Seems like a good change. I'm sure this is coming in a bigger update next month but 50 counterspell Baral/Tasigur decks are not really fun to play against.Quote:
Originally Posted by H
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Seems like a good change. I'm sure this is coming in a bigger update next month but 50 counterspell Baral/Tasigur decks are not really fun to play against.Quote:
Originally Posted by H
Having to run answers for various card types should still be expected.Quote:
Originally Posted by H
Banning Moat is just saying it is alright to ONLY run answers to creatures and walkers, Pretty much every time I build an EDH deck I include Nev's Disk, O. stone and some other sweeper effects I can use to wipe the board at some point and recover better than my opponent.
I mean, if you die to Moat, how do you handle Island sanctuary with card advantage (and TNN)?
If you run mono-Black or Mono-Red your answers to enchantments is a very tiny list. I'm not saying I agree with the bans, but I am just trying to offer you a plausible reason why they did it.Quote:
Originally Posted by sjmcc13
Just have your deck not have awful cards like Island Sanctuary or TNN and just win? :cool:Quote:
Originally Posted by sjmcc13
The initial list appeared to be patterned partially off the French list (which is why food chain is also gone) so, if you wanted to, you could dig up the reasons on that site.
That said, why WOTC thought strip mine and DTT would be okay, I don't really understand.
To be fair, the format is pretty fun (in my limited experience with it), and hopefully MTGO support might encourage people to play it in paper.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
WotC wants all MTG to be creature based, but until this shit started happening eternal formats were never subject to this.Quote:
Originally Posted by H
Have they stated explicitly that they want this to be a creature format? All they seem to be saying is that they want a "fun and balanced metagame". Who could argue with that? :rolleyes:
If you think this cancer cannot spread to other eternal formats, I envy your optimism.
The "answers" to Moat include every flying creature ever printed (as well as non combat victory conditions).Quote:
Originally Posted by H
This is fun policing straight up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Crimhead
Have they claimed otherwise?Quote:
OTHER
Ancestral Recall
Back to Basics
Balance
Humility
Karakas
Library of Alexandria
Mana Drain
Mind Twist
Moat
Natural Order
Necropotence
Oath of Druids
Serra Ascendant
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
Time Walk
This is a catch-all category of cards that are either blatantly too strong (Ancestral Recall, Time Walk), or are very strong but extremely unenjoyable to play against (Karakas, Mind Twist). As mentioned above, the threshold for banning cards is lower when they're particularly frustrating to play against. All the cards in that category are very strong, but the way they warp the format is less about creating imbalance and more about making the format less enjoyable overall.
Certainly they have not!Quote:
Originally Posted by CptHaddock
But in the past they haven't pushed "fun" like this in eternal formats.
1 vs 1 Commander is not a casual format like multiplayer. This is competitive eternal magic being fun policed. Brace...
Give this man the prize!Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael Keller
Over a month with no posts in this thread? Is this some kind of record?
If I was to whine in here, it'd be GProbe. I can't say it's OP or over-used in general, but you'll be hard pressed to make it through an MTGO match without being Probed T0. Very annoying for people to constantly have perfect information for 0 mana. I can't say it makes people win all the time, but it does make the game worse. It's the True-Name of sorceries; but better.
I won't be surprised to hear people not thinking it's ban-worthy; but I will be surprised to hear anyone thinking it makes the game better.
Legacy is actually really great right now so it makes sense that this thread is quiet. The only really concerning thing in any format at the moment is vintage which continues to be atrocious unless you only play in one of the mythical paper metas that don't suck.
ban IslandQuote:
Originally Posted by Lord Seth
I'm in one of those metas and enjoy Vintage, but yeah "Shop vs Mentor: The Format" seems shitty.Quote:
Originally Posted by supremePINEAPPLE
No real Legacy complaints. I'll be annoyed if anything in the existing card pool gets banned in the next 6-12 months, barring a new printing breaking something. Maybe we'll actually see some unbans!
As I said on the cast, Gush was not the card to restrict.
I actually have a post lined up for this thread, but it's a timed thing. Someone set down a challenge, I can't wait to meet it.
I'm still mystified as to why they decided to restrict Probe and not misstep if they wanted to restrict one of the free spells.
Yep. And at some point they will have to take out Mentor. At that point I would like Gush back and given "Pillar" status. Just don't touch it. It's a fine card. If you are not taking our Shop or Bazaar, leave Gush in the format too for those who want to play those Blue tempo decks.
