At this point it's safe to say that Wizards screwed up with this Standard. The level of dominance GW midrange decks have achieved is starting to get up to CawBlade/Affinity levels. The tools for other viable decks are there, and EMN looks to be a pretty interesting set, but the power levels are so skewed toward green and white that other decks can't compete with the sheer value those colors provide. Tokens and CoCo aren't particularly boring to play against at first, but they have similar styles of play, and with the two decks taking up 42% of the metagame on MTGTop8 (and that number climbing rapidly), playing against them gets old really fast. Players are quitting Standard left and right, and with EMN offering more of the same (broken GW cards and sweet cards that get outclassed by the broken GW cards), it's my opinion that bans have become necessary. That said, Standard bans are a big deal and a lot of people have differing opinions on this, so I wanted to start a discussion on whether bans are necessary, and what should be banned.
What cards would you ban? I dont think there is really a single card or two that would stop/weaken GW Tokens/Bant CoCo enough.
I mean I guess Nissa or Gideon would stop the tokens some, but the decks themselves would still be pretty powerful. I think its just a design mistake that we will have to live with for a while and they'll need to change by adding cards. I dont see banning any cards being as effective in this scenario.
Dromoka's Command would probably be the best possibility IMO. It's played in both decks and is arguably more broken than the 'walkers. It also makes Imprisoned in the Moon a viable answer against GW. It's rotating out, but having just come off of PT Eldrazi, the last thing Magic needs is another PT dominated by what's essentially one deck, and rotation will hopefully tone the deck down to the point where it's powerful but not broken.
The fundamental problem with the concept of banning of anything in standard right now is that there is no specific problem card that you can point to and say "This is why G/W is so utterly dominant". The issue is simply that Green and White have been pushed heavily across the board while the other colors have had their tools weakened more or less across the board. It was inevitable, obvious, and completely avoidable. But the fact remains that it's difficult to point to as single card that is so problematic that it warrants a banning. Command certain is a major offender, as it allows the G/W decks to have Doom Blade, Counterspell, and a Disenchant all in one card at 2 mana and instant speed, but frankly it's only really problematic due to the fact that it's surrounded by creatures and Planeswalkers that are some of the efficient costed that have every existed in the entirety of the game.
Agreed. White in general is so good not only because it's OP, which it is, but because red, it's natural predator, is so bad. If anger of the gods or lightning strike were standard legal, either deck is easily beatable. Anger being the better for the meta hits that perfect damage of 3 for 3 and lightning strike can hit creature, player, or planeswalker. Anger, along with Abzan/siege rhino were the reason b/w warriors never become widely played in standard. Card for card, I think the deck is more powerful than mono white humans or gw tokens but anger just killed your board and abzan put anafenzas and rhinos in front of you. It also had more synergy(chief of the edge is just insane value and recuring bloodsoaked champion was sick).
FWIW, Rally would have given both decks problems as well since it clogged up the ground until you could rally/sac/rally.
I agree that it's hard to attack value decks that don't have a specific card you can point to, and that red's weakness is a main reason the deck is dominating. Command is probably the best choice for a ban, but it's not a good one. Possibly a better alternative would be to ban multiple problem cards, say, Command and Sylvan Advocate. It would cause a lot of backlash, but with the state the format has reached, something needs to go.
Advocate is indeed to strong. 2/3 in green for 2 is fine. Maybe if he grew to a 3/4 with 6 lands(even 5 lands is fine). Ok still within reason for green. But vigilance and 4/5 is busted. Basically wizard says they dont want to reprint lightning strike because it constrains what creatures they can make and makes alont of creatures unplayable. Hey wizards, when you print the second coming of goyf for all intents and purposes which prevents alot of really good 2 drops from being played, guess what doesnt get played...those two drops.
I'm not for an all out ban on advocate but wizards needs to nut up and at least start restricting some cards that are clearly preventing other cards from being played(isnt that the excuse they gave for banning twin, that as long as twin was in modern, why play any other blue deck because twin is just better).
I seriously hope hearthstone, hex , or eternal just kicks the heck out of magic to the point wizards wakes up from its ivory tower and listens to fans.
What cards would you ban? I dont think there is really a single card or two that would stop/weaken GW Tokens/Bant CoCo enough.
I mean I guess Nissa or Gideon would stop the tokens some, but the decks themselves would still be pretty powerful. I think its just a design mistake that we will have to live with for a while and they'll need to change by adding cards. I dont see banning any cards being as effective in this scenario.
Gideon and reflector mage, I'd say those are the two main culprits. Reflector Mage interrupts the opponents flow more than any other creature and adds massive tempo swings. Being able to stick a Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet would help against bant. Gideon is just broken, always has been and always will be, free tokens and an anthem on the turn it comes down is just dumb.
Personally, I don't mind this Standard too much. It sucks as far as Magic goes, but at least white weenie is finally good so I can just jam that. The problem is that a lot of people do, and judging by deck numbers and attendance rates, combined with a coming Standard PT, Standard is in danger of going the way of Extended. Not huge danger, but definitely big enough that something needs to be done.
I can see dromoka's command being banned and I understand why people would want sylvan advocate being banned, as it is quite strong and can really swing games.
I can see dromoka's command being banned and I understand why people would want sylvan advocate being banned, as it is quite strong and can really swing games.
I agree 100% on this. Sylvan Advocate is a card that has too much value for what it costs and has made G/W (or any combination of G/x)overperform against other decks.
It is good aginst basically every deck:
-Aggro/burn decks that depend on small creatures (Zurgo Bellstriker, Abbot of Keral Keep, etc)to deal damage on the early stages of the game become useless against a 2/3 vigilance, even more useless against a 4/5 vigilance.
-Control also has its problems against this card, wasting a Ruinous Path or Ultimate Price on this card seems an overkill, but its the only way (Languish doesn't kill him, neither does Grasp of Darkness)
Any green deck not playing this card is doing something wrong in my opinion, having this said, why wouldn't you ban a card that is a must on every G Deck?
"I play CoCo,... oh nice, two "4/5 vigilance creatures" that make my manlands +4/+4 for just 3G, at instant speed! wonderful"
I guess there are ways to deal against Sylvan Advocate, but dealing with him is not the issue either, the tempo that it brings to the player that casts him is just too solid.
Regards!
I can see dromoka's command being banned and I understand why people would want sylvan advocate being banned, as it is quite strong and can really swing games.
I agree 100% on this. Sylvan Advocate is a card that has too much value for what it costs and has made G/W (or any combination of G/x)overperform against other decks.
It is good aginst basically every deck:
-Aggro/burn decks that depend on small creatures (Zurgo Bellstriker, Abbot of Keral Keep, etc)to deal damage on the early stages of the game become useless against a 2/3 vigilance, even more useless against a 4/5 vigilance.
-Control also has its problems against this card, wasting a