LOL that's the thing about Keranos. We're shifting towards a more creature-oriented format, and from a deckbuilding standpoint, having a chunk of dead cards against him is collateral damage that has to be taken like a champ. I'm just lucky mardu colors has outs like council's judgment and nahiri's second ability. Freaking indestructible enchantment commanders.
This is an interesting topic. Even in the past I found Keranos so damn frustrating as a deck builder. Actually I was more frustrated @30 life because Keranos' presence along with a few other hexproof control generals such as Geist and Narset were much greater, and it practically forced me to stop running targeted creature removal spells (Edit: With the exception of burn, which thankfully is better now in a 20 life format with a smaller mana curve) Now in this new meta decks like Keranos and Narset aren't tier 1 anymore so I'm happy to start running targeted spells again. Even Geist uses more creatures main board than before so your removal spells aren't dead cards. Anyway, I digress.
Keranos seems to have dropped in tier usage, I presume people have simply switch from Vial to Keranos due to to a belief that he's better in the current 20life format. Hopefully if we leave the ban list alone people will start catching on to Keranos's great matchup against VS and the meta will shift. With some adjusting I think Keranos can make it back on top.
Yeah any time you can make someone pay 2 to deal 10 damage to you, you've got to do it!
Of course you will, but you won't be as fast as you want. Vial has a lean mana-base, because their spells are cheap enough. If every burn card they play costs 2 more, it becomes very hard to be the fast killing deck is it meant to be, giving you way more time to rebuild and keep Vial off the table. It's not a tested solution, of course, but I feel making Vial/Kraum players pay more for their spells is great. I'd even go as far as saying elfball decks should start playing Thorn of Amethyst, maybe even Sphere of Resistance and Lodestone Golem.
It's not the Partners ability, but Vial itself, if you take partners from the others they become unplayable, because they are freaking weak when compared to other legends. Partner is the only way the others become playable, if you take partner out, Vial continues to be playable and the other 14 are dead, if you just hammer him, all 14 are playable and none of them combined is meta shifting. None of them combined even got close to 5% of the meta, partner is NOT a broken mechanic on the commanders that are available, Vial is, because his ability is made specifically to fight multiplayer + 40LP, the others are totally okay. Having an extra card is a huge bonus, but it is not so huge if the extra card is like, some close to vanilla high cost creature for example.
who cares if the others aren't playable?? All commanders don't need to be playable. Vial without partner is quite reasonable in 20 life format
It's not the Partners ability, but Vial itself, if you take partners from the others they become unplayable, because they are freaking weak when compared to other legends. Partner is the only way the others become playable, if you take partner out, Vial continues to be playable and the other 14 are dead, if you just hammer him, all 14 are playable and none of them combined is meta shifting. None of them combined even got close to 5% of the meta, partner is NOT a broken mechanic on the commanders that are available, Vial is, because his ability is made specifically to fight multiplayer + 40LP, the others are totally okay. Having an extra card is a huge bonus, but it is not so huge if the extra card is like, some close to vanilla high cost creature for example.
who cares if the others aren't playable?? All commanders don't need to be playable. Vial without partner is quite reasonable in 20 life format
well the Bruse and Thrasios players for one. Why force other players to sacrifice their balanced decks to protect an OP one?
On a side note: Where are you from within Ontario? I'm from London
LOL that's the thing about Keranos. We're shifting towards a more creature-oriented format, and from a deckbuilding standpoint, having a chunk of dead cards against him is collateral damage that has to be taken like a champ. I'm just lucky mardu colors has outs like council's judgment and nahiri's second ability. Freaking indestructible enchantment commanders.
This is an interesting topic. Even in the past I found Keranos so damn frustrating as a deck builder. Actually I was more frustrated @30 life because Keranos' presence along with a few other hexproof control generals such as Geist and Narset were much greater, and it practically forced me to stop running targeted creature removal spells (Edit: With the exception of burn, which thankfully is better now in a 20 life format with a smaller mana curve) Now in this new meta decks like Keranos and Narset aren't tier 1 anymore so I'm happy to start running targeted spells again. Even Geist uses more creatures main board than before so your removal spells aren't dead cards. Anyway, I digress.
