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

A couple pages ago, someone said something about Aether Vial being format warping, and then someone was like "oh hey, MMS got played way more than Vial, therefore you're stupid" (essentially).

While we're on the topic of social influence determining what gets played, I want to point out that a card doesn't have to get played a lot to warp the format. As long as people are thinking "I lose to Aether Vial, I need to play something that can deal with it", it's warping the format. It doesn't matter if no one plays it.

I think this is a big part of what I liked about MMS--it didn't have that huge of an impact on actual games I played, but because it was around, more people were scared away from playing storm (I suspect).

I agree Mental Misstep didn't kill goblins.

In fact, I am a firm believer that any deck was viable during the Mental Misstep era.......as long as you ran your own Mental Missteps.

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Originally Posted by joemauer

I agree Mental Misstep didn't kill goblins.

In fact, I am a firm believer that any deck was viable during the Mental Misstep era.......as long as you ran your own Mental Missteps.

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Which is why MM needed to be banned in the first place. If an aggro deck needs to drop 4 aggro pieces for 4 MMS and a control deck drops 4 control pieces for 4 MMS the control deck has the advantage because it's gaining synergy while the aggro deck is losing synergy. So the format becomes a format of control mirrors and Legacy dies.

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Originally Posted by CorpT

Number of decks with Aether Vial
01/02/11 - 05/15/11: 49/256 19%

Number of decks with Mental Misstep
05/22/11 - Present: 159/243 65%

Yeah. What were you saying?

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Top 8 presence does not necessarily correlate with presence in the field and presence in the field does not necessarily correlate with how hard a card warps the format. Whether or not Aether Vial warps the format is a matter for debate, but throwing irrelevant numbers out there doesn't make them any more relevant.

As an example, before 1.5 was split from the T1 restricted list, there were 3 decks that were roughly equal forces in the metagame. The big 3 were Landstill, FCG and Dragon. There were a few other decks that nibbled at the edges, however, and the one I'd like to talk about was called Zilla Stompy (after our very own Zilla!).

Landstill was the control deck. WG Dragon was the combo deck. FCG was the aggro-combo. Zilla Stompy was the aggro deck. It was not heavily played, nor was it a particularly fantastic deck. Don't get me wrong, it held its own, but it was not in any sense a format dominator. Like many of the T1 aggro decks at the time, it functioned on the back of a mass of 1-drops. Skyshroud Elite, Kird Ape, Rancor, etc.

Fast forward the format 6 months. Zilla Stompy doesn't exist. The aggro deck in the format is San Diego Zoo (with the occasional occurance of the offshoot "Dark Zoo") and the biggest argument going on in the Zoo thread is whether Troll Ascetic or Blastoderm is better in the untargetable slot. In 6 months time, you went from a deck where over half of the non-land spells were 1CMC to a deck that played 4CMC spells, something that was unheard of in the days before the split.

Why was there this change? Why did big aggro replace small dorks? It was the loss of Mana Drain. Drain was almost certainly played in less than 19% of the decks in a given field (it was only in Landstill) but the impact of Mana Drain coupled with Fact or Fiction and Nevinyrral's Disk made it too risky for aggro decks to play 3 and 4 mana spells. I believe Zilla Stompy did run Troll Ascetic, but it ran less than 4. Minimzing the impact of Mana Drain was paramount as Drain is what fueled Landstill's ascendancy.

I know this was the case because in the post split world, U/W Landstill foundered. People were discovering that dropping Disk on turn 4 and blowing it on turn 5 was too slow to beat aggro. All because Drain was gone. That's when I designed UBGw Landstill, recognizing that Deed was a better solution to the problem facing Landstill than Disk and that in the wake of bigger and better threats out of aggro decks, Nantuko Monastery was necessary. When your opponents creatures are all 2/3's, Factory is great. When they start running 3+ power creatures, Factory becomes very poor indeed.

To further illustrate the point, take a look at Mystical Tutor. I doubt Mystical ever hit that 19% figure for T8 saturation, at least in the American meta. But it got hit with the ban hammer anyway.

If we were to ban cards based on T8 saturation, Force of Will would be gone, along with Brainstorm and Legacy would be more combotastic than Modern. There would have to be dozens of bannings as various combo decks rose to prominence, were hit with the ban hammer due to overwhelming presence, and the next deck rose. That would quite obviously be absurd, therefore saturation is obviously not a good criterion for banning.

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Originally Posted by jrw1985

Which is why MM needed to be banned in the first place. If an aggro deck needs to drop 4 aggro pieces for 4 MMS and a control deck drops 4 control pieces for 4 MMS the control deck has the advantage because it's gaining synergy while the aggro deck is losing synergy. So the format becomes a format of control mirrors and Legacy dies.

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Flawed logic. First of all, MM was an answer, not a threat; the only decks that needed to answer MM were Storm combo. Every other deck could decide whether it was beneficial to run Missteps of their own - it was entirely optional.

