I've stopped playing MTGO leagues until they fix the banlist on the 24th but from my experience I never faced more than two Tasigurs in a single league if I was unlucky, whereas I would regularly play four to five CONSECUTIVE Baral decks in a single league. You have no idea how frustrating it is losing to a turn 3 or 4 Polymorph off Mystical/Personal every single time. I would gladly take Strip Mine+ Crucible over it because you have to at least assemble those pieces and I can respect that. I do have to commend WotC for taking swift action two weeks from the format induction.
I have experienced the 4/5 baral as well in a league before. I actually think Baral is definitely a tier ahead of tasigur for sure, tasigur can struggle vs the mono green decks quite easily while the baral deck can just poly into emrakul and they have barely any interaction at all which is a huge advantage for grinding trophies. Granted I use to think emrakul was ok to be in the format but it causes a lot of problems I think, if they dont plan on nerfing green I think they should ban emrakul as well because if they nerf blue too much everybody will just switch to mono green decks. Yes they can just switch to the other emrakul, but thats infinitely more fair than hardcasting aeons torn or ulamog.
My bans would be this Emrakul Upheaval DTT Treasure cruise Ancient tomb Mox Diamond Strip mine Life from the loam Mystical tutor Vampiric tutor. Yes I didnt mention some other strong cards because I dont think its reasonable to expect a mass ban of all the strong cards.
Every other Highlander variant is played with 20lp. Duel Commander starting at 30lp was a mistake from the beggining and it wasted years of what could have been healthy development, 1v1 commiting the same mistake is infuriating.
They'll either drop the lp or be banning cards every month because 1v1 can't be balanced with 30lp. And yes I will say I told you so then, but that doesn't mean I don't get to keep shining the spotlight on the glaring weakness of this format because every week from here till it's fixed is a week I don't get to play.
This thread doesn't really serve any other purpose, we can't even brew since we'll be at the "wait till it's fixed" indefinitely.
What is Narset doing on that list? It's a 6 drop that needs to survive and swing the next turn to get a chance to have any impact at all (with a chance to fizzle). Yes, you can play all the extra turn/extra combat effects, but good luck playing with the rest of your deck being esentially crap and being reliable on your 6 drop without all the fast mana that is available in multiplayer EDH. And yes, there are lands like Halls of Bandit and such, but there are cards in every EDH deck that randomly goes well with your general.
Narset is nowhere to be seen and you're calling already for banning her? It seems that you just dislike the general more then anything else. Also, 1v1 mtg is supposed to be played with 7 cards in your hand, not 8-9 (commander and partners), so the argument that 1v1 mtg is supposed to be played with 20lp is flawed here, imo.
No, she is not bad now. But you're not reading my post right.
When Baral gets banned Tasigur will take it's place. When Tasigur gets banned, Vial Smasher will take it's place. Then Selvala/Nissa, Breya, Jace, Titania, Wanderer, Leovold, Narset, Teferi...
It's not that most of those Commanders are wrong, it's that with 30lp we'll be playing solitaire untill all solitaire commanders are banned and then the semi-solitaire decks (Zurgo, Geist, Nin) will reign and surely get banned too. Or they could just drop the 10lp cushion, the fast mana (Tomb and Moxen), Strip Mine, instant tutors and delve spells. Then we'd just have to ban Breya and Vial Smasher, maybe Aeons Torn.
Every other Highlander variant is played with 20lp. Duel Commander starting at 30lp was a mistake from the beggining and it wasted years of what could have been healthy development, 1v1 commiting the same mistake is infuriating.
They'll either drop the lp or be banning cards every month because 1v1 can't be balanced with 30lp. And yes I will say I told you so then, but that doesn't mean I don't get to keep shining the spotlight on the glaring weakness of this format because every week from here till it's fixed is a week I don't get to play.
This thread doesn't really serve any other purpose, we can't even brew since we'll be at the "wait till it's fixed" indefinitely.
Well I'm on the opposite side, of course. It's getting boring just hearing people complaining about the life change still. Everyone who thought 30hp was better GOT OVER IT and played DC with 20hp anyway. So either you do that or please stop making boring and repetitious posts here. We're walking in circles, even to a point of uselessly trying to predicting what'll happen after Tasi and Baral (and Vial probably) are banned.
I also happen to disagree that 30hp will need regular bans. I think it will stabilize and be healthier than it is now. I actually believe and have said many times that 20hp is way more prone to constant banning than 30hp. But well, time will tell that and I won't repeat this here again.
PS: we also had a period of 2 months where no one could brew properly when the format changed from 30 to 20 life. But you were okay with the hiatus then, right? Just because you liked the decision, right?
What is Narset doing on that list? It's a 6 drop that needs to survive and swing the next turn to get a chance to have any impact at all (with a chance to fizzle). Yes, you can play all the extra turn/extra combat effects, but good luck playing with the rest of your deck being esentially crap and being reliable on your 6 drop without all the fast mana that is available in multiplayer EDH. And yes, there are lands like Halls of Bandit and such, but there are cards in every EDH deck that randomly goes well with your general.
Narset is nowhere to be seen and you're calling already for banning her? It seems that you just dislike the general more then anything else. Also, 1v1 mtg is supposed to be played with 7 cards in your hand, not 8-9 (commander and partners), so the argument that 1v1 mtg is supposed to be played with 20lp is flawed here, imo.
No, she is not bad now. But you're not reading my post right.
When Baral gets banned Tasigur will take it's place. When Tasigur gets banned, Vial Smasher will take it's place. Then Selvala/Nissa, Breya, Jace, Titania, Wanderer, Leovold, Narset, Teferi...
It's not that most of those Commanders are wrong, it's that with 30lp we'll be playing solitaire untill all solitaire commanders are banned and then the semi-solitaire decks (Zurgo, Geist, Nin) will reign and surely get banned too. Or they could just drop the 10lp cushion, the fast mana (Tomb and Moxen), Strip Mine, instant tutors and delve spells. Then we'd just have to ban Breya and Vial Smasher, maybe Aeons Torn.
