The thing is that suboptimal cushion allows you to play whatever you want and have a shot. Even Tier 3 decks had chances of winning regularly. There IS 1 truth about the 20-life format and that is that Tier 2-3 decks are VERY Tier 2-3. In the old DC30 I felt Tier 1-2-3 decks had little difference between them.
PS: Also, the lack of diversity we see can be proven in MTGTOP8 data. We have 4 decks with over 10% representation and a gap of 4% to the next one in the last 3 months. We never had this kind of problem in 30hp. Granted, there's still Vial there, so things should get better, but even when we had dominant decks in DC30 we didn't have this kind of meta.
30 Life you could play multicolored decks without the need for old duals, that is enough to say about pricing, and without the old duals you are a 90% deck, the manabase is still very very stable without duals when you put all shocks+pain lands+filter lands... Just more "painful"
Also Zurgo was a very solid tier 2 deck, it got even some new tools that work very well with 30HP, Zurgo had 1-2% of top8 appearances, sure not the 10%+, but it was a solid deck and every one always agreed on that, because you got indeed the 10 HP cushion, but the decks were not prepared to face it (and also a lot of decks used shocks and stuff that are not even dared to use today against it).
I mean you say that but IMO you were at a serious disadvantage if you weren't playing with all the fetches and original duals. Aggro/midrange still existed and the extra life was still the difference between winning and losing. Perhaps not to same extent, I'll grant you that.
@Fsecco. I think you have to ignore the meta from before the ban. Vial was truly opressive and it was pretty much the entire reason Tier 2 decks couldn't complete and thus the reason for a lack in diversity.
I think we'll truly know the state of the meta in DC20 after post-vial numbers are crunched, and after a long enough period of time. 30 life numbers look evenly spread because it has the luxury of a larger sample size that was regulated by banning the corresponding overly dominant (subjective description btw lol) commander at that given time. If given the same sample-size and time, the numbers in DC20 could very well even themselves out in that same way. Though I think a confounding factor could be an abnormally large number of zurgo players because of its combination of viability and financial accessibility. But even then, with zurgos getting checked by a good number of decks (no zurgos in DTC top 8 in spite of its 27 entries speaks volumes on this), even that number could dwindle given enough time.
30 Life you could play multicolored decks without the need for old duals, that is enough to say about pricing, and without the old duals you are a 90% deck, the manabase is still very very stable without duals when you put all shocks+pain lands+filter lands... Just more "painful"
Also Zurgo was a very solid tier 2 deck, it got even some new tools that work very well with 30HP, Zurgo had 1-2% of top8 appearances, sure not the 10%+, but it was a solid deck and every one always agreed on that, because you got indeed the 10 HP cushion, but the decks were not prepared to face it (and also a lot of decks used shocks and stuff that are not even dared to use today against it).
I mean you say that but IMO you were at a serious disadvantage of you weren't playing with all the fetches and original duals.
Speaking from experience, at 30 life the disadvantage is less than in 20. When I was piloting my Kaalia back in 30, it took me a year to be able to save up for all 3 mardu duals. Though I definitely felt the improvement, I can't discount the fact that even prior to the purchase I was at least able to play.
The disadvantage of suboptimal manabases goes down even further if the matchup is control vs control, for reasons that one can easily extrapolate.
At 20 life though, the compromised speed of a land entering the battlefield tapped or taking the 2 damage from an untapped shock has very dire consequences. So yeah there is merit to that accessibility argument at 30 life, if we're looking at things through the eyes of a multicolor player.
But to your point, in a tournament setting, be it 20 or 30, I believe you need a 100% optimized deck to win the whole thing.
Maybe, its very possible that, but with such a limited number of players it will not be liable... I mean not from that tournament specific, but from the whole data that was gathered beforethe switch to 20HP. It can look really diverse now, but it is hard to know if the people are playing cutthroat decks or just playing to have some fun. There is no problem a lot of players just getting their commander decks to play, but the data is very hard to be liable if people are not going full win-or-win with their decks. Of course some big tourney 100+ players is going more competitive, but... the number of tournaments like that are very scarce now.
The thing is, on the next months the data is probably not really liable for any format... Only when a format really becomes a lot played it will actually have data to cover what decks are oppressive or not. That is why data from Leviathan never was really reliable, too few tournaments to gather the right data.
I know the DC20 data is not reliable yet. Format's still in its infancy, as is Wizards'.
We're really getting through a strange year for Commander. I feel that since the announcement of the 20 life change, which didn't come with an immediate banlist, we've been in the dark as to what the format actually is. It's been a forced hiatus of a long, long time that isn't ending soon. I thought wiz banlist would do it, but it didn't. Maybe the 1x1 banlist will, we'll see. For now we are still in a format that has no real face nor a real community.
Yeh, pretty much. I don't feel it that much because I have a lot of players around me, but on a global scale, reading about people's experiences that the format is dying in their respective LGS worries me.
