Maybe the "random" spike of Serras Sanctum is a foretelling of earth craft unban?
Printable View
Maybe the "random" spike of Serras Sanctum is a foretelling of earth craft unban?
Is this legit...?
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles...ent-2016-01-18
Quote:
JANUARY 18, 2016 BANNED AND RESTRICTED ANNOUNCEMENT
Posted in News on January 18, 2016
By Wizards of the Coast
Archive
SHARE ARTICLE
Announcement Date: January 18, 2016
Effective Date: January 22, 2016
Magic Online Effective Date: January 27, 2016
Modern:
Summer Bloom is banned.
Splinter Twin is banned.
Pauper:
Cloud of Faeries is banned.
The list of all banned and restricted cards, by format, is here. The full list of cards banned in Modern is here. The full list of cards banned in Pauper is here.
Next B&R Announcement: April 4, 2016
EXPLANATION OF CHANGES
Wizards of the Coast examines tournament results from each competitive Constructed format. When a format becomes imbalanced, or too many games are not interactive, we examine the cause.
Here are our changes:
Modern
We look for competitively viable decks that frequently win before the fourth turn. The Amulet Bloom deck has reached a performance level that is consistent with those criteria. In the past year, Justin Cohen finished second at Pro Tour Fate Reforged and Benjamin Miller made the Top 8 at Grand Prix Oklahoma City. At the StarCityGames.com Cincinnati Open, with over 1,000 competitors, Bobby Fortanely won and Bill Comminos finished in the Top 8.
This deck frequently wins before the fourth turn. With an Amulet of Vigor, a Summer Bloom, a bounce land such as Simic Growth Chamber, and another land such as Gemstone Mine, the deck can generate seven mana for additional plays on turn two. Primeval Titan, or Hive Mind with a Summoner's Pact, can end the game very quickly. For these purposes, we are treating a turn-three Hive Mind with a Pact (which forces your opponent to pay 2GG next upkeep or lose the game) as a turn-three win.
We looked into which card could be banned to reduce the frequency of the very early wins. When the deck generates seven mana on turn two, there are a lot of cards that could lead to a quick finish. So we focused on the cards that lead to that explosive mana, and that led us to choose between Summer Bloom and Amulet of Vigor.
Since either card would be sufficient, the issue turned to what possibilities remained after either card was banned. Banning Amulet of Vigor leaves a Summer Bloom ramp deck. Banning Summer Bloom allows Amulet of Vigor with tapped lands. While it was not clear that either of these has all the tools to form a competitive deck today, the deck with Amulet of Vigor is more distinctive and has more potential as more tapped lands are printed. Azusa, Lost but Seeking is a potential replacement for Summer Bloom, but it is less efficient—so while there is a deck to play, it won't have frequent turn-three wins.
For those reasons, Summer Bloom is banned from Modern.
We also look for decks that hold a large enough percentage of the competitive field to reduce the diversity of the format.
Antonio Del Moral León won Pro Tour Fate Reforged playing Splinter Twin, and Jelger Wiegersma finished third; Splinter Twin has won two of the four Modern Pro Tours. Splinter Twin reached the Top 8 of the last six Modern Grand Prix. The last Modern Grand Prix in Pittsburgh had three Splinter Twin decks in the Top 8, including Alex Bianchi's winning deck.
Decks that are this strong can hurt diversity by pushing the decks that it defeats out of competition. They can also reduce diversity by supplanting similar decks. For instance, Shaun McLaren won Pro Tour Born of the Gods playing this Jeskai control deck. Alex Bianchi won our most recent Modern Grand Prix playing a similar deck but adding the Splinter Twin combination. Similarly, Temur Tempo used to see play at high-level events but has been supplanted by Temur Twin.
We considered what one would do with the cards from a Splinter Twin deck with Splinter Twin banned. In the case of some Jeskai or Temur, there are very similar decks to build. In other cases, there is Kiki-Jiki as a replacement.