Well, if we are to take results into concideration, we have to assume Narset is not really good, seeing as there is no Narset in the league going 5-0 compared to all other decks. What other conclusion you want to draw out of this, honestly?
I really like the approach they are taking. Rather then banning everything right away, they're waiting to see what people can come up with. It's not only generals, it's also the fact that the whole banlist is rather small and there is lots of room for people to explore and experiment. So you can get rid of the most oppresive generals and see where you stand (Baral, Tasigur). From my experience, playing in the leagues and outside of them (in practice room people try lots of wild things), there are many viable, diverse and fun commanders/strategies. I've lost to Zurgo, various green decks, aggresive decks, some combo and other weird impressive things (playing Narset).
I understand what is your point, but I don't share your fear. You could even say it would be the same if we were to play in the 20lp meta. You'd have to start banning generals from the other spectrum, because noone else would be able to keep up with them having +1-2 cards from "what was intended". So you'd have to ban Zurgo, Geist and other aggresive generals who would be just playing "solitaire" to take opponent from 20 to 0 asap.
We'll have to wait and see how it goes.
Except we already know how it goes. All the good spells and commanders get banned and something else breaks because what allows decks to break the format is that it's impossible for aggro to challenge combo/control with 10 extra life in singleton once the correct build is found. 100% build Zurgos can beat 75% build Tasigurs. But 100% build Zurgo played at top performance, starting first with a god hand, still loses to 100% build Tasigur.
On the other hand, in Duel Commander Zurgo is popular and capable of punishing greedy mana bases and beating control (as it should be, aggro is paper to control's rock), but 100% build Zurgo can still be beat by 100% build Bruse+Reyhan and Baral. Because that format IS balanced after years of testing and hammering into shape that WotC is ignoring
I don't say the formats need to be identical, but I do find it infuriating that'd you'd rather have a much larger banlist than lose 10lp.
In a middle ground between Duel Commander and Online 1v1, so long as it's 20lp, I would like Doomsday, Survival of the Fittest and Moat to remain banned, while Necrotic Ooze, Marath, Tasigur and Baral remain unbanned. Baral doesn't need to die in 20lp without the Strip Mine lock, Mystical Tutor and the delve spells despite being a contender for best deck in the format.
Every other Highlander variant is played with 20lp. Duel Commander starting at 30lp was a mistake from the beggining and it wasted years of what could have been healthy development, 1v1 commiting the same mistake is infuriating.
They'll either drop the lp or be banning cards every month because 1v1 can't be balanced with 30lp. And yes I will say I told you so then, but that doesn't mean I don't get to keep shining the spotlight on the glaring weakness of this format because every week from here till it's fixed is a week I don't get to play.
This thread doesn't really serve any other purpose, we can't even brew since we'll be at the "wait till it's fixed" indefinitely.
Well I'm on the opposite side, of course. It's getting boring just hearing people complaining about the life change still. Everyone who thought 30hp was better GOT OVER IT and played DC with 20hp anyway. So either you do that or please stop making boring and repetitious posts here. We're walking in circles, even to a point of uselessly trying to predicting what'll happen after Tasi and Baral (and Vial probably) are banned.
I also happen to disagree that 30hp will need regular bans. I think it will stabilize and be healthier than it is now. I actually believe and have said many times that 20hp is way more prone to constant banning than 30hp. But well, time will tell that and I won't repeat this here again.
PS: we also had a period of 2 months where no one could brew properly when the format changed from 30 to 20 life. But you were okay with the hiatus then, right? Just because you liked the decision, right?
There was no such period. While Breya and Vial were dominating people were developing Baral, Karlov, Marchesa, Blueless Bruse, Blackless Bruse and Tymna/Thrasios and it turns out as soon as the problem commanders were gone those decks became Tier 1/1.5 and the format is now the healthiest is has ever been but people like you don't even want to play it because they're infatuated with playing an inherently broken format just because it lets them play solitaire blue decks.
Baral is Tier 1 in Duel Commander and probably the best deck by a small margin, but you'd rather play a format where it needs to be banned because you want to pretend you're playing a bad Vintage deck instead.
Every other Highlander variant is played with 20lp. Duel Commander starting at 30lp was a mistake from the beggining and it wasted years of what could have been healthy development, 1v1 commiting the same mistake is infuriating.
They'll either drop the lp or be banning cards every month because 1v1 can't be balanced with 30lp. And yes I will say I told you so then, but that doesn't mean I don't get to keep shining the spotlight on the glaring weakness of this format because every week from here till it's fixed is a week I don't get to play.
This thread doesn't really serve any other purpose, we can't even brew since we'll be at the "wait till it's fixed" indefinitely.
Well I'm on the opposite side, of course. It's getting boring just hearing people complaining about the life change still. Everyone who thought 30hp was better GOT OVER IT and played DC with 20hp anyway. So either you do that or please stop making boring and repetitious posts here. We're walking in circles, even to a point of uselessly trying to predicting what'll happen after Tasi and Baral (and Vial probably) are banned.
I also happen to disagree that 30hp will need regular bans. I think it will stabilize and be healthier than it is now. I actually believe and have said many times that 20hp is way more prone to constant banning than 30hp. But well, time will tell that and I won't repeat this here again.
PS: we also had a period of 2 months where no one could brew properly when the format changed from 30 to 20 life. But you were okay with the hiatus then, right? Just because you liked the decision, right?
There was no such period. While Breya and Vial were dominating people were developing Baral, Karlov, Marchesa, Blueless Bruse, Blackless Bruse and Tymna/Thrasios and it turns out as soon as the problem commanders were gone those decks became Tier 1/1.5 and the format is now the healthiest is has ever been but people like you don't even want to play it because they're infatuated with playing an inherently broken format just because it lets them play solitaire blue decks.
Baral is Tier 1 in Duel Commander and probably the best deck by a small margin, but you'd rather play a format where it needs to be banned because you want to pretend you're playing a bad Vintage deck instead.
