Wow, the last time we had this many bans at a time in one year, the game was considered to be in a catastrophic nose-dive, a death-spiral of poor design and play choices threatening its survival. And now, I guess we're treating it as just a normal thing that happens?
No, have you not been reading things? Standard IS in a death spiral of poor design and play choices.
This is what happens when you remove efficient answers.
No, have YOU not been reading?
The players might be acting like we're in a death spiral, but Wizards has largely treated it as Oopsie, Woopsie, No Big Deal, Sometimes These Things Happen, It's Already Fixed, Don't Worry.
This will be so funny if it turns out people still play the same decks, just more inconsistent and crappy versions.
Nothing changes, people just hate the game more as they are mana screwd and mulligan more.
----
Otherwise, UB-Scarab decks lose nothing, Approach works the same, and token decks could be somewhat competitive before that and lose nothing.
Lets see.
In the end, people will hate WotC as they sell the cards they bought just to play yet another deck that might be banned (Scarab-God is fairly likely to be banned at some point in time).
The players might be acting like we're in a death spiral, but Wizards has largely treated it as Oopsie, Woopsie, No Big Deal, Sometimes These Things Happen, It's Already Fixed, Don't Worry.
They probably took that tone because internal testing told them a year or two ago that this was going to happen, so all they could do is watch the upcoming trainwreck and try to downplay it. Given the tone, maybe they're already aware of even more problems coming in the next block?
* As previously mentioned, the legality of silver-bordered cards expires with this announcement.
The format is in a pretty good place, demonstrated by the amount of fun folks had with 45 days of Un-cards. From the reports we’ve gathered and some of our own experience, silvered-bordered cards did what we wanted: provided a different kind of wacky enjoyment to the format. Most of what we’ve heard from the fan base is overwhelmingly positive, signaling that similar such temporary deviations (although probably not in the same form or style) are within the realm of possibilities in the future.
We hope that this time has offered local groups, especially those which might have been initially resistant to the idea, a better gauge on whether or not silver-bordered is right for them. With that, we return to your traditional format, ready to charge into the remainder of 2018 in all of its battle cruiser glory.
Wow, the last time we had this many bans at a time in one year, the game was considered to be in a catastrophic nose-dive, a death-spiral of poor design and play choices threatening its survival. And now, I guess we're treating it as just a normal thing that happens?
No, have you not been reading things? Standard IS in a death spiral of poor design and play choices.
This is what happens when you remove efficient answers.
No, have YOU not been reading?
The players might be acting like we're in a death spiral, but Wizards has largely treated it as Oopsie, Woopsie, No Big Deal, Sometimes These Things Happen, It's Already Fixed, Don't Worry.
Oh you want Wizards to admit and openly call out that the format upon which we all depend on is in a death spiral?
I almost feel bad for MaRo. Kaladesh was his pride (IIRC), but the effect it's had on Standard will be remembered in a less than positive light due to all these bannings, even though this chain of events is symptomatic of a larger problem.
Wow, the last time we had this many bans at a time in one year, the game was considered to be in a catastrophic nose-dive, a death-spiral of poor design and play choices threatening its survival. And now, I guess we're treating it as just a normal thing that happens?
No, have you not been reading things? Standard IS in a death spiral of poor design and play choices.
This is what happens when you remove efficient answers.
No, have YOU not been reading?
The players might be acting like we're in a death spiral, but Wizards has largely treated it as Oopsie, Woopsie, No Big Deal, Sometimes These Things Happen, It's Already Fixed, Don't Worry.
Oh you want Wizards to admit and openly call out that the format upon which we all depend on is in a death spiral?
Sorry, I misunderstood.
I wouldn't mind that, sure, but I'm mostly talking about it being nice if they'd more directly acknowledge "Ah *****, that was our ****-up, we did this."
Sure, the knee-jerk solution of things like Kamigawa after Mirrodin sucks, but it at least left it clear that Wizards knew they had done it BAD and WRONG and were recoiling in horror from their mistakes. This time around feels more glib, slip-it-under-the-rug.
I'm not the most vested in Standard, so maybe I'm missing something: Why was Rampaging Ferocidon banned? That seems so random.
I don't know how one could read the first post, follow the link, read that article, and still be confused. Is the reasoning not apparent from the article? Which part is giving you trouble?
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Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
I wouldn't mind that, sure, but I'm mostly talking about it being nice if they'd more directly acknowledge "Ah *****, that was our ****-up, we did this."
Sure, the knee-jerk solution of things like Kamigawa after Mirrodin sucks, but it at least left it clear that Wizards knew they had done it BAD and WRONG and were recoiling in horror from their mistakes. This time around feels more glib, slip-it-under-the-rug.
