MTG Salvation

Quote from Hunter245 »

I'm very disappointed to see Griselbrand still legal. Hopefully everyone gets butt hurt about losing to a broken card and the RC bans it.

Just as I was getting excited by the spoilers too.

I don't know where you're getting the idea that Griselbrand is broken. If anything, I'd say that Oloro is more of a problem than Griselbrand as he has nearly pushed damage-based aggro decks out of the format on his own.

That is to say, if Oloro is fine, Griselbrand is fine.

Quote from BbearZ »

Quote from Dan Pyre »

Quote from Hunter245 »

I'm very disappointed to see Griselbrand still legal. Hopefully everyone gets butt hurt about losing to a broken card and the RC bans it.

Just as I was getting excited by the spoilers too.

I don't know where you're getting the idea that Griselbrand is broken. If anything, I'd say that Oloro is more of a problem than Griselbrand as he has nearly pushed damage-based aggro decks out of the format on his own.

That is to say, if Oloro is fine, Griselbrand is fine.

I think hes posted before and had his point refuted. He's just a troll. Don't bother spending time with him.

I don't know about banning it.

But from the many matches I did against Oloro Reanimator, Griselbrand just turns the game around on it's own

Sure, Iona, Shield of Emeria or Ashen Rider are very backbreaking. But nothing is as demoralizing as watching the only answer you have get helplessly countered by Force of Will after Griselbrand draws 28 cards. Then you have to deal with a 7/7 lifelink card drawer with counter/reanimation backup.

I think that without him, Oloro Reanimator would be much less powerful because they have to carefully choose which creature to reanimate depending on the situation rather than getting Griselbrand almost all of the time.

"Learn to respect your elders kid."

/Thread. A little tip if you have the audacity to ask to be respected is to not use the term "kid" since only 12 year olds use it.

I wish you would play some games because Prime Time is obviously OP. /Thread. Most players think he's OP but don't even know why he's banned in regular EDH.

Bbearz can you contribute to the discussion? I'm trying to bring up a point, and see what the community thinks. I'm entitled to my own opinions and only want the french ban list to continue to evolve. At this point in french, and it has been for awhile, re-animator has been king. It manages to be consistent even in a singleton format. I want to knock it down a peg, Because at least with whatever else is being reanimated you have time. Hell Jin-Q at least gives you time before making you discard your hand. Iona gives you a trigger to respond to. Griselbrand, combined with any decent deck list will thort your response (Usually with a free spell that is drawn IN RESPONSE).

Reanimator cannot be directly hated with sideboard hate, since they don't exist. Therefor spells have to be selected that have general purposes that can also be used to hate against a re animator strategy. Scavening Ooze is accessible with the green tutors that go along with it. Shred Memory/Bojuka Bog are both tools in black that can be safely played without being a dead card in other matchups. The list evolves further with Stingscourger, Lignify, Beast Within and the common forms of disruption. However this entire strategy fails with Griselbrand. You want to Beast Within my Griselbrand? Draw 7. Respond if I want. Even if I don't your still going to have to exile him or face him next turn. Oh Your going to swords my griselbrand? I'll draw 7. Damn nothing. Draw 7. Find a line of play into FoW, even drawing 7 again if I find a mystical tutor. After spending my life as a resource to protect Griselbrand I'm know going to swing and lock you down with WHATEVER. If the StP resolves for some reason I have 14 cards, and you just spent resources dealing with Griselbrand GG.

Quote from Hunter245 »

Iona gives you a trigger to respond to.

Not so.

While i think your argument is valid i'd rather see oloro banned (I play the control version) than griselbrand since it's a fine general on its own.

I could see banning it as a card in the 99 but not as a general. The rules committee consistently is trying to increase aggros role in the format and to me that means banning oloro however. We will see either way.

Griselbrand is currently fine as a general, this really shouldn't be a discussion.

Oh we play 60 mins for games. We tried 55 but so many people ended in draws. The extra 5 min helped a lot!