I know you prefer 20hp, but you are completely ignoring the 2 months between the 20hp announcement and its actual banlist/implementation. How could people be brewing CMD2016 commanders if the set wasn't even spoiled yet? Don't distort what happened. The hiatus happened for DC in 2016, just like it's happening now with Wizards 1x1. It's a terrible phase, I know, but this will change.
People are playing Wizards' format because it's the format that has most support right now. Everyone knows the banlist is broken. But see, Wizards' is already getting their hands on it this Wednesday. Isn't it great to have this kind of attention? I have no idea how the 1x1 is doing IRL, but having daily results online makes the format a lot more engaging than what we had with Duel (after the January announcement, we had a REAL downtime in reported DC tournaments, for example).
You call DC balanced, but I look at %'s and see a clear 4 deck dominance, something that, when it happened in 30hp, we all knew we had a terribly unbalanced meta. So, you claim the Tasigur 30hp meta was unbalanced (Tasi had 13%) and also claim now the DC meta is balanced, even when it has 3 decks on that same 13% range (that you think shouldn't be banned)? So let's just call things by their name. Just admit you PREFER the 20hp meta and play style and let us be done with this nonsensical endless cyclical discussion.
That's the most ridiculous argument I've read so far.
We had a 2 months heads up to the lp change, but 20lp tournaments weren't being run at that time, we were still playing the 30lp meta as it had been to that point while speculating about 20lp. Online is completely different since tournaments are happening while the format is broken.
These situations are not comparable. Also, you keep whining about people playing Zurgo like it matters. Zurgo has 12% format presence, it also has only 3 top4 results in the past 10 tournaments reported. Tasigur had 16% format presence AND 80% of top4s. You are biased and misusing data to try and equate Zurgo's cost-based popularity to Tasigur's performance-based dominance.
And of course I prefer being able to play 13 different decks (including Baral) with good representation of aggro, tempo, midrange, combo and control instead of Baral or bust. And I'd rather not have to go through months of downtime and dozens of banlist updates just to end at the point where DC was last year. You'd have to be damaged not to.
WotC is wasting everyone's time when they had a cache of useful information as to why 30lp can't be balanced a google search away.
The situation is exactly the same. Wizards 1x1 format doesn't exist yet. It will exist only after July 5th - THAT is the format we're waiting for. What's going on now is just an "alpha" version of it, with a list that's coupled with multiplayer and bound to fail because of that. This format, as it exist right now on MTGO, is an unbalanced placeholder, nothing more nothing less. I don't how your area reacted to the 20hp announcement, but here everyone stopped playing 30hp because it was useless. No one bought cards for 30 hp nor for 20hp for 2 months waiting for the new banlist, so yeah there was a hiatus even worse than what we're having now. There were tournaments played with 20hp and a custom banlist during those months, if you don't remember or you're ignoring this on purpose, there's your bias.
About Zurgo, YOU keep bringing him up. I don't give a **** about Zurgo. I quoted 3 decks (named Partner Aggro, Zurgo and Geist) that have around 13% right now in the last month). This NEVER happened in DC30 (3 decks having that ammount of dominance at the same time). It's incredible how you fail to understand what I'm saying. I'll spell it for you: I'm not saying you should ban anything in DC right now, just pointing out, by comparison, how the meta feels lopsided into 3 dominant decks while the old 30hp was nothing like that. YOU are trying to say 30hp had problems with deck representation, but in my experience and in data I gathered at the time, it was nothing close to how lopsided DC looks right now, even after Vial.
The thing is that you value aggro presence above other things, and I don't. I value control/combo presence above other things. The 25/50/25 split we had in DC30 was OK enough for me. The 39/55/6 we have now is NOT ok to me. You can disagree with me on this, you have that right. But that's your OPINION, your PREFERENCE. There isn't right on wrong here.
About Tasigur, its ban was probably correct at the time, so idk what you're trying to say. I have no idea where you got that Top4 data, but I'd love to see it. Tasigur had 13% Top 8's at the time, and I know because I did the math back then in one of these topics. I don't think that was enough for a ban back then, but that's me.
EDIT: and STOP saying Zurgo gets more Top8s because it's cheap. That's ridiculous and you can never ever assume that just from looking at Top 8%. Swiss tournaments do NOT work like that, no matter how much you want them to. People have been looking into Top 8 %s for DECADES now to decide banlist policy. It's not you that's going to question that now.
EDIT2: also stop talking like ANYONE here is defending the Wizards 1x1 meta. It's a ridiculous meta and no one likes it, so it's NOT an argument against anything I or anyone else is saying.
It's really hard to say which format was better. 20 life wasn't around long enough to really flesh it out and see what it could have been after a few more updates. All I know is what DC30 looked like after years of tweaking and that's probably what this format will closely resemble once it gets it's ***** together. It wasn't a pretty sight if you like playing blueless grindy midrange or aggro and actually wanted to feel like you had a real chance at winning.
I have some hope wizards is going to be better. I think the trick to dealing with blue is banning the win cons not the CA. Ban the combo's, the nasty high cmc walkers and the Eldrazi that can't be Terminated. Force blue and combo to take much longer to win and maybe blueless aggro will have a shot.
Whatever you don't want a healthy format you want to play with yourself even if that means three colors and four gameplay archetypes don't get to exist.
And the current 6% combo representation in DC is misleading because it puts both Jace and Baral in "control" where High Tide and Polymorph don't belong, it's closer to 40/50/10, ironically more similar to Vintage than Online is.
It's really hard to say which format was better. 20 life wasn't around long enough to really flesh it out and see what it could have been after a few more updates. All I know is what DC30 looked like after years of tweaking and that's probably what this format will closely resemble once it gets it's ***** together. It wasn't a pretty sight if you like playing blueless grindy midrange or aggro and actually wanted to feel like you had a real chance at winning.
I have some hope wizards is going to be better. I think the trick to dealing with blue is banning the win cons not the CA. Ban the combo's, the nasty high cmc walkers and the Eldrazi that can't be Terminated. Force blue and combo to take much longer to win and maybe blueless aggro will have a shot.