Do we all agree to just play Wizards 30 life and bear through the hopefully temporary banlist? It seems like what the community needs for unification. Personally I'm looking forward to seeing if Iname has any chance in the broken Oloro x Vial x Tasigur world
Maybe, its very possible that, but with such a limited number of players it will not be liable... I mean not from that tournament specific, but from the whole data that was gathered beforethe switch to 20HP. It can look really diverse now, but it is hard to know if the people are playing cutthroat decks or just playing to have some fun. There is no problem a lot of players just getting their commander decks to play, but the data is very hard to be liable if people are not going full win-or-win with their decks. Of course some big tourney 100+ players is going more competitive, but... the number of tournaments like that are very scarce now.
The thing is, on the next months the data is probably not really liable for any format... Only when a format really becomes a lot played it will actually have data to cover what decks are oppressive or not. That is why data from Leviathan never was really reliable, too few tournaments to gather the right data.
Even with scarce tournaments, eventually over time the sample size will grow, as long as tournament results continue to be documented. It will just take more time if the player base is really as small as you say.
Do we all agree to just play Wizards 30 life and bear through the hopefully temporary banlist? It seems like what the community needs for unification. Personally I'm looking forward to seeing if Iname has any chance in the broken Oloro x Vial x Tasigur world
I'm not a fan of the current MTGO banlist, but I'm all for unification, and am willing to do my part to contribute. So if an LGS here in my country hosts a tournament using the new format rules, I will sleeve up a Mardu deck with as much anti-meta tech as humanly possible, encourage all my 20 life buddies to do the same and try it out. But man if I get bodied in round one by an upheaval, I'm only going to support that format as a spectator after, at least until the banlist gets polished.
At the same time, though it seems like I'm contradicting what I said about unification, I hope 20 life DC doesn't die. In the same way that there are numerous 60-card formats that people can choose from or switch around with, I don't think it would be the end of the world to have two 1v1 commander formats. I believe the experience provided by each is different enough, and we don't need to insist that one needs to cease to exist for the other to thrive. I'd rather just encourage people to play both.
And I know people are sick of hearing this from me lol but I gotta say it, I still believe the best way to satisfy players of both 30 life and 20 life is to get the average of those 2 numbers.
Do we all agree to just play Wizards 30 life and bear through the hopefully temporary banlist? It seems like what the community needs for unification. Personally I'm looking forward to seeing if Iname has any chance in the broken Oloro x Vial x Tasigur world
The thing is that suboptimal cushion allows you to play whatever you want and have a shot. Even Tier 3 decks had chances of winning regularly. There IS 1 truth about the 20-life format and that is that Tier 2-3 decks are VERY Tier 2-3. In the old DC30 I felt Tier 1-2-3 decks had little difference between them.
PS: Also, the lack of diversity we see can be proven in MTGTOP8 data. We have 4 decks with over 10% representation and a gap of 4% to the next one in the last 3 months. We never had this kind of problem in 30hp. Granted, there's still Vial there, so things should get better, but even when we had dominant decks in DC30 we didn't have this kind of meta.
Proven bull***** by the very fact that you can find more different decks at top8 in the last 4 major events for DC than in ALL events for Leviathan pooled together.
You remember 30lp DC with rose-tinted glases. Tier2s never had a chance, wether it was Zur, Oloro, Tasigur or Yisan, you played that deck at 100% or you were not gonna win a single tournament, most likely not even a single match if you were unlucky enough to not meet another Tier2 or rogue all night.
I played 30lp a lot and had fun with Kaalia, Griselbrand, Doran and Ezuri. But I never won anything with those decks and I knew it wasn't even a possibility, on the other hand I won 8/14 tournaments I played with Oloro while it was legal.
Meanwhile, in 20lp I beat Vial+Kraum, Breya and Zurgo with Bruse+Reyhan, Karlov and Queen Marchesa. And I felt at all times it was possible to defeat all three with the same deck through deckbuilding and practice.
Comparing 30lp to 20lp does feel like comparing Standard to Modern, the problem is you clearly hate Modern and would rather have a 2 deck format than play a format where various different flavors of aggro, midrange and tempo are avaliable.
Do we all agree to just play Wizards 30 life and bear through the hopefully temporary banlist? It seems like what the community needs for unification. Personally I'm looking forward to seeing if Iname has any chance in the broken Oloro x Vial x Tasigur world
It doesn't, you'll just waste your money building a pile of crap that'll never even top8, unless there's only 8 players.
Beating Oloro, Vial+Kraum or Tasigur with Tier2 decks is a fantasy. The Leviathan meta is exactly the same as the competitive 30LP DC meta was with the exeption that Vial+Kraum erased Jenara and Anafenza from the list. And absolutely all top8s were among those SIX decks (Vial+Kraum, Geist, Jace/Teferi, Baral, Narset/Wanderer and Titania), and yes, those are SIX decks because both High Tide decks and both Armaggedon decks play exactly the same.
