All B/R update speculation.

[dontbiteitholmes]

I'd love to think about that deck, as I'd think it would be both fun to play and good for the format. More to the point, I simply don't see the empirical evidence for your claim that it's so broken as to merit a continued ban without evidence. Again, it's a pretty rare card to see run in Vintage, even in decks capable of producing W reliably. I completely understand the theoretical argument against unbanning it, I just find it unpersuasive.

You think a 2 mana Mind-Wrathaggedon is good for the format? Yeah I don't think people understand Balance ITT.

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

You think a 2 mana Mind-Wrathaggedon is good for the format? Yeah I don't think people understand Balance ITT.

It's great for the format, I mean have you seen the art, that is, bar none, the most fearsome judge ever, won't take shit off no one, this format would be improved from increased sightings of it

It would eliminate all pretenses of creatures and what not , we'd get man magic where it's two guys slugging it out with artifacts

[[SLAYER]chaos]

I would rather play in a format with moxen as 4-of's before a format with Balance.

[Lemnear]

I'm just not sure which unbanning would be the most stupid: Balance, Y.Will or Mind's Desire (leave out Necropotence for a reason).


Edit: you can't unban Mana Vault/Crypt as it would boost combo/MUD to unhealthy levels. The only card I would CONSIDER is Frantic Search to push High Tide and Reanimator

[btm10]

Clearly, this isn't a popular proposal. I would, however, like to see the evidence that the consensus "Balance is broken on a par with Yawgmoth's Will" position is correct. I'd be happy to post a Stax-Balance list and a U/W-Balance list for public scrutiny and comment and once there's reasonable contentment with the lists (i.e., that they're as strong as they can be), I'd be happy to play matches over Cockatrice/MWS/Apprentice (I don't have MTGO) against reasonably representative decks chosen by the community. I'd even be happy to play the other decks and let the other people play the Balance decks to ensure that everyone wants the deck they're playing to win. If I'm wrong, it should be clear very quickly.

[Lemnear]

Clearly, this isn't a popular proposal. I would, however, like to see the evidence that the consensus "Balance is broken on a par with Yawgmoth's Will" position is correct. I'd be happy to post a Stax-Balance list and a U/W-Balance list for public scrutiny and comment and once there's reasonable contentment with the lists (i.e., that they're as strong as they can be), I'd be happy to play matches over Cockatrice/MWS/Apprentice (I don't have MTGO) against reasonably representative decks chosen by the community. I'd even be happy to play the other decks and let the other people play the Balance decks to ensure that everyone wants the deck they're playing to win. If I'm wrong, it should be clear very quickly.

The burden of proof is reversed dood. As the card is banned, the testing should instead prove that the card is SAFE instead of the other way round. FTW did bring up several examples how Balance could create insane gamechanging effects. Your testing should try to deliver counter-arguments to that

[FTW]

Clearly, this isn't a popular proposal. I would, however, like to see the evidence that the consensus "Balance is broken on a par with Yawgmoth's Will" position is correct. I'd be happy to post a Stax-Balance list and a U/W-Balance list for public scrutiny and comment and once there's reasonable contentment with the lists (i.e., that they're as strong as they can be), I'd be happy to play matches over Cockatrice/MWS/Apprentice (I don't have MTGO) against reasonably representative decks chosen by the community. I'd even be happy to play the other decks and let the other people play the Balance decks to ensure that everyone wants the deck they're playing to win. If I'm wrong, it should be clear very quickly.

You are mostly speaking about theory. My playgroup messed around with "Legacy casual" variants where we rotated cards on and off the banlist to see how they would perform. I used to play a white casual enchantment-based prison/control deck with 4 Balance and it drove people mad. Has anyone actually played a deck with 4 Balances before on a regular basis? Has anyone witnessed the huge headache resolving MULTIPLE of that 2-mana card does to people over a game? And my deck was poorly-designed completely durdly garbage, too. It had no business winning games. Everyone agreed Balance was pretty much the only reason it did.