I wonder why - especially after they outright stated that the shorter rotation times encouraged them in trying some riskier stuff that they wouldn't do under longer rotation schedules... and then got pressured into returning to the old schedule.
I don't know how players can be so glib about their collective responsibility in this.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
I'm not the most vested in Standard, so maybe I'm missing something: Why was Rampaging Ferocidon banned? That seems so random.
I don't know how one could read the first post, follow the link, read that article, and still be confused. Is the reasoning not apparent from the article? Which part is giving you trouble?
Alright Mr irritatingly smarmy guy. I wasn't the person you're quoting but I asked the exact same question. Why?
Simple: Just moved house. No Internet. Relying on my phone data plan 100% of the time which I've gone over three times already. Also a busy guy who plays modern and didn't read what is (according to a friend) an uncharacteristically long breakdown of the standard format I don't play.
Satisfied? Now how about answering the question lol
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
Because it removed one of the last remaining weaknesses in Red in Standard, the life gain, and punished people for doing what you do in Standard, play creatures.
Its just another example of how pushed they have made creatures, thats like 3 cards in one right there.
I almost feel bad for MaRo. Kaladesh was his pride (IIRC), but the effect it's had on Standard will be remembered in a less than positive light due to all these bannings, even though this chain of events is symptomatic of a larger problem.
Kaladesh had a completely reasonable design, I don't think it's as good as MaRo claims but it wasn't bad either. It's development that screwed this up, not design.
Alright Mr irritatingly smarmy guy. I wasn't the person you're quoting but I asked the exact same question. Why?
Simple: Just moved house. No Internet. Relying on my phone data plan 100% of the time which I've gone over three times already. Also a busy guy who plays modern and didn't read what is (according to a friend) an uncharacteristically long breakdown of the standard format I don't play.
Satisfied? Now how about answering the question lol
It's because Ferocidon was too effective against both strategies that best countered Ramunap Red: lifegain and tokens. They knew that nerfing Energy would bring Ramunap Red to the top, so they preemptively strengthened strategies that could counter it by removing the card that negated those counter-strategies.
Maybe I'm out of touch. I don't play standard. What's with banning that Dino?
Seems like a totally mundane, "normal" card to me and I'm really surprised to see it on this list. I can't even picture a scenario where this is given the same treatment as Jace the mindsculptor. What gives?
WotC stated that the dino was designed to handle the Cat-Blink decks, before they decided that it'd be too late for Standard if they let the combo go on, therefore banned it.
Now that Cat-Blink is out of the way, the dino was a precaution in case RDW became too dominant once energy is weakened.
Wait, was Ferocidon really designed after Cat-blink was discovered? I thought sets are designed way further in advance than that and Cat-blink was admittedly not discovered until the full set was spoiled.
This is pretty huge and it gives me trouble how to start this. I guess I considered the possibility of them banning something, but I honestly didn't expect it.
To be fair, I don't think this is a battle wizards could've won either way. If they did nothing, they'd risk that even with the release of Rivals, nothing might be able to effectively fight energy. And thats a big problem, because if an old set makes every new set look like **** in comparison, no one's going to spend money on your new cardboard.
I think attune and refiner are good choices, even if it seems ridiculous to ban a common. However, Ramunap ruins and ferocidon are a bit unnecessary I think. Without ferocidon, vampires or WB tokens might be the new deck to beat.
Nonetheless, if I look at the whole situation, I can't help but force a rather bitter smile. For years on end, I was stunned by how many absurd creatures saw print, only to get another lecture by someone who thinks I started playing magic yesterday. Now let's reflect a bit and look at what's currently banned in standard and tell me again how wrong I was. And while marvel might not be a creature, it was just another tool to pump out the 'exciting' and fun new Emrakul, until it got axed and people had to use the 'weaker' ulamog.
That aside, I think those new bannings are a necessary evil, so I sort of like them. I'll play standard again, vampires looks very interesting and strong imo. Merfolk might not be bad either.
I'm SO SICK of the "too strong for Standard" argument. It's the new "Dies to removal". We can have a two mana 4/4 with a zillion abilities, but we can't just have Accumulated Knowledge. Makes sense.
Wait, was Ferocidon really designed after Cat-blink was discovered? I thought sets are designed way further in advance than that and Cat-blink was admittedly not discovered until the full set was spoiled.
MaRo said on Blogatog that at the moment it's possible to make minute changes to this year's fall set. Ferocidon likely wasn't as souped-up as it is now, but they had time to add small stuff (maybe the damage per creature etb clause, which does indeed stop Cat Blink in its tracks).
