The September 20th 2011 Banned / Restricted List Update Reaction Thread

Once again WoTC justifies their position with absurd reasoning that shows they don't even understand the formats of their own game. They banned MM in modern for bogus reasons and the same for Legacy. Will MM being gone help make blue less dominant? Don't make me laugh. Merfolk shrugs and resolves vial more, high tide comes back, and counterbalance rejoices. Meanwhile nonblue midrange decks, the sort of thing WoTC supposedly does all this for, get boned in a faster, more combo-happy meta.

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Originally Posted by sdematt

Wizards is obviously solving their problem of not truly playtesting cards before printing by banning. They're supplementing actual testing and design with the use of the BanHammer; what a horrible practice.

Honestly, I'm not sure if Wizards actually knows what they're doing when it comes to Eternal Formats. I honestly feel like we needed more time. They just printed the damn card. Just because some player can't play their same 75 from 1996 doesn't mean a card needs to get banned.

I'm honestly thinking there should be a council running the show, like in EDH. Legacy players know what needs to be banned, and what doesn't. I think that'd be a much better system then Wizards derdling around and continually banning cards because some noob can't play Goblins from five years ago.

-Matt

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Well MaRo basically said in that video on ChannelFireball that they don't really test eternal formats, they just manage them with the banned lists.

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Originally Posted by Richard Cheese

Well MaRo basically said in that video on ChannelFireball that they don't really test eternal formats, they just manage them with the banned lists.

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- So HOW do they determine what they ban or don't ban?

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Originally Posted by CorpT

When was the magical time when control was not represented that everyone thinks existed before Mental Misstep where apparently aggro and combo were the only playable decks?

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By everyone probably you are referring to me? In all my posts I try to reference CounterTop as the control choice of a MMles meta to prevent misrepresentation of my words in such fashion but I guess I'm not a good enough wordslinger :)

Yes control was represented in CounterTop. I don't like it being the only viable option for control when vial decks are like jelly beans. Plus there is Zoo and Affinity..

Meta predators such as Team America or Can. Thresh is always valid for "blue domiance", I'm just arguing that if Goblins can stay viable for 5 years and people think they have the right to whine over it after it gets shut down by Mental Misstep I think I have the right to expect decks such as UW Landstill live a little longer than 4 months.

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Originally Posted by DragoFireheart

- So HOW do they determine what they ban or don't ban?

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http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ug/7.jpg

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Originally Posted by Goaswerfraiejen

The difference in power level beween MM and its replacements is palpable, and becomes especially important post-board. FoW and Daze alone are just not enough against a good combo player. Whittling away a combo player's life total is very important, but difficult to do if you have to keep one or two mana open for the first three turns so that you can cast a single Spell Pierce. MM really helped those of us playing aggro-control by allowing us to spend the first couple of turns developing our board positions, and then keeping our mana open. Post-board, we still brought in more hate, which maximized our counterspell density. Without MM, it becomes much harder to do all those things simply because combo is so fast and can already survive so much hate. It's doable, but it was a lot easier with MM than it is without it. MM went a VERY long way towards adjusting those matchup percentages.

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This.

I think the solution to Mental Misstep is to print a Spell Snare that counters CMC 1 if they really don't want Misstep in the format. It isn't free, so you'll have to keep mana up, and it's blue. It would be purely defensive at that point, as you'd have to do nothing on your first turn to keep mana up to counter their CMC 1 spell. Seems fine to me.

I tihnk another solution was to unban Mystical tutor and keep Mental Misstep, just to see what happens. If it gets crazy, just ban it again. It's not like they haven't done it before.

Like I said, I'd rather have a B/R list managed by a council of players, deckbuilders, and some people who are invested in the format and know what they're talking about, from the major Legacy scenes (Us, Europe, and Asia/Aus, not just using the Starcity circuit to determine how prolific a deck is).

Thoughts?

-Matt

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Originally Posted by Humphrey

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ug/7.jpg

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Quoted (many times before) for Truthery.