Vintage is one point of comparison, but since Balance is restricted, you can't build around seeing it regularly. So people could only play it as a lucky topdeck or a tutor-target hail mary. Decks cannot rely on it, and a lot opted to cut it for better synergies or whatever. Also, in a format with fewer creatures and more artifacts, one where people aim to dump their hands on turn 1, Balance simply does less. In a slower, underpowered format with more creatures and fewer artifacts, Balance already gets more powerful. When you can run it as a 4-of and actually design your deck to synergize with it, then it gets even better. That's not to say there aren't drawbacks to Zorbing your own lands away; just that there are many reasons why performance in Vintage would not reflect performance in Legacy, especially due to restriction.

Balancing Act is a TERRIBLE example. The ability itself is strictly less back-breaking and less-prone to one-sided abuse. Opponent chooses which permanents to keep, you don't get a free pass on artifacts and enchantments and Planesewalkers in your prison deck. (meanwhile, Enchantress could easily run multiple Balance to Hymn+Wrath opponent while keeping 10 enchanments on the board). Balancing Act would suck in Stax, for example, making you either sacrifice your lock pieces or not killing opponents' creatures and lands. Also, it costs twice as much mana and is less splashable. I mean, that's like evaluating the impact of Time Walk in Legacy by comparing to Time Warp. Four or more mana is a very relevant restriction in Legacy. Double-colored is also a big restriction for some decks (see how much Cataclysm gets played over Armageddon in White Stax...).

In example 7, Swords to Plowshares does not discard the opponent's hand or make them sacrifice a land. So yes, Griselbrand dies, but then they would have enough cards left to drop another fatty and win (and 7 more life to draw 7 more cards or cast Reanimate... a very relavent difference!) which is why Griselbrand is normally good. After FoW and Daze, you could be down to just that 1 land in hand, so then opponent sacrifices down to 1 card and 1 land. They can't keep both a land AND exhume and they are too low in life to cast Reanimate. So they can only get Grisel back if they topdeck lucky. Either way, losing the cards and land on TOP of the creature hurts. And that's not to say every single MU against Reanimator would play that way, just that Balance has the potential to be ridiculously good and save you from what should be an auto-lose.

In example 6, that was the point. Even in a deck that doesn't abuse Balance, Balance just lets any deck come back from behind if you're just run-of-the-mill losing. Moreso than any other card that cheap. You don't even have to build a good deck. You could have a garbage deck. You just need to topdeck or cantrip into Balance. Imagine how that would impact the early rounds of major tournaments. In a tempo format, that swinginess is very OP.

Burning Wish + LED for Balance in ANY deck actually sounds pretty brutal. Even Belcher could use it as a hail mary if your plan A was foiled, discarding their whole hand and Wrathing their board and maybe killing lands. That buys you several turns to draw into the combo again.

The Tax-Rack deck would be awful against combo? Yeah, it would be normally, but with 4 Balance you can easily dump your hand early (e.g. T1 Land, Land Tax, Mox Diamond, discard a land. Turn 2 Land, Balance) and then use Balance to make the combo deck discard like 3-5 cards so they can never keep a critical mass to go off. Storm decks on the draw would be at a huge disadvantage.

In the other examples I gave, yes, they are very specific cases, but I was not aiming to provide an exhaustive list of situations where Balance is OP. Timing balance is similar to timing Pox... a smart player plays it when the board position is set up such that resolving it creates a degenerate advantage. (but Balance is much more powerful, due to easier mana cost, not losing you life, and still taking out more cards overall...) So most examples would be specific, but there are a ton of specific examples where a smart pilot playing Balance at the right time is HUGELY swingy. I was trying to create tangible examples to show how a 2-mana card can have a ridiculously powerful and swingy effect that generates more effective card advantage (or compensation for previous card disadvantage) than any other card in the format at 2-mana (outside of a combo) in very diverse situations. The point was to show that it does not strictly require a combo with certain pieces (like the classic ZOrb one), but that in any number of situations a player timing Balance right can do a ton of damage. There are probably other abusive cases we haven't even thought of (like the Wish+LED thing).

