I've uploaded gameplay from yesterday's CSM with Grixis Delve here: 29 JUL 17 CSM. The deck did as expected (X-1), but was, as always fun to play.
Another note, I truly think we need to revisit the ban listing, almost to a point that I'm getting tired of the format. We've systematically taken out a litany of combo cards and U cards and not shockingly critter based midrange and critter based aggro strategies, with support from continued design trend, are the most consistent and best in the format. This is debatable, but when a deck within 6-8 cards variation (4CBlood) has been piloted (I'm guilty I've piloted this deck as well ) to winning the tourney in over 25% of the overall matches in the season (likely higher win% capability in reality because this deck has been presented in less than half of all the matches possible [it's the best deck in format, and sure it loses sometimes, but when you beat it, you're prolly getting lucky or it's pilot is getting unlucky, or you've meta'd against it heavily at the cost of match% against other relevant strategies in the format]), then it should cause one to assess range in the format--do we live in a 1-2 best deck format. I don't think the needed change in the format involves this deck, because the cards in it are generally all fair, but work very well together (myriad 2-1 capability) and it ends games quickly when piloted well. And, it's a beatable deck, but beating it consistently tends to involve predatory build strategy that weakens one's build to a point of undesirability in multiple other, common matchups. My suggestion would be we make combo and control more powerful, I could revisit what I think is safe for the format, but won't do it in this post because I've brought these cards up ad nauseam historically as cards that could and should be in the format (I will relist these if there is more interest in changing the format).
However, and it hasn't seen much play recently, if we were to remain with the current ban list, the most busted card in this format is birthing pod (to a bad point, I would argue that this card is about as unbeatable as JTMS on an open board, with no immediate answer, but far better due to its strength in all other board states). I've rallied against Green before because of the flexibility of its multiple tutor effects available, while its near-peer equivalents in U/B are not. Birthing Pod is easily the worst (best) of these...some folks would cite Natural Order in this spot, but I think a good way of comparing the two cards is comparing the power between Fireblast and Sulfuric Vortex. Both are great and one does more now, but the other ensures that your opponent cannot interact with the one resource that matters, to you (sure they can, but they're likely drawing to 4-5 outs in deck, if they don't counter vortex, etc.).
Anyway, was just thinking about the format. I think an issue we'll run into is we don't have a litany of habitual players, and for every game I jam in the CSM I likely jam 10-30 more in the format in casual matches, so it might just be a personal issue, not perceived by other players due to their volume of play. Maybe it's a pessimistic outlook, but I think familiarity has bred contempt for me to some extent; but I think there's some credence logically as well given the relatively large subset of games I've seen or played personally--we're in a best deck format at this point--Let's change that--what do you think?
I do understand where you're coming from, but 4C Blood decks are not rampant, in fact there was not even one copy in today's event. So I don't see it's a problem at present.
The girl in this video reminds me of how I feel when I cast my Argothian Enchantress against the 4C Blood deck:
I move my face close to the screen, and start sticking out my tongue like a serpent in excitement, just like that girl at 1:34:34! In summary, as she rightly says: "It's happening!"
Principially there are 2 main parts, which I think are mixed together all the time, when we speak about bannings and/ or certain decks.
The theoretic one, some would call it the 'pure' magic part, and the practical one, some would call it the 'financial' part.
I would even go so far to claim, that this is the main reason for the popularity of all eternal formats, per se: That you don't have to change your deck, you must not buy new cards consistently. If you like that you could play Standard or Heirloom as PRE.
The back side of eternal formats is the rather stalemate meta. Fortunately, in this case, we are a rather small community online, and our format's path is not as much a beaten path like the other eternal formats. So, in the 3 years of existence of Chainsaw Massacre our meta did quite change.
While RDW dominated statistically the first year(s), the reign of 4C Blood is rather short.
But you delievered the reason of doubt for any action by yourself: I don't think the needed change in the format involves this deck, because the cards in it are generally all fair, but work very well together.
That is another reason for me: The gameplay is ok, it may be an uphill fight, but still a fight, while, for example, a resurrected or otherwise slipped in Emrakul just says : Game Over.
I do understand where you're coming from, but 4C Blood decks are not rampant, in fact there was not even one copy in today's event.
That's pretty much the same what I thought about Birthing Pod, when I read your post last week( sorry for not answering earlier, too busy).
For me as host, this question is the most important: Which consequence does this have on our event?
Is it like VintageSwiss, where one deck, Ravager Shops, always win the event? No, we had several other decks winning events, while 4C Blood was participating.
That is the most important for me.
So, even if you were right, would everybody play 4C Blood in the future? No, not at all, because the majority of players can just not afford to create new S100 decks only because the meta shifted or because they did not win the last 2 events, or just because it's Tuesday .
This of course works in both directions, if a player invested in a new deck, he wants to use it for quite some time without the fear of getting important parts banned.
That is one of the reasons, why I hesitate to replace once a month a S100 with a 'special restricted' sub-format. I can not guarantee that we could keep the format over some time! It makes no sense, if half of the players are missing. Although I have not give up the idea completely, yet. Because a German Highlander event as 'sub-format' would be accessible with all S100 decks by deleting their sideboards, which could be done in 2-3 min, when somebody missed the fact, that 'this' week, there is no normal S100. The others could prepare and maybe integrate some sideboard cards into their decks. I'm pretty sure the most players won't recognize a big change by the more than a dozen different cards in the legal lists, but much more by the missing sideboards. But, of course, Birthing Pod is banned there
So, I appreciate your post to put the finger in the wound( I wonder if that allegory exists in English:-), and of course that deck had some wins lately, but I think it's still too early for a final decision. Additionally we just had a voting on bannings recently, but I put Birthing Pod on the watchlist, which is wrong, actually it has never left it:-)
I think the best way to avoid dominance of 4C Blood is a detailed video-feature of explaing how to disturb it's mechanics with deck science...
How to improve maindeck and/or sideboard of existing popular deck strategies(WW, RDW etc.) vs 4C Blood, which cards works best...
Perhaps another one with a 'Radical Approach' - anti-decks that WILL beat it (but maybe not the event ...
I think the best way to avoid dominance of 4C Blood is a detailed video-feature of explaing how to disturb it's mechanics with deck science...
How to improve maindeck and/or sideboard of existing popular deck strategies(WW, RDW etc.) vs 4C Blood, which cards works best...
Perhaps another one with a 'Radical Approach' - anti-decks that WILL beat it (but maybe not the event ...
I like your comment ML Berlin.
I recommend fighting 4C Blood with a Reanimator deck. A reanimator deck can more consistently "go over the top" of 4C Blood.
ML Berlin, I strongly recommend the card "Rolling Earthquake" for you. It is great against dawts' 4C Blood deck, and is also fantastic against Golden Lin and RobertZDar.