I absolutely agree. The card is dumb as fuck. The upside to it being banned is I don't think it would really outright kill any deck. It would just #MakeCabalTherapySkillIntensiveAgain. It's been proven to be too good for modern and vintage, don't see why people wouldn't see it as a busted card in legacy.Quote:
Originally Posted by tescrin
Also I find it interesting that even 1v1 edh has banned ponder preordain, and brainstorm, and if you read the reasons why, it's basically verbatim the reasons that Nedleeds has said that those cards have ruined legacy. Promoting the same play patterns each game, making blue too good, giving card selection that isn't available elsewhere
WOTC has admitted they aren't particularly going to try and make 1v1 balanced for competitive play (for fucks same, they announce it's bannings on a tumbr page) so I wouldn't exactly point to that as proof those cards are too good.
Probe is such an odd ban, sure it's annoying, sure it's bad design, but unless you are abusing the fact it's free (I.E. using it with therapy, fueling T. Cruise/DTT, or pyromancer), it's just air in your deck and is simply okay. For that matter it's restriction in vintage had possibly the most laughable justification for a ban/restriction since the gentlemans agreement with mystical tutor.
All of these cards are banned or restricted outside of legacy for good reason. The only reason they haven't been in legacy is because they're afraid people would quit the format. Because Brainstorm and Ponder certainly have proven that they are more than ban worthy in legacy just as they are banned and restricted in modern, vintage, and even 1v1 edhQuote:
Originally Posted by Lord_Mcdonalds
Those cards being banned are part of why modern is miserable, though. I don't play vintage, so I can't really speak to that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Megadeus
There's a whole lot of reasons why modern sucks. Cards that would make the format 50% blue are not the reasonQuote:
Originally Posted by taconaut
Lantern Control exists, Modern is great. Playing a deck that basically reads "You get to draw zero cards of relevance and you can't attack me"... Bliss.
In other news, Prison decks make Dice happy.
Modern is actually in a pretty good place right now. Anyone hating on it is likely either:Quote:
Originally Posted by Megadeus
- Still bitter about their deck being banned
- Hating on the format just cause
I'm not saying either of those positions are unjustified, just that the format is pretty enjoyable right now.
Agree. The rise of Death's Shadow as Modern's version of Delver has really solved a big part of Modern's problem with linear, non-interactive decks being too good.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ace/Homebrew
I respect that perspective, and there's certainly some of both for me, but I do honestly feel that they just banned the soul out of that format. It had a lot of unique decks like Twin/Pod/UR Storm/Bloom/Eggs/etc that you couldn't play anywhere else and that had many lines/interesting interactions unique to modern, and they just kinda got rid of them all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ace/Homebrew
That's why I really am sad about modern: it USED to be awesome!
I don't think Modern would necessarily be 50% blue if people were allowed to (*gasp*) scry 2 before drawing a card (the HUMANITY). I get that Ponder and Brainstorm is real strong, but it's just selection, I never get the hate. Like, for my money, ever having to look at a chalice or trinisphere or thorn, or even just play against burn, is a thousand times more miserable than my opponent actually getting to play his deck as planned instead of constantly being at the mercy of topdecks.
I think that's deliberate. Can't have a midrange-heavy format if everyone is playing zany stuff.Quote:
Originally Posted by taconaut
Go play with Opt or Peek for a while, and report back.Quote:
Originally Posted by taconaut
I'm not sure I follow - do you mean, "these cards are much worse than Preordain, demonstrating that Preordain is busted?"Quote:
Originally Posted by Kanti
I agree those cards aren't very good, but I'm not convinced they show that Probe and Preordain are broken. I think both are very powerful, for sure; what surprises me aren't the claims about their power level, but how much some players hate cantrips in general. They just seem so innocuous to me from a gameplay perspective.
The best ones provide a level of consistency that is far and away better than anything else. Brainstorm And Ponder being something like 75% of the format is proof to the power level, and over a long 15 round GP it becomes very clear that the consistency provided by the cards makes it so you are essentially intentionally crippling yourself by choosing to not play with these cards. Besides that, when the format is so ingrained where everyone is running these cards it promotes play patterns that over time make every game the same, over and over and make games incredibly stale
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ace/Homebrew
Meh. I hate modern because you cant play real cards and the player base is near unbearable.
Were they banned from Legacy I think the format would have a similar level of decks running blue duals as the foundations of their manabase. It's not like the police cards (Wasteland and Force) are going anywhere, and unless Entomb and LED are banned there will always be a strong incentive to sleeve up the format's most flexible answers. How deep do you want to go on increasing the variance in the format? Should Serum Visions and Sleight of Hand be banned? Probe? Street Wraith? Portent? Impulse?Quote:
Originally Posted by Megadeus
I can't really argue with the first half; I think the results bear out what you're saying in terms of top 8 penetration, and honestly, brainstorm and ponder are very powerful Magic cards.Quote:
Originally Posted by Megadeus
The bolded part is the one that always seems weird to me, because it's one of two things:
1. Every game is the same, in that I have to see Brainstorm every round.
2. Every game against a particular deck is the same, because they can always find the cards they need.
For 1, I'm in the camp that feels like ANT, Miracles (RIP top), Grixis Delver, and Show and Tell are all wildly different decks, despite sharing a core engine that is obviously very powerful. The textures of these games are significantly different, and while they all employ similar consistency tools, losing to ANT feels very different than losing to Miracles. If the problem here is, "it doesn't matter what else they're doing, I just can't stand it when my opponent gets the best card out of the top three on his library instead of playing something else," then I feel like that argument is mostly preference-based and not banworthy (I would love it if all the hatebears and miserable artifacts were banned tomorrow, but I also know that some people like playing them, and ultimately my preference does not make them reasonable bans. I do acknowledge there is some level of power disparity between, say, brainstorm and any hate piece, but that's a better argument in my opinion.)
If it's 2, then do you find other approaches to improve consistency more palatable? Why don't Green Sun's Zenith/Life From the Loam/Various Tutors/Redundancy (think Burn or Eldrazi where multiple pieces are interchangeable) bother people the way cantrips do? Is it because they're not blue? What's wrong with blue? Again, if the real issue is power level (because brainstorm is very powerful) it seems strange to make it about color or staleness. Also, I believe you also have argued that fetches are pretty lame in the past, which suggests to me that your outlook is internally consistent, so it's possible you DO also hate things like tutors, I don't want to put words in your mouth.
All that being said, I feel like, as a player who enjoys engine combo and interesting interactions that sometimes require consistency engines to get off the ground, why does everybody hate us? :cry: Vintage is too expensive, modern bans interactions that are interesting and powerful, standard is...standard, why can't legacy be a place where it's possible to have a little control over your topdecks?
I don't mind things like green Sun, loam, entomb and such as consistency engines because they require you to build around them. Ponder and brainstorm just need you to play blue and fetch lands. I mean green has a ponder that can get creatures, lands, and planeswalkers (oath of nissa), and it's completely unplayable. And another issue with them is that as long as they are by far the best consistency engine in the format, they restrict what is one of the best parts about this game, which is the deck building process. When the deck building process begins automatically with 4 brainstorm, 4 ponder, and 8 blue fetches, it becomes incredibly boring.
I don't like to get involved in Brainstorm conversations, but I would like to talk about something. There are a lot of decks that feel the same game after game. Playing against Lands, I will basically do the same thing every preboard game, and the change in a set way post. Gamble, Loam, Wasteland, Crop Rotation, your going to face the same cards played in more or less the same order.
Yes, I think the format would be better without the card but we must give it its fair dues. While Brainstorm has many issues, the current stated one is not unique to it alone.
I think Ponder is way more consistent than Brainstorm. If you don't have a pair of lands in your opener, Brainstorm almost requires a mulligan or brass balls to hope your draw + BS doesn't brainlock you into a loss.
By contrast, a 1-lander with Ponder is eminently keepable, with 5 chances by your untap step to draw a land (which in a 20 land deck, is ~90%.) That is consistency. Similar can be said with dudes if you run that many dudes, yadda yadda.
Brainstorm is *more powerful*, but it is not very consistent IMO/IME; and it doesn't provide lots of consistency. It is often somewhere in the "meh.." range of power level, but when it hits that shuffle and swaps your flood for gas; it's certainly insane. Still, due to brainlocks it doesn't up your consistency IMO by that much; because a lot of the time you can't actually fetch away the garbage, you're trading current draws for future draws.
Again, if you want to hit consistency, Ponder is the card to hit. Ponder is a 90% chance to keep unkeepable hands, a 70-90% chance to find a threat, etc (depends how many you run) Numbers like that are way better, and because of the shuffle, the price of failure is just drawing a new card, not being locked into your unkeepable hand for the rest of the game.
Yeah it's hilarious, this deck that is utterly unbearable to play against is what makes modern bearable as a whole. As long as Lantern is real I'll play the format.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dice_Box
Brainstorm is still very consistent as long as your deck is built properly. A 1 land hand is a risky keep either way be it ponder or brainstorm. But one card allows you to put back chaff and swap useless in the match up cards and the other doesn't. One allows you to run and set up 6 mana wraths and reduces their cost by 5. One allows you to get away with playing main deck red blasts and put them back when you're playing against green decks.Quote:
Originally Posted by tescrin
It's important that we consider these to be a single deck. If we view Brainstorm penetration as being spread out over several decks, the meta would look healthy and diverse. :eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by taconaut
Crazy how many people cannot wrap their heads around dying to a bunch of mill rocks and an ensnaring bridge. People just need to learn when they are actually dead and then it can be a fun and interesting deck to play against.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lormador
See that's the beauty about decks like that, people think they a chance while you get to sit there with sadistic glee and watch them succumb to the stippling realization they've lost.