The point is Balance's DESIGN makes it innately get better the better the opponent is doing ("better" is not just overcommitting to the board, but also just drawing more cards or playing any threats while killing your threats and giving you card disadvantage), so that as better Magic cards are printed (particularly with the swing towards better creatures and worse control) and better decks emerge, resolving Balance does more.

Opponent double Hymns you after a mull to 6. Ouch. You topdeck Balance. OUCH.

Unlike a lot of the cards on the B/R list, it's not like it would create a combo with one specific card that would create ONE degenerate unbeatable deck archetype (e.g. Flash). The argument is not "ban Balance because Stax would rape the format". It's that it provides an OP effect for any number of decks because the effect itself is OP for Legacy, particularly as a 4-of.

Anyway, as Lemnear said, you should probably test it first before claiming it's safe to unban. The burden of proof should be on showing it is now safe, not the reverse.

[Looooooooo]

The only card I would CONSIDER is Frantic Search to push High Tide and Reanimator

Why was it banned in first place?
Do you think that FS would push these over the top? They have pretty good hate against them and i dunno if the search would help them even emerge a little... So for me it's a OK.

- L

[btm10]

Anyway, as Lemnear said, you should probably test it first before claiming it's safe to unban. The burden of proof should be on showing it is now safe, not the reverse.

We are mostly talking about theory (on both sides), and I think the best way to test it is to have the sort of public testing that I've proposed. So far, you're the first person to have done any real testing with 4Balance.dec recently and that's a place to start. The reason I wouldn't want to test it privately is that this is the sort of claim that would immediately draw criticisms on the quality of the testing and deckbuilding. I do however recognize that the person calling for a change bears the burden of proof.

The point is Balance's DESIGN makes it innately get better the better the opponent is doing ("better" is not just overcommitting to the board, but also just drawing more cards or playing any threats while killing your threats and giving you card disadvantage), so that as better Magic cards are printed (particularly with the swing towards better creatures and worse control) and better decks emerge, resolving Balance does more.

This is a good point. I don't see this as a bad thing, especially with creatures getting more powerful and that being paired with control spells getting less powerful.

[Lemnear]

Why was it banned in first place?
Do you think that FS would push these over the top? They have pretty good hate against them and i dunno if the search would help them even emerge a little... So for me it's a OK.

- L

High Tide + Merchant Scroll + Frantic Search + Meditate is quite a nasty core. Frantic is a looting effect which often generates 6 mana in high tide.dec and a free careful study in Reanimatior ... while we can doubt the impact on Reanimator, the benefits to High tide are undoubtful. As the deck however is more trimmed towards turn 4 in general, giving it another tool would not necessarily create a backlash for the format

[FTW]

We are mostly talking about theory (on both sides), and I think the best way to test it is to have the sort of public testing that I've proposed. So far, you're the first person to have done any real testing with 4Balance.dec recently and that's a place to start. The reason I wouldn't want to test it privately is that this is the sort of claim that would immediately draw criticisms on the quality of the testing and deckbuilding. I do however recognize that the person calling for a change bears the burden of proof.



This is a good point. I don't see this as a bad thing, especially with creatures getting more powerful and that being paired with control spells getting less powerful.

Anyway, yeah, fair points, but Balance doesn't just boost control decks. Keep us posted how the testing goes. Agreed that many should do it to avoid bias (or poor deck design), but I'd be shocked if you don't find it a blowout.

As an aside, our group was unable to break Black Vise. It was strong, and doesn't mean it can't be broken, but we found it was generally easy for the opponent to just dump his hand and take minimal damage. On average, it was dealing less damage than a good Pox build does with The Rack. However, that's still more damage than a Lava Spike.