Think you all missed my point a bit, or rather I was speaking in some ways from a position of verbal irony--I'd make this my modest proposal: The solution to this problem is not in exclusion, or rather it's in what we've chosen to exclude historically. I don't want to ban birthing pod, I don't want to ban natural order...but I also wonder why we've banned analogous cards of similar power level in other colors. Why is mystical tutor (banned) fundamentally more powerful than worldly tutor (unbanned), or entomb (banned) for that matter? You could argue that I'll get show and tell endstep T2 on my opposition's trn and drop an emrakul or omniscience into emrakul, etc, but you're generally looking at a 3 card combo to truly win outright. With worldly tutor I could T1 cast on my opposition's endstep for hermit druid, put into play T2, on T3 post draw flip my whole library into the gyard (assuming no basics) have narcomoeba come into play from gyard, play land 3 to get a bloodghast back (have the 3/2 artifact critter for back up 2CMC recast), and sac the moeba, ghast, and hermit to dread return to return angel of glory's rise, to return azami+lab maniac for the win. Regardless, worldly tutor often get's critical disruption on a time horizon needed (low end use) or get's primeval titan, which if it resolves generally means the game. Funny thing is, this was a deck piloted by DrPringles last week (and I applaud you Dr, I think it's sweet). I managed to beat this deck 2-0, not because I'm a great player, or because I had removal and counterspells (although these helped), but because I understood what he was doing. Often times, players make assumptions that become convictions based upon what is frankly incomplete or misunderstood information...what is the best way to understand a thing, well we could contemplate it, or we could try it. No thing is static, this game not excluded, to approach it dynamically is to understand that it is morphing over time, at one point these cards were dangerous, because they were just plain faster than the critters, the disruption, etc, they're not that way anymore...sure they'll get some busted draws every now and then win rapidly and easily, but solid, interactive midrange is just as likely to grind them out--it won't typically be in as short a timeframe, but it will be just as assured if played well. My point is why do we put false limits on ourselves and our format, that aren't even logically congruent with what we currently allow...Mike as your people would say, "This is not possible"--but my friend it is true.
In regards to Ravager Shops, I hate to leap immediately to an ad hominin attack, but I believe you're speaking about yourself grinding out the gatherling vintage swiss with a ravager list that I built specifically for you (and loan to you ) based upon playstyle and limited knowledge of the format to grind out a bunch of tickets. If anything, then I think you would see this mentality as truly what is frightening for this format and what is to some extent beyond baffling is that you would do one thing in another tournament knowing it was not healthy, to ostensibly reap benefits, but would preserve your own for something that you assumed more pure and fair...I suppose you shouldn't $#%^ in your own back yard...but this would seem, my friend, a bit hypocritical. I play this format for fun and creation, I tend not to run the same deck back (okay some weeks I'm lazy and run back an oldie), but part of me wants to show you that this finding is quite true and just run 4CBlood until something changes, and not at the cost of this deck; which plays out like a more modern version of the original sligh decks (the value red deck before deadguy red [burn]).
Sorry if the mosaic of my argument tends toward the fiery, I'm trying to lend my eyes which I feel at least in this case see more clearly to avail us of the myopia that's beset us. People don't truly want fair--they want freedom--this draws players...because frankly these decks are too expensive, generally, to rationalize grinding 4 tiks, when I could do that winning a few two man q's at a fraction of the price (considering I can play better than 60-70% of folks and am paired well or choose a deck with minimal poor pairings). This is not a format of grinders, it's a format of creation, why should we limit folks in how they decide to do that by having 1-2 decks that have only a few pairings below 45% (accounting for the fact that those decks that do favor in low margins against these decks have a few matchups that are likely 40% to lose etc). We just create an environment where range is limited and deck selection plays a greater role than imagination and capability...
Guess that's what I was trying to get after, let's put these back in the format:
Crucible of Worlds
Demonic Consultation
Demonic Tutor
Dig Through Time
Entomb
Gifts Ungiven
Imperial Seal
Intuition
Life from the Loam
Lion's Eye Diamond
Mana Drain
Memory Jar
Merchant Scroll
Mind's Desire
Mystical Tutor
Sensei's Divining Top
Stoneforge Mystic
Survival of the Fittest
Tinker (why is this worse than natural order, esp without moxen or sol rings etc)
Tolarian Academy
Treasure Cruise
Trinisphere
Vampiric Tutor
These cards all give combo and control decks a leg up against midrange and aggro, adding speed and consistency, and the best part is they force understanding and interaction at some point in time to beat...ie these sorts of cards enable high level decision making and a pure form of mtg where both players have to calculate risk to a higher extent due to increased consistency. Realistically, they open the meta up and enable a lot more cool stuff to rise to power (and well some of the other ones that don't do this, don't really do anything at all, ref trinisphere...so bad in 100c, why ban it).
Anyway, hope this follow up helps to enlighten or entertain you all. Take it easy
KB
P.S.--Check out Mardu Midrange/Control it's a deck I designed a while back to beat 4CBlood, C4R1S had some success with it, taking down a tourney with it. It's a very strong archetype vs. permanent based midrange or aggro, where is struggles (very poorly) is vs. U based control decks. It's a fine deck, just can't realistically beat permission, but I think it's at about a 60/40 or 55/45 split vs 4CBlood, given equal play on both sides. There are other strategies that can also beat 4CBlood the issue is they tend to be predatory in nature and have some matchups that are frankly just terrible, whereas this deck is a natural strategy (and likely the best one at doing it, eff and disruption) and it's worst matchups are likely still around the .50 mark.
And, I'd dispute the need for empirical results of resounding depth, theoretical physics and mental simulation likely allowed the first humans to know they shouldn't jump off of cliffs, or why it made sense to get large prey, like mammoths, to run off of said cliffs. The art was likely perfected by empirical results, but it was based on a pretty sound theory--stuff dies when if falls from great enough distance... (hmmm...this sounds like the woes of the previous standard rotation...results take time, and cost pain, in some ways this is yang to a more elegant, enlightened intuition that prevents the need for struggle by seeing clearly the problem...or we can bang our heads into it until we realize we can walk around it...eventually "even a blind chicken finds seed" another of your countryman's sayings I believe
I don't think 4c Blood needs any of its own cards banned to weaken it but, perhaps as lowman said, other cards can be unbanned to make other decks stronger.
In CMS Season 1, RDW won 10/52 events and Azorius 9/52.
Season 2, RDW won 11/52.
Season 3, 4c Blood has won 8/43 while White aggro has won seven. In terms of percentage of the metagame, 4c is much lower than RDW was. In terms of match win rate, 4c is much higher. As mentioned before, most commonly only one copy of 4c exists per event. Frequently, not a single copy is played. Maybe on two occasions, there is more than one player using the deck.