I agree. The point is not what format is better, but which you like more and which will survive. About the wincons, I disagree. Control decks are known for not caring how they win with. I'm not for banning Rise from the Tides, for example - and banning all polymorph cards just makes the banlist clunky. But I'd agree that banning High Tide makes sense if Jace ever becomes a problem, better than banning Jace himself - specially in MTGO where a banned commander is a banned card too.
And look, I agree that the old DC30 was way more blue oriented, but I do remember good Doran/Anafenza decks, I could play Daretti, people could play Karador (that was "combo" but was also a midrange grindy deck if it needed to be). I don't know, it felt way more diverse in strategy than DC20 feels to me - and the numbers also help.
Whatever you don't want a healthy format you want to play with yourself even if that means three colors and four gameplay archetypes don't get to exist.
And the current 6% combo representation in DC is misleading because it puts both Jace and Baral in "control" where High Tide and Polymorph don't belong, it's closer to 40/50/10, ironically more similar to Vintage than Online is.
Look, you made yourself clear although you won't admit it. You don't LIKE 30hp. I can respect that. You think DC20 is more diverse than DC30 ever was - probably because you like better the decks it offers. There's nothing wrong with that. I don't play Modern because I don't like the decks the format presents me. I don't play basketball because I don't like the game. I don't watch superhero movies because I don't like them. It's called taste and everyone is entitled to theirs.
Just as you personally dislikes DC30, I dislike DC20. You can try all you want to say it was less diverse, less fun, etc, but at the end of the day it was YOUR perception of it. Numbers and other players experiences disagree with you, and that's what I was trying to show you. Even if you still think DC30 wasn't diverse, there's not a strong case to be made that DC20 is any different. I still believe DC30 was a bit more because it was more forgiving on rogue decks and budget players. But that's me.
You say that DC30 didn't have four gameplay archetypes, so I assume you think it was all control. Well I disagree, but maybe I'm giving you way more credit than you deserve. Magic got way more complicated than the old days of the aggro/control/combo trifecta. There are a lot of grey between those and a lot of decks that play multiple roles. This is what makes Commander a casual format to the eyes of everyone out of it. Some players refuse to understand the years theory Magic holds.
The thing is that you value aggro presence above other things, and I don't. I value control/combo presence above other things. The 25/50/25 split we had in DC30 was OK enough for me. The 39/55/6 we have now is NOT ok to me. You can disagree with me on this, you have that right. But that's your OPINION, your PREFERENCE. There isn't right on wrong here.
Let me add just some more things :D, to better out.
at 50% control representation they have put high tide (don't know why they did that), and also ramp decks which, I did at a time a split right when the format changed to 20HP, and at 30HP DC splitting further the archetypes into ramp, midrange... I've got something like this:
Also for those that do like aggro and see it under-represented do remember a thing, at eternal formats THERE is no true aggro tier 1, the pool from red is so big, that the only tier 1 deck aggro will be burn UNLESS a commander has the tools to have a good matchup against it (Bruse because of lifelink). Basically, an aggro deck will never race a burn deck on eternal formats ever, Bruse is the only thing that keeps the non-zurgo aggro up. That is why I've never supported this push into aggro, because it will never happen unless you ban the best 5 burn cards + Zurgo, I'm not saying he is overpowered, but I am saying that aggro can not race burn on eternal formats, all other decks with +2% on aggro in any eternal format ARE midrange, which was one of the most played archetype at DC 30HP.
Anyway, lets first support this MTGO format! :D, I have good expectations that it will reach a balance in a few months and we'll be able to play fairly again! If it doesn't work, no problem DC is up there still, let us hope WoTC does the right thing!
Anyway, check out our 15 man 20 life DC tournament results!
1st Bruse Tarl/Reyhan
2nd Queen Marchesa (yaaayy that's meeee)
3rd Yisan, the Wanderer Bard
4th Bruse Tarl/Akiri
5th Karlov of the Ghost Council
6th Tymna/Kraum
7th Leovold, Emmissary of Trest
8th Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
9th Zurgo Bellstriker
10th Ezuri, Renegade Leader
11th Gitrog Monster
12th Yasova, Dragonclaw
13th Captain Sisay
14th Rafiq of the Many
15th Atraxa, Praetor's Voice
Our metas look like this even in bigger tourneys. I think it's pretty healthy. And note zurgo not even cracking the top half of the rankings. But yeah lol i guess people who dislike aggro and midrange would hate this meta.
One thing i'm not a fan of is the asymmetry of having 2 commanders. I think there should be a joint tax for partners.
It looks like most (if not all) of the people excited about this new format are those very unhappy with 20 life DC. Just a quick survey for you guys.. if wizards decides to go down to 20 life, would you still support it? This isn't rhetorical, nor a prelude to an argument or anything, this is just earnest curiosity from my end.
I would, but I don't think its ideal, as you I share the thought that 25 HP could be very good and probably the best.
I would still support it, but we know what happened, the format got split, commander 20HP is much more modern-ish like and 30HP is legacy-ish type, it will always have this discussion since DC did that change from 30HP to 20HP. I dislike what it became, its gameplay, but I would support it still. The format must evolve to bring the most variety possible, and I don't think 20HP does that, but I would still support it as long as their choices makes sense (unbanning Balance is NOT something that makes sense, because it looks like trying to force geist to ALWAYS be tier 1, just as when they unbanned cataclysm).
Another thing, congrats for your tournament! But for me DC is much more like the first 4 instead of the whole 15, Ezuri, Captain Sisay, Yasova, Atraxa are way too slow for 20HP DC, so the variety came much much more for your meta instead of what it truly is xD. Also Zurgo is totally down on the format, because Bruse is just a beating for it to win. 3/15 partners is not bad, why argue about the partner taxes when it does not show as a problem xD? Partners are too weak by themselves, if you change the way it works, you kill all of them, and like I said some pages ago, Bruse is a tier 1 on DC because of how the format has become not because of its power (lifelink),having shared taxes is like playing with 1 commander only, and Bruse the second power at partner is ridiculous if you look at him alone, he is an awful Boros commander alone.