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Vorthos-y Johnny. All will be One
Modern - Cheeri0s (building), Belcher (building), Lantern (building), UW Control (building)
RIP Magic Duels. Wizards will regret what they did to you.
This is pretty huge and it gives me trouble how to start this. I guess I considered the possibility of them banning something, but I honestly didn't expect it.
To be fair, I don't think this is a battle wizards could've won either way. If they did nothing, they'd risk that even with the release of Rivals, nothing might be able to effectively fight energy. And thats a big problem, because if an old set makes every new set look like **** in comparison, no one's going to spend money on your new cardboard.
I think attune and refiner are good choices, even if it seems ridiculous to ban a common. However, Ramunap ruins and ferocidon are a bit unnecessary I think. Without ferocidon, vampires or WB tokens might be the new deck to beat.
Nonetheless, if I look at the whole situation, I can't help but force a rather bitter smile. For years on end, I was stunned by how many absurd creatures saw print, only to get another lecture by someone who thinks I started playing magic yesterday. Now let's reflect a bit and look at what's currently banned in standard and tell me again how wrong I was. And while marvel might not be a creature, it was just another tool to pump out the 'exciting' and fun new Emrakul, until it got axed and people had to use the 'weaker' ulamog.
That aside, I think those new bannings are a necessary evil, so I sort of like them. I'll play standard again, vampires looks very interesting and strong imo. Merfolk might not be bad either.
100% agree here. Energy wasn't really ever a problem for my decks, but I know that it was horribly suppressing the meta. Ramunap Red, on the other hand, usually wrecked my decks (largely because of Ferocidon), and the one way that decks can deal with them (other than being faster than them, which is completely unreasonable given that they emphasize speed) is by making blockers and/or gaining life. Ferocidon completely hosed those counter strategies. It's like if Wizards printed a 3-mana creature that prevented opponents from countering spells or gave all the rest of your creatures hexproof and indestructible. All deck types need weakness to be exploited, or else they are too powerful.
I also view these bannings as a necessary evil, and I hope Wizards keeps it up. No deck should be as dominant in Standard as Energy, and to a lesser extent Ramunap Red) have been. Bannings need to keep happening until the meta is healthy enough that no one deck stays on top for long.
I wouldn't feel sorry for Maro. The nerfing of counters and removal with the rise of Magic the Creaturing is his baby. It's an utter failure.
Kaladesh, taken by itself if fine as a limited format. Even fun.
Kaladesh in relation to multiset format, standard in particular, is a nightmare. Energy was over designed and pushed, combine that with the 'new design' direction and we got where we are today.
This banning will hopefully let people break in with some new decks using new cards.
I think it's exaggeration to say control will be dominant. Most the new Strats are aggro, and the non aggro Dinos has bursty openings and a lot of beef/draw/keywords to be dealt with. Removal is still not efficient or necessarily matching threats available and counters are highly inefficient right now.
Read the pros articles before throwing vegetables at me, several of them have said it recently.
No, have YOU not been reading?
The players might be acting like we're in a death spiral, but Wizards has largely treated it as Oopsie, Woopsie, No Big Deal, Sometimes These Things Happen, It's Already Fixed, Don't Worry.
Most Used (of many dozens) EDH Decks:
Brago, King Eternal - Stax
Grenzo, Dungeon Warden - Aggro Combo
Wort, the Raidmother - Spellslinger Swarm Control
Animar, Soul of Elements - Tempo Combo
Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder - Spellslinger
Exodia the Forbidden One:
Oona, Queen of the Fae - Combowins.dec
Nothing changes, people just hate the game more as they are mana screwd and mulligan more.
----
Otherwise, UB-Scarab decks lose nothing, Approach works the same, and token decks could be somewhat competitive before that and lose nothing.
Lets see.
In the end, people will hate WotC as they sell the cards they bought just to play yet another deck that might be banned (Scarab-God is fairly likely to be banned at some point in time).
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
They probably took that tone because internal testing told them a year or two ago that this was going to happen, so all they could do is watch the upcoming trainwreck and try to downplay it. Given the tone, maybe they're already aware of even more problems coming in the next block?
http://mtgcommander.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=18777
Oh you want Wizards to admit and openly call out that the format upon which we all depend on is in a death spiral?
Sorry, I misunderstood.
Spirits
I wouldn't mind that, sure, but I'm mostly talking about it being nice if they'd more directly acknowledge "Ah *****, that was our ****-up, we did this."
Sure, the knee-jerk solution of things like Kamigawa after Mirrodin sucks, but it at least left it clear that Wizards knew they had done it BAD and WRONG and were recoiling in horror from their mistakes. This time around feels more glib, slip-it-under-the-rug.