Did you guys forget something? I was winning quite a bit with Stoneblade/Patriot when it was still in it's infancy way back in March. That was before Misstep was printed. Batterskull is what made me finally have a good edge against aggro and let me pull those clunky Moats out of that deck. Misstep was just a bonus, albeit a big bonus, but it's far from making that deck obsolete. It just means I get to have my Spell Snares back in the deck again. I was missing them anyway. Oh wait, I got a Snapcaster Mage lately also. That's cool too.

Think it's dead, I don't mind.



Also, did I miss that combo heavy format that was right before New Phyrexia came out? Must have missed it.

I totally agree w the above poster. When was this combo dominance after MT got banned? Storm combo got harder since u couldn't play the idiot proof Saito lists and Reanimator (which is a duuuurrrr combo deck anyway) took a hit. Then MM came out and made combo suck a little more ... I fail to see when decks like TES/ANT/DD were just owning the format.

The banning of MM made my day. Not because I am a combo player ... but because I like diversity. I have the cards to build like 8 different combo lists and I play different ones all the time. When I went to SCG Atlanta ... it was just a bunch of morons playing Stoneforge, RUG, and Merfolk (which Dredge OWNS). That was it ... everywhere I looked thats all I saw, perhaps this is just a SCG thing ... not sure. This is the exact reason I quit playing standard, because I wanted to play against a variety of decks ... not the same shit everytime.

With MM going Gobbos get better, Suicide variants get stronger, Lands! variants can return ... so there will be a variety of things out there. I don't care if combo beats them or loses to them, hell, I went like 7-0 in 2x tournaments against Counterbalance before MT got banned with DDFT and I was bored. I kept playing against the same shit half the time ... and thats what I hate, seeing the same shit again, and again, and again. MM being gone will hopefully make things more diverse and interesting.

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Originally Posted by Humphrey

http://magiccards.info/scans/en/ug/7.jpg

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I was just hoping for someone to ask so that I could post that card, but you beat me good sir...

Pulp you drunk bro?

You make more sense when you're drunk, but your post is in every way how I feel about Legacy post-MT ban pre-Survival ban, post-Survival ban, pre-MM ban.

The ONLY reason I even play this format is because I can build something that I think is competitive and it either fails or it is viable at a tier 2 level that I utterly enjoy playing. Even though I never ever played Spiral Tide or Gobbos, Elves etc, having MM push a huge variety of deck out pissed me off. This is coming from primarily a blue control player who was overjoyed at the printing of MM to combat Vial, but turned out hating the card and took a break from even playing Landstill because MM.format was so strangling it hurts.

Im happy to see old threads risen from hibernation (Dreadstill, Death & Taxes etc.).

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Originally Posted by sdematt

I'm honestly thinking there should be a council running the show, like in EDH. Legacy players know what needs to be banned, and what doesn't. I think that'd be a much better system then Wizards derdling around and continually banning cards because some noob can't play Goblins from five years ago.

-Matt

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Fucking seriously? Not if these forums are any indication.

Theoretical community banned list if this had been around since the creation of the format.
-Survival of the Fittest (since summer 2004)
-Goblin Lackey
-Flash
-Lion's Eye Diamond
-Tarmogoyf
-Sensie's Top
-Aether Vial
-Show and Tell
-Natural Order
-Stoneforge Mystic
-Mental Misstep anyways

I think WotC missed on this one. Really if they give us a fixed Misstep that doesn't hit permanents that would be even better in the end and I would forgive them. They messed up, they were trying to give non-blue decks a way to fight combo but didn't take into account that vs. combo the ability to counter creatures and artifacts is largely irrelevant (except for top, candelabra, and grindstone).

Maybe the ban of MM is showing the mentality of some players who really don't like diversity. "Oh no, now I can't predict or control everything in this format! ergo, I'll rage" Legacy is so popular thanks to diversity, the joy of being able to play almost any tier 1, 2 or even 3 deck and still manage to win, thanks to the huge number of variables involved and skill.
Control is not dead, SFM + Batterskull has been a great gift from Wizards to the control player, so is Jace 2.0.