Just for a little brainstorming, I was trying to brew for both DC 20HP and 30HP commander, and it is awfully hard to come with partner commanders for both formats, Bruse is very good at DC and Vial is as broken as always at 30HP... Try for yourself, its very very hard to make a partner commander without those to become competitive, also Bruse is kind of okay, I don't see him as a big problem, at 30HP if the format balances out, he will probably be like a very solid tier 2, maybe a weaker tier 1, so i think partners are good to go. Bruse could be beaten by combo decks at 20HP, but... they are kind of scarce now.
Ah no i'm not saying partners should be banned.. I would never dream of getting the mechanic banned, I think it's very fun deckbuilding-wise. I'm saying commander tax should be shared for both partners.. The threat density is a bit too high with separate tax in my opinion. Shared tax would even things out, and people can still brew partner decks just fine. At least I think so. Also, my friend who's a math major said that the probability distribution of 1/98 vs 1/99 is not as negligible as people think. I guess in normal people's terms, he seems to think that your draws are a bit more consistent at 98 cards instead of 99. Makes sense I guess, but for me my only problem is with the separate tax.
Edit: i just read your post more properly. I'm not sure how well I can explain why separate taxes for partners make the game a bit uneven. I think having to choose between 2 commanders is already a nice perk for choosing to go for partners, but taxing them separately just feels a bit too much of an advantage. It's a nightmare for control decks, and I can only imagine the struggle blue-based control decks have trying to counterspell each commander while your opponent's hand stays at 6-7 cards. Even with my deck which is loaded with sweepers I can feel the uphill battle of keeping 2 commanders at bay.
Just for a little brainstorming, I was trying to brew for both DC 20HP and 30HP commander, and it is awfully hard to come with partner commanders for both formats, Bruse is very good at DC and Vial is as broken as always at 30HP... Try for yourself, its very very hard to make a partner commander without those to become competitive, also Bruse is kind of okay, I don't see him as a big problem, at 30HP if the format balances out, he will probably be like a very solid tier 2, maybe a weaker tier 1, so i think partners are good to go. Bruse could be beaten by combo decks at 20HP, but... they are kind of scarce now.
Ack. I treat 20 and 30 life like totally different formats. There's no way to accommodate the needs of one without compromising the other. I admire your resolve for trying haha!! I agree on your analysis on bruse though. Just like most aggressive decks, a 10 point life cushion will nerf it down a tier or 2. But when the MTGO meta stabilizes after a more polished banlist, maybe the separate partner tax will be an issue as well. Or not. But one thing's for sure, at 20 life when the pace is a bit faster, separate partner tax makes it hard for non-partner decks to keep up with that kind of momentum of bringing down threats.
Whatever you don't want a healthy format you want to play with yourself even if that means three colors and four gameplay archetypes don't get to exist.
And the current 6% combo representation in DC is misleading because it puts both Jace and Baral in "control" where High Tide and Polymorph don't belong, it's closer to 40/50/10, ironically more similar to Vintage than Online is.
That is a very good point
Quote from Fsecco »
I agree. The point is not what format is better, but which you like more and which will survive. About the wincons, I disagree. Control decks are known for not caring how they win with. I'm not for banning Rise from the Tides, for example - and banning all polymorph cards just makes the banlist clunky. But I'd agree that banning High Tide makes sense if Jace ever becomes a problem, better than banning Jace himself - specially in MTGO where a banned commander is a banned card too.
And look, I agree that the old DC30 was way more blue oriented, but I do remember good Doran/Anafenza decks, I could play Daretti, people could play Karador (that was "combo" but was also a midrange grindy deck if it needed to be). I don't know, it felt way more diverse in strategy than DC20 feels to me - and the numbers also help.
Nah, Abzan was trash. It couldn't win against combo. Karador was one of the lest efficient combo decks and it was nowhere to be seen at the end of DC 30
Abzan wasn't really trash lol, anafenza aggro-disrupt really made waves for a while. But I do remember feeling that dip in abzan representation towards the life total change. I didn't know it was coz of combo, I just suspected it was keranos wildfire lol. But yeah as far as combo is concerned, karador was outclassed by a lot of other commanders.
Metagames change. There was a time Anafenza was a beast in DC, and there were other times it was not. That it was losing to combo is far from being a reason to think it was trash. There isn't a 100% deck and there shouldn't be.
I still disagree with putting Jace and Baral at the combo branch, specially Baral. Jace and High Tide decks in general should probably be at combo, like they were when DC30 was played. But nowadays Jace is pretty much playing the tempo/control role and not the High Tide all-in combo it once did (in 20hp).
Anyway, check out our 15 man 20 life DC tournament results!
1st Bruse Tarl/Reyhan
2nd Queen Marchesa (yaaayy that's meeee)
3rd Yisan, the Wanderer Bard
4th Bruse Tarl/Akiri
5th Karlov of the Ghost Council
6th Tymna/Kraum
7th Leovold, Emmissary of Trest
8th Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
9th Zurgo Bellstriker
10th Ezuri, Renegade Leader
11th Gitrog Monster
12th Yasova, Dragonclaw
13th Captain Sisay
14th Rafiq of the Many
15th Atraxa, Praetor's Voice
Our metas look like this even in bigger tourneys. I think it's pretty healthy. And note zurgo not even cracking the top half of the rankings. But yeah lol i guess people who dislike aggro and midrange would hate this meta.
One thing i'm not a fan of is the asymmetry of having 2 commanders. I think there should be a joint tax for partners.
Yeah, this is a midrange-fest, illustrating perfectly my point. You think this is healthy and diverse. All I see are variations of same decks I hate. I guess anyone who hates 30hp feels the same way when they looked at a tournament result with several different decks that they'd all put in the "control" tab.
It looks like most (if not all) of the people excited about this new format are those very unhappy with 20 life DC. Just a quick survey for you guys.. if wizards decides to go down to 20 life, would you still support it? This isn't rhetorical, nor a prelude to an argument or anything, this is just earnest curiosity from my end.