Here are Season 3 stats:
4+ Color 8
White Aggro 7
Esper 4
10 lowman02
6 dawts
4 Michelle_Wong
Champion; Gold Medal; Silver Medal;
Garlan Esper Selesnya
Yokai_ Green Ramp Abzan
Yokai_ Green Ramp Abantz
lowman02 White W Azorius
Michelle_Wong Azorius RDW
Yokai_ Green Ramp Bant
lowman02 Abzan Green Ramp
Sugar_Daddy Sneak&S Green Ramp
Michelle_Wong Azorius Izzet
totalhate 5c Midrange RUG
stsung Esper Azorius
dawts Abzund RUG
ChaosBlackDoom RDW RUB
The_Sensei RUG White W
lowman02 White W RDW
lowman02 White W Abzan
iniksbane White W RUB
The_Sensei Bant Mono Black
The_Sensei BUG 5c Midrange
C4R1S Jund RUB
totalhate 5c Midrange Azorius
lowman02 Abzan Simic
lowman02 BUG Abzund
dawts Abzund Azorius
dawts Abzund White W
dawts Abzund RDW
Michelle_Wong Esper Abzund
BoozeMongoose BUG Abzund
robertZDar White W BUG
dawts Abzund BUG
dawts Abzund White W
lowman02 Esper Mono U
lowman02 Abzund RDW
Socanelas Green Ramp Azorius
littlefield RUB Abzan
Golden_Lin White W Azorius
lowman02 Reanimator White W
mathguy31415 RDW White W
lowman02 Abzund White W
C4R1S Mardu Green Ramp
C4R1S Mardu BUG
robertZDar White W Abzund
Michelle_Wong Selesnya Esper
ML: The phrase you're looking for is 'rub salt in a wound'
Hi Sensei, are you able to update your spreadsheet by writing "Enchantress" instead of Selesnya? My colors for that deck are neither here nor there, because it's more defined by the Enchantresses rather than the colors. Many thanks.
I could cry! I was writing for 3 h on a long post, and after a crash all is lost.
I didn't plan to write a long post , it just happened, otherwise I would have written in office program and later copied here :-(
It has been definitely not my week, so many bad things happened, this is just another minor one , but still so frustrating!
I'm sorry for the false info about VintageSwiss, but I was totally convinced that it was canceled! I wanteded to participate several times in May/June, but no events were in Gatherling. When I then tried to access their webpage for info, Manadrain( their provider) told me that I tried to access a page that doesn't exists, after that I was convinced the event series was canceled. Now, about 3 months later, they have a new webpage.
And in the long post that was 'swallowed', I defended my opinions vs lowman's ideas, and that I don't feel restricted by our ban list. There is no domination by 4c Blood as statistics showed, but even if there was, I don't think that arming other decks would do any good, personally I rather would like to lose to 4c Blood than to any instant death combo or reanimator. However, I don't see myself as 'the master' of S100, rather as moderator, so if you( the players) want another voting we could have that( although I would suggest to wait until late October, when hopefully more players attend generally because the event starts 1 h earlier). Please feel free to advertise or discuss unbannings here.
Would you consider allowing the Stoneforge Mystic in our format? I would love to add that lady to my decks.
How is this card more potent than Natural Order or Birthing Pod? In some matchups I accept that Stoneforge is better (ie. against hard control and RDW), but in many other matchups Natural Order and Birthing Pod are better.
You are a white mage at heart, and I hope you can see that the stoneforge mystic is suitable to our format. Players like the Sensei are already very well-prepared to deal with artifacts and enchantments, and others can adapt by playing an extra card like Wickerbough Elder or Dismantling Blow if they fear Stoneforge Mystic.
Is that a kind of joke, Michelle!?
You really want me to unban a card, that may be useful for me( and you) WITHOUT a voting !? Then I would be worse than a 'master of S100', then I am 'the dictator of S100'.
Oh you edited your post, and don't ask for a 'no community decision' anymore. Sure, if all the other cards lowman suggested should be unbanned, there is no reason to keep Stoneforge Mystic banned, imho.
I think, there are basically 2 factions here: Faction A wants to use cards that are banned in most formats. The argumentation is that the card is harmless/ less harmful in our format as single copy, or harmless/ less harmful compared to other allowed cards.
Faction B wants to avoid those problematical cards in our format and/or avoid to buy cards that will not be useful outside of S100 then, because they are banned otherwise.
Supplement for the door prize decision(originally in 'swallowed post'):
4 players voted for adding the ticket to winner's prize( 2 voted in main chat during event), while only one showed interest in keeping it.
Now for the un-bannings, as host, I want to satisfy the demand of the majority of players, so if you want to change the ban list you must rather convince the other players than me.
Personally, as player in the event, as I explained before, I like to actually 'play' Magic, which includes for me playing critters, killing them with spells, or warping the environment into my favour. You can call that old-fashioned, naive or romantic but that is the fun for me. Any 'instant death combo' is no fun, it just wins if triggered, or probably lose if not. Those are all not new, maybe the way to avoid the restrictions of the S100 format is new but the combos themselves are not. They have all been used in other formats before.
And I think that is the point in the discussion which is missed by lowman and stsung, who play or played all formats, or where we have different opinions. I see the strength of S100 in not being as open to all those 'poisoned' strategies. I like playing S100 and Tribal, because I meet more decks actually 'playing' Magic with me, than in other formats. Especially S100 has shown a lot of diversity in deck strategies over the last years, which I think is absolutely great.
I don't think unbanning of certain key cards for known strategies like reanimator or instant death combos will increase the diversity, equality or more important the fun of the event, at least for me. I would also like to remind you, that we ( the CSM community) have exchanged only 4 cards from the last official ban list! Therefore, this statement from lowman is just not true: We've systematically taken out a litany of combo cards and U cards and not shockingly critter based midrange and critter based aggro strategies, with support from continued design trend, are the most consistent and best in the format.
So, when lowman argues that Hermit's Druid, Birthing Pod etc. are not better or worse than Entomb, Survival of the Fittest or Oath of Druids , I would rather ban more cards than un-ban cards.
However, this is my personal taste and opinion. As host, I will obey to the majority of players!
So, we will vote again in the near future.