In 30lp, at a competitive level, if you're not Tier1 you don't exist.
How's leviathan even doing btw? I'm surprised you even have data on it. It's literally non-existent over here and I'm in the dark about the whole thing. Does it follow the same DC banliste pre-20 life?
I ask this because if the MTGO banlist stabilizes, there's a chance it'll simply become leviathan right?
How's leviathan even doing btw? I'm surprised you even have data on it. It's literally non-existent over here and I'm in the dark about the whole thing. Does it follow the same DC banliste pre-20 life?
I ask this because if the MTGO banlist stabilizes, there's a chance it'll simply become leviathan right?
You pretty much need to speak or at least understand italian to find results and even then it's super hard. It doesn't help that their social media is pretty much dead and their website isn't any better.
And no, it's not doing so well, I've found a handfull of non-DTC 16-24 people tournaments from Italy or France exclusively, while you can find a bunch of 30+ DC tournaments (and dozens more 8-12 people FNMs) not only in France but also in America, Phillipines, Czech Repuplic, Brazil, Peru, Mexico, etc.
Leviathan's current banlist is this:
Ancestral Recall
Ancient Tomb
Balance
Back to Basics
Black Lotus
Channel
Chaos Orb
Dig Through Time
Entomb
Falling Star
Fastbond
Food Chain
Gaea’s Cradle
Gifts Ungiven
Grim Monolith
Grindstone
Hermit Druid
Humility
Imperial Seal
Karakas
Library of Alexandria
Loyal Retainers
Mana Crypt
Mana Drain
Mana Vault
Mind Twist
Mishra’s Workshop
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire
Mystical Tutor
Natural Order
Necropotence
Oath of Druids
Protean Hulk
Serra Ascendant
Sensei’s Divning Top
Shahrazad
Sol Ring
Strip Mine
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
Time Vault
Time Walk
Tinker
Tolarian Academy
Treasure Cruise
Vampiric Tutor
Yawgmoth’s Bargain
Ante and dexterity cards are also banned.
The following cards are also banned from being played as a commander :
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
Edric, Spymaster of Trest
Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Zur the Enchanter
Note the absence of Marath, Yisan, and Necrotic Ooze. They still don't show up at Top 8s.
I'm from the Philippines, and the leviathan stuff that showed up were probably just remnants of 30 life DC when 20 life was still new. Right now no one even talks about it. I mostly see 20 life tournaments in multiple LGSs, some weekly, some every 2 weeks.
Banlist looks similar to old DC then. And no Marath, Yisan or ooze in top 8's..? Weird. Maybe they really shouldn't have been banned in the first place. Makes me wonder how Marath will do in 20 life.
But that's not what happened, so we'll never really know. But I doubt there would have been a separate 20 life format if the DC committee didn't come up with it themselves. With leviathan, it's less of a shock that it happened because like you said, it's a pre-existing format (old 30 life DC) that they simply wanted to keep alive. With 20 life however, it's from scratch, so unless the committee came up with it themselves like it did in reality, then it more likely wouldn't have happened at all.
Marath would be quite strong in 20 life I feel.
To me these 3+ colored, swiss-army-knife type generals are just too strong for the format, this is why I'm happy Breya was banned despite loving her, she felt a lot like playing Marath in a sense.
But breya has blue, so she's scarier for me. I'm still on the fence with whether or not banning her was the right call. Hell, I'm still on the fence about Marath tbh.
How's leviathan even doing btw? I'm surprised you even have data on it. It's literally non-existent over here and I'm in the dark about the whole thing. Does it follow the same DC banliste pre-20 life?
I ask this because if the MTGO banlist stabilizes, there's a chance it'll simply become leviathan right?
You pretty much need to speak or at least understand italian to find results and even then it's super hard. It doesn't help that their social media is pretty much dead and their website isn't any better.
And no, it's not doing so well, I've found a handfull of non-DTC 16-24 people tournaments from Italy or France exclusively, while you can find a bunch of 30+ DC tournaments (and dozens more 8-12 people FNMs) not only in France but also in America, Phillipines, Czech Repuplic, Brazil, Peru, Mexico, etc.
Leviathan's current banlist is this:
Ancestral Recall
Ancient Tomb
Balance
Back to Basics
Black Lotus
Channel
Chaos Orb
Dig Through Time
Entomb
Falling Star
Fastbond
Food Chain
Gaea’s Cradle
Gifts Ungiven
Grim Monolith
Grindstone
Hermit Druid
Humility
Imperial Seal
Karakas
Library of Alexandria
Loyal Retainers
Mana Crypt
Mana Drain
Mana Vault
Mind Twist
Mishra’s Workshop
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire
Mystical Tutor
Natural Order
Necropotence
Oath of Druids
Protean Hulk
Serra Ascendant
Sensei’s Divning Top
Shahrazad
Sol Ring
Strip Mine
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
Time Vault
Time Walk
Tinker
Tolarian Academy
Treasure Cruise
Vampiric Tutor
Yawgmoth’s Bargain
Ante and dexterity cards are also banned.