Secondly, for the few months that MM was legal, you had viable decks across multiple archetypes. Zoo, Merfolk, and Maverick were making regular T8s in the aggro category. You had Stoneblade Control in the control category. There was Team America, Junk, and NO RUG in the aggro control category. NO RUG was demonstrably the best deck in the format. Explain to me how that translates to a format full of control mirrors again?

I don't think Misstep needed banning (at least not yet), but I'm not really sad to see it go, either. That said, the amount of hyperbole in this thread in favor of its banning is just stupid.

(I haven't read all 20 pages... sorry team.)

So I'm pretty sure Jace, le Mind Sculptor, got a bit worse without Misstep.... and I'm sure everyone will agree with that, if it hasn't been said already.

I, for one, and looking forward to brewing an Esper Tokens deck now that Enlightened Tutor is viable again.

This thread was really frustrating to read. I am happy with the banning because I am a combo player, and now I can dominate with TES. Getting my turn 1 duress on the play misstepped, then my land wasted was the biggest kick in the balls ever.

Onto the thread, there is a lot of hate vs aggro and goblins. Back in old old extended (INV 7E+), affinity was a monster deck. I lost to it at a PTQ, and kinda told my opponent that affinity was a dumb deck because it won without thinking and was easy to play. His response was "affinity is easy to win with, but hard to play." I feel like everyone is forgetting that.

Sure, sometime zoo goes turn 1 nacatl, bolt your creature swing play nacatl, then just win without thinking. Sometimes goblins goes turn 1 lackey, cycle gempalm swing put SCG or ringleader into play. Sometimes control goes misstep your 1 drop, turn 2 factory standstill. All decks have brainless hands, what makes them hard to play is when you don't have the god hand. If you think zoo is a dummy deck you should play it at a 7+ round event, there will be multiple times you have to stop and think, and you will probably misplay. Same is with gobins.

TLDR; Zoo and goblins are easy to win with, but hard to play.

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Originally Posted by marit

Onto the thread, there is a lot of hate vs aggro and goblins. Back in old old extended (INV 7E+), affinity was a monster deck. I lost to it at a PTQ, and kinda told my opponent that affinity was a dumb deck because it won without thinking and was easy to play. His response was "affinity is easy to win with, but hard to play." I feel like everyone is forgetting that.

TLDR; Zoo and goblins are easy to win with, but hard to play.

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I used to be a control elitist who thought aggro decks were dumb and easy to pilot (a philosophy somewhat supported by the brainless Jund deck in Alara standard). Then I played Goblins, and later Aggro Loam. Both of these decks are far more intricate than they appear, and once I realized that I was misplaying a ton with a "dumb aggro deck" I had a change of heart, so to speak. Now, I found that misplaying with Aggro Loam was a lot more forgiving than misplaying with TES, but regardless there are a lot of decisions to be made. Any time you have to make decisions in magic, skill comes in.

As for affinity, I always enjoyed that deck because of its explosive and intricate aggro/combo approach. With damage on the stack the interactions were even more complex and enjoyable to play around with.

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Originally Posted by SpikeyMikey

Landstill was the control deck. WG Dragon was the combo deck. FCG was the aggro-combo. Zilla Stompy was the aggro deck. It was not heavily played, nor was it a particularly fantastic deck. Don't get me wrong, it held its own, but it was not in any sense a format dominator. Like many of the T1 aggro decks at the time, it functioned on the back of a mass of 1-drops. Skyshroud Elite, Kird Ape, Rancor, etc.

Fast forward the format 6 months. Zilla Stompy doesn't exist. The aggro deck in the format is San Diego Zoo (with the occasional occurance of the offshoot "Dark Zoo") and the biggest argument going on in the Zoo thread is whether Troll Ascetic or Blastoderm is better in the untargetable slot. In 6 months time, you went from a deck where over half of the non-land spells were 1CMC to a deck that played 4CMC spells, something that was unheard of in the days before the split.

Why was there this change? Why did big aggro replace small dorks? It was the loss of Mana Drain. Drain was almost certainly played in less than 19% of the decks in a given field (it was only in Landstill) but the impact of Mana Drain coupled with Fact or Fiction and Nevinyrral's Disk made it too risky for aggro decks to play 3 and 4 mana spells. I believe Zilla Stompy did run Troll Ascetic, but it ran less than 4. Minimzing the impact of Mana Drain was paramount as Drain is what fueled Landstill's ascendancy.

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So were you intentionally comparing Mental Misstep to Mana Drain?

"Mental Misstep coupled with Brainstorm and Force of Will made it too risky for aggro decks to play 1 mana spells."

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Originally Posted by joemauer

So were you intentionally comparing Mental Misstep to Mana Drain?