Keranos seems to have dropped in tier usage, I presume people have simply switch from Vial to Keranos due to to a belief that he's better in the current 20life format. Hopefully if we leave the ban list alone people will start catching on to Keranos's great matchup against VS and the meta will shift. With some adjusting I think Keranos can make it back on top.
Yep. I think people just need to throw in some cheap bounce/burn spells pyroclasm effects to survive the early game and they're good to go for a very scary Keranos build. A commander that is difficult to interact with goes a very very long way. But so does having 2 commanders and a fast clock. And until vial gets banned, splashing black for a grixis control variant is still the superior choice in my opinion.
Yeah, Keranos also packs Blood Moon, which can be a beating. Playing CoP:Red seems very frigging smart in this meta. Deals with a lot of threats these days, even Bruse and Breya, in a sense. I will steal that tech if I play UW in the future.
The thing about that collateral is that Keranos thrives on card advantage, as the great draw go that it is. So it seems like a good choice in a Vial meta.
Chill could also be good against Zurgo or Vial. Making him pay 5 for Vial, 7 for Kraum, 2 for that Fireblast, 6 for Fiery Confluence seems very good. Not in Keranos, but UW or Jace or Jenara.
hey man knock yourself out. been preaching COP for a while and you're actually the first person who's told me that it's a good idea =))
Chill is a very nice out against red decks i'm laughing just thinking about it =)) But i think I'd only play it in decks that can tutor for it.. 1 in 99 seems like a bleak adjustment on it's own.
I'm an Old School player so CoP:Red will always draw my attention haha
You know what else CoP neuters? Keranos. I like this kind of tech if they're broad enough. I'm currently playing Dystopia and Deathmark in my Vial/Kraum build because my meta has a lot of white/green.
Chill is good to compliment CoP, etc. In a blue deck with a lot of cantrips you don't need to tutor it. I believe it's still good mid-late game. Taxes commanders and slows down any red Aggro that doesn't have green to ramp. I don't know if that's good enough tough.
I'm an Old School player so CoP:Red will always draw my attention haha
You know what else CoP neuters? Keranos. I like this kind of tech if they're broad enough. I'm currently playing Dystopia and Deathmark in my Vial/Kraum build because my meta has a lot of white/green.
Chill is good to compliment CoP, etc. In a blue deck with a lot of cantrips you don't need to tutor it. I believe it's still good mid-late game. Taxes commanders and slows down any red Aggro that doesn't have green to ramp. I don't know if that's good enough tough.
Taking into account catrips and scry effects, I honestly believe it's good enough. Just like COP, the range of decks it neuters is crazy. I mean aside from zurgo, keranos, vial and kraum you throw in saskia, narset and animar (does he still make waves..?) into the mix and you have a serious chunk of the meta covered.
Smokko, maybe this is the subject for a new topic? Discussing Leviathan viability seems important these days, but not into a DC exclusive banlist topic.
Wow, excellent write up. Been talking to by local group to getting in on this but they have been hesitant due to lack of sources.
However, I do have a question. If I build a French list. Can I bring that to my regular play group and hope for the best or does French just automatically lose? kind of like in casual how a legacy deck will not be fun to play against if you have a standard deck.
Wow, excellent write up. Been talking to by local group to getting in on this but they have been hesitant due to lack of sources.
However, I do have a question. If I build a French list. Can I bring that to my regular play group and hope for the best or does French just automatically lose? kind of like in casual how a legacy deck will not be fun to play against if you have a standard deck.
I wouldn't build any Duel deck right now. Not before Wizards releases their new B&R list.
Breya and Vial banned as Commanders, Yisan is back, and two more Moxen bite the dust. I'm really looking forward to what WotC will do for the real format though.
Looks like I'd missed a few ban list updates. The original post is now up to date, I think!
I've been lurking, waiting to see how things shook out after all this Zurgo/Breya/Vial Smasher dominance, and from this spectator's perspective: these bans look good for the diversity of the format. I agree with the Moxen bans, too. It feels consistent with other fast mana bans, anyway.