The following cards are also banned from being played as a commander :
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
Edric, Spymaster of Trest
Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Zur the Enchanter
Note the absence of Marath, Yisan, and Necrotic Ooze. They still don't show up at Top 8s.
Sorry, I know you hate 30HP with all your heart, but don't misjudge things because of what you like, leviathan was born some months ago, when the announcement of 1v1 MTGO commander there was no more reasons to keep it a separate format, it was much much better to give support for the new banlist to shape itself rather then having 3 formats.
If it was the opposite, a 20HP format getting out of old DC, it would have even less players than Leviathan today, those decks are not played because people are not making physical decks, wasting money in a format they don't know if it will live since it is new + WoTC announcemente. Yisan is a very very solid tier 1 deck, and actually pretty oppressive, and you don't see a single one on their lists, why? Because people have sold their yisan decks and don't want to build again and lose their deck again (it is banned for example in WoTC list), Marath is another one, it is more a case of people are playing with what they have, and usually it is decks that are playable on both DC and Leviathan... Geist, Baral and Jace. You must remember their reports are all physical tournaments, not online, so that makes a HUGE difference on what is played or not, you can not consider leviathan for 30HP, you must consider DC before the change, THAT is what WoTC will probably look like, not what leviathan is today.
We don't know, if the list stabilizes it means they are satisfied with what it becomes, and we must support it because it will be bigger than Leviathan which will die(surely) and DC has also a big chance of not existing anymore, maybe it will for the fans of 20HP, but most DC players, as I am, want only a balanced good commander 1v1 to play, and we will play the most played one, if it is DC I'll go for it, but it looks like WoTC 1v1 will be the main format for 1v1 commander, so lets give its support, if it becomes like the old DC, I will be very very happy with the result.
I also don't trust Leviathan data too much because it basically doesn't exist, which makes the existing ones a far too low of a scope to even count. Suppose the same few regions are playing Leviathan over and over again and the same people/decks are placing high. How much trust can we put in a meta analysis there? Small scope is small scope.
I mean, you can say what you want about Leviathan, but denying DC30 deck versatility is just wrong. You're quoting periods where busted decks dominated the meta like that was the norm. I mean, you cannot say this:
You remember 30lp DC with rose-tinted glases. Tier2s never had a chance, wether it was Zur, Oloro, Tasigur or Yisan, you played that deck at 100% or you were not gonna win a single tournament, most likely not even a single match if you were unlucky enough to not meet another Tier2 or rogue all night.
And really believe what you're saying in comparison to what Vial/Kraum did to the 20hp meta. You may win games against them, but %s don't lie. Vial dominated the 20hp field MORE THAN Oloro did with 30hp in reported tournaments. That's not even up for discussion, it's a FACT. Yisan didn't get even HALF the spread Vial did. So yeah, talk about rose-tinted glasses.
Now, Leviathan is another different issue. Vial is still legal there and it seems to be a big problem just as it was in DC20. I don't think Leviathan's banlist ever was or will be thoroughly updated, so I don't trust the format at all, and never played it.
The fact you're all missing, at least for my area, is that my opinion doesn't even matter that much. EVERYONE around me prefers Wizards, so the shift is inevitable.
At the same time, though it seems like I'm contradicting what I said about unification, I hope 20 life DC doesn't die. In the same way that there are numerous 60-card formats that people can choose from or switch around with, I don't think it would be the end of the world to have two 1v1 commander formats. I believe the experience provided by each is different enough, and we don't need to insist that one needs to cease to exist for the other to thrive. I'd rather just encourage people to play both.
Sorry for the double post, but I forgot to answer you, my friend.
I really believe the format can't handle a big division like this. It survived the Leviathan split because Leviathan never flew high enough. I've been playing Magic for 23 years now, and until 2007 we had so few formats it was quite easy to get people to even play 10-15 proxy Vintage. I stopped playing in 2008 and came back in 2012. By then Legacy got popular and there were a bunch of other popular formats eventually like Commander, Pauper, Modern, etc. With the game getting more expensive and time consuming each time, it becomes very hard to have people playing multiple formats. Usually someone has a main format, where the dedication and money goes; and a secondary one, just to play something different from time to time.
Duel Commander always suffered from this overload of formats. It's related to a purely for-fun format most competitive player joke about, so it has always been hard to bring competitive players from other formats to DC; and it also fails to launch events in several areas around the world, which also doesn't help. Being a 3rd or 4th format in importance to competitive players (Standard, Modern and Legacy are clearly ahead) it's very hard for the format to survive. If the small player base it has divides itself in 2, well then we're dead.