"Mental Misstep coupled with Brainstorm and Force of Will made it too risky for aggro decks to play 1 mana spells."

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No he was not. He was merely showing how a card can warp the format without putting up numbers. in fact...

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Top 8 presence does not necessarily correlate with presence in the field and presence in the field does not necessarily correlate with how hard a card warps the format....[snip]
As an example, [example]

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Maybe I'm missing something, but when was blue not the most powerful color in the format (and in Magic...)? Let's look at some blue cards.

Brainstorm: arguably the most powerful card in Legacy. 'Nuff said.
Force of Will: the glue that holds Eternal formats together. The only card (except for perhaps Wasteland) whose presence must be taken into consideration in some form or another when building each and every deck.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Stifle
Daze
Spell Pierce
Ponder
Intuition
Show & Tell
Preordain

Merfolk still remains one of if not the single most dominant deck in the format. UW Stoneblade will continue to be good. Team America and NO RUG played blue just for the counter/brainstorm package. Misstep's banning does not hinder that strategy that much. High Tide. Hive Mind. Reanimator. CounterTop. Blue has has a dominant presence in Legacy for a while, and will always be as long as Brainstorm and FoW are legal. The idea that Misstep was printed and then all of a sudden blue shot up into the big leagues is hilarious. Is it a great blue card? Of course. But it was also a great colorless card, that any deck could run. As such, if anything it helped check lots of blue decks. Because of Misstep, CounterTop has a harder time resolving Top, Merfolk has a harder time resolving Vial, High Tide has a harder time with its namesake card...every deck has a possible counter against a well-timed Brainstorm. Blue has always been prevalent at the top levels of this format, but the power of Misstep was precisely in allowing some nonblue decks to gain some powerful tempo using blue's own tools.

Blue decks that ran Misstep will now just run Spell Pierce instead. Blue will have one less tool in its arsenal that is easily replaceable by another (albeit less powerful) tool. But every other color has, comparatively, taken a far greater hit. The reason Misstep saw play in everything is because...everything could play it. And it's an amazing card, no doubt. So if you want to argue Misstep warped the format, there are reasonable arguments, right or wrong, to that effect. But to argue it warped the format towards blue dominance, and that, for that reason, it was ban-worthy, is just incorrect.

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Originally Posted by joemauer

So were you intentionally comparing Mental Misstep to Mana Drain?

"Mental Misstep coupled with Brainstorm and Force of Will made it too risky for aggro decks to play 1 mana spells."

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He's not, but if he was it would be a shitty comparison, because Brainstorm and FoW have no bearing whatsoever on an aggro player's choice to play 1cc spells. Misstep alone is what impacted that choice, and not by very much. Zoo is rife with 1cc spells and remained the top aggro deck in the format while Misstep was legal.

The only aggro deck that was significantly affected by Misstep was Goblins, because of its unique reliance on Vial and Lackey to establish dominance in the early game. Pretty much every other aggro deck in the format ran 1 drops and remained competitive despite Misstep's availability.

The only archetype truly pushed out by Misstep's inclusion in the format was fast combo. That's arguably enough reason to ban the card, but to suggest that Misstep somehow invalidated fast aggro is disingenuous and absurd. If anything, it made fast aggro stronger by giving it a way to compete with combo, which was originally its biggest weakness.

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Originally Posted by jrw1985

MM didn't kill Goblins.

I played Goblins the whole while that MM was legal. I just added 4 MM to my maindeck to combat my opponents' MMs. I still had good results at my Thrusday night tourneys. At no point did I feel that the deck was iced out of the format or unplayable.

Why then did everyone else stop playing Goblins?

Because everyone said they must be terrible now.

MM didn't kill Goblins. Social influence did.

And as a regular contributor to the Goblins page on the Source I can attest that postings on the thread dropped significantly while MM was legal. Once the banning was announced dozens of posts have poured in. People are saying that Goblins is playable again now that MM is gone, so people are rushing to the thread to discuss and get ready for their October tourneys.

The simple truth is that the social influence of the Magic community has more impact on which decks get played than whether or not that deck is playable.

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Yep, that's true. Never underestimate the power of peer pressure.

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Originally Posted by Zilla

Flawed logic. First of all, MM was an answer, not a threat; the only decks that needed to answer MM were Storm combo. Every other deck could decide whether it was beneficial to run Missteps of their own - it was entirely optional.

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MM was a threat to the diversity of the format and the game. Every deck could run it and nearly every deck did because it is damn mighty and because it was needed against opponent's MMs.

MM might have been meant only against storm combo, but actually it also counters Nacatl, Goblin Lackey, Swords, Vial and many others, nearly every essential card in the format ... even Brainstorm.

The flaw of MM was that it is practical colorless. Combined with its ability to counter one-drops without the cost of mana in a format where one-drops are essential, made it a card that had to be banned.