Any predictions for the next round of bans. After weeks and weeks of playtesing my group is in the consensus that oloro is probably the next banned card. Draw go historically is weak to Aggro but oloros life gain is far too fast for the Aggro decks to make a real attempt. The midrange decks which are far slower do not stand a chance. At first we were frustrated by the thought of another banned general but it dawned on us that wizards does not make cards specifically for our format, so we shouldnt upset by new generals being banned. Other than oloro(who has a positive matchup against every deck on the gauntlet) we feel the format is decidedly healthy and on it's way to somewhere very exciting, an open meta.

What have other groups experienced?

Has anyone found a deck that beats oloro draw go consistently?

What cards do you think should be banned(and how would it affect the format in a positive way)

What cards should be unbanned? (And how would it affect the format In a positive way)

Quote from HipsterWhale »

Any predictions for the next round of bans. After weeks and weeks of playtesing my group is in the consensus that oloro is probably the next banned card. Draw go historically is weak to Aggro but oloros life gain is far too fast for the Aggro decks to make a real attempt. The midrange decks which are far slower do not stand a chance. At first we were frustrated by the thought of another banned general but it dawned on us that wizards does not make cards specifically for our format, so we shouldnt upset by new generals being banned. Other than oloro(who has a positive matchup against every deck on the gauntlet) we feel the format is decidedly healthy and on it's way to somewhere very exciting, an open meta.

What have other groups experienced?

Has anyone found a deck that beats oloro draw go consistently?

What cards do you think should be banned(and how would it affect the format in a positive way)

What cards should be unbanned? (And how would it affect the format In a positive way)

I’ve been thinking about Oloro drawgo control and its weaknesses. It’s stunning how every single card in the deck works toward the deck’s goals so well.

Every control deck has the same stages in the game. Oloro is absurdly powerful in all three stages:

Stage 1: Don’t die. Hit land drops. Get card advantage when capable. Most control decks have to play a lot of spot removal because they can’t get too low on health before the midgame, but Oloro gains enough life that you don’t need much spot removal. Oloro can play more counterspells instead of particular spot removal spells, because if something resolves, it doesn’t matter because his life total can take it until a board wipe hits. These counterspells have much more use in the lategame than spot removal, and they typically can hit more targets. Oloro’s lifegain also lets him play more early cantrips and draw spells early on in order to get into the midgame faster and more reliably… And he plays three lands to allow this as well (Temple of the False God and two storage lands).

Stage 2: Get card advantage until opponent is “locked out.” Oloro has six board wipes… Two of which cycle against control decks. This is one form of Oloro’s card advantage. The other is with big draw spells… All of which are instant-speed, allowing for no risk in tapping out. Oloro’s lifegain allows for big Moonlit Bargains and Skeletal Scryings, two more of the most mana-efficient draw spells in the game. Also, the fact that drawgo Oloro runs no artifacts and enchantments, and almost no creatures, allows for a big card advantage: opponents have dead cards—Oloro doesn’t.

Stage 3: Stick a threat while keeping opponent locked out (aka consistently draw more cards than the opponent). The big draw spells get even better in the lategame, but sometimes Oloro does run out of useful cards (this happens sometimes when running 42 lands). Oloro solves this by being a freaking Phyrexian Arena. This massive advantage is typically insurmountable by the opponent, and often you can win with just Oloro and the counterspells he draws. If not, you have four instant-speed and/or uncounterable threats in your manlands, Decree of Justice, and White Sun’s Zenith. The only threats you ever want to tap out for are Jace, the Mind Sculptor and [card]Elspeth, Sun’s Champion[card]. At 4 mana, Jace can be easily protected. Elspeth can protect itself very easily (and board wipe sometimes, also).


You can beat Oloro in several ways:
• Complete mana denial in the form of Ruination or Blood Moon. Oloro runs almost no basic lands, so these cards hit hard. If you can somehow get one of these through, Oloro sometimes just can’t get out.