Your argument is understood; however, it is fraught with contradiction...you have played White Weenie or Red Deck Wins no? Think of aggro decks in the same light as a combo deck...the difference is simple but missed by the undiscerning eye. If I go 1 drop (2/1) on T1, then I attack for 2 dam on T2 and cast out a two drop (3/2 or 2/2) or play two one drops (2/1+2/1), T3 attack total damage at 7 to 9 play a three drop (will generally equate to 3 to 4 more power), on T4 I'm attacking for a total damage of 18-19, which means if my opponent fetched once or twice they're dead. WW decks if built well can both disrupt and kill on a fishing clock by T4-5; comparatively when you replace the 2 damages per crit above with 3 damage (generally at lower card economy, ie you're doing it with instants and sorcs) then this clock can range easily into the T3-4 territory for a well built and low to the ground RDW. The difference between these decks and a true combo deck, let's say reanimator is that they are roughly 40-50% more consistent, but are also more commonly hated out...and I don't mean dread of night or warmth, I mean that other folks can play blockers and midrange blockers or removal just tend to be bigger and better. The issue with the "True" combo deck as you call it, is that it is not consistent it tends to be focused on winning the game very singularly through it's combo, ie the builder is required to balance it's ability to react or control vice acquire consistency through cards that are generally non-interactive in the early turns of the game. For instance, when I cast entomb, it's a great play if I can back it up with a reanimation effect; however, if I don't do this in the first 4 turns against an aggro deck then I'm likely dead regardless, ie more of the cards required in these "True" combo decks tend to be dead draws...tutoring tends to be something that all players find intrinsically powerful, and it is, but when I cast demonic tutor, grim tutor, or vampiric tutor, I'm not using my mana to directly impact the board or gamestate in any meaningful way without the use of other cards, which at this point in time, to leverage immediate effect, need to cost 1-3 less mana then I would have over the course of the natural (one per turn) development of my mana base. Why do aggro decks tend to beat the living crap out of combo decks (check out legacy reanimators track record against D&T...ie not good at all)...because despite the uneven power level of the cards (in reanimator's favor), all of the aggro player's cards have an immediate effect and are used with a higher degree of efficiency...RDW excluded to some extent because this deck similar to many combo decks tends to end the game with very poor card economy...ie the deck wins or loses with 0 cards in hand. You can say you don't like this, but as Stsung has informed you combo players need to stay alive to win, just kill them faster. The biggest thing I could say to most deck builders, and certainly not excepting design trend today, embrace efficiency, flexibility, and interaction, they're what win you games...if you do it right you can find these effects stapled to cards that also have power and toughness that can randomly beat your opponent to death while erstwhile stopping them from enabling their plan what ever it might be. Funny thing is I've played storm in this format and it's fastest gold fish was about T4, although the permutation of cards and draw steps required to attain that game state were of much lower probability than fishing a WW deck to a T4-5 win. So, why does it not seem fair to up the odds to let's say 5-10% that you give such decks draws that fish out at T3, if I'm more than 70% likely to fish out to a win (let's say tendrils or brainfreeze) on T5-6, which mind you is far worse than the 70% to fish on T3-4 with RDW or 70% to fish on T4-5 with WW. The point being if someone wants to play this then give them the shot, their best draws will be devastating, but their worst draws will beat themselves, because in a very general sense the "better" you make a combo deck, the more fragile it becomes to being obtuse to the rest of the field, i.e. it loses the ability to interact and can just be killed. You liking or not liking it is irrelevant however...this is just magic...and I can get behind folks wanting to play it that way...and when they do I'll just counter their crap, thoughtsieze their hand, exile their critter cards, and kill them faster and more consistently
Just some thoughts
--KB
P.S. ML, I think you misread those statistics, look at the per capita results of the stats that Sensei was showing...those do show that it has the highest win percent based upon volume of its presentation in the format--Rob can contradict me but I think he was also trying to show the same thing, i.e. that deck is great--one of the best. It's one of the best decks in the format; despite it not being oppressive to your sense of fairness, but again your criteria for a "good" game of magic is based on a subjective assessment--whereas I subjectively enjoy this game to a high extent, I approach the game and its means of winning as objectively as possible and I tend to want to have available to me as many means as possible to exact all the different win cons available and I want my opponent to do the same against me--for me that's good magic, not haymakers per se, but small interactive fights and decisions that incrementally lead to overwhelming advantage if pressed and executed properly...this comes in point removal, winning critter combat, or correctly using a ponder to set your next 2 turns in motion...all of them are really the same thing, just seen in contrast due to the hazy lens of time. Additionally, your statement that we've only taken 4 cards out of the WoTC based ban list may be true (assume that they're DTT, TC, MD, and Entomb); you've been with the format longer than I have been; however, it also assumes that their last ban listing was actually worth a damn (hmmm..let's just ban all the restricted cards in vintage...trinisphere...really, what does this card do in this format) and that the ban listing then bears relevance about 10 or more sets later...this is the same sort of stale logic that doesn't take into account the passing of time and the changing of the game my man...you can bandy paltitudes about but your logic doesn't hold up to either the stats that Sensei has shown albeit a small subset of games or account for what has changed when WoTC made a decision that at the time was questioned by many folks regardless. It's our format, so I suppose we'll jump back into a very subjective voting process where we see cards such as blood moon bandied about as requiring bans because someone's pet deck get's blown out by it--the thing is folks come to the game for different reasons...most folks like winning; it reinforces the fun they have...I don't really care about winning, sure I too enjoy it, but at the end of the day; I enjoy jamming as many good archetypes as I can and having fun by learning something new everytime and building a deck to the best of my ability--this format does not offer that anymore to me. So if someone has read all of this, then I hope they can understand the logic in enabling players to truly play with a wide range of cards and not make parochial decisions that only serve to enhance their notion of fun, but enable the widest range of options for all players.
You make some good points, but you must know that people in our chainsaw event will prefer to stare across from them cards like Brimaz King of Oreskos and Linvala Keeper of Silence, not cards like Entomb and Crucible of Worlds. And to be fair, the cards I mentioned are just not on the same power level. No one is scared of Brimaz or Linvala, let's face it. When our opponents cast such cards, we all think things like "Meh I will just Doom Blade that or find another easy answer!"
So people will vote based on what they do NOT want to see against them. They will look at a card, then think to themselves: "No way am I going to allow my opponent to cast THAT spell against me!" We have voted before as a community, and it always boils down to that.
I think you're falling into the same trap, that's what you want to sit across from...me, I enjoy playing against any cards...you're right most people have an unqualified fear of decks that can "win" by T2-3, but again the issue is they allow their emotions about a negative experience drive their views as opposed to solid causal assessment of what happened, what it took to make it happen, and stopping it accordingly. I watched ML die to a boogles combo deck the other night, a fringe playable modern deck...he was playing a WW build, if he'd run blessed alliance in his SB with a few slots, it would have greatly increased his matchup, or some solid artifact enchantment hate coupled with aether vial to trick the hate in and win in combat...point being the matchup was not great G1, but post boards if he understood the format and the range of available and "most" viable archetypes, he could have killed one critter and likely left his opponent stranded with a bunch of crappy auras with nothing to put them on, combo decks are hugely reliant on most of their cards if you can disrupt one part of it, and have a proactive strategy yourself, then you can win...the point here is that even though Boogles isn't a tier 1 deck and it certainly doesn't win by T2, it's inevitability was undeniable because ML didn't account for it and didn't understand the weakness of his own deck vice this style of deck. Some of this comes in boarding, some of it comes in understanding the flexible cards that exist that can stop these sorts of thing (DR Shaman, Scavenging Ooze, Mental Misstep, Inquisition, Duress, Gaddock Teag, etc). I don't think you're wrong, most players just want to put their decks together and watch them do well, but sometimes they lack full understanding of their decks and how best to play them vice different possible matchups. It's a learning process...I'd just ask folks to be open minded and try the full range of what's available before making narrow minded decisions about what to ban or unban.