In the interest of competitive diversity, Splinter Twin is banned from Modern.
PAUPER
The format currently has poor color balance. Of the ten most played nonland cards, nine are blue; the tenth is Lightning Bolt. We looked into the cause of this.
The Esper Familiars deck uses Sunscape Familiar and Nightscape Familiar to reduce the cost of blue spells, which include "free spells" such as Cloud of Faeries and Snap. Combined with the bounce lands, this means the "free spells" effectively produce mana. Here is a typical winning position: One casts Ghostly Flicker targeting Cloud of Faeries and a Mnemonic Wall, netting mana and getting back the Ghostly Flicker. Once enough mana is produced, the Ghostly Flicker can target a Sea Gate Oracle instead of the Cloud of Faeries, repeatedly looking for Sage's Row Denizen. From there, the flickering mills the opponent's deck.
Because of all the card-drawers here, it is difficult for non-blue decks to defeat this deck. It pushes the metagame to the imbalanced state where blue is heavily overplayed. Cloud of Faeries is likely the most problematic card in the deck.
In the interest of color diversity, Cloud of Faeries is banned from Pauper.
Yes. New MTGO beta "leaked" the changes so it looks like they released this early.Quote:
Originally Posted by JPoJohnson
Yes, it is legit. They pushed it forwards since they leaked it with the MTGO beta.
That's how you react to leaks. Not "Hurr durr, let's ban multiple judges in a Facebook group and insult the community with a shitty article."
As real as it gets: https://twitter.com/mtgworth/status/688226026497818627
This line is super interesting and should keep this thread going for a long time:
" In the interest of color diversity, Cloud of Faeries is banned from Pauper."
(Disclaimer: Color diversity does not apply to Legacy.)Quote:
Originally Posted by ReAnimator
Surprised by the twin ban, from the outside looking in, it seemed everyone thought it was strong but had it's place in the format and their reasoning was a tad strange. For one, to my knowledge, RUG tempo was never really a thing, and I believe the UWR Twin deck was came around the same time (or at least something like it, believe Caleb Durward or someone did something with it). The format seemed fine (if not too my taste), and outside of a bloom ban possibly, nothing seemed real necessary.
I'm curious if this means things will shift back into squabbling over what strain of BGx midrange is the best, or will this be the reign of burn.
I'm hoping it means the reign of Burn. It seems likely that RG Tron gets even more popular and Burn has a FANTASTIC Tron matchup. Also I'm pretty happy that Burn is the only deck I still have for Modern :tongue:Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord_Mcdonalds
The reign of burn sounds genuinely awful for anyone that isn't a sadist or a mouth breathing lout.Quote:
Originally Posted by blubberpompnao
Now where exactly did I put my lava spikes and boros charms at.
Oh stop you're going to make me blush.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord_Mcdonalds
To make it worse, the card they are banning for color diversity is sees play in like 30% of the meta game. and the most common card in Pauper is just over 40%. The ban is because blue dominated the top 10 most played cards (which will happen if you have 1 deck that dominated the metagame %s by a large margin) and that is mostly because the various delver decks (which are the only decks that use all of the 9 blue cards in the top 10) are like 29-30% of the meta game, (mono blue delver is the most common deck at just a fraction over 18%) but they blame the ban on a single deck that is just over 9% of the meta game, and does not use 4 of the top 9 blue spells.Quote:
Originally Posted by ReAnimator
Legacy has 6 blue spells in the top 10, the other 4 being Deathrite and the 3 best removal spells.
Ha ha, oh wow. Wizards really does not want a Modern Pro Tour nor players feeling comfortable buying into Modern decks.
Gotta keep 'em playing Standard.
Edit: Just read the rationale for the bannings. Lolling hard at Wizards citing "color diversity" in both the Pauper and Modern ban explanations combined with the "No changes" in the Legacy line. It's like we don't even exist!
Miracles is fine, OP but not broken. Delver is fine, adds diversity as it's played by 2,3,4-color decks. Hope you enjoy this format for many, many years to come.