I definitely would, as I did with DC20. Maybe I'd be bored with it after a while and quit - like I was doing with DC20. But I'd play it for sure instead of DC.
Abzan was never a trash, Anafenza was very very good against graveyard-centric decks and was very good "out-tempoing" a lot of decks. Doran was very very good against Titania, it was a very good tier 1 deck, I don't remember it taking the meta as other decks did, but I never found them leaving the 3-5% part of the meta, which are awesome numbers. Karador actually got left out EXACTLY because of Anafenza, Anafenza was almost an autowin against Karador, something like 85/15 the matchup if not even more loopsided, its funny because the reason an abzan combo deck (karador) got hated out has a lot to do with another one (Anafenza), but with a totally different style.
Abzan tempo was a tier 1 deck, and I bet if they balance MTGO now, it will become again, it is very very resilient, it just can't face the beasts (Vial, Tasigur, Baral), and things that crush their tempo.
I have experienced the 4/5 baral as well in a league before. I actually think Baral is definitely a tier ahead of tasigur for sure, tasigur can struggle vs the mono green decks quite easily while the baral deck can just poly into emrakul and they have barely any interaction at all which is a huge advantage for grinding trophies. Granted I use to think emrakul was ok to be in the format but it causes a lot of problems I think, if they dont plan on nerfing green I think they should ban emrakul as well because if they nerf blue too much everybody will just switch to mono green decks. Yes they can just switch to the other emrakul, but thats infinitely more fair than hardcasting aeons torn or ulamog.
My bans would be this Emrakul Upheaval DTT Treasure cruise Ancient tomb Mox Diamond Strip mine Life from the loam Mystical tutor Vampiric tutor. Yes I didnt mention some other strong cards because I dont think its reasonable to expect a mass ban of all the strong cards.
Also they should unban moat
They'll either drop the lp or be banning cards every month because 1v1 can't be balanced with 30lp. And yes I will say I told you so then, but that doesn't mean I don't get to keep shining the spotlight on the glaring weakness of this format because every week from here till it's fixed is a week I don't get to play.
This thread doesn't really serve any other purpose, we can't even brew since we'll be at the "wait till it's fixed" indefinitely.
When Baral gets banned Tasigur will take it's place. When Tasigur gets banned, Vial Smasher will take it's place. Then Selvala/Nissa, Breya, Jace, Titania, Wanderer, Leovold, Narset, Teferi...
It's not that most of those Commanders are wrong, it's that with 30lp we'll be playing solitaire untill all solitaire commanders are banned and then the semi-solitaire decks (Zurgo, Geist, Nin) will reign and surely get banned too. Or they could just drop the 10lp cushion, the fast mana (Tomb and Moxen), Strip Mine, instant tutors and delve spells. Then we'd just have to ban Breya and Vial Smasher, maybe Aeons Torn.
Well I'm on the opposite side, of course. It's getting boring just hearing people complaining about the life change still. Everyone who thought 30hp was better GOT OVER IT and played DC with 20hp anyway. So either you do that or please stop making boring and repetitious posts here. We're walking in circles, even to a point of uselessly trying to predicting what'll happen after Tasi and Baral (and Vial probably) are banned.
I also happen to disagree that 30hp will need regular bans. I think it will stabilize and be healthier than it is now. I actually believe and have said many times that 20hp is way more prone to constant banning than 30hp. But well, time will tell that and I won't repeat this here again.
PS: we also had a period of 2 months where no one could brew properly when the format changed from 30 to 20 life. But you were okay with the hiatus then, right? Just because you liked the decision, right?
Baral x1, JvP x1, Breya x1, Titania x1, Gitrog x1, Tasigur x1, Kraum & Vial x1, Bruse & Thrasios x1, Selvala x1, Nissa x1
Except we already know how it goes. All the good spells and commanders get banned and something else breaks because what allows decks to break the format is that it's impossible for aggro to challenge combo/control with 10 extra life in singleton once the correct build is found. 100% build Zurgos can beat 75% build Tasigurs. But 100% build Zurgo played at top performance, starting first with a god hand, still loses to 100% build Tasigur.
On the other hand, in Duel Commander Zurgo is popular and capable of punishing greedy mana bases and beating control (as it should be, aggro is paper to control's rock), but 100% build Zurgo can still be beat by 100% build Bruse+Reyhan and Baral. Because that format IS balanced after years of testing and hammering into shape that WotC is ignoring
I don't say the formats need to be identical, but I do find it infuriating that'd you'd rather have a much larger banlist than lose 10lp.
In a middle ground between Duel Commander and Online 1v1, so long as it's 20lp, I would like Doomsday, Survival of the Fittest and Moat to remain banned, while Necrotic Ooze, Marath, Tasigur and Baral remain unbanned. Baral doesn't need to die in 20lp without the Strip Mine lock, Mystical Tutor and the delve spells despite being a contender for best deck in the format.
There was no such period. While Breya and Vial were dominating people were developing Baral, Karlov, Marchesa, Blueless Bruse, Blackless Bruse and Tymna/Thrasios and it turns out as soon as the problem commanders were gone those decks became Tier 1/1.5 and the format is now the healthiest is has ever been but people like you don't even want to play it because they're infatuated with playing an inherently broken format just because it lets them play solitaire blue decks.
Baral is Tier 1 in Duel Commander and probably the best deck by a small margin, but you'd rather play a format where it needs to be banned because you want to pretend you're playing a bad Vintage deck instead.
I know you prefer 20hp, but you are completely ignoring the 2 months between the 20hp announcement and its actual banlist/implementation. How could people be brewing CMD2016 commanders if the set wasn't even spoiled yet? Don't distort what happened. The hiatus happened for DC in 2016, just like it's happening now with Wizards 1x1. It's a terrible phase, I know, but this will change.
People are playing Wizards' format because it's the format that has most support right now. Everyone knows the banlist is broken. But see, Wizards' is already getting their hands on it this Wednesday. Isn't it great to have this kind of attention? I have no idea how the 1x1 is doing IRL, but having daily results online makes the format a lot more engaging than what we had with Duel (after the January announcement, we had a REAL downtime in reported DC tournaments, for example).