Why Wizards list is important for us to get behind? Because it makes the format have the support we always needed to bring competitive players under our umbrella. So either we keep playing a casual format with dwindling player-base, fighting Magic's Trinity of Formats for space, or we get behind an initiative that, JUST BY HAVING WIZARDS NAME ON IT, already makes it sound way less casual than DC. That Wizards 1x1 format will have a different name that isn't Commander is only the cherry on top of it all.
I mean, recently I saw a print from spastika where he was playing against VSL's Rachel Agnes. I have no idea if Rachel played 1x1 Commander before, but she's surely playing it now. Isn't that GREAT?
How's leviathan even doing btw? I'm surprised you even have data on it. It's literally non-existent over here and I'm in the dark about the whole thing. Does it follow the same DC banliste pre-20 life?
I ask this because if the MTGO banlist stabilizes, there's a chance it'll simply become leviathan right?
You pretty much need to speak or at least understand italian to find results and even then it's super hard. It doesn't help that their social media is pretty much dead and their website isn't any better.
And no, it's not doing so well, I've found a handfull of non-DTC 16-24 people tournaments from Italy or France exclusively, while you can find a bunch of 30+ DC tournaments (and dozens more 8-12 people FNMs) not only in France but also in America, Phillipines, Czech Repuplic, Brazil, Peru, Mexico, etc.
Leviathan's current banlist is this:
Ancestral Recall
Ancient Tomb
Balance
Back to Basics
Black Lotus
Channel
Chaos Orb
Dig Through Time
Entomb
Falling Star
Fastbond
Food Chain
Gaea’s Cradle
Gifts Ungiven
Grim Monolith
Grindstone
Hermit Druid
Humility
Imperial Seal
Karakas
Library of Alexandria
Loyal Retainers
Mana Crypt
Mana Drain
Mana Vault
Mind Twist
Mishra’s Workshop
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire
Mystical Tutor
Natural Order
Necropotence
Oath of Druids
Protean Hulk
Serra Ascendant
Sensei’s Divning Top
Shahrazad
Sol Ring
Strip Mine
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
Time Vault
Time Walk
Tinker
Tolarian Academy
Treasure Cruise
Vampiric Tutor
Yawgmoth’s Bargain
Ante and dexterity cards are also banned.
The following cards are also banned from being played as a commander :
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
Edric, Spymaster of Trest
Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Zur the Enchanter
Note the absence of Marath, Yisan, and Necrotic Ooze. They still don't show up at Top 8s.
Sorry, I know you hate 30HP with all your heart, but don't misjudge things because of what you like, leviathan was born some months ago, when the announcement of 1v1 MTGO commander there was no more reasons to keep it a separate format, it was much much better to give support for the new banlist to shape itself rather then having 3 formats.
If it was the opposite, a 20HP format getting out of old DC, it would have even less players than Leviathan today, those decks are not played because people are not making physical decks, wasting money in a format they don't know if it will live since it is new + WoTC announcemente. Yisan is a very very solid tier 1 deck, and actually pretty oppressive, and you don't see a single one on their lists, why? Because people have sold their yisan decks and don't want to build again and lose their deck again (it is banned for example in WoTC list), Marath is another one, it is more a case of people are playing with what they have, and usually it is decks that are playable on both DC and Leviathan... Geist, Baral and Jace. You must remember their reports are all physical tournaments, not online, so that makes a HUGE difference on what is played or not, you can not consider leviathan for 30HP, you must consider DC before the change, THAT is what WoTC will probably look like, not what leviathan is today.
We don't know, if the list stabilizes it means they are satisfied with what it becomes, and we must support it because it will be bigger than Leviathan which will die(surely) and DC has also a big chance of not existing anymore, maybe it will for the fans of 20HP, but most DC players, as I am, want only a balanced good commander 1v1 to play, and we will play the most played one, if it is DC I'll go for it, but it looks like WoTC 1v1 will be the main format for 1v1 commander, so lets give its support, if it becomes like the old DC, I will be very very happy with the result.
This! I am 100% behind you on this one!
Furthermore. My brother and I had a talk the other day (both of us has played DC for like a year ago, back in march) and we both agreed that if we were to start today, we would never go for Leviathan or DC. We would started in the format that WotC supports. And I really believe that this would be the case for a lot of the newcommers.
The thing is, in 1-2 years, DC and Leviathan is dead and WotC 1v1 list is all that is left. You can quote me on this one in 2019. The only thing that can stop this from being true is if WotC backs out.
I liked 30lp until I played 20lp and immediately noticed so many blue generals needed to be banned not because "lol blue so op, ban island XDD", but because they were playing with a ridiculously unfair cushion the game was not designed to work with.
But you guys are now delving on alternate realities to justify 30lp not being unplayable ***** where nothing but 4 variants of counters+freespells are playable.
Re-read the WotC list announcement article. It's non-competitive, won't even try to support all cards avaliable on paper, and the banlist will be weighted on "fun" for a casual experience. Not to mention the clear and bold "To be perfectly clear, this banned list is only intended for Magic Online Commander", which means we can break the format apart completelly and they won't react unless we're all playing online while the vast majority of commander players don't.