Ah, the usual happened in Modern again: WotC kills a combo deck which can actually kill before play-creature-attack-go.dec which is sure not allowed in a format which should evolve around creature combat. If Ascension would be a tad faster or less conditional it would be banned as well. Nothing to see here. Crap format remains crap ... now with cream
I'm surprised Petition escaped the Vintage restricted list for now.
No changes in Legacy were to expect. 20,7% of all decks in the format playing SDT and Miracles winning several GPs now seems to be no reason to at least look at the deck
Hopefully this will free up scalding tarns and snapcaster mages in the market. I doubt it but oh well.
It's more like we play a format with a different (minimist) banned list philosophy. Nothing new here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jamaican Zombie Legend
There is no changes for Legacy banlist?
If there was this thread would be a lot more explosive.
They didn't unban anything either, they aren't even trying. The last time they unbanned anything relevant was over 5 years ago.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crimhead
Here, I think they want to "shake up" the Modern format before the next Pro Tour so that the Pro teams are forced to innovate and not play safe with proven decks. After that, I think they hope people jump on the next bandwagon and invest into the next best thing showcased by the Pros at the Pro Tour. I'm going to laugh a lot if this ends up in a Lantern Control mirror for the PT finals, though. :laugh:Quote:
Ha ha, oh wow. Wizards really does not want a Modern Pro Tour nor players feeling comfortable buying into Modern decks.
Gotta keep 'em playing Standard.
And for people who decide to drop from Modern because their deck was banhammered into oblivion and they don't have the money to buy a new deck, yes there is always Standard and Limited. Which is the end goal for WotC I fear...
My opinion on this is that they are keeping the obvious unbans on hand to do one of their "prisoner exchanges" the next time they really need to ban/restrict something in Legacy or Vintage...Quote:
Originally Posted by phonics
Petition not restricted in Vintage surprised me tbh. Legacy being ignored effectively in the last 5 years with not a single interesting unban since monolith i think. And even monolith has remained a scarcely played card in this format. Well w/e it was expected.
Exactly! WotC (for the most part) don't actively influence this format unless they feel it's absolutely necessary.Quote:
Originally Posted by phonics
Well, he had the entomb unban but that's about it..
And Time Spiral.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Miagi
A lot of people thought Vise was not only going to be relevant, but actually OP!
I'm sure Twist will come off, and hopefully Earthcraft. Possibly FS and Recruiter. I figure they'll take their sweet time though.
Those cards are still going to be great in Modern...Quote:
Originally Posted by bruizar
That said... Wizards... Really?
I think your giving Wizards too much credit here... I mean it's pretty clear they just don't care about Legacy... so they don't spend a lot of time thinking about it. Vintage is the same way...Quote:
Originally Posted by Crimhead
Right i forgot entomb, that was actually a good and surprising unban (there were lots of 0-play cards that could've been unbanned before it).Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Miagi
I at least was in the "It will either do nothing or, if it turns out to be relevant, make games worse instead of more fun" camp. Basically, unbanning it had an EV of 0 or less, with pretty much no chance of a positive outcome other than a shorter banlist, which is next to meaningless. Luckily, we got the 0.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crimhead
They care enough about it to have banned DTT and TC, so obviously they watch it (out the corner of their eye). TC and MM didn't stay legal very long, so they're not even slow to react (when they think a ban is warranted).Quote:
Originally Posted by GundamGuy
Treating Legacy's banned policy differently than Modern's is not evidence that they don't care about the format.
I think that the ban choices need to be handed over to a third party, like some judges or some known and respected members of the formats community. (ktkenshinx/Sheridan Lardner in Modern, Steven and Rich in Vintage. Feline if she still played as much as she use to would have my personal vote for Legacy) I do not like the lack of transparency, discussion or explanation from Wizards. I feel like for formats like Modern they are given less room to breathe thanks to Wizards love for the Promotional Tour and that they are not always interested in the formats best interest so much as they are interested in making something flashy at the cost of people who just play the game once a week.