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Originally Posted by dontbiteitholmes

Theoretical community banned list if this had been around since the creation of the format.
-Survival of the Fittest (since summer 2004)
-Goblin Lackey
-Flash
-Lion's Eye Diamond
-Tarmogoyf
-Sensie's Top
-Aether Vial
-Show and Tell
-Natural Order
-Stoneforge Mystic
-Mental Misstep anyways

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You forgot force of will,brainstorm, and Narcomoeba.

The players lots of times cry ban for cards they don't like.

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Originally Posted by sligh16

stuff

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I agree with the three tiers but disagree as to the cause. I believe that the level of power between the three tiers is so minute(in comparison to other formats) that no high-end deck is straight out bad, it just depends on the meta that it plays in.

More on topic does misstep being gone mean spell pierce will see more play?

http://www.channelfireball.com/artic...-taking-steps/

This is a great read. Especially for all the people crying that Misstep shouldn't have been banned.

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Originally Posted by sligh16

Maybe the ban of MM is showing the mentality of some players who really don't like diversity. "Oh no, now I can't predict or control everything in this format! ergo, I'll rage" Legacy is so popular thanks to diversity, the joy of being able to play almost any tier 1, 2 or even 3 deck and still manage to win, thanks to the huge number of variables involved and skill.
Control is not dead, SFM + Batterskull has been a great gift from Wizards to the control player, so is Jace 2.0.

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For years I played Legacy scared to face combo with a non-blue deck because I knew there was no good way to interact with them before turn two. The answers available vs. combo that drop for under 2 mana are so narrow it's sickening. I mean the best is probably Mindbreak Trap, and Mindbreak Trap is terrible. It's only good vs. ANT, TES, and Beltcher since by the time High Tide is casting over 2 spells a turn they probably have a counter or two and even ANT can easily play around it if you stutter in applying pressure at any point. The two mana answers slow down combo quite a bit, but are useless vs. Beltcher and sometimes ANT as they will be killing you before you ever get to two mana. The hate vs. Hive Mind is as narrow as it gets or REB if you are running red.

So I got used to having 4x of the exact anti-combo card I've wanted for years in my sideboard. All of a sudden, things got fair.

I played BG control at the GP and won vs. Beltcher. Game 1 I played my first land with 14 Goblin tokens on the board, Game 2 I went first and T1 Duress + T2 Hymn won me the game, game 3 my opponent tilts the hand forward after I choose to keep revealing LED, Beltcher, Tinder Wall, Land Grant, Lotus Petal, Rite of Flame. I Misstep the Rite of Flame and Duress away the Beltcher then lock down the hand for the win.

I beat ANT with the same deck 2-0 at the prelims. Game 1 I got lucky on a Hymn and Loam + Raven's Crime locked him down and he could only Tendrils me down to 4. Game 2 I Duress him turn 1 and he hides the gas with Brainstorm, I draw into Misstep and use it to counter his next Brainstorm in response to another discard spell which took his Tutor then I locked him down again.

I beat Reanimator too. Game 3 I Misstep his turn 1 Entomb on the draw then after the match he says he had the Reanimate and Animate Dead in hand and without Misstep he would have gotten a turn 2 Iona.

So without Misstep I would have lost at least 2 but maybe even all 3 of those matches against combo with a deck that has 4x Hymn, 4x Raven's Crime, 4x Loam main and 4x Duress, 4x (Insert anticombo card to replace Misstep) 3x Extirpate SB.

That's the thing, Misstep alone doesn't win you the match out the board, you have to sideboard/MD additional things vs. combo to make it relevant that you made it to the 2nd/3rd/4th turn. Without Misstep though I could have been playing 11x SB cards that are relevant vs. combo and I still would have lost 2/3 matches.