And you know what's worse? Whatever rogue deck you're all longing to play in your wet dream of a balanced 30lp commander list, is more likely to beat Zurgo, Bruyhan and Gesit at 20lp than it is to beat Oloro, Vial+Kraum and Tasigur at 30lp. If you don't literally plan to play Oloro to farm MODO treasure chests, giving up on DC for WotC's list is literally throwing everyone's fun and deckbuilding hours down the drain for false hopes, and I look forward to everyone complaining in a month when your opponent's life is static at 40 with a Zur's Weirding on the battlefield and a full grip of counters.
It's like you don't want to listen to our arguments, which is ok I guess.
Everyone knows Wizards list has problems right now. Everyone knows they said it's supposed to be casual. There, now that's an easy reminder.
I don't think that'll be the same after their July announcement though. Also no one's stopping you from playing DC20, we're just conjecturing how it's probably going to die and we can't afford a divided playerbase anymore.
There are 2 different arguments being discussed here.
1) What is the healthiest and most balanced format in Terms of mechanical play? I agree with Cainsson and Yuji here
2) What formats will live, and what will die? I agree with Fsecco here. Whether I like it or not people are going to gravitate to the official wizards format. You can try to fight this but you will lose. You are better off prepping for the wizards list now because it's just a matter of time before DC disappears. This disappearance will be decided by new players. When a new player is presented a choice to play a pseudo official format or a complete third party format I would put money on the majority choosing the pseudo official format.
PS: Also, the lack of diversity we see can be proven in MTGTOP8 data. We have 4 decks with over 10% representation and a gap of 4% to the next one in the last 3 months. We never had this kind of problem in 30hp. Granted, there's still Vial there, so things should get better, but even when we had dominant decks in DC30 we didn't have this kind of meta.
@Fsecco. I think you have to ignore the meta from before the ban. Vial was truly opressive and it was pretty much the entire reason Tier 2 decks couldn't complete and thus the reason for a lack in diversity.
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)
Speaking from experience, at 30 life the disadvantage is less than in 20. When I was piloting my Kaalia back in 30, it took me a year to be able to save up for all 3 mardu duals. Though I definitely felt the improvement, I can't discount the fact that even prior to the purchase I was at least able to play.
The disadvantage of suboptimal manabases goes down even further if the matchup is control vs control, for reasons that one can easily extrapolate.
At 20 life though, the compromised speed of a land entering the battlefield tapped or taking the 2 damage from an untapped shock has very dire consequences. So yeah there is merit to that accessibility argument at 30 life, if we're looking at things through the eyes of a multicolor player.
But to your point, in a tournament setting, be it 20 or 30, I believe you need a 100% optimized deck to win the whole thing.
The thing is, on the next months the data is probably not really liable for any format... Only when a format really becomes a lot played it will actually have data to cover what decks are oppressive or not. That is why data from Leviathan never was really reliable, too few tournaments to gather the right data.
We're really getting through a strange year for Commander. I feel that since the announcement of the 20 life change, which didn't come with an immediate banlist, we've been in the dark as to what the format actually is. It's been a forced hiatus of a long, long time that isn't ending soon. I thought wiz banlist would do it, but it didn't. Maybe the 1x1 banlist will, we'll see. For now we are still in a format that has no real face nor a real community.
In competitive environments like big tournamets yes, but we must never forget how Duel Commander appeals to a more casual crowd.
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)
Even with scarce tournaments, eventually over time the sample size will grow, as long as tournament results continue to be documented. It will just take more time if the player base is really as small as you say.
I'm not a fan of the current MTGO banlist, but I'm all for unification, and am willing to do my part to contribute. So if an LGS here in my country hosts a tournament using the new format rules, I will sleeve up a Mardu deck with as much anti-meta tech as humanly possible, encourage all my 20 life buddies to do the same and try it out. But man if I get bodied in round one by an upheaval, I'm only going to support that format as a spectator after, at least until the banlist gets polished.
At the same time, though it seems like I'm contradicting what I said about unification, I hope 20 life DC doesn't die. In the same way that there are numerous 60-card formats that people can choose from or switch around with, I don't think it would be the end of the world to have two 1v1 commander formats. I believe the experience provided by each is different enough, and we don't need to insist that one needs to cease to exist for the other to thrive. I'd rather just encourage people to play both.
And I know people are sick of hearing this from me lol but I gotta say it, I still believe the best way to satisfy players of both 30 life and 20 life is to get the average of those 2 numbers.
No.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
Proven bull***** by the very fact that you can find more different decks at top8 in the last 4 major events for DC than in ALL events for Leviathan pooled together.
You remember 30lp DC with rose-tinted glases. Tier2s never had a chance, wether it was Zur, Oloro, Tasigur or Yisan, you played that deck at 100% or you were not gonna win a single tournament, most likely not even a single match if you were unlucky enough to not meet another Tier2 or rogue all night.
