Working on a Deck That Got Banned

[phazonmutant]

Has anyone here had the experience of intensively working on a deck that was then banned (e.g. Survival)? How did you feel - vindicated or heartbroken? Leading up to the banning, what did you expect?

[xfxf]

Do you feel like a Griselbrand ban is in order :)?

[Lemnear]

Has anyone here had the experience of intensively working on a deck that was then banned (e.g. Survival)? How did you feel - vindicated or heartbroken? Leading up to the banning, what did you expect?

I expected a sane mind of players and/or the DCI but got disappointed every time. Worst cases appear in Vintage, where the DCI performed several Format resets/kills in it's history due to the bound Investment. The best feeling you can get out of that is, that your work has lead to break the game.

[brattin]

Survival was a pet deck of mine before it got banned. I never played the broken version/versions (everyone thought vengevine was broken, but I know some people thought the necrotic ooze combo was better); I'd been playing rec-sur when it got banned. There were a few people in the local meta playing vengevine survival, but it didn't seem broken.

So yeah, heartbroken, not vindicated. I thought people could hate it out. I still do, but I'm biased. I still don't own vengevines.

[Kich867]

Honestly the introduction of Abrupt Decay gives so many decks a cheap unstoppable answer to the card, seems fine to bring back. The card doesn't even seem that broken, even in the face of Vengevines, like if it's not answered at all its probably really brutal, but the reality of the deck sounds like: You need Survival and 2 creatures + enough green mana sources to make enough vengevines in the GY that it's worth doing. And then it does what to Extirpate effects or a Crypt in response to the vengevine triggers?

Like the card is super powerful for sure, it just doesn't seem so over the top compared to Sneak And Show or Reanimator or storm combo or high tide and so on.

[Arsenal]

Rest in Peace also helps matters too. I don't necessarily want to see it again, but it'd be interesting to see what the format would look like if it was unbanned today.

[Kuma]

I put a lot of work into Bant Survival along with Jak, Waikiki and a few others. I think I had the highest ever finish with it (54th at GP Columbus 2010). My list was incredibly well tuned, and I felt like I could beat anything as long as I knew what to do. It had positive matchups against Reanimator and ANT, especially ANT, at a time when those were the two biggest decks in the format. It was also like 75/25 against Zoo and 60/40 against Merfolk. It was pretty much the perfect deck. The deck's bad matchups were Death and Taxes (Aether Vial, equipment, and 4 Karakas for Iona) and Rbg Goblins (Warren Wierding for Iona, Krosan Grip for Dueling Grounds) and that was about it. I spent like a solid year playing nothing but Bant Survival and dominated local tournaments that included some more well known Legacy names like Bobby Kovacs and Dan Musser. Then Caleb Durwood top eighted that very same GP with a Vengevine list and the rest is history. God, I miss that deck.

[dontbiteitholmes]

ITT: 50% of people "yes"
The other 50% "Oh sweet, another opportunity to push my ban-list agenda."

[nedleeds]

"I changed like 3 cards in a 57 card shell, but I'm a huge innovator and I take personal ownership of a deck by using terms like 'we' when discussing it on the internet."

- Everyone

Also it's pretty safe to unban survival in a world of griselbrand ... great, you took your second turn to cast a blank card - I drew 14 cards.

[jamis]

Also it's pretty safe to unban survival in a world of griselbrand ... great, you took your second turn to cast a blank card - I drew 14 cards.
Survival, discard Griselbrand get loyal retainers. Cast and activate Loyal retainers.

[.dk]

Also it's pretty safe to unban survival in a world of griselbrand ... great, you took your second turn to cast a blank card - I drew 14 cards.

it's also pretty safe to unban survival in a world of surgical extraction.

[Lemnear]

it's also pretty safe to unban survival in a world of surgical extraction.

That would "require" to pack those MD and/or SB in Decks to fight survival. It's exactly the reason peeps whined in advance of the banning. They didn't Even want to maindeck spell snare over counterspell back then.

[Final Fortune]

Has anyone here had the experience of intensively working on a deck that was then banned (e.g. Survival)? How did you feel - vindicated or heartbroken? Leading up to the banning, what did you expect?