[H]

The last thing I will say about Balance (since those who think it is OK to urban don't acknowledge my points), is that it cannot be played around, except to be countered, or to be running a deck that doesn't need creatures, or lands and can vomit out it's hand as fast as as the deck running Balance. It doesn't punish over-extending like most wraths do, it punishes decks that are not designed to abuse the card.

[Looooooooo]

The last thing I will say about Balance (since those who think it is OK to urban don't acknowledge my points), is that it cannot be played around, except to be countered, or to be running a deck that doesn't need creatures, or lands and can vomit out it's hand as fast as as the deck running Balance. It doesn't punish over-extending like most wraths do, it punishes decks that are not designed to abuse the card.

Target discard is a thing, a very popular thing.
By that i'm not saying that balance could be unbanned beware.

- L

[Megadeus]

The last thing I will say about Balance (since those who think it is OK to urban don't acknowledge my points), is that it cannot be played around, except to be countered, or to be running a deck that doesn't need creatures, or lands and can vomit out it's hand as fast as as the deck running Balance. It doesn't punish over-extending like most wraths do, it punishes decks that are not designed to abuse the card.

This. It punishes you for playing the game. If you want a format that sends creatures back to the stone age, then go play a casual format where balance is a 4 of

[H]

Target discard is a thing, a very popular thing.
By that i'm not saying that balance could be unbanned beware.

- L

Fair enough, I forgot about that, but it is a good point. Just God help you if the topdeck one of their three other copies.

One last thing, Balance is fine in Vintage because you can only run 1, plus the majority of the meta is Blue, Shops, or Dredge. Blue can counter it, Shops could largely care less about a resolves Balance, and Dredge is happy to let you resolve it. Cross format reference on power level is silly at best.

[Lemnear]

Discard? God forbids that someone would play Balance alongside Brainstorm or SDT/Counterbalance to prevent it from being discarded ... oh wait!

[Megadeus]

Fair enough, I forgot about that, but it is a good point. Just God help you if the topdeck one of their three other copies.

One last thing, Balance is fine in Vintage because you can only run 1, plus the majority of the meta is Blue, Shops, or Dredge. Blue can counter it, Shops could largely care less about a resolves Balance, and Dredge is happy to let you resolve it. Cross format reference on power level is silly at best.

Right. That is like arguing that skull clamp should be legalized in modern because it isn't broken in vintage and EDH

[Zombie]

As a random not-terribly-relevant ancedote, Balance was unbanned in German Highlander once upon a time. Thought process was to help control vs. aggro by giving them a cheap WoG. End result was Storm decks using it as a one-size-fits-all answer to hate and a cheap Wrath against aggro decks at once. It's pretty nice when one card buys you something like three turns of time to kill Zoo.

[kiblast]

I'm just not sure which unbanning would be the most stupid: Balance, Y.Will or Mind's Desire (leave out Necropotence for a reason).

Among those Desire is the safest I guess. One thing I'm sure is that I don't want Storm decks with 3 Yawg Win main deck, and wishable Balance and Yawg Win at the same time. That just seem plain dumb.

Probably Balance is the most stupid though as Yawgmoths requires some minimum setup to win the game… Balance just destroys board states and hands out of nowhere.

[Benjammn]

I agree completely with your last two sentences, aside from the "too much" part. As the power of other decks grows, the power of control's answers should grow in proportion, IMO. The difference between Balance, and say, Counterspell is that Balance has to be played after the position has been developed whereas Counterspell is inherently reactive. It may do a ton for 1W, but that's the standard being set by opposing strategies.

A single card should not be able to solve both an unfavorable boardstate AND what his opponent might be holding back. A single card and two mana in one turn when your opponent has spent multiple turns, way more than two mana and one card to develop his boardstate. I understand that there are there should be cards that punish on a massive scale, but these cards really only affect one area (board, library, hand), not like Balance does and not so bluntly.