I played 30lp a lot and had fun with Kaalia, Griselbrand, Doran and Ezuri. But I never won anything with those decks and I knew it wasn't even a possibility, on the other hand I won 8/14 tournaments I played with Oloro while it was legal.
Meanwhile, in 20lp I beat Vial+Kraum, Breya and Zurgo with Bruse+Reyhan, Karlov and Queen Marchesa. And I felt at all times it was possible to defeat all three with the same deck through deckbuilding and practice.
Comparing 30lp to 20lp does feel like comparing Standard to Modern, the problem is you clearly hate Modern and would rather have a 2 deck format than play a format where various different flavors of aggro, midrange and tempo are avaliable.
It doesn't, you'll just waste your money building a pile of crap that'll never even top8, unless there's only 8 players.
Beating Oloro, Vial+Kraum or Tasigur with Tier2 decks is a fantasy. The Leviathan meta is exactly the same as the competitive 30LP DC meta was with the exeption that Vial+Kraum erased Jenara and Anafenza from the list. And absolutely all top8s were among those SIX decks (Vial+Kraum, Geist, Jace/Teferi, Baral, Narset/Wanderer and Titania), and yes, those are SIX decks because both High Tide decks and both Armaggedon decks play exactly the same.
In 30lp, at a competitive level, if you're not Tier1 you don't exist.
I ask this because if the MTGO banlist stabilizes, there's a chance it'll simply become leviathan right?
You pretty much need to speak or at least understand italian to find results and even then it's super hard. It doesn't help that their social media is pretty much dead and their website isn't any better.
And no, it's not doing so well, I've found a handfull of non-DTC 16-24 people tournaments from Italy or France exclusively, while you can find a bunch of 30+ DC tournaments (and dozens more 8-12 people FNMs) not only in France but also in America, Phillipines, Czech Repuplic, Brazil, Peru, Mexico, etc.
Leviathan's current banlist is this:
Ancient Tomb
Balance
Back to Basics
Black Lotus
Channel
Chaos Orb
Dig Through Time
Entomb
Falling Star
Fastbond
Food Chain
Gaea’s Cradle
Gifts Ungiven
Grim Monolith
Grindstone
Hermit Druid
Humility
Imperial Seal
Karakas
Library of Alexandria
Loyal Retainers
Mana Crypt
Mana Drain
Mana Vault
Mind Twist
Mishra’s Workshop
Mox Emerald
Mox Jet
Mox Pearl
Mox Ruby
Mox Sapphire
Mystical Tutor
Natural Order
Necropotence
Oath of Druids
Protean Hulk
Serra Ascendant
Sensei’s Divning Top
Shahrazad
Sol Ring
Strip Mine
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
Time Vault
Time Walk
Tinker
Tolarian Academy
Treasure Cruise
Vampiric Tutor
Yawgmoth’s Bargain
Ante and dexterity cards are also banned.
The following cards are also banned from being played as a commander :
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician
Edric, Spymaster of Trest
Erayo, Soratami Ascendant
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Zur the Enchanter
Banlist looks similar to old DC then. And no Marath, Yisan or ooze in top 8's..? Weird. Maybe they really shouldn't have been banned in the first place. Makes me wonder how Marath will do in 20 life.
But breya has blue, so she's scarier for me. I'm still on the fence with whether or not banning her was the right call. Hell, I'm still on the fence about Marath tbh.
Sorry, I know you hate 30HP with all your heart, but don't misjudge things because of what you like, leviathan was born some months ago, when the announcement of 1v1 MTGO commander there was no more reasons to keep it a separate format, it was much much better to give support for the new banlist to shape itself rather then having 3 formats.
If it was the opposite, a 20HP format getting out of old DC, it would have even less players than Leviathan today, those decks are not played because people are not making physical decks, wasting money in a format they don't know if it will live since it is new + WoTC announcemente. Yisan is a very very solid tier 1 deck, and actually pretty oppressive, and you don't see a single one on their lists, why? Because people have sold their yisan decks and don't want to build again and lose their deck again (it is banned for example in WoTC list), Marath is another one, it is more a case of people are playing with what they have, and usually it is decks that are playable on both DC and Leviathan... Geist, Baral and Jace. You must remember their reports are all physical tournaments, not online, so that makes a HUGE difference on what is played or not, you can not consider leviathan for 30HP, you must consider DC before the change, THAT is what WoTC will probably look like, not what leviathan is today.
We don't know, if the list stabilizes it means they are satisfied with what it becomes, and we must support it because it will be bigger than Leviathan which will die(surely) and DC has also a big chance of not existing anymore, maybe it will for the fans of 20HP, but most DC players, as I am, want only a balanced good commander 1v1 to play, and we will play the most played one, if it is DC I'll go for it, but it looks like WoTC 1v1 will be the main format for 1v1 commander, so lets give its support, if it becomes like the old DC, I will be very very happy with the result.