I have absolutely no problem with combo being a relevant deck type in Legacy and for years I just accepted that most combo was at least 65% more likely 75% positive vs. non-blue/non-combo decks. Really my strategy up until Misstep when playing non-blue was to completely ignore Storm combo and hope I didn't face it, because even a full SB of cards isn't going to make a difference if they get the nuts before turn 2. That and hope that if I did face combo it would at least be a deck I could interact with like Reanimator or Dredge or Painter, where there is little to no way they can win before turn 2 so I can have a change to play my relevant hate vs. them.

Really though, nothing sucks more than getting stoked for an SCG and having hours of favorable testing vs. the decks to beat then rolling up to Legacy and round 1 you get paired with some guy in a Juggalo T-shirt playing Beltcher (none of his friends own Force of Will so he thinks the deck is a super powerful unstoppable grief machine, he's the guy walking around after round 5 complaining that he should be 5-0 instead of 2-3, "But my opponents keep drawing Force of Will!"). So you get blown out, and you just want to tell the guy his deck is fucking terrible and he should scoop anyways because he has no chance of top 32ing in a field that is 40% Force of Will + Daze + aggro. There is little to nothing you can do to prevent this right now except play blue, which is why you'll notice most of the SCG ringers run blue, the blue decks are good in their own and they get protection from waldos playing jank in the early rounds.

It's to the point where I've determined most of the time the best answer is just to say fuck it and hope to dodge the combo decks the first couple of rounds before they lose to Merfolk or TA and sink out of the top tables. When I go to make my sideboard I say, "Hmmm... There might be some non-interactive combo at this event but most of them will drop down to the lower tables by round 3-4 of an 8-9 round event. I could stick answers to combo into my SB but the answers available are so incredibly narrow and by the time they come down I could be dead anyways. My best bet is to act like storm combo doesn't exist and just hope if I do play vs. it they are incredibly terrible and throw the match (I've won more games vs. Beltcher to idiot opponents than to SB'd in cards by a long shot).

Now that Misstep has shown me what real non-U combo hate looks like I don't want to go back to never having better than a 30% chance of beating any given non-perm based combo in a match no matter if I SB 15 cards for it or zero. It's not going to give you many auto-wins vs. combo, but it's great at stalling that one turn you need to cast your other anti-combo cards and keeping the combo player on their toes so they can't just go on auto pilot and goldfish you.

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Originally Posted by funyun45

Once again WoTC justifies their position with absurd reasoning that shows they don't even understand the formats of their own game. They banned MM in modern for bogus reasons and the same for Legacy. Will MM being gone help make blue less dominant? Don't make me laugh. Merfolk shrugs and resolves vial more, high tide comes back, and counterbalance rejoices. Meanwhile nonblue midrange decks, the sort of thing WoTC supposedly does all this for, get boned in a faster, more combo-happy meta.

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Actually, Wizards is not supose to know about anyother format outside of standard and block (when a card is banned in block I often question R&D). But wizards also know the future of the game is hinged upon older players so they are always tossing cards that will attract their attention (its good buisness and it prevents the older format becomming boreing).

Although I believe they doomed Mental Misstep when they automaticly banned it in new modern format. I bet if the card wasnt banned in modern first there wouldnt be so many players bitching about the card. And I'll take an extra step in saying if Vintage was a popular format players would be bitching about the removal of the spell especially since many of the good 1cc spells are restricted.

Currently speaking I'm not sure what makes sense anymore. I liked the idea of MM because it gave players a chance to protect themselves vs deck striping cards and fast monsters. those that understand vertural card advantage could easly make MM a dead draw but the best way to beat any counterspell is bait spells; maybe it's a lost art.

I do agree that blue is never going to change. but what saddens me (because of the bitching) it's doubtful that Mental Misstep will ever see legacy again.

Anyway, good news to the crybabies... When Mental Misstep was legal the price of Force of Will dropped and since the best free counterspell is now banned, it's likely that Force of Will will reach it's target value of 150 dollars by the beginning of next year. Yep, really good work...