I vote for no door prize. +1 to winner is better.
(copy paste Michelle :p)
I've uploaded gameplay from yesterday's CSM with Grixis Delve here: 29 JUL 17 CSM. The deck did as expected (X-1), but was, as always fun to play.
Another note, I truly think we need to revisit the ban listing, almost to a point that I'm getting tired of the format. We've systematically taken out a litany of combo cards and U cards and not shockingly critter based midrange and critter based aggro strategies, with support from continued design trend, are the most consistent and best in the format. This is debatable, but when a deck within 6-8 cards variation (4CBlood) has been piloted (I'm guilty I've piloted this deck as well ) to winning the tourney in over 25% of the overall matches in the season (likely higher win% capability in reality because this deck has been presented in less than half of all the matches possible [it's the best deck in format, and sure it loses sometimes, but when you beat it, you're prolly getting lucky or it's pilot is getting unlucky, or you've meta'd against it heavily at the cost of match% against other relevant strategies in the format]), then it should cause one to assess range in the format--do we live in a 1-2 best deck format. I don't think the needed change in the format involves this deck, because the cards in it are generally all fair, but work very well together (myriad 2-1 capability) and it ends games quickly when piloted well. And, it's a beatable deck, but beating it consistently tends to involve predatory build strategy that weakens one's build to a point of undesirability in multiple other, common matchups. My suggestion would be we make combo and control more powerful, I could revisit what I think is safe for the format, but won't do it in this post because I've brought these cards up ad nauseam historically as cards that could and should be in the format (I will relist these if there is more interest in changing the format).
However, and it hasn't seen much play recently, if we were to remain with the current ban list, the most busted card in this format is birthing pod (to a bad point, I would argue that this card is about as unbeatable as JTMS on an open board, with no immediate answer, but far better due to its strength in all other board states). I've rallied against Green before because of the flexibility of its multiple tutor effects available, while its near-peer equivalents in U/B are not. Birthing Pod is easily the worst (best) of these...some folks would cite Natural Order in this spot, but I think a good way of comparing the two cards is comparing the power between Fireblast and Sulfuric Vortex. Both are great and one does more now, but the other ensures that your opponent cannot interact with the one resource that matters, to you (sure they can, but they're likely drawing to 4-5 outs in deck, if they don't counter vortex, etc.).
Anyway, was just thinking about the format. I think an issue we'll run into is we don't have a litany of habitual players, and for every game I jam in the CSM I likely jam 10-30 more in the format in casual matches, so it might just be a personal issue, not perceived by other players due to their volume of play. Maybe it's a pessimistic outlook, but I think familiarity has bred contempt for me to some extent; but I think there's some credence logically as well given the relatively large subset of games I've seen or played personally--we're in a best deck format at this point--Let's change that--what do you think?
Take it easy all
--KB
The girl in this video reminds me of how I feel when I cast my Argothian Enchantress against the 4C Blood deck:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/161755096 (the link has expired now, but it was good whilst it lasted!)
@ 1:34:34
I move my face close to the screen, and start sticking out my tongue like a serpent in excitement, just like that girl at 1:34:34! In summary, as she rightly says: "It's happening!"
The theoretic one, some would call it the 'pure' magic part, and the practical one, some would call it the 'financial' part.
I would even go so far to claim, that this is the main reason for the popularity of all eternal formats, per se: That you don't have to change your deck, you must not buy new cards consistently. If you like that you could play Standard or Heirloom as PRE.
The back side of eternal formats is the rather stalemate meta. Fortunately, in this case, we are a rather small community online, and our format's path is not as much a beaten path like the other eternal formats. So, in the 3 years of existence of Chainsaw Massacre our meta did quite change.
While RDW dominated statistically the first year(s), the reign of 4C Blood is rather short.
But you delievered the reason of doubt for any action by yourself: I don't think the needed change in the format involves this deck, because the cards in it are generally all fair, but work very well together.
That is another reason for me: The gameplay is ok, it may be an uphill fight, but still a fight, while, for example, a resurrected or otherwise slipped in Emrakul just says : Game Over.
I do understand where you're coming from, but 4C Blood decks are not rampant, in fact there was not even one copy in today's event.
That's pretty much the same what I thought about Birthing Pod, when I read your post last week( sorry for not answering earlier, too busy).
For me as host, this question is the most important: Which consequence does this have on our event?
Is it like VintageSwiss, where one deck, Ravager Shops, always win the event? No, we had several other decks winning events, while 4C Blood was participating.
That is the most important for me.
So, even if you were right, would everybody play 4C Blood in the future? No, not at all, because the majority of players can just not afford to create new S100 decks only because the meta shifted or because they did not win the last 2 events, or just because it's Tuesday .
This of course works in both directions, if a player invested in a new deck, he wants to use it for quite some time without the fear of getting important parts banned.
That is one of the reasons, why I hesitate to replace once a month a S100 with a 'special restricted' sub-format. I can not guarantee that we could keep the format over some time! It makes no sense, if half of the players are missing. Although I have not give up the idea completely, yet. Because a German Highlander event as 'sub-format' would be accessible with all S100 decks by deleting their sideboards, which could be done in 2-3 min, when somebody missed the fact, that 'this' week, there is no normal S100. The others could prepare and maybe integrate some sideboard cards into their decks. I'm pretty sure the most players won't recognize a big change by the more than a dozen different cards in the legal lists, but much more by the missing sideboards. But, of course, Birthing Pod is banned there
So, I appreciate your post to put the finger in the wound( I wonder if that allegory exists in English:-), and of course that deck had some wins lately, but I think it's still too early for a final decision. Additionally we just had a voting on bannings recently, but I put Birthing Pod on the watchlist, which is wrong, actually it has never left it:-)
I think the best way to avoid dominance of 4C Blood is a detailed video-feature of explaing how to disturb it's mechanics with deck science...
How to improve maindeck and/or sideboard of existing popular deck strategies(WW, RDW etc.) vs 4C Blood, which cards works best...
Perhaps another one with a 'Radical Approach' - anti-decks that WILL beat it (but maybe not the event ...
I like your comment ML Berlin.
I recommend fighting 4C Blood with a Reanimator deck. A reanimator deck can more consistently "go over the top" of 4C Blood.
ML Berlin, I strongly recommend the card "Rolling Earthquake" for you. It is great against dawts' 4C Blood deck, and is also fantastic against Golden Lin and RobertZDar.
