Interesting that Ironworks got the ban, usually when there’s a popular combo deck in modern that’s taking over they tend to ban the enabling pieces of that deck, which takes away some of the deck’s consistancy while making it still playable rather than ban the actual combo cards the deck needs to function. I was expecting something like a Scrap Trawler ban. Then again they banned splinter twin, so perhaps WOTC eventually gets tired of trying to put the breaks on certain decks and instead just opts to remove the deck’s namesake combo piece rather than worry about what other enablers the next set might bring.
That is an interesting proposition. How different would NeoKCI need to be to be acceptable? I imagine a 5 mana, colored non-artifact creature with the same ability would be different enough to not be broken. What if you made it an Artifact? What if you brought it down to 4 mana? What if you made it legendary? Put it in Boltable range?
You need to know the game and be intelligent to win with KCI , WotC cannot let that be, everyone needs to be able to understand the game ...
Yea ... thats one way to phrase it, or let us simply call it "Dumb down the game".
If a combo involves more than 2 pieces its just way too complicated, cant let that be.
----
The reason to see KCI banned is simply to make the game more trivial to consume for the "streaming" of it in digital and events.
Its the kind of deck that appeals to people that play the deck and not so to viewers that barely understand the rules of the game in the first place / even commentators struggle to understand the deck or see whats happening.
They want the game to be more "visual" to the eyes of a newbie, so they look at the board state and assume whats going on.
Its literally dumb down the game , not that its a secret, but its still sad ...
You need to know the game and be intelligent to win with KCI , WotC cannot let that be, everyone needs to be able to understand the game ...
Yea ... thats one way to phrase it, or let us simply call it "Dumb down the game".
If a combo involves more than 2 pieces its just way too complicated, cant let that be.
----
The reason to see KCI banned is simply to make the game more trivial to consume for the "streaming" of it in digital and events.
Its the kind of deck that appeals to people that play the deck and not so to viewers that barely understand the rules of the game in the first place / even commentators struggle to understand the deck or see whats happening.
They want the game to be more "visual" to the eyes of a newbie, so they look at the board state and assume whats going on.
Its literally dumb down the game , not that its a secret, but its still sad ...
did you think that removing damage on the stack was dumbing the game down? or removing interrupts? or how about only dying at the end of a given phase if your life hit zero or less?
kci has been in talks of a ban for months. I've been a magic player since 1995 and seen, and lived through, all the major changes in the game. this getting the ban hammer was a long time coming. understanding archaic, incredibly niche rules to abuse shouldn't be a thing. the deck sucked watching play out. it took long ass turns and opponents couldn't straight out concede because sometimes it fizzled.
I'm really disappointed that pauper isn't seeing any bans at this time. I was really hoping for at least Gush, and maybe even Augur of Bolas. Glad to see them at least acknowledge that the current state of the metagame is something to keep an eye on.
Agreed.
But then with that acknowledgement they go and ban 3 other "colored" cards.
Hada Freeblade, Spatial Contortion, and Circle of Flame will be banned in Pauper to correct a format issue
.
Blue needs to have the banhammer come down hard in Pauper.
Just to note, the three cards banned in pauper were banned because they were not actually commons, but had snuck in through how the promo versions of them were classified on magic online. It's explicitly not a power level ban, but just the closing of a loophole.
You need to know the game and be intelligent to win with KCI , WotC cannot let that be, everyone needs to be able to understand the game ...
Yea ... thats one way to phrase it, or let us simply call it "Dumb down the game".
If a combo involves more than 2 pieces its just way too complicated, cant let that be.
----
The reason to see KCI banned is simply to make the game more trivial to consume for the "streaming" of it in digital and events.
Its the kind of deck that appeals to people that play the deck and not so to viewers that barely understand the rules of the game in the first place / even commentators struggle to understand the deck or see whats happening.
They want the game to be more "visual" to the eyes of a newbie, so they look at the board state and assume whats going on.
Its literally dumb down the game , not that its a secret, but its still sad ...
Storm does straddle the line between combo and playing with yourself. Yes competent players can win in a timely manner if the cards aling right, but I'm sure we've all also played against the dude who took 20 minutes on cantrip decision paralysis mismanaging his sequencing and ending the turn without even presenting anywhere near lethal. It's also one of the many reasons I'm 100% sure Modern is never coming to Arena.
I don't think it should be banned now, and I don't think it should be banned in regards to it's power level. But it will ventually get another hit for event time management reasons.
You need to know the game and be intelligent to win with KCI , WotC cannot let that be, everyone needs to be able to understand the game ...
Yea ... thats one way to phrase it, or let us simply call it "Dumb down the game".