Most Used (of many dozens) EDH Decks:
Brago, King Eternal - Stax
Grenzo, Dungeon Warden - Aggro Combo
Wort, the Raidmother - Spellslinger Swarm Control
Animar, Soul of Elements - Tempo Combo
Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder - Spellslinger
Exodia the Forbidden One:
Oona, Queen of the Fae - Combowins.dec
Spirits
I don't know how one could read the first post, follow the link, read that article, and still be confused. Is the reasoning not apparent from the article? Which part is giving you trouble?
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
I wonder why - especially after they outright stated that the shorter rotation times encouraged them in trying some riskier stuff that they wouldn't do under longer rotation schedules... and then got pressured into returning to the old schedule.
I don't know how players can be so glib about their collective responsibility in this.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
Alright Mr irritatingly smarmy guy. I wasn't the person you're quoting but I asked the exact same question. Why?
Simple: Just moved house. No Internet. Relying on my phone data plan 100% of the time which I've gone over three times already. Also a busy guy who plays modern and didn't read what is (according to a friend) an uncharacteristically long breakdown of the standard format I don't play.
Satisfied? Now how about answering the question lol
Its just another example of how pushed they have made creatures, thats like 3 cards in one right there.
Spirits
Kaladesh had a completely reasonable design, I don't think it's as good as MaRo claims but it wasn't bad either. It's development that screwed this up, not design.
WotC stated that the dino was designed to handle the Cat-Blink decks, before they decided that it'd be too late for Standard if they let the combo go on, therefore banned it.
Now that Cat-Blink is out of the way, the dino was a precaution in case RDW became too dominant once energy is weakened.
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
To be fair, I don't think this is a battle wizards could've won either way. If they did nothing, they'd risk that even with the release of Rivals, nothing might be able to effectively fight energy. And thats a big problem, because if an old set makes every new set look like **** in comparison, no one's going to spend money on your new cardboard.
I think attune and refiner are good choices, even if it seems ridiculous to ban a common. However, Ramunap ruins and ferocidon are a bit unnecessary I think. Without ferocidon, vampires or WB tokens might be the new deck to beat.
Nonetheless, if I look at the whole situation, I can't help but force a rather bitter smile. For years on end, I was stunned by how many absurd creatures saw print, only to get another lecture by someone who thinks I started playing magic yesterday. Now let's reflect a bit and look at what's currently banned in standard and tell me again how wrong I was. And while marvel might not be a creature, it was just another tool to pump out the 'exciting' and fun new Emrakul, until it got axed and people had to use the 'weaker' ulamog.
That aside, I think those new bannings are a necessary evil, so I sort of like them. I'll play standard again, vampires looks very interesting and strong imo. Merfolk might not be bad either.
MaRo said on Blogatog that at the moment it's possible to make minute changes to this year's fall set. Ferocidon likely wasn't as souped-up as it is now, but they had time to add small stuff (maybe the damage per creature etb clause, which does indeed stop Cat Blink in its tracks).
Modern - Cheeri0s (building), Belcher (building), Lantern (building), UW Control (building)
RIP Magic Duels. Wizards will regret what they did to you.
Edit: Okay, they were only restricted, but come on.
Source: Here
Still terrible though!
100% agree here. Energy wasn't really ever a problem for my decks, but I know that it was horribly suppressing the meta. Ramunap Red, on the other hand, usually wrecked my decks (largely because of Ferocidon), and the one way that decks can deal with them (other than being faster than them, which is completely unreasonable given that they emphasize speed) is by making blockers and/or gaining life. Ferocidon completely hosed those counter strategies. It's like if Wizards printed a 3-mana creature that prevented opponents from countering spells or gave all the rest of your creatures hexproof and indestructible. All deck types need weakness to be exploited, or else they are too powerful.
I also view these bannings as a necessary evil, and I hope Wizards keeps it up. No deck should be as dominant in Standard as Energy, and to a lesser extent Ramunap Red) have been. Bannings need to keep happening until the meta is healthy enough that no one deck stays on top for long.
Kaladesh, taken by itself if fine as a limited format. Even fun.
Kaladesh in relation to multiset format, standard in particular, is a nightmare. Energy was over designed and pushed, combine that with the 'new design' direction and we got where we are today.
This banning will hopefully let people break in with some new decks using new cards.
I think it's exaggeration to say control will be dominant. Most the new Strats are aggro, and the non aggro Dinos has bursty openings and a lot of beef/draw/keywords to be dealt with. Removal is still not efficient or necessarily matching threats available and counters are highly inefficient right now.
Read the pros articles before throwing vegetables at me, several of them have said it recently.
Scarab God, Gifted Aetherborn, Champion of Wits, Hostage Taker, Fatal Push, Yanhenni's Expertise, etc.