Think you all missed my point a bit, or rather I was speaking in some ways from a position of verbal irony--I'd make this my modest proposal: The solution to this problem is not in exclusion, or rather it's in what we've chosen to exclude historically. I don't want to ban birthing pod, I don't want to ban natural order...but I also wonder why we've banned analogous cards of similar power level in other colors. Why is mystical tutor (banned) fundamentally more powerful than worldly tutor (unbanned), or entomb (banned) for that matter? You could argue that I'll get show and tell endstep T2 on my opposition's trn and drop an emrakul or omniscience into emrakul, etc, but you're generally looking at a 3 card combo to truly win outright. With worldly tutor I could T1 cast on my opposition's endstep for hermit druid, put into play T2, on T3 post draw flip my whole library into the gyard (assuming no basics) have narcomoeba come into play from gyard, play land 3 to get a bloodghast back (have the 3/2 artifact critter for back up 2CMC recast), and sac the moeba, ghast, and hermit to dread return to return angel of glory's rise, to return azami+lab maniac for the win. Regardless, worldly tutor often get's critical disruption on a time horizon needed (low end use) or get's primeval titan, which if it resolves generally means the game. Funny thing is, this was a deck piloted by DrPringles last week (and I applaud you Dr, I think it's sweet). I managed to beat this deck 2-0, not because I'm a great player, or because I had removal and counterspells (although these helped), but because I understood what he was doing. Often times, players make assumptions that become convictions based upon what is frankly incomplete or misunderstood information...what is the best way to understand a thing, well we could contemplate it, or we could try it. No thing is static, this game not excluded, to approach it dynamically is to understand that it is morphing over time, at one point these cards were dangerous, because they were just plain faster than the critters, the disruption, etc, they're not that way anymore...sure they'll get some busted draws every now and then win rapidly and easily, but solid, interactive midrange is just as likely to grind them out--it won't typically be in as short a timeframe, but it will be just as assured if played well. My point is why do we put false limits on ourselves and our format, that aren't even logically congruent with what we currently allow...Mike as your people would say, "This is not possible"--but my friend it is true.
In regards to Ravager Shops, I hate to leap immediately to an ad hominin attack, but I believe you're speaking about yourself grinding out the gatherling vintage swiss with a ravager list that I built specifically for you (and loan to you ) based upon playstyle and limited knowledge of the format to grind out a bunch of tickets. If anything, then I think you would see this mentality as truly what is frightening for this format and what is to some extent beyond baffling is that you would do one thing in another tournament knowing it was not healthy, to ostensibly reap benefits, but would preserve your own for something that you assumed more pure and fair...I suppose you shouldn't $#%^ in your own back yard...but this would seem, my friend, a bit hypocritical. I play this format for fun and creation, I tend not to run the same deck back (okay some weeks I'm lazy and run back an oldie), but part of me wants to show you that this finding is quite true and just run 4CBlood until something changes, and not at the cost of this deck; which plays out like a more modern version of the original sligh decks (the value red deck before deadguy red [burn]).
Sorry if the mosaic of my argument tends toward the fiery, I'm trying to lend my eyes which I feel at least in this case see more clearly to avail us of the myopia that's beset us. People don't truly want fair--they want freedom--this draws players...because frankly these decks are too expensive, generally, to rationalize grinding 4 tiks, when I could do that winning a few two man q's at a fraction of the price (considering I can play better than 60-70% of folks and am paired well or choose a deck with minimal poor pairings). This is not a format of grinders, it's a format of creation, why should we limit folks in how they decide to do that by having 1-2 decks that have only a few pairings below 45% (accounting for the fact that those decks that do favor in low margins against these decks have a few matchups that are likely 40% to lose etc). We just create an environment where range is limited and deck selection plays a greater role than imagination and capability...
Guess that's what I was trying to get after, let's put these back in the format:
Crucible of Worlds
Demonic Consultation
Demonic Tutor
Dig Through Time
Entomb
Gifts Ungiven
Imperial Seal
Intuition
Life from the Loam
Lion's Eye Diamond
Mana Drain
Memory Jar
Merchant Scroll
Mind's Desire
Mystical Tutor
Sensei's Divining Top
Stoneforge Mystic
Survival of the Fittest
Tinker (why is this worse than natural order, esp without moxen or sol rings etc)
Tolarian Academy
Treasure Cruise
Trinisphere
Vampiric Tutor
These cards all give combo and control decks a leg up against midrange and aggro, adding speed and consistency, and the best part is they force understanding and interaction at some point in time to beat...ie these sorts of cards enable high level decision making and a pure form of mtg where both players have to calculate risk to a higher extent due to increased consistency. Realistically, they open the meta up and enable a lot more cool stuff to rise to power (and well some of the other ones that don't do this, don't really do anything at all, ref trinisphere...so bad in 100c, why ban it).
Anyway, hope this follow up helps to enlighten or entertain you all. Take it easy
KB
P.S.--Check out Mardu Midrange/Control it's a deck I designed a while back to beat 4CBlood, C4R1S had some success with it, taking down a tourney with it. It's a very strong archetype vs. permanent based midrange or aggro, where is struggles (very poorly) is vs. U based control decks. It's a fine deck, just can't realistically beat permission, but I think it's at about a 60/40 or 55/45 split vs 4CBlood, given equal play on both sides. There are other strategies that can also beat 4CBlood the issue is they tend to be predatory in nature and have some matchups that are frankly just terrible, whereas this deck is a natural strategy (and likely the best one at doing it, eff and disruption) and it's worst matchups are likely still around the .50 mark.
And, I'd dispute the need for empirical results of resounding depth, theoretical physics and mental simulation likely allowed the first humans to know they shouldn't jump off of cliffs, or why it made sense to get large prey, like mammoths, to run off of said cliffs. The art was likely perfected by empirical results, but it was based on a pretty sound theory--stuff dies when if falls from great enough distance... (hmmm...this sounds like the woes of the previous standard rotation...results take time, and cost pain, in some ways this is yang to a more elegant, enlightened intuition that prevents the need for struggle by seeing clearly the problem...or we can bang our heads into it until we realize we can walk around it...eventually "even a blind chicken finds seed" another of your countryman's sayings I believe
In CMS Season 1, RDW won 10/52 events and Azorius 9/52.
Season 2, RDW won 11/52.
Season 3, 4c Blood has won 8/43 while White aggro has won seven. In terms of percentage of the metagame, 4c is much lower than RDW was. In terms of match win rate, 4c is much higher. As mentioned before, most commonly only one copy of 4c exists per event. Frequently, not a single copy is played. Maybe on two occasions, there is more than one player using the deck.