Survival of the Fittest is probably the one and only ban in recent memory that could be reversed now, between Deathrite Shaman, Rest in Peace, Surgical Extraction and Abrupt Decay today compared to the Tormod's Crypts of yesterday I don't think it'd have an overpowering or even significant impact on the environment.

[alekill]

Anybody have anything pre survival?

[jamis]

I was playing Rev614 for about 2 weeks until the announcement that Mystical Tutor was banned. It sucks, but probably was a good call to ban it in hindsight.

[Madmaniac21]

Has anyone here had the experience of intensively working on a deck that was then banned (e.g. Survival)? How did you feel - vindicated or heartbroken? Leading up to the banning, what did you expect?

Horribly heartbroken. What you did turns out to be a complete waste of time and energy - PLUS you don't get to play with cards you love. Double whammy.

[Julian23]

I put a lot of work into Bant Survival along with Jak, Waikiki and a few others.

Those were the days...:cry:
Vengevine aside, this was the best Survival deck I ever played and I really enjoyed the feeling on actually working on a deck together with people from around the globe. I remember Waikiki doing really well with his list of 3 maindeck Meddling Mages at GP Madrid. I never found a deck that made me feel so "at home" again. Since the banning of Survival, I am like a Magic-Nymphomanic...I do it with every deck I seem to like but end up with nothing that lasts. Comical tragedy at the very heart.

[Waikiki]

It still hurts to see my baby got banned. I think its perfectly fine to unban it right now with all the shamans going around. 50th place at GP madrid. the deck was the most fun I ever had playing magic. too bad I can only look at the cards now drawn on my playmat:(

[ScatmanX]

My Modern Allies deck got seriously hurt with the banning of Bloodbraid Elf... =(

[Lemnear]

Anybody have anything pre survival?

- Affinity, CAW Blade in Standard
-Storm, 12-post in modern (both post-SotF)
- Burning Desire, Academy, Slaver, Tropical Storm, Gifts, Vintage Apocalypse etc. in Vintage

Binning a whole deck except power and FoW has some Kind of Tradition in Vintage

[pavlaugh]

I won about half a set of Power 9 in 2004/2005 timeframe before Bazaar of Baghdad was banned. It was a great deck with squee, mongoose, fiery temper, bolt, kird ape, rootwalla, gamble, wonder, anger, mongrel, etc. A friend designed it but I tweaked later and played a lot with it.

I was heartbroken because I thought the deck was pretty fair. I had some top 8 losses to stiflenaught and goblins. I didn't see it coming because legacy (1.5) was barely a format. I understood they had to ban it because of worldgorger, though.

[TraxDaMax]

Seething Song banning sucked in Modern. U/R Storm was the reason I put time and effort into the boring format to begin with.

[SpikeyMikey]

That would "require" to pack those MD and/or SB in Decks to fight survival. It's exactly the reason peeps whined in advance of the banning. They didn't Even want to maindeck spell snare over counterspell back then.

This.

I was pissed when Survival was banned. I was playing Rock with MD Extirpate and I rolled over 2 of the 3 Survival variants (G/W was still an issue because after you Extirpated VV, they still had Loyal/Iona and after you dealt with that, they had infinite KotRs) without sacrificing my matchups vs. the rest of the field. I ended up having to audible for an SCG 3 weeks later. Audibles are fine in formats where changing decks might cost $200. In a format where it costs $1500+? That sucked donkey balls. But people are remarkably bad at figuring out how to adjust matchups. Even when it's an obvious "main deck some graveyard hate because even against non-survival decks it's good against all kinds of things". People were just mad that they couldn't run stock CB lists and win anymore.

[clavio]

Not quite the same scenario, but I had a pet deck for years and years that made Winter Orb one sided by tapping it. Then they erratad the fuck out of it.

I was playing a really cool MUC type deck when MM was around. The deck got significantly weaker when MM got banned.

[Umezete]

I was a huge survival fan (mostly because it had a madness engine, whats not to love about that!?!) so I was working on foiling it out when it got axed. (Luckily I got rid of my 7 non-foil survivals before the ban and the judge foils really are still worth the same).

Still have the foil dazes, cradle, and stuff for the deck.