Formats like Legacy and Vintage are just left to float along. Aside from the Delve cards the format has not changed in a long time. Once both the cards in question went away, the format reverted to a near mirror image of what it was and has stayed like that for too long to be healthy. The recent removal of cards from the list that do nothing is a mix of both applaudable and shameful in the fact that it was finally done and showing how long overdue these arts where. Now we need some real movement in the format, something like Survival. Because mark my words, Earthcraft, Twist and Recruiter will do next to nothing or nothing at all. We need real meaningful change. Not just because some things should be on the list that are for whatever reason untouchable, but because things on the list are laughable underpowered when stood next to what is openly available in the format already.
I don't dispute that entirely.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crimhead
On second thought, I believe there is less focus on it from Wizards prospective because there are a lot fewer GPs and no ProTours... the data points are fewer.
IMO maybe we should create a Modern ++ format that has the normal card restriction rules of Modern (8th edition on) but a better banned list, get people interested in playing it as an unsanctioned event and make Wizards take notice... like they did with Commander, and Pauper, and other formats... the community seems poised to push back based on the reactions that people are having.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
OR we could scrap Modern as a format entirely and fix the damn prices of cards so Legacy has full support as THE eternal format (Legacy Masters).Quote:
Originally Posted by GundamGuy
Modern as a concept is very good. The format has it's own unique feel and tone that is unmatched by any other formant. Even if cost was no barrier, if Modern was supported correctly and not micromanaged I would still play it alongside Legacy and Vintage.
This.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
If WotC hadn't antagonised the Eternal formats to try to come out of the hole they excavated for themselves with the Restricted List, the three formats would happily live together and provide different forms of fun to eternal players.
Fun Fact: We are discussing Modern bannings in the Legacy B&R thread XD
Besides this, it is a shame what wizard is doing with Modern. Just for the sake of a fu*king tournament they are banning ANOTHER pillar of modern, must be nice....
Modern was awesome 2 years ago, now it is mainly crap due to what happened through the bannings + some absurd printings (modern level, not legacy).
Greetings,
Kathal
I was under the impression we where discussing the stagnation of Legacy but hey, its all the same right now yes?
Very true. Those 2 cards didn't stay in the format long.Quote:
Originally Posted by Crimhead
And I'm glad they treat Legacy the way they do, rather than the way Modern is going. That would drive me nuts.
Really dumb. For some people they can easily switch decks but for a lot of people they don't have the funds to switch decks. I built Pod just before it got banned which was annoying but since I don't really play Modern that much it wasn't devastating, just made me not want to play Modern at all.
And yet their bannings are swift.Quote:
Originally Posted by GundamGuy
There is certainly less focus on Legacy because it is less central to their bottom line. I think this is a good thing because IMO focus from WotC translates less into protecting the integrity of the game, and more into protecting the popularity of the game (aka, cracking down on feel bad losses).
I don't mind a stagnant format if it's in a good spot. Don't worry though. Theros & BFZ have been a little low powered, but soon enough we'll get a block or two with higher impact (like Scars, Innistrad, or RTR). Then we can go back to people complaining about how much the format is changing again!Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
Please take a break, play with your kids or pets, and we'll see you all back onto this topic after 3 months.
It's a Pro Tour format. The end. Really that's it. If Legacy was a pro tour format, Brainstorm would have been banned 5 years ago. I guess I don't understand what is interesting or even compelling about Splinter Twin? You either allow all the turn four derp I wins or you don't. I thought it should have gone when Pod went. Derp, turn 4, I win. Look you had nothing because the format has no sylvan, tutors, cantrips, pitch magic with text. Truthfully modern's 'problem' isn't the card pool or the banned list it's the player base, it's a bigger net deckers paradise than legacy, barely anyone explores the card pool at all. They are younger, less experienced players on balance who've grown up with lists being spoon fed to them by BVP and CVA. #millenialsQuote:
Originally Posted by Kathal