All that said: how're things looking for the format? Those who are on Cockatrice, are the amount of games more or less the same? Better? Worse? Tournaments look pretty well populated, but I'm otherwise way out of touch...
In hindsight, it was super annoying to face off against a turn-1 mox. Good for them for making that call.
Yisan shouldn't be nearly as painful in a 20-life format with all of the burn being packed these days.
Riley, Cockatrice seems the same as it always was, though local communities seem to be shifting a bit with some reporting less players and some reporting more.
This time the bans and changes were very good, but I still think that a LOT of decks are pushed out of the 20HP by Zurgo, the way he plays and its "inevitability", makes a lot of decks struggle against it, Bruse is a king here because of lifelink, and Geist has all weapons necessary for it (balance is just stupid, it shouldn't be legal), the problem is that burn pushed a LOT of decks out, you can't just stuff the deck with life gain that it will be just awful. I really think some cards could have gone also like Price of Progress, and maybe even Zurgo(it would be changed for another legend, but it would slow a little bit the deck). Anyway, waiting for the 30HP Wizards, but this time unlike the last 4-5 announcements, is one of the most reasonable announcement.
It's stupid when you draw Price of Progress and randomly win a game with it dealing 10 or 12 damage, but it's also stupid that you can play 3 or 4 or 5 colors in this format without ever having to think about whether the mana base is stretched too thin.
In hindsight, it was super annoying to face off against a turn-1 mox. Good for them for making that call.
Yisan shouldn't be nearly as painful in a 20-life format with all of the burn being packed these days.
Riley, Cockatrice seems the same as it always was, though local communities seem to be shifting a bit with some reporting less players and some reporting more.
Agree. I can't tell you how many times I had Yisan down to like 3-7 before losing. Yisan is powerful but also a bit slow @ 20 life
If you don't want to die to Price, then take the responsibility to build a manabase that doesn't die to Price. You can't play 4c and then complain about PoP, that's not reasonable, nor fair. Everything has it's own checks and balances. Don't want to lose to it? Fetch appropriately. Build a more stable base. I corporate an additional 2-4 basics (pending colour combination, in 3c I'd run +3 basics). As a Zurgo pilot, all my Price wins come from over-zealous midrange decks that play way more nonbasics than they need.
Playing against it, I'm not afraid of it. And I play those 3c non-green decks. And it doesn't scare me.
I actually just gave an example of a card to lower its explosiveness, which I consider the best burn card Zurgo has. What I really meant is that Zurgo does pushes non-blue, non-life gain decks out of the format, its very very hard to control burn spells without those 2 combinations, on other formats you can race burn because combo is faster, which is not true for DC. Titania has an ok match against Zurgo, because and only because of Zuran orb, take that out and the matchup that looks like 50/50 goes to 65/35, the same if you take lifelink out of Bruse. I do not consider Zurgo the nemesis of the format, I consider now Geist probably the strongest and most balanced deck in DC, but it isn't Geist that makes tier 2 decks unplayable, its how Zurgo works that makes that, Zurgo is the following on DC:
An 8-card burn deck with a 1 drop always available on turn 1, that looks the perfect scenario for a burn deck, it probably is very close to legacy burn deck power. If you do prepare a deck to face Zurgo, the match against Geist/Titania/Bruse goes out of the window, its very very hard to fit a deck when Zurgo kills you on T4 with direct damage.
So that is why I thought the annoucement was very good, with that only exception that I think could make 20HP diverse again.
20 life seems fine. Lifelink still exists and can slow Zurgo or mad aggro a turn or two. Price of Progress serves as a check against this if they tap out and then choose to either take 8-10 or live another turn. Our meta here in Ottawa seems pretty varied. We have BR Grenzo, Ojutai, the artifact-based partner commander, Zurgo, Sultai Sidisi, etc. Not sure what they could ban or unban to be honest, but I'm happy we have a league going on Mondays that rewards extended participation and visits. Really mature environment too.
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The "Crazy One", playing casual magic and occasionally dipping his toes into regular play since 1994.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
I think we need a sideboard. Helps balance bad matchups. Promotes diversity in the meta.