You call DC balanced, but I look at %'s and see a clear 4 deck dominance, something that, when it happened in 30hp, we all knew we had a terribly unbalanced meta. So, you claim the Tasigur 30hp meta was unbalanced (Tasi had 13%) and also claim now the DC meta is balanced, even when it has 3 decks on that same 13% range (that you think shouldn't be banned)? So let's just call things by their name. Just admit you PREFER the 20hp meta and play style and let us be done with this nonsensical endless cyclical discussion.
We had a 2 months heads up to the lp change, but 20lp tournaments weren't being run at that time, we were still playing the 30lp meta as it had been to that point while speculating about 20lp. Online is completely different since tournaments are happening while the format is broken.
These situations are not comparable. Also, you keep whining about people playing Zurgo like it matters. Zurgo has 12% format presence, it also has only 3 top4 results in the past 10 tournaments reported. Tasigur had 16% format presence AND 80% of top4s. You are biased and misusing data to try and equate Zurgo's cost-based popularity to Tasigur's performance-based dominance.
And of course I prefer being able to play 13 different decks (including Baral) with good representation of aggro, tempo, midrange, combo and control instead of Baral or bust. And I'd rather not have to go through months of downtime and dozens of banlist updates just to end at the point where DC was last year. You'd have to be damaged not to.
WotC is wasting everyone's time when they had a cache of useful information as to why 30lp can't be balanced a google search away.
About Zurgo, YOU keep bringing him up. I don't give a **** about Zurgo. I quoted 3 decks (named Partner Aggro, Zurgo and Geist) that have around 13% right now in the last month). This NEVER happened in DC30 (3 decks having that ammount of dominance at the same time). It's incredible how you fail to understand what I'm saying. I'll spell it for you: I'm not saying you should ban anything in DC right now, just pointing out, by comparison, how the meta feels lopsided into 3 dominant decks while the old 30hp was nothing like that. YOU are trying to say 30hp had problems with deck representation, but in my experience and in data I gathered at the time, it was nothing close to how lopsided DC looks right now, even after Vial.
The thing is that you value aggro presence above other things, and I don't. I value control/combo presence above other things. The 25/50/25 split we had in DC30 was OK enough for me. The 39/55/6 we have now is NOT ok to me. You can disagree with me on this, you have that right. But that's your OPINION, your PREFERENCE. There isn't right on wrong here.
About Tasigur, its ban was probably correct at the time, so idk what you're trying to say. I have no idea where you got that Top4 data, but I'd love to see it. Tasigur had 13% Top 8's at the time, and I know because I did the math back then in one of these topics. I don't think that was enough for a ban back then, but that's me.
EDIT: and STOP saying Zurgo gets more Top8s because it's cheap. That's ridiculous and you can never ever assume that just from looking at Top 8%. Swiss tournaments do NOT work like that, no matter how much you want them to. People have been looking into Top 8 %s for DECADES now to decide banlist policy. It's not you that's going to question that now.
EDIT2: also stop talking like ANYONE here is defending the Wizards 1x1 meta. It's a ridiculous meta and no one likes it, so it's NOT an argument against anything I or anyone else is saying.
I have some hope wizards is going to be better. I think the trick to dealing with blue is banning the win cons not the CA. Ban the combo's, the nasty high cmc walkers and the Eldrazi that can't be Terminated. Force blue and combo to take much longer to win and maybe blueless aggro will have a shot.
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)
And the current 6% combo representation in DC is misleading because it puts both Jace and Baral in "control" where High Tide and Polymorph don't belong, it's closer to 40/50/10, ironically more similar to Vintage than Online is.
I agree. The point is not what format is better, but which you like more and which will survive. About the wincons, I disagree. Control decks are known for not caring how they win with. I'm not for banning Rise from the Tides, for example - and banning all polymorph cards just makes the banlist clunky. But I'd agree that banning High Tide makes sense if Jace ever becomes a problem, better than banning Jace himself - specially in MTGO where a banned commander is a banned card too.
And look, I agree that the old DC30 was way more blue oriented, but I do remember good Doran/Anafenza decks, I could play Daretti, people could play Karador (that was "combo" but was also a midrange grindy deck if it needed to be). I don't know, it felt way more diverse in strategy than DC20 feels to me - and the numbers also help.
Look, you made yourself clear although you won't admit it. You don't LIKE 30hp. I can respect that. You think DC20 is more diverse than DC30 ever was - probably because you like better the decks it offers. There's nothing wrong with that. I don't play Modern because I don't like the decks the format presents me. I don't play basketball because I don't like the game. I don't watch superhero movies because I don't like them. It's called taste and everyone is entitled to theirs.
Just as you personally dislikes DC30, I dislike DC20. You can try all you want to say it was less diverse, less fun, etc, but at the end of the day it was YOUR perception of it. Numbers and other players experiences disagree with you, and that's what I was trying to show you. Even if you still think DC30 wasn't diverse, there's not a strong case to be made that DC20 is any different. I still believe DC30 was a bit more because it was more forgiving on rogue decks and budget players. But that's me.
You say that DC30 didn't have four gameplay archetypes, so I assume you think it was all control. Well I disagree, but maybe I'm giving you way more credit than you deserve. Magic got way more complicated than the old days of the aggro/control/combo trifecta. There are a lot of grey between those and a lot of decks that play multiple roles. This is what makes Commander a casual format to the eyes of everyone out of it. Some players refuse to understand the years theory Magic holds.
Let me add just some more things :D, to better out.
at 50% control representation they have put high tide (don't know why they did that), and also ramp decks which, I did at a time a split right when the format changed to 20HP, and at 30HP DC splitting further the archetypes into ramp, midrange... I've got something like this:
5% aggro, 27% midrange, 6% ramp, 29% combo, 33% control.
For me that is totally ok!
