All B/R update speculation.

[lorddotm]

If there is too much of a blue-saturation within the coming months, would the idea of banning Mental Misstep be a good idea?

Yes it would be, with that being said, it will never happen.

Mental Misstep killed a ton of the variation in Legacy, which is no fun.

[jjflipped]

So... the only bannable card on the poll is LED. That said, misstep might be more hurtful to the format than any other card, including most of the cards on the ban-list.

[Honorik]

Really MM should go ...

[DrJones]

Does anyone remember what happened when WotC printed Fauna Shaman?

Edit: and Wasteland?

[SurFitOfTheVine]

Does anyone remember what happened when WotC printed Fauna Shaman?

Edit: and Wasteland?

If you're insinuating they'll ban FoW, forget it. That won't happen.

EDIT: If anything, they should ban Jace, which is far more annoying and overpowered when backed up by a pure control deck. But that won't happen either.

[Nonex]

Does anyone remember what happened when WotC printed Fauna Shaman?

Nothing happened. If you are referring to Survival, it was banned a few months later because of Vengevine.

Edit: and Wasteland?

I don't know, I wasn't playing at that time. However, I highly doubt it had anything to do with banning Strip Mine.

And yes, I know where you are trying to go. Answers are never so efficient as to deserve a ban, threats can and some effectively are. Force of Will is an answer, and a crappy one at that, yet it's a basic pillar of the format. Guess what I mean by that.


Back to the topic, I think Survival could shake this blue-infested metagame quite well, it just needs to have Vengevine banned first. It won't happen, though. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if they banned Show and Tell.

[Koby]

Does anyone remember what happened when WotC printed Fauna Shaman?

People were going ape shit over Titans, and ignoring Vengevine.

Edit: and Wasteland?

People were going ape shit over Cursed Scroll, ProsBloom, Tradewind Rider, and other old stand-ins. That is, Wasteland wasn't even relevant.

[DrJones]

And yes, I know where you are trying to go. Answers are never so efficient as to deserve a ban, threats can and some effectively are. Force of Will is an answer, and a crappy one at that, yet it's a basic pillar of the format. Guess what I mean by that.

That you reach flawed conclusions because you part from flawed assumptions. And then you finish your flawed argumentation by contradicting yourself in one sentence.

Also, the last big tourneys (Jupiter Games North American Legacy Championship Tournament June 11th) and the Spanish LCL June had zero Show and Tell in Top 8 and a blue-infested metagame with Dredge being the only deck able to fight blue (by not casting spells). So banning SnT will not fix anything.

Edit: Just checked it again, the Reanimator had no Show and Tell in his 75.

[SpikeyMikey]

Arzar, they made a balanced Necro. It's called Phyrexian Arena. Or Greed, if you like. Some effects can't be balanced by mana costs alone. Imagine an enchantment that said "when this comes into play, if this is in play, you win the game.". What's a reasonable mana cost for this card? No one is every going to cast it. They're going to Rector it or SnT it making the mana irrelevant. You'd need a "if you played this from your hand" clause or "if you control a red permanent and a green permanent.". Something to further balance the card.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Arzar, they made a balanced Necro. It's called Phyrexian Arena. Or Greed, if you like. Some effects can't be balanced by mana costs alone. Imagine an enchantment that said "when this comes into play, if this is in play, you win the game.". What's a reasonable mana cost for this card? No one is every going to cast it. They're going to Rector it or SnT it making the mana irrelevant. You'd need a "if you played this from your hand" clause or "if you control a red permanent and a green permanent.". Something to further balance the card.

That's exactly what I said, I don't think that (Necro) effect can be made balanced at a reasonable cost. Glad we agree lol.

[Sims]

Like we need more reasons to make Show and Tell broken...



Swamp, Ritual x2, Lotus Petal - Necro @ 6 mana. Not any more broken than Ad Nauseum, but any amount of black mana in the cost won't matter. These decks will already be maxing out Ritual effects either way.

It would be busted with SnT or Rector now that the format is slowing down a hair, I'm not going to deny that. Necro-Bargain effects are inherently broken effects. I guess I was just musing in an environment today with 1 mana disenchants and a disenchant effect that prevents you from activating it further, would a necro effect that costs 6 or more mana with the delayed draw trigger be as dangerous as bargain or true-necro? There's a good chance of it, but as you said, you might as well be leaving 1 mana floating and casting Ad Nauseum so you get the cards right away instead of waiting to get the cards and winning the following turn.

And no, I'm not advocating the unbanning of any Necro effect. I'm not that stupid. But considering they once said "there is no mana cost you could print yawgmoth's will at and make it balanced" and then they printed a balanced and arguably more powerful Yawgmoths Will at a higher and more intensive manacost in a different color... there probably could be a balanced necro effect if designs were worked on enough.

[Amon Amarth]

You don't consider Ad Nauseum a "balanced" Necro effect?

[DrJones]

Necrologia hasn't destroyed any format, as far as I know.

[Pippin]

Necrologia hasn't destroyed any format, as far as I know.

nor has Force of Will ;)

[Sims]

You don't consider Ad Nauseum a "balanced" Necro effect?

I was talking more a permanent based Necro-effect, but yes if you branch out into the 1-shots, Necrologia and Ad Nauseum are fairly balanced necro effects.

[DrJones]

nor has Force of Will ;)

That's not entirely true, Force of Will would have been banned in old Extended but Wizards chose to change it into a rotating format instead. It seems that they can't just ban counterspells without blue players dying in shock. More examples: they created Legacy to avoid banning Mana Drain in Vintage (and said it was banned due to short supply), they created Modern to avoid banning FoW in legacy; and they had to lie when they banned Sensei's Divining Top to avoid saying that Counterbalance was too strong.

Edit: And right now the format is dumb due to excessive abuse of free counterspells. Yada yada.

[swoop]

Right.

[Sims]

That's not entirely true, Force of Will would have been banned in old Extended but Wizards chose to change it into a rotating format instead. It seems that they can't just ban counterspells without blue players dying in shock. More examples: they created Legacy to avoid banning Mana Drain in Vintage (and said it was banned due to short supply), they created Modern to avoid banning FoW in legacy; and they had to lie when they banned Sensei's Divining Top to avoid saying that Counterbalance was too strong.

Edit: And right now the format is dumb due to excessive abuse of free counterspells. Yada yada.

You just don't like countermagic, do you?

[five]

Haven't you guys heard? They are unbanning Black Vise in an attempt to reign in blue. Oops, they forgot about Trinket Mage (and Mental Misstep!). Oh well, you should still pick 'em up while they are only $1. Jk.

Sorry guys, that was kind of dumb...

[Kich867]

That's not entirely true, Force of Will would have been banned in old Extended but Wizards chose to change it into a rotating format instead. It seems that they can't just ban counterspells without blue players dying in shock. More examples: they created Legacy to avoid banning Mana Drain in Vintage (and said it was banned due to short supply), they created Modern to avoid banning FoW in legacy; and they had to lie when they banned Sensei's Divining Top to avoid saying that Counterbalance was too strong.

Edit: And right now the format is dumb due to excessive abuse of free counterspells. Yada yada.

So, let's just say for arguments sake they ban all forms of free countermagic:
Force of Will
Mental Misstep
Counterbalance
Disrupting Shoal
Foil
Thwart
Daze
Mindbreak Trap
etc.

I'm just genuinely curious what you would do to stop basically any combo deck. Let's say Spiral Tide or ANT or Elf Combo, all of which can generate a tremendous amount of mana and draw a tremendous amount of cards.