Every major format has a sideboard. Sideboards are not used in multiplayer EDH because it's a single game. But duel is best of three and should have a sideboard just like all other formats.
Keranos seems to have dropped in tier usage, I presume people have simply switch from Vial to Keranos due to to a belief that he's better in the current 20life format. Hopefully if we leave the ban list alone people will start catching on to Keranos's great matchup against VS and the meta will shift. With some adjusting I think Keranos can make it back on top.
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
Of course you will, but you won't be as fast as you want. Vial has a lean mana-base, because their spells are cheap enough. If every burn card they play costs 2 more, it becomes very hard to be the fast killing deck is it meant to be, giving you way more time to rebuild and keep Vial off the table. It's not a tested solution, of course, but I feel making Vial/Kraum players pay more for their spells is great. I'd even go as far as saying elfball decks should start playing Thorn of Amethyst, maybe even Sphere of Resistance and Lodestone Golem.
who cares if the others aren't playable?? All commanders don't need to be playable. Vial without partner is quite reasonable in 20 life format
On a side note: Where are you from within Ontario? I'm from London
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
Yep. I think people just need to throw in some cheap bounce/burn spells pyroclasm effects to survive the early game and they're good to go for a very scary Keranos build. A commander that is difficult to interact with goes a very very long way. But so does having 2 commanders and a fast clock. And until vial gets banned, splashing black for a grixis control variant is still the superior choice in my opinion.
hey man knock yourself out. been preaching COP for a while and you're actually the first person who's told me that it's a good idea =))
Chill is a very nice out against red decks i'm laughing just thinking about it =)) But i think I'd only play it in decks that can tutor for it.. 1 in 99 seems like a bleak adjustment on it's own.
You know what else CoP neuters? Keranos. I like this kind of tech if they're broad enough. I'm currently playing Dystopia and Deathmark in my Vial/Kraum build because my meta has a lot of white/green.
Chill is good to compliment CoP, etc. In a blue deck with a lot of cantrips you don't need to tutor it. I believe it's still good mid-late game. Taxes commanders and slows down any red Aggro that doesn't have green to ramp. I don't know if that's good enough tough.
Taking into account catrips and scry effects, I honestly believe it's good enough. Just like COP, the range of decks it neuters is crazy. I mean aside from zurgo, keranos, vial and kraum you throw in saskia, narset and animar (does he still make waves..?) into the mix and you have a serious chunk of the meta covered.
However, I do have a question. If I build a French list. Can I bring that to my regular play group and hope for the best or does French just automatically lose? kind of like in casual how a legacy deck will not be fun to play against if you have a standard deck.
I wouldn't build any Duel deck right now. Not before Wizards releases their new B&R list.
I've been lurking, waiting to see how things shook out after all this Zurgo/Breya/Vial Smasher dominance, and from this spectator's perspective: these bans look good for the diversity of the format. I agree with the Moxen bans, too. It feels consistent with other fast mana bans, anyway.
All that said: how're things looking for the format? Those who are on Cockatrice, are the amount of games more or less the same? Better? Worse? Tournaments look pretty well populated, but I'm otherwise way out of touch...
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Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
Yisan shouldn't be nearly as painful in a 20-life format with all of the burn being packed these days.
Riley, Cockatrice seems the same as it always was, though local communities seem to be shifting a bit with some reporting less players and some reporting more.
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
Playing against it, I'm not afraid of it. And I play those 3c non-green decks. And it doesn't scare me.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
An 8-card burn deck with a 1 drop always available on turn 1, that looks the perfect scenario for a burn deck, it probably is very close to legacy burn deck power. If you do prepare a deck to face Zurgo, the match against Geist/Titania/Bruse goes out of the window, its very very hard to fit a deck when Zurgo kills you on T4 with direct damage.
So that is why I thought the annoucement was very good, with that only exception that I think could make 20HP diverse again.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
Every major format has a sideboard. Sideboards are not used in multiplayer EDH because it's a single game. But duel is best of three and should have a sideboard just like all other formats.
Is it? As far as Wizards' banlist schedule they're only announcing anything on August 28th. Doesn't Duel follow their schedule?