Here are Season 3 stats:
4+ Color 8
White Aggro 7
Esper 4
10 lowman02
6 dawts
4 Michelle_Wong
Champion; Gold Medal; Silver Medal;
Garlan Esper Selesnya
Yokai_ Green Ramp Abzan
Yokai_ Green Ramp Abantz
lowman02 White W Azorius
Michelle_Wong Azorius RDW
Yokai_ Green Ramp Bant
lowman02 Abzan Green Ramp
Sugar_Daddy Sneak&S Green Ramp
Michelle_Wong Azorius Izzet
totalhate 5c Midrange RUG
stsung Esper Azorius
dawts Abzund RUG
ChaosBlackDoom RDW RUB
The_Sensei RUG White W
lowman02 White W RDW
lowman02 White W Abzan
iniksbane White W RUB
The_Sensei Bant Mono Black
The_Sensei BUG 5c Midrange
C4R1S Jund RUB
totalhate 5c Midrange Azorius
lowman02 Abzan Simic
lowman02 BUG Abzund
dawts Abzund Azorius
dawts Abzund White W
dawts Abzund RDW
Michelle_Wong Esper Abzund
BoozeMongoose BUG Abzund
robertZDar White W BUG
dawts Abzund BUG
dawts Abzund White W
lowman02 Esper Mono U
lowman02 Abzund RDW
Socanelas Green Ramp Azorius
littlefield RUB Abzan
Golden_Lin White W Azorius
lowman02 Reanimator White W
mathguy31415 RDW White W
lowman02 Abzund White W
C4R1S Mardu Green Ramp
C4R1S Mardu BUG
robertZDar White W Abzund
Michelle_Wong Selesnya Esper
ML: The phrase you're looking for is 'rub salt in a wound'
Does anyone else have some love for these 6 cards?
I didn't plan to write a long post , it just happened, otherwise I would have written in office program and later copied here :-(
It has been definitely not my week, so many bad things happened, this is just another minor one , but still so frustrating!
Final Winner: RobertZdar -4
Runner-up: dawts -3
Lost once:
Socanelas -1
ML_Berlin -1
Michelle_Wong -1
lowman02 -0, lowman donated to Scryb_Sprite
Scryb_Sprite -1
Doorprize: SuGar_Daddy -1
Event 3.42 ===== 5th of August
Final Winner: Michelle_Wong -4
Lost once:
ML_Berlin -1.5
SuGar_Daddy -1.5
C4R1S -1.5
lowman02 -0, lowman donated to Garlan
Doorprize: Garlan - 2.5
Event 3.43 ===== 12th of August First event without door prize, instead 5 tix for the winner!
Final Winner: RobertZdar -5
Lost once:
dawts -1.5
totalhate -1.5
Michelle_Wong -1.5
lowman02 -0, lowman donated to ML_Berlin
ML_Berlin -1.5
Would you consider allowing the Stoneforge Mystic in our format? I would love to add that lady to my decks.
How is this card more potent than Natural Order or Birthing Pod? In some matchups I accept that Stoneforge is better (ie. against hard control and RDW), but in many other matchups Natural Order and Birthing Pod are better.
You are a white mage at heart, and I hope you can see that the stoneforge mystic is suitable to our format. Players like the Sensei are already very well-prepared to deal with artifacts and enchantments, and others can adapt by playing an extra card like Wickerbough Elder or Dismantling Blow if they fear Stoneforge Mystic.
You really want me to unban a card, that may be useful for me( and you) WITHOUT a voting !? Then I would be worse than a 'master of S100', then I am 'the dictator of S100'.
Oh you edited your post, and don't ask for a 'no community decision' anymore. Sure, if all the other cards lowman suggested should be unbanned, there is no reason to keep Stoneforge Mystic banned, imho.
Faction B wants to avoid those problematical cards in our format and/or avoid to buy cards that will not be useful outside of S100 then, because they are banned otherwise.
4 players voted for adding the ticket to winner's prize( 2 voted in main chat during event), while only one showed interest in keeping it.
Now for the un-bannings, as host, I want to satisfy the demand of the majority of players, so if you want to change the ban list you must rather convince the other players than me.
Personally, as player in the event, as I explained before, I like to actually 'play' Magic, which includes for me playing critters, killing them with spells, or warping the environment into my favour. You can call that old-fashioned, naive or romantic but that is the fun for me. Any 'instant death combo' is no fun, it just wins if triggered, or probably lose if not. Those are all not new, maybe the way to avoid the restrictions of the S100 format is new but the combos themselves are not. They have all been used in other formats before.
And I think that is the point in the discussion which is missed by lowman and stsung, who play or played all formats, or where we have different opinions. I see the strength of S100 in not being as open to all those 'poisoned' strategies. I like playing S100 and Tribal, because I meet more decks actually 'playing' Magic with me, than in other formats. Especially S100 has shown a lot of diversity in deck strategies over the last years, which I think is absolutely great.
I don't think unbanning of certain key cards for known strategies like reanimator or instant death combos will increase the diversity, equality or more important the fun of the event, at least for me. I would also like to remind you, that we ( the CSM community) have exchanged only 4 cards from the last official ban list! Therefore, this statement from lowman is just not true: We've systematically taken out a litany of combo cards and U cards and not shockingly critter based midrange and critter based aggro strategies, with support from continued design trend, are the most consistent and best in the format.
So, when lowman argues that Hermit's Druid, Birthing Pod etc. are not better or worse than Entomb, Survival of the Fittest or Oath of Druids , I would rather ban more cards than un-ban cards.
However, this is my personal taste and opinion. As host, I will obey to the majority of players!
So, we will vote again in the near future.
Dear Stoneforge Mystic, you had better embark on a good marketing campaign if you want to stand a chance at the next elections!