Also for those that do like aggro and see it under-represented do remember a thing, at eternal formats THERE is no true aggro tier 1, the pool from red is so big, that the only tier 1 deck aggro will be burn UNLESS a commander has the tools to have a good matchup against it (Bruse because of lifelink). Basically, an aggro deck will never race a burn deck on eternal formats ever, Bruse is the only thing that keeps the non-zurgo aggro up. That is why I've never supported this push into aggro, because it will never happen unless you ban the best 5 burn cards + Zurgo, I'm not saying he is overpowered, but I am saying that aggro can not race burn on eternal formats, all other decks with +2% on aggro in any eternal format ARE midrange, which was one of the most played archetype at DC 30HP.
Anyway, lets first support this MTGO format! :D, I have good expectations that it will reach a balance in a few months and we'll be able to play fairly again! If it doesn't work, no problem DC is up there still, let us hope WoTC does the right thing!
Anyway, check out our 15 man 20 life DC tournament results!
1st Bruse Tarl/Reyhan
2nd Queen Marchesa (yaaayy that's meeee)
3rd Yisan, the Wanderer Bard
4th Bruse Tarl/Akiri
5th Karlov of the Ghost Council
6th Tymna/Kraum
7th Leovold, Emmissary of Trest
8th Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
9th Zurgo Bellstriker
10th Ezuri, Renegade Leader
11th Gitrog Monster
12th Yasova, Dragonclaw
13th Captain Sisay
14th Rafiq of the Many
15th Atraxa, Praetor's Voice
Our metas look like this even in bigger tourneys. I think it's pretty healthy. And note zurgo not even cracking the top half of the rankings. But yeah lol i guess people who dislike aggro and midrange would hate this meta.
One thing i'm not a fan of is the asymmetry of having 2 commanders. I think there should be a joint tax for partners.
I would still support it, but we know what happened, the format got split, commander 20HP is much more modern-ish like and 30HP is legacy-ish type, it will always have this discussion since DC did that change from 30HP to 20HP. I dislike what it became, its gameplay, but I would support it still. The format must evolve to bring the most variety possible, and I don't think 20HP does that, but I would still support it as long as their choices makes sense (unbanning Balance is NOT something that makes sense, because it looks like trying to force geist to ALWAYS be tier 1, just as when they unbanned cataclysm).
Another thing, congrats for your tournament! But for me DC is much more like the first 4 instead of the whole 15, Ezuri, Captain Sisay, Yasova, Atraxa are way too slow for 20HP DC, so the variety came much much more for your meta instead of what it truly is xD. Also Zurgo is totally down on the format, because Bruse is just a beating for it to win. 3/15 partners is not bad, why argue about the partner taxes when it does not show as a problem xD? Partners are too weak by themselves, if you change the way it works, you kill all of them, and like I said some pages ago, Bruse is a tier 1 on DC because of how the format has become not because of its power (lifelink),having shared taxes is like playing with 1 commander only, and Bruse the second power at partner is ridiculous if you look at him alone, he is an awful Boros commander alone.
Just for a little brainstorming, I was trying to brew for both DC 20HP and 30HP commander, and it is awfully hard to come with partner commanders for both formats, Bruse is very good at DC and Vial is as broken as always at 30HP... Try for yourself, its very very hard to make a partner commander without those to become competitive, also Bruse is kind of okay, I don't see him as a big problem, at 30HP if the format balances out, he will probably be like a very solid tier 2, maybe a weaker tier 1, so i think partners are good to go. Bruse could be beaten by combo decks at 20HP, but... they are kind of scarce now.
Ah no i'm not saying partners should be banned.. I would never dream of getting the mechanic banned, I think it's very fun deckbuilding-wise. I'm saying commander tax should be shared for both partners.. The threat density is a bit too high with separate tax in my opinion. Shared tax would even things out, and people can still brew partner decks just fine. At least I think so. Also, my friend who's a math major said that the probability distribution of 1/98 vs 1/99 is not as negligible as people think. I guess in normal people's terms, he seems to think that your draws are a bit more consistent at 98 cards instead of 99. Makes sense I guess, but for me my only problem is with the separate tax.
Edit: i just read your post more properly. I'm not sure how well I can explain why separate taxes for partners make the game a bit uneven. I think having to choose between 2 commanders is already a nice perk for choosing to go for partners, but taxing them separately just feels a bit too much of an advantage. It's a nightmare for control decks, and I can only imagine the struggle blue-based control decks have trying to counterspell each commander while your opponent's hand stays at 6-7 cards. Even with my deck which is loaded with sweepers I can feel the uphill battle of keeping 2 commanders at bay.
Ack. I treat 20 and 30 life like totally different formats. There's no way to accommodate the needs of one without compromising the other. I admire your resolve for trying haha!! I agree on your analysis on bruse though. Just like most aggressive decks, a 10 point life cushion will nerf it down a tier or 2. But when the MTGO meta stabilizes after a more polished banlist, maybe the separate partner tax will be an issue as well. Or not. But one thing's for sure, at 20 life when the pace is a bit faster, separate partner tax makes it hard for non-partner decks to keep up with that kind of momentum of bringing down threats.
Nah, Abzan was trash. It couldn't win against combo. Karador was one of the lest efficient combo decks and it was nowhere to be seen at the end of DC 30
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)
I still disagree with putting Jace and Baral at the combo branch, specially Baral. Jace and High Tide decks in general should probably be at combo, like they were when DC30 was played. But nowadays Jace is pretty much playing the tempo/control role and not the High Tide all-in combo it once did (in 20hp).
Yeah, this is a midrange-fest, illustrating perfectly my point. You think this is healthy and diverse. All I see are variations of same decks I hate. I guess anyone who hates 30hp feels the same way when they looked at a tournament result with several different decks that they'd all put in the "control" tab.
I definitely would, as I did with DC20. Maybe I'd be bored with it after a while and quit - like I was doing with DC20. But I'd play it for sure instead of DC.
Abzan tempo was a tier 1 deck, and I bet if they balance MTGO now, it will become again, it is very very resilient, it just can't face the beasts (Vial, Tasigur, Baral), and things that crush their tempo.
Where did you see this information?