• Extremely difficult-to-remove threats. Manlands, indestructible creatures, creatures that can regenerate, Aetherling, threats that recur from the graveyard. Anything that requires a specific answer is usually good against drawgo Oloro because he usually relies on “destroy”-based wraths to remove threats. There are ways for Oloro to kill anything, but sometimes you can get there before he gets to his removal.


• Out-valuing Oloro. There’s a few ways to do this:
1. Counterspell or Thoughtseize (or Dauntless Escort) away wraths, so he can’t get rid of the threats, and you race him down. The issue here is that Oloro has a lot of time, a lot of Wraths, and a lot of draw/tutor effects.
2. Deny Oloro’s draw spells. This can be done by getting his life low enough that he can’t Skeletal Scrying or Moonlit Bargain, or just by countering his draw spells. A good Daze can take out a seemingly-safe EOT Sphinx’s Revelation. The issue here is that this can pretty much only be done by blue decks.
3. Disallow Oloro from getting too much value from board wipes (only play 2-3 threats at a time)—this means that each of your cards has to be a big enough threat… An elf without a sword is not a threat. The issue with this strategy is that sometimes Oloro can just counter/spot remove everything anyway, and run away with a big draw spell. Also a midrange deck with just a bunch of middle-ish threats is likely not good against other decks.



I think that Oloro can be beaten by a very good player with a very good deck. It's reliability and resiliency make this very difficult, though. I also think that many decks simply can't beat Oloro..

I think it's power level in all 3 stages of the game are it's biggest strength and what pushes it over the top. Fantastic write up as always khrane. Thank you for your knowledge on your favorite deck.

If we're talking about a should-be banned card, I think Griselbrand in the 99 is...
It's 98 % win when it shows up in reanimators 98 % because I've seen and heard stories about matches were Gbrand controller still lost despite drawing ton of cards off of it... but that's just my opinion

I feel Griselbrand is fine. Oloro I believe deserves the ban however the card is designed to sit in the command zone and effect the game which I feel is counter intuitive to what the game is all about. I was wondering how much an unbanning of natural order would effect the game.

I don't think unbanning natural order would hurt the game. It would just make it so freeness the best Aggro choice every time and they might nt want that.

Duel Commander Tournament Report
June 7th, 2014
10th "New Year Cake" Cup

We had a 11 Person Tournament in Shanghai last month. The metagame was:
Wydwen, the Biting Gale
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic 2
Lyzolda, the Blood Witch
Arcum Dagsson
Karador, Ghost Chieften
Polukranos, World Eater
Thrun, the Last Troll
Urli, the Miststalker
Varolz, the Scar-Striped
Kaalia of the Vast

With the top 2 being:
1. Oloro by Yue Song
2. Polukranos by Wenbin Dai


Decklists:

Also, We'd like to update another match held 2 months ago, the same formation as #1361, which was held a month after this one. They are both from a monthly-held Duel Commander Competition in Shanghai, China, as you might noticed in their names.

Duel Commander Tournament Report
May 12th, 2014
9th "New Year Cake" Cup

We had a 11 Person Tournament in Shanghai last month. The metagame was:
Wydwen, the Biting Gale
Geist of Saint Traft
Ruhan of the Fomori
Mayeal the Anima
Azusa, Lost but Seeking
Brimaz, King of Oreskos
Thrun, the Last Troll
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
Thassa, God of the Sea
Athreos, God of Passage
Sygg, River Cutthroat

With the top 2 being:
1. Wydwen by Yao Yao
2. Ruhan by Pengjie Lu


Decklists:

So, Oloro is banned as commander, and Cataclysm banned as a card.

Oloro was not unexpected but a bit sad for me. Cataclysm I didn't expect, but I can see their reasoning.

I am very excited about these bans. The format continues to grow and expand. I look forward to seeing all sorts of new decks!

Nice. Oloro is out!!! Let's see who won the top spot again :3

Cool. I've updated the first post.

I expected the Oloro deck to be depowered but I did not expect the commander itself would be banned.