Your argument is understood; however, it is fraught with contradiction...you have played White Weenie or Red Deck Wins no? Think of aggro decks in the same light as a combo deck...the difference is simple but missed by the undiscerning eye. If I go 1 drop (2/1) on T1, then I attack for 2 dam on T2 and cast out a two drop (3/2 or 2/2) or play two one drops (2/1+2/1), T3 attack total damage at 7 to 9 play a three drop (will generally equate to 3 to 4 more power), on T4 I'm attacking for a total damage of 18-19, which means if my opponent fetched once or twice they're dead. WW decks if built well can both disrupt and kill on a fishing clock by T4-5; comparatively when you replace the 2 damages per crit above with 3 damage (generally at lower card economy, ie you're doing it with instants and sorcs) then this clock can range easily into the T3-4 territory for a well built and low to the ground RDW. The difference between these decks and a true combo deck, let's say reanimator is that they are roughly 40-50% more consistent, but are also more commonly hated out...and I don't mean dread of night or warmth, I mean that other folks can play blockers and midrange blockers or removal just tend to be bigger and better. The issue with the "True" combo deck as you call it, is that it is not consistent it tends to be focused on winning the game very singularly through it's combo, ie the builder is required to balance it's ability to react or control vice acquire consistency through cards that are generally non-interactive in the early turns of the game. For instance, when I cast entomb, it's a great play if I can back it up with a reanimation effect; however, if I don't do this in the first 4 turns against an aggro deck then I'm likely dead regardless, ie more of the cards required in these "True" combo decks tend to be dead draws...tutoring tends to be something that all players find intrinsically powerful, and it is, but when I cast demonic tutor, grim tutor, or vampiric tutor, I'm not using my mana to directly impact the board or gamestate in any meaningful way without the use of other cards, which at this point in time, to leverage immediate effect, need to cost 1-3 less mana then I would have over the course of the natural (one per turn) development of my mana base. Why do aggro decks tend to beat the living crap out of combo decks (check out legacy reanimators track record against D&T...ie not good at all)...because despite the uneven power level of the cards (in reanimator's favor), all of the aggro player's cards have an immediate effect and are used with a higher degree of efficiency...RDW excluded to some extent because this deck similar to many combo decks tends to end the game with very poor card economy...ie the deck wins or loses with 0 cards in hand. You can say you don't like this, but as Stsung has informed you combo players need to stay alive to win, just kill them faster. The biggest thing I could say to most deck builders, and certainly not excepting design trend today, embrace efficiency, flexibility, and interaction, they're what win you games...if you do it right you can find these effects stapled to cards that also have power and toughness that can randomly beat your opponent to death while erstwhile stopping them from enabling their plan what ever it might be. Funny thing is I've played storm in this format and it's fastest gold fish was about T4, although the permutation of cards and draw steps required to attain that game state were of much lower probability than fishing a WW deck to a T4-5 win. So, why does it not seem fair to up the odds to let's say 5-10% that you give such decks draws that fish out at T3, if I'm more than 70% likely to fish out to a win (let's say tendrils or brainfreeze) on T5-6, which mind you is far worse than the 70% to fish on T3-4 with RDW or 70% to fish on T4-5 with WW. The point being if someone wants to play this then give them the shot, their best draws will be devastating, but their worst draws will beat themselves, because in a very general sense the "better" you make a combo deck, the more fragile it becomes to being obtuse to the rest of the field, i.e. it loses the ability to interact and can just be killed. You liking or not liking it is irrelevant however...this is just magic...and I can get behind folks wanting to play it that way...and when they do I'll just counter their crap, thoughtsieze their hand, exile their critter cards, and kill them faster and more consistently
Just some thoughts
--KB
P.S. ML, I think you misread those statistics, look at the per capita results of the stats that Sensei was showing...those do show that it has the highest win percent based upon volume of its presentation in the format--Rob can contradict me but I think he was also trying to show the same thing, i.e. that deck is great--one of the best. It's one of the best decks in the format; despite it not being oppressive to your sense of fairness, but again your criteria for a "good" game of magic is based on a subjective assessment--whereas I subjectively enjoy this game to a high extent, I approach the game and its means of winning as objectively as possible and I tend to want to have available to me as many means as possible to exact all the different win cons available and I want my opponent to do the same against me--for me that's good magic, not haymakers per se, but small interactive fights and decisions that incrementally lead to overwhelming advantage if pressed and executed properly...this comes in point removal, winning critter combat, or correctly using a ponder to set your next 2 turns in motion...all of them are really the same thing, just seen in contrast due to the hazy lens of time. Additionally, your statement that we've only taken 4 cards out of the WoTC based ban list may be true (assume that they're DTT, TC, MD, and Entomb); you've been with the format longer than I have been; however, it also assumes that their last ban listing was actually worth a damn (hmmm..let's just ban all the restricted cards in vintage...trinisphere...really, what does this card do in this format) and that the ban listing then bears relevance about 10 or more sets later...this is the same sort of stale logic that doesn't take into account the passing of time and the changing of the game my man...you can bandy paltitudes about but your logic doesn't hold up to either the stats that Sensei has shown albeit a small subset of games or account for what has changed when WoTC made a decision that at the time was questioned by many folks regardless. It's our format, so I suppose we'll jump back into a very subjective voting process where we see cards such as blood moon bandied about as requiring bans because someone's pet deck get's blown out by it--the thing is folks come to the game for different reasons...most folks like winning; it reinforces the fun they have...I don't really care about winning, sure I too enjoy it, but at the end of the day; I enjoy jamming as many good archetypes as I can and having fun by learning something new everytime and building a deck to the best of my ability--this format does not offer that anymore to me. So if someone has read all of this, then I hope they can understand the logic in enabling players to truly play with a wide range of cards and not make parochial decisions that only serve to enhance their notion of fun, but enable the widest range of options for all players.
You make some good points, but you must know that people in our chainsaw event will prefer to stare across from them cards like Brimaz King of Oreskos and Linvala Keeper of Silence, not cards like Entomb and Crucible of Worlds. And to be fair, the cards I mentioned are just not on the same power level. No one is scared of Brimaz or Linvala, let's face it. When our opponents cast such cards, we all think things like "Meh I will just Doom Blade that or find another easy answer!"
So people will vote based on what they do NOT want to see against them. They will look at a card, then think to themselves: "No way am I going to allow my opponent to cast THAT spell against me!" We have voted before as a community, and it always boils down to that.
I think you're falling into the same trap, that's what you want to sit across from...me, I enjoy playing against any cards...you're right most people have an unqualified fear of decks that can "win" by T2-3, but again the issue is they allow their emotions about a negative experience drive their views as opposed to solid causal assessment of what happened, what it took to make it happen, and stopping it accordingly. I watched ML die to a boogles combo deck the other night, a fringe playable modern deck...he was playing a WW build, if he'd run blessed alliance in his SB with a few slots, it would have greatly increased his matchup, or some solid artifact enchantment hate coupled with aether vial to trick the hate in and win in combat...point being the matchup was not great G1, but post boards if he understood the format and the range of available and "most" viable archetypes, he could have killed one critter and likely left his opponent stranded with a bunch of crappy auras with nothing to put them on, combo decks are hugely reliant on most of their cards if you can disrupt one part of it, and have a proactive strategy yourself, then you can win...the point here is that even though Boogles isn't a tier 1 deck and it certainly doesn't win by T2, it's inevitability was undeniable because ML didn't account for it and didn't understand the weakness of his own deck vice this style of deck. Some of this comes in boarding, some of it comes in understanding the flexible cards that exist that can stop these sorts of thing (DR Shaman, Scavenging Ooze, Mental Misstep, Inquisition, Duress, Gaddock Teag, etc). I don't think you're wrong, most players just want to put their decks together and watch them do well, but sometimes they lack full understanding of their decks and how best to play them vice different possible matchups. It's a learning process...I'd just ask folks to be open minded and try the full range of what's available before making narrow minded decisions about what to ban or unban.
I have been enjoying playing Standard Throwback Gauntlets as a Closed Beta Tester. I play unlimited Standard matches for free, it is a blast.
If you want to apply, the link is HERE