What are your thoughts on Enduring Renewal? It's very strong when combined with a sac outlet, letting you pump out lots of tokens for effectively one mana each, and makes it easy to recover from board wipes.
Prime Speaker Zegana is pretty solid, if you want tons of card draw without the stigma that Azami (or mono-U in general) brings to the table. Of the five you listed, Azami is definitely the best, but I would try Marchesa. There are quite a few Wizards that like interacting with +1/+1 counters.
Not even one person mentioned Marton Stromgald, as with a lot of mono-red he suffers from extreme artifact hate, but he is still very strong and can defeat a whole table relatively quickly, without the telegraphing and groans that Norin brings too.
I really don't see how Norin is viewed as tier 1 when it is a generic chaos deck that it is easy to deal with once you understand they don't intend to win, just make it harder for your deck to do what it is meant to. It is also quite unpleasant when the person has a smug expression at their belief of their own cleverness for throwing in every red chaos enchantment they could think of in one deck (not unlike the blue player who runs every mind control card they ca think of).
Norin isn't really a chaos deck, though. It runs a bunch of effects that seem like they belong in a chaos deck, but breaks their symmetry really hard and ends up swarming everyone else with the huge advantage he gets.
Confusion in the Ranks is legitimately terrifying when you can abuse it as hard as Norin can.
My playgroup has gotten so sick of Purphuros (and Xenagos) decks that every single green deck, which is most of them, is running both Deglamer and Into the Aether solely to kill them, which makes their power level a lot less significant.
I will always love Gaka the Wary, but that's an extremely situational deck to bring to a table for a plethora of reasons, most of which involve people throwing heavy and/or sharp objects at you.
Krenko is kind of nuts. We have a GR Wort deck that effectively runs Krenko as its general due to the 15 or so tutors for him and all the different ways of comboing off of him. He's really, really good.
Tapping to put a basic in your hand for that cheap even if it did nothing else would still be pretty decent. Gravyard stocking, especially in GBx decks, is icing on the cake. More people should play Hermit Druid, imo. It's an all-star in every BUG and Rock list I've ever put together.
Juwdah is one of the more reliable people on this particular section of this forum. I'm certainly more inclined to take any random thing he says as a complete fact than to base anything on theorycrafting.
And, in addition to that, I played an extremely powerful Sharuum deck for about a year and a half. My own experience with the card is that, even in the most broken version of that deck that has ever existed, before artifact hate was anywhere near as prominent as it is now and before Tolaria and Tinker were banned, it was still not a problem. The deck was a miserable ***** to play with and against, but Metalworker barely contributed to that at all.
If Metalworker is not breakable in a pure artifact deck like Kozilek, Sharuum, Arcum, Karn, etc., then it isn't broken. The experiences of nearly anyone who has tested it can straight-up tell you that.
I'd really like to hear more concrete, in-depth explanations from the RC regarding their decisions. How about...Trade Secrets? Was this even a prevalent card in anyone's group(s)? And if so, how often were players colluding to draw their libraries? I still have it in one of my decks because it's never been an issue. I also don't feel the current explanation for abolishing the "Banned as Commander" list has been sufficient. Was there really so much feedback/conjecture about new players being totally mystified about not being able to use a certain four creatures as their commanders? C'mon RC, we're really not that dim. Becoming accustomed to a banlist is just another part of getting to know a format.
Unbanning Metalworker has been the ultimate head-scratcher for me. Cards printed in recent years (i.e. artifacts, duh) have only made it more broken. Not to mention they unbanned Staff of Domination not too long ago?! If Eldrazi, various colossi and other sick fatties are coming down T2-4, that's bad.
At the end of the day, I know the RC has the best of intentions with the format, and their job is a thankless one. However, sometimes I do wonder if there's something to be said for this supposed disconnect between they and the greater player base.
Trade Secrets wasn't banned because of anyone complaining about it, it was banned because it's a card that was either bad and not worth playing or completely ruined the game as soon as it resolved, with no middle ground. There's no reason for it to exist in the format, regardless of whether it was being used.
Metalworker can only be a problem in perfect god hands. A turn 2 Eldrazi requires multiple rocks on turn one, a haste outlet, and the entire rest of your hand to be artifacts. It's something that isn't statistically possible to happen, and thus should not be taken into consideration at all. One of the posters here has an extremely well tuned Kozilek deck that runs the absolute perfect conditions for Metalworker to exist in, and even when he tested it it supposedly didn't make too big of a difference, apparently. I wouldn't be at all worried about it.