If a combo involves more than 2 pieces its just way too complicated, cant let that be.
----
The reason to see KCI banned is simply to make the game more trivial to consume for the "streaming" of it in digital and events.
Its the kind of deck that appeals to people that play the deck and not so to viewers that barely understand the rules of the game in the first place / even commentators struggle to understand the deck or see whats happening.
They want the game to be more "visual" to the eyes of a newbie, so they look at the board state and assume whats going on.
Its literally dumb down the game , not that its a secret, but its still sad ...
Thats a swing and a miss chief. It was the 'no arguments left' best deck of Modern, and it wasnt close. It needed to go.
While i understand being annoyed about dumbing the game down, thats not the case here. KCI deck was Eggs 2.0. We don’t need or want decks where your opponent can call over the judge to watch for you while you go to the bathroom....and go to get lunch...over the span of 15+mins of a SINGLE turn!
If you want to play solitaire play that. Don’t think people have to want to sit there to play a game that only your playing.
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Magic is an incredibly complicated game, Modern is even more so, and the interactions of KCI were so obtuse that many players died to the Magic Online UI when playing with or against that deck. Wizards didn't say they wanted the game to be easy, they said that there's a certain degree of difficulty that just makes the game impossible to deal with. There's a reason they haven't made Judge Tower a format. The difficulties with the deck weren't even the sole reason, it was in addition to all the regular issues problematic decks have; the deck was simply too powerful as well. There are plenty of difficult decks in Modern that are perfectly viable without being bonkers. One deck taking the axe for being too difficult in addition to being too powerful shouldn't be an issue.
And even if we followed TheOnlyOne652089's logic to the door: If all decks were at that level of complexity, the only one playing Magic would be TheOnlyOne652089, and the game would die.
Magic is an incredibly complicated game, Modern is even more so, and the interactions of KCI were so obtuse that many players died to the Magic Online UI when playing with or against that deck. Wizards didn't say they wanted the game to be easy, they said that there's a certain degree of difficulty that just makes the game impossible to deal with. There's a reason they haven't made Judge Tower a format. The difficulties with the deck weren't even the sole reason, it was in addition to all the regular issues problematic decks have; the deck was simply too powerful as well. There are plenty of difficult decks in Modern that are perfectly viable without being bonkers. One deck taking the axe for being too difficult in addition to being too powerful shouldn't be an issue.
And even if we followed TheOnlyOne652089's logic to the door: If all decks were at that level of complexity, the only one playing Magic would be TheOnlyOne652089, and the game would die.
If a deck is banned for being factually too strong, thats one thing.
If a deck is banned for simply being too "complicated" , thats a reason i dont get behind and i do not support in the slightest.
If they really wanted to, they could SIMPLY clean up the ruling and fix the obscure interaction (that is rarely required to combo at all anyway with the KCI deck).
So do not throw everything together and pick whatever you want.
The critic is that banning a deck for being "too complicated" is a terrible reason, and quite literally means you want to dumb the game down ; by definition of that reason alone.
In the end the problem of being a deck that does not roll well with streaming is a much bigger deal than you might give it credit to.
WotC is pushing that agenda and if a deck does not result in a good viewer experience, it will have a ax over its head swinging.
----
Modern is a format filled with a variety of hard showstoppers against particular card types, so if a deck wants to succeed and be viable it has to be resilient enough to not just auto-lose to any of them.
If a combo deck cannot do that, they are simply not viable unless people dont pack any sideboard cards against them at all.
And if a format comes down to "oh you have the sideboard card that just auto-wins against me" , then its not particular smart at all, its just enforces the slot-machine magic, rather than properly play your strategy.
People get what they scream for, just to have another bogeyman waiting for them.
With some more thinking, I think the real problem with KCI is it creates a burst of mana in one turn. Skirk Prospector needs goblins only and Heritage Druid (lots of) elves only and both are still powerful.
If you add "You may activate this ability once per turn..." the card becomes pretty useless.
I'm happy that they hit KCI, the card, and not Stirrings and Opal. The splash damage would be unreasonable.
Oh and it's sooo fashionable on the internet these days to read a statement, ANY statement, and go "oh but I have some superior insight, this is what they're really saying, it's part of a bigger plot to destroy everything that we love". I'm so tired of the "me against the world, wake up sheeple" underground wannabe attitude that people put on like a pair of new jeans so that they can feel unique and important.
KCI was banned because it was winning too many tournaments.
As for Storm... it will have to perform better if you want it banned. Storm will always be a boogeyman. And, if they need to weaken it, they can ban a ritual or a cantrip.
They explained pretty well why they banned KCI and not a support card.
The complexity issue and the long turns are all considerations but they are not enough to get a card banned unless they are really causing big problems. That being said, they do not help keep KCI in the format.
KCI was banned because it was winning too much AND was an event time management issue like all eggs decks have always been. Thinking streaming had anything to do with it when they've already announced Standard+ is gonna be the non-rotating format for Arena where the thick of their streaming viewership happens, is just conspiranoic.
I don't know why people are surprised. KCI had the axe swinging over its head for a wide variety of reasons. I'm honestly more surprised nothing else hopped off the banlist. Usually Wotc's MO is to unban a few new toys after they ban something.
These combo decks get banned because they are bad for gameplay. Plain and simple.
The last time I played against eggs was a PTQ in 2012. In all three games, I did a couple of things, and then my opponent tried to combo off. All three times he tried to combo off, it took at least 15 minutes of me doing nothing. In one game he comboed off successfully and killed me. In the other I forced him to go off a turn to early and he couldn't do it. In the third game, he screwed up his own combo because it was immensely complicated.
In that match, I played basically no magic. I played a couple creatures and attacked him until he knew he had to try to combo. It also held everyone else up in the tournament for an additional 10+ minutes because we were the last round going.
It was pure nonsense, and immensely detrimental to the experience for everyone.
Comical people still going on as if it was 'complexity' that actually got this deck banned.
Whats so hard to understand of WotC own words ?
We're sensitive to community feedback that the combination of polarized matchups, complex interactions, and long turns can lead to unenjoyable gameplay and viewing experiences.
Powerlevel alone would not have banned the card, as there are plenty of problematic cards to watch for.
The factor that the people in the streaming chat scream out loud if KCI is shown that they cant understand anything how the deck works is much more relevant, and if you deny that, well ...
The real solution to fight the rules complexity would be to actually CHANGE the rules in a proper manner (or give "mana-abilities" on cards a instant speed restriction to get it over with, fixing kwerky Chromatic Sphere problems right away).
But they didnt do that, so the rules complexity problem still exists, there just isnt a deck that takes advantage of it in tier 1 anymore.
Its just a matter of time till the next "eggs" style deck runs around the corner and it just happens again and again , as they simply didnt fix the problem in the first place.
(You could even argue a tournament rule could be established that states that a turn is not allowed to take longer than X Minutes, enforced just like slow-play and stalling by a judge, which would solve the issue of 10+ Minute turns by itself, as doing that in a tournament would ramp you with warnings, game-loses and match-loses, unless you are really quick and know your deck, in which case there is no problem at all , and THAT would be a proper solution that solves all the future problems of super long turns equally well)
----
But oh well, quick and dirty, ban the card, forget it ever existed and just pretend everything is fine now, Lala-Land supreme.
I'm so glad they banned that crap before I encountered it in my LGS. Decks that can force you to watch your opponent playing and replaying stuff for up to 10+ minutes should not exist, Storm is already annoying as it is, other busted combo decks like Twin at least had the small consolation of letting you know you were dead the moment they got their 2 pieces together, while stuff like KCI or Eggs add just insult to the injury, having to watch them play solitaire and pay attention to it, in case the deck actually fizzles or they misplay their overly complicated to pull off combo which may be one of the reasons you decided against playing the deck yourself in the first place.
Comical people still going on as if it was 'complexity' that actually got this deck banned.
Whats so hard to understand of WotC own words ?
We're sensitive to community feedback that the combination of polarized matchups, complex interactions, and long turns can lead to unenjoyable gameplay and viewing experiences.
Powerlevel alone would not have banned the card, as there are plenty of problematic cards to watch for.
The factor that the people in the streaming chat scream out loud if KCI is shown that they cant understand anything how the deck works is much more relevant, and if you deny that, well ...
The real solution to fight the rules complexity would be to actually CHANGE the rules in a proper manner (or give "mana-abilities" on cards a instant speed restriction to get it over with, fixing kwerky Chromatic Sphere problems right away).
But they didnt do that, so the rules complexity problem still exists, there just isnt a deck that takes advantage of it in tier 1 anymore.
Its just a matter of time till the next "eggs" style deck runs around the corner and it just happens again and again , as they simply didnt fix the problem in the first place.
(You could even argue a tournament rule could be established that states that a turn is not allowed to take longer than X Minutes, enforced just like slow-play and stalling by a judge, which would solve the issue of 10+ Minute turns by itself, as doing that in a tournament would ramp you with warnings, game-loses and match-loses, unless you are really quick and know your deck, in which case there is no problem at all , and THAT would be a proper solution that solves all the future problems of super long turns equally well)
----
But oh well, quick and dirty, ban the card, forget it ever existed and just pretend everything is fine now, Lala-Land supreme.
Yea it is really silly that they didn't actually fix the rules behind it, "Treating the symptom, not the cause", and all that jazz. People cheering at its ban are the most funny in my opinion, eggs just needs a replacement for KCI and its online again for the same old nonsense. If they choose not to print a new card that could be abused by eggs, they are allowing the current rules set to twist their arm with future card design and testing. If they accidentally let one through, they will need to ban it in modern again.
Comical people still going on as if it was 'complexity' that actually got this deck banned.
well it wasn't the only reason, but it's cited pretty clearly in the official statement from WotC, so it's definitely a reason. It was significant enough that they had to mention it as part of their decision-making.... so.... eh?
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Comical people still going on as if it was 'complexity' that actually got this deck banned.
Whats so hard to understand of WotC own words ?
We're sensitive to community feedback that the combination of polarized matchups, complex interactions, and long turns can lead to unenjoyable gameplay and viewing experiences.
Powerlevel alone would not have banned the card, as there are plenty of problematic cards to watch for.
The factor that the people in the streaming chat scream out loud if KCI is shown that they cant understand anything how the deck works is much more relevant, and if you deny that, well ...
The real solution to fight the rules complexity would be to actually CHANGE the rules in a proper manner (or give "mana-abilities" on cards a instant speed restriction to get it over with, fixing kwerky Chromatic Sphere problems right away).
But they didnt do that, so the rules complexity problem still exists, there just isnt a deck that takes advantage of it in tier 1 anymore.
Its just a matter of time till the next "eggs" style deck runs around the corner and it just happens again and again , as they simply didnt fix the problem in the first place.
(You could even argue a tournament rule could be established that states that a turn is not allowed to take longer than X Minutes, enforced just like slow-play and stalling by a judge, which would solve the issue of 10+ Minute turns by itself, as doing that in a tournament would ramp you with warnings, game-loses and match-loses, unless you are really quick and know your deck, in which case there is no problem at all , and THAT would be a proper solution that solves all the future problems of super long turns equally well)
----
But oh well, quick and dirty, ban the card, forget it ever existed and just pretend everything is fine now, Lala-Land supreme.
Yea it is really silly that they didn't actually fix the rules behind it, "Treating the symptom, not the cause", and all that jazz. People cheering at its ban are the most funny in my opinion, eggs just needs a replacement for KCI and its online again for the same old nonsense. If they choose not to print a new card that could be abused by eggs, they are allowing the current rules set to twist their arm with future card design and testing. If they accidentally let one through, they will need to ban it in modern again.
Agreed.
I do like the suggestion on a rule to limit by time, that would not kill the deck, but force the pilot to be proficient or lose, which seems fairer to me. (And would still allow the deck to exist but remove the durdly players ... which may still effectively "kill" the deck or at least the players left do not annoy the other players... and would solve other decks taking too long as well - many ppl complain about combo.. but seriously a midrange or control or gasps those token stalemates are as esperating to watch :()
Yea ... thats one way to phrase it, or let us simply call it "Dumb down the game".
If a combo involves more than 2 pieces its just way too complicated, cant let that be.
----
The reason to see KCI banned is simply to make the game more trivial to consume for the "streaming" of it in digital and events.
Its the kind of deck that appeals to people that play the deck and not so to viewers that barely understand the rules of the game in the first place / even commentators struggle to understand the deck or see whats happening.
They want the game to be more "visual" to the eyes of a newbie, so they look at the board state and assume whats going on.
Its literally dumb down the game , not that its a secret, but its still sad ...
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
did you think that removing damage on the stack was dumbing the game down? or removing interrupts? or how about only dying at the end of a given phase if your life hit zero or less?
kci has been in talks of a ban for months. I've been a magic player since 1995 and seen, and lived through, all the major changes in the game. this getting the ban hammer was a long time coming. understanding archaic, incredibly niche rules to abuse shouldn't be a thing. the deck sucked watching play out. it took long ass turns and opponents couldn't straight out concede because sometimes it fizzled.
something else will take its place. don't worry.
Sit down, I'll go get your cheese mr edgelord.
I don't think it should be banned now, and I don't think it should be banned in regards to it's power level. But it will ventually get another hit for event time management reasons.
Thats a swing and a miss chief. It was the 'no arguments left' best deck of Modern, and it wasnt close. It needed to go.
Spirits
If you want to play solitaire play that. Don’t think people have to want to sit there to play a game that only your playing.
BAfter the lights go out on you, after your worthless life is through. I will remember how you scream...B
And even if we followed TheOnlyOne652089's logic to the door: If all decks were at that level of complexity, the only one playing Magic would be TheOnlyOne652089, and the game would die.
If a deck is banned for being factually too strong, thats one thing.
If a deck is banned for simply being too "complicated" , thats a reason i dont get behind and i do not support in the slightest.
If they really wanted to, they could SIMPLY clean up the ruling and fix the obscure interaction (that is rarely required to combo at all anyway with the KCI deck).
So do not throw everything together and pick whatever you want.
The critic is that banning a deck for being "too complicated" is a terrible reason, and quite literally means you want to dumb the game down ; by definition of that reason alone.
In the end the problem of being a deck that does not roll well with streaming is a much bigger deal than you might give it credit to.
WotC is pushing that agenda and if a deck does not result in a good viewer experience, it will have a ax over its head swinging.
----
Modern is a format filled with a variety of hard showstoppers against particular card types, so if a deck wants to succeed and be viable it has to be resilient enough to not just auto-lose to any of them.
If a combo deck cannot do that, they are simply not viable unless people dont pack any sideboard cards against them at all.
And if a format comes down to "oh you have the sideboard card that just auto-wins against me" , then its not particular smart at all, its just enforces the slot-machine magic, rather than properly play your strategy.
People get what they scream for, just to have another bogeyman waiting for them.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
If you add "You may activate this ability once per turn..." the card becomes pretty useless.
Oh and it's sooo fashionable on the internet these days to read a statement, ANY statement, and go "oh but I have some superior insight, this is what they're really saying, it's part of a bigger plot to destroy everything that we love". I'm so tired of the "me against the world, wake up sheeple" underground wannabe attitude that people put on like a pair of new jeans so that they can feel unique and important.
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
Doomsdayin'
KCI was banned because it was winning too many tournaments.
As for Storm... it will have to perform better if you want it banned. Storm will always be a boogeyman. And, if they need to weaken it, they can ban a ritual or a cantrip.
They explained pretty well why they banned KCI and not a support card.
The complexity issue and the long turns are all considerations but they are not enough to get a card banned unless they are really causing big problems. That being said, they do not help keep KCI in the format.
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The last time I played against eggs was a PTQ in 2012. In all three games, I did a couple of things, and then my opponent tried to combo off. All three times he tried to combo off, it took at least 15 minutes of me doing nothing. In one game he comboed off successfully and killed me. In the other I forced him to go off a turn to early and he couldn't do it. In the third game, he screwed up his own combo because it was immensely complicated.
In that match, I played basically no magic. I played a couple creatures and attacked him until he knew he had to try to combo. It also held everyone else up in the tournament for an additional 10+ minutes because we were the last round going.
It was pure nonsense, and immensely detrimental to the experience for everyone.
Spirits
Whats so hard to understand of WotC own words ?
Powerlevel alone would not have banned the card, as there are plenty of problematic cards to watch for.
The factor that the people in the streaming chat scream out loud if KCI is shown that they cant understand anything how the deck works is much more relevant, and if you deny that, well ...
The real solution to fight the rules complexity would be to actually CHANGE the rules in a proper manner (or give "mana-abilities" on cards a instant speed restriction to get it over with, fixing kwerky Chromatic Sphere problems right away).
But they didnt do that, so the rules complexity problem still exists, there just isnt a deck that takes advantage of it in tier 1 anymore.
Its just a matter of time till the next "eggs" style deck runs around the corner and it just happens again and again , as they simply didnt fix the problem in the first place.
(You could even argue a tournament rule could be established that states that a turn is not allowed to take longer than X Minutes, enforced just like slow-play and stalling by a judge, which would solve the issue of 10+ Minute turns by itself, as doing that in a tournament would ramp you with warnings, game-loses and match-loses, unless you are really quick and know your deck, in which case there is no problem at all , and THAT would be a proper solution that solves all the future problems of super long turns equally well)
----
But oh well, quick and dirty, ban the card, forget it ever existed and just pretend everything is fine now, Lala-Land supreme.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
Good riddance KCI.
well it wasn't the only reason, but it's cited pretty clearly in the official statement from WotC, so it's definitely a reason. It was significant enough that they had to mention it as part of their decision-making.... so.... eh?
Agreed.
I do like the suggestion on a rule to limit by time, that would not kill the deck, but force the pilot to be proficient or lose, which seems fairer to me. (And would still allow the deck to exist but remove the durdly players ... which may still effectively "kill" the deck or at least the players left do not annoy the other players... and would solve other decks taking too long as well - many ppl complain about combo.. but seriously a midrange or control or gasps those token stalemates are as esperating to watch :()
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