I mean, you can say what you want about Leviathan, but denying DC30 deck versatility is just wrong. You're quoting periods where busted decks dominated the meta like that was the norm. I mean, you cannot say this:
And really believe what you're saying in comparison to what Vial/Kraum did to the 20hp meta. You may win games against them, but %s don't lie. Vial dominated the 20hp field MORE THAN Oloro did with 30hp in reported tournaments. That's not even up for discussion, it's a FACT. Yisan didn't get even HALF the spread Vial did. So yeah, talk about rose-tinted glasses.
Now, Leviathan is another different issue. Vial is still legal there and it seems to be a big problem just as it was in DC20. I don't think Leviathan's banlist ever was or will be thoroughly updated, so I don't trust the format at all, and never played it.
The fact you're all missing, at least for my area, is that my opinion doesn't even matter that much. EVERYONE around me prefers Wizards, so the shift is inevitable.
Sorry for the double post, but I forgot to answer you, my friend.
I really believe the format can't handle a big division like this. It survived the Leviathan split because Leviathan never flew high enough. I've been playing Magic for 23 years now, and until 2007 we had so few formats it was quite easy to get people to even play 10-15 proxy Vintage. I stopped playing in 2008 and came back in 2012. By then Legacy got popular and there were a bunch of other popular formats eventually like Commander, Pauper, Modern, etc. With the game getting more expensive and time consuming each time, it becomes very hard to have people playing multiple formats. Usually someone has a main format, where the dedication and money goes; and a secondary one, just to play something different from time to time.
Duel Commander always suffered from this overload of formats. It's related to a purely for-fun format most competitive player joke about, so it has always been hard to bring competitive players from other formats to DC; and it also fails to launch events in several areas around the world, which also doesn't help. Being a 3rd or 4th format in importance to competitive players (Standard, Modern and Legacy are clearly ahead) it's very hard for the format to survive. If the small player base it has divides itself in 2, well then we're dead.
Why Wizards list is important for us to get behind? Because it makes the format have the support we always needed to bring competitive players under our umbrella. So either we keep playing a casual format with dwindling player-base, fighting Magic's Trinity of Formats for space, or we get behind an initiative that, JUST BY HAVING WIZARDS NAME ON IT, already makes it sound way less casual than DC. That Wizards 1x1 format will have a different name that isn't Commander is only the cherry on top of it all.
I mean, recently I saw a print from spastika where he was playing against VSL's Rachel Agnes. I have no idea if Rachel played 1x1 Commander before, but she's surely playing it now. Isn't that GREAT?
This! I am 100% behind you on this one!
Furthermore. My brother and I had a talk the other day (both of us has played DC for like a year ago, back in march) and we both agreed that if we were to start today, we would never go for Leviathan or DC. We would started in the format that WotC supports. And I really believe that this would be the case for a lot of the newcommers.
The thing is, in 1-2 years, DC and Leviathan is dead and WotC 1v1 list is all that is left. You can quote me on this one in 2019. The only thing that can stop this from being true is if WotC backs out.
But you guys are now delving on alternate realities to justify 30lp not being unplayable ***** where nothing but 4 variants of counters+freespells are playable.
Re-read the WotC list announcement article. It's non-competitive, won't even try to support all cards avaliable on paper, and the banlist will be weighted on "fun" for a casual experience. Not to mention the clear and bold "To be perfectly clear, this banned list is only intended for Magic Online Commander", which means we can break the format apart completelly and they won't react unless we're all playing online while the vast majority of commander players don't.
And you know what's worse? Whatever rogue deck you're all longing to play in your wet dream of a balanced 30lp commander list, is more likely to beat Zurgo, Bruyhan and Gesit at 20lp than it is to beat Oloro, Vial+Kraum and Tasigur at 30lp. If you don't literally plan to play Oloro to farm MODO treasure chests, giving up on DC for WotC's list is literally throwing everyone's fun and deckbuilding hours down the drain for false hopes, and I look forward to everyone complaining in a month when your opponent's life is static at 40 with a Zur's Weirding on the battlefield and a full grip of counters.
Everyone knows Wizards list has problems right now. Everyone knows they said it's supposed to be casual. There, now that's an easy reminder.
I don't think that'll be the same after their July announcement though. Also no one's stopping you from playing DC20, we're just conjecturing how it's probably going to die and we can't afford a divided playerbase anymore.
1) What is the healthiest and most balanced format in Terms of mechanical play? I agree with Cainsson and Yuji here
2) What formats will live, and what will die? I agree with Fsecco here. Whether I like it or not people are going to gravitate to the official wizards format. You can try to fight this but you will lose. You are better off prepping for the wizards list now because it's just a matter of time before DC disappears. This disappearance will be decided by new players. When a new player is presented a choice to play a pseudo official format or a complete third party format I would put money on the majority choosing the pseudo official format.
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)