If Craterhoof is pumping your board for +9, you were already winning to the point that a regular Overrun would also win you the game in most cases. If Avenger is already on the board and you get to untap into a Craterhoof, plenty of other things would have also won you the game or your opponents just aren't playing well. If you play them both on the same turn, you have enough mana to be winning the game in any number of other ways. If you use Tooth and Nail or Defense of the Heart, you could outright win the game on the spot if you're in either red or black.
Craterhoof Behemoth being the most common finisher in green doesn't make it the only one.
On one hand I agree that being able to pseudo-permanently remove the entire linchpin of your deck when the format is based on having access to it repeatedly is extremely counter-intuitive, but on the other hand it makes for a good balancing factor. I definitely think that removing it outright would be a poor choice, but the current way it works is not great either.
Palinchron doesn't combo by itself. It takes a mana doubler or a land like Gaea's Cradle. While those things are often easy to get, they do not make him a one-card-combo.
Craterhoof and Avenger on the same turn requires an enormous amount of mana, and unless you already had an excellent board state spot removal stops it from going anywhere fast.
These cards do not need banning, playgroups just need to be better at policing themselves.
Try out Nath of the Gilt-leaf token-based Stax. Sure, the loss of Braids hurts him too, but not nearly as badly because you can go full hand control and deny people that way.
You literally cannot make a Ghave deck that has any kind of theme without it having at least one way to go infinite, even if accidentally. Keep that in mind when building him.
Marath is just as bad, but at least you can deliberately not include the cards that go infinite with him without completely crippling your deck.
they have demonstrated that they are at best out of touch and arbitrary
This is objectively incorrect. Stop exaggerating a very minor problem into "THE WORLD IS ENDING", because it doesn't actually do anything to help anybody.
You don't like a thing. That's fine, but it doesn't mean the people who made the thing the way it is don't know what they're doing. They certainly know better than anyone here.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Norin isn't really a chaos deck, though. It runs a bunch of effects that seem like they belong in a chaos deck, but breaks their symmetry really hard and ends up swarming everyone else with the huge advantage he gets.
Confusion in the Ranks is legitimately terrifying when you can abuse it as hard as Norin can.
I will always love Gaka the Wary, but that's an extremely situational deck to bring to a table for a plethora of reasons, most of which involve people throwing heavy and/or sharp objects at you.
Krenko is kind of nuts. We have a GR Wort deck that effectively runs Krenko as its general due to the 15 or so tutors for him and all the different ways of comboing off of him. He's really, really good.
And, in addition to that, I played an extremely powerful Sharuum deck for about a year and a half. My own experience with the card is that, even in the most broken version of that deck that has ever existed, before artifact hate was anywhere near as prominent as it is now and before Tolaria and Tinker were banned, it was still not a problem. The deck was a miserable ***** to play with and against, but Metalworker barely contributed to that at all.
If Metalworker is not breakable in a pure artifact deck like Kozilek, Sharuum, Arcum, Karn, etc., then it isn't broken. The experiences of nearly anyone who has tested it can straight-up tell you that.
Trade Secrets wasn't banned because of anyone complaining about it, it was banned because it's a card that was either bad and not worth playing or completely ruined the game as soon as it resolved, with no middle ground. There's no reason for it to exist in the format, regardless of whether it was being used.
Metalworker can only be a problem in perfect god hands. A turn 2 Eldrazi requires multiple rocks on turn one, a haste outlet, and the entire rest of your hand to be artifacts. It's something that isn't statistically possible to happen, and thus should not be taken into consideration at all. One of the posters here has an extremely well tuned Kozilek deck that runs the absolute perfect conditions for Metalworker to exist in, and even when he tested it it supposedly didn't make too big of a difference, apparently. I wouldn't be at all worried about it.
EDIT: Kozi, not Ulamog.
Craterhoof Behemoth being the most common finisher in green doesn't make it the only one.
Craterhoof and Avenger on the same turn requires an enormous amount of mana, and unless you already had an excellent board state spot removal stops it from going anywhere fast.
These cards do not need banning, playgroups just need to be better at policing themselves.
Marath is just as bad, but at least you can deliberately not include the cards that go infinite with him without completely crippling your deck.
This is objectively incorrect. Stop exaggerating a very minor problem into "THE WORLD IS ENDING", because it doesn't actually do anything to help anybody.
You don't like a thing. That's fine, but it doesn't mean the people who made the thing the way it is don't know what they're doing. They certainly know better than anyone here.