I was pretty irritated at that ban, I feel like the deck wasn't broken and people were just refusing to use hate against it. People kept playing its best matchups and whining it was an unfair deck with barely any sb hate allotted to it. Every single point made to survival being overpowered could be used against show and tell and about half a dozen other cards including some that aren't even that strong right now in legacy.


BBE got banned in modern when I had a jund list I was working with, though I was playing black white tokens at the time. I don't really care about that ban though, and I still stand by my statement that BBE is lackluster. Jund is still placing and its still tier 1 in modern even without that card. What makes the deck dumb is all the efficient value cards in the deck, sure BBE sat on top of the curve nicely and gave you a free value card but it certainly wasn't the strongest card in the deck.


Stoneforge and JTMS got banned in modern while I was playing Cawblade. I felt pretty vindicated there because playing that deck made you realize that it was really the only tier 1 deck in the format at the time. If a deck's worse matchup is its mirror then there is a problem.


Seething song ban in modern pissed me off. It was basically wotc saying fuck off to every single strom combo player that was interested in modern. Though that pretty much guaranteed the legacy crowd's combo players will never migrate to modern.

[jeanbathez]

Those were the days...:cry:
Vengevine aside, this was the best Survival deck I ever played and I really enjoyed the feeling on actually working on a deck together with people from around the globe. I remember Waikiki doing really well with his list of 3 maindeck Meddling Mages at GP Madrid. I never found a deck that made me feel so "at home" again. Since the banning of Survival, I am like a Magic-Nymphomanic...I do it with every deck I seem to like but end up with nothing that lasts. Comical tragedy at the very heart.

You said it very well !!! My first legacydeck was rocksurvival, and nothing felt so good when playing/resolving Survival...

They are still waiting in my binder and my foil Squee to get used again, i didn't sell them, though i feared at that time they were banned, but hoped they will take vengevine....:cry:

[Erdvermampfa]

My impression is that they are now way more reluctant regarding the banning of cards. Some time ago, all it needed to get a card banned was shitstorming on the internet. Now, due to a remarkable number of people complaining about DCI's ban policy being heavily influenced by those who 'whine the loudest' on the forums, they seem to act more hesitatingly. To be honest, I felt quite confused that the moaning about Brainstorm, Show and Tell and then Griselbrand didn't suffice to get the cards banned.

As for the actual subject of the thread: I felt dissatisfied and actually a bit surprised because of the banning of Mental Misstep. From my angle of view, most people assented with its excistence in the format, for there were comparatively little complaints or demands for a banning of it. Of course, it made nonblue decks unplayable, but this didn't disturb me that much.

[Kich867]

Not quite the same scenario, but I had a pet deck for years and years that made Winter Orb one sided by tapping it. Then they erratad the fuck out of it.

I was playing a really cool MUC type deck when MM was around. The deck got significantly weaker when MM got banned.

This is an archetype that I genuinely love, MUC, and yeah. When MM was around I think not many people realized it, but MUC was tier 1. A friend of mine used to rock it hard, between MM and Spell Snare, Counterspell and Force of Will, you basically had no shot at resolving anything, then he'd drop a Morphling and kill you in 4 turns with an unstoppable hellbeast.

Note to self: Make a deck with Morphling in it. Dude is badass.

[csy]

This is an archetype that I genuinely love, MUC, and yeah. When MM was around I think not many people realized it, but MUC was tier 1. A friend of mine used to rock it hard, between MM and Spell Snare, Counterspell and Force of Will, you basically had no shot at resolving anything, then he'd drop a Morphling and kill you in 4 turns with an unstoppable hellbeast.

Note to self: Make a deck with Morphling in it. Dude is badass.

make sure to travel back in time and get combat damage on the stack.

[nedleeds]

Survival, discard Griselbrand get loyal retainers. Cast and activate Loyal retainers.

Yeah that's way more efficient than b entomb, b reanimate / 1b exhume shallow grave animate dead ...

[Umezete]

Yeah that's way more efficient than b entomb, b reanimate / 1b exhume shallow grave animate dead ...

That isn't the problem, the problem is 1 card can tutor for the whole combo, and is its own toolbox as well.

I like survival but but that interaction is overpowered in how consistent it is.