I don't agree with the above with the above mentality that since we have so many broken 1 drops in Legacy, a free way to counter 1 drops should be banned. It would seem to be that decks would, over time, naturally gravitate to playing more powerful 2+ cost casting spells. I think this would be a good thing, as there is a much larger variety of playable cards once you don't have to worry about dying on turn 3. Spell snare, however, does throw a kink in this plan.

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Originally Posted by joven

MM was a threat to the diversity of the format and the game.

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That's not what Zilla is talking about. I really annoys me to what extent people rape the term "threat" in this discussion. According to these silly definition each and every card could be considered a "threat" to anything. A threat is something proactive, as opposed to cards that are answers.

MMS might very likely have been a "threat" to anything about the metagame, but that's not what "threat" means when you're evaluating cards and their role in decks.

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Originally Posted by joven

MM was a threat to the diversity of the format and the game. Every deck could run it and nearly every deck did because it is damn mighty and because it was needed against opponent's MMs.

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No. It wasn't. That's the point a lot of people seem to be missing. You don't NEED Misstep to answer opposing Missteps unless that Misstep is completely devastating to your gameplan. That's only the case with Storm combo. Literally every other competitive deck in the format can survive having a 1cc spell countered.

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MM might have been meant only against storm combo, but actually it also counters Nacatl, Goblin Lackey, Swords, Vial and many others, nearly every essential card in the format ... even Brainstorm.

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Granted. So what? None of the decks that run those cards were pushed out of the format by Misstep, so what's the problem? The only non-combo deck that was significantly hindered by Misstep was Vial Goblins and that was already on the decline anyway.

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The flaw of MM was that it is practical colorless. Combined with its ability to counter one-drops without the cost of mana in a format where one-drops are essential, made it a card that had to be banned.

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The fact that Misstep is colorless was its strength, not its flaw. Its flaw was that it was blue and could be pitched to FoW, thereby providing additional strength to the color that needs it the least.

There's nothing fundamentally broken about making a 1 for 1 trade for a 1cc card. Was Misstep a very very strong card? Yes. Did it change the format greatly? Absolutely. But there wasn't anything objectively degenerate about it. If it needed banning it's because it pushed blue even further towards dominance, and arguably because it provided too harsh an environment for Storm combo.

The bottom line is that the card slowed the format down significantly. It made control and aggro control stronger, it made fast aggro somewhat weaker, and it made fast combo a lot weaker.

Ultimately, it comes down to personal preference. Do you want to play in a format that favors control over aggro and combo? Then you're probably upset that Misstep is banned. Do you prefer combo and aggro over control? You're probably stoked.

I just think it's wrong to say that it unquestionably deserved banning, because it didn't. Or at least if it did, we didn't have nearly enough data to confirm it. Just because a card is played a great deal doesn't make it a candidate for banning. If it did, we'd have to ban StP, Brainstorm, Goyf, Wasteland and FoW. Legacy is full of strong undercosted cards. Misstep was surely amongst the best of them, but not to the point where the format was degenerate because of it.

I'm not super concerned one way or the other, I just think Wizards jumped the gun on it.

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Originally Posted by Julian23

That's not what Zilla is talking about. I really annoys me to what extent people rape the term "threat" in this discussion. According to these silly definition each and every card could be considered a "threat" to anything. A threat is something proactive, as opposed to cards that are answers.

MMS might very likely have been a "threat" to anything about the metagame, but that's not what "threat" means when you're evaluating cards and their role in decks.

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Dude he was just using the word "threat" the way it is used in the english language. He wasn't talking about a threat in the game as in a game winner.

Chill out

I would chill out about it, if people would discuss in a proper way. You can't have a discussion about anything if people don't care about what someone else said. People have been labeling MMS a "threat" over the course of several pages despite the discussion being about how MMS was in fact an answer (+the first one to be banned in Legacy). If your gameplan is T1 Wild Nacatl, MMS is definitlely not a threat. We can't advance this discussion any further unless people agree on a common basis.

Zilla, I'm impressed. Just yesterday you thoroughly and perfectly outlined Brainstorm's place in Legacy, and now you've thoroughly and perfectly outlined the Mental Misstep situation.

I was just talking with a friend about MMS, and he pointed out that older Legacy players seem more reluctant to use banning to fix problems. He thinks, MMS was everywhere and was reducing the complexity of the deckbuilding aspect of the game, and thus was a problem, and thus should be dealt with. I think MMS was everywhere because it's new and trendy and either it will become a format staple and there's no harm to it, or people will get bored of it eventually and start playing more 3-drops, or whatever.

The point is, I'm opposed to practically any banning. I didn't want MTutor banned, I didn't want Survival banned. I'm okay with Flash being banned.

Are people who have been playing longer more likely to be opposed to bannings?

Alternatively, are people who rarely attend large tournaments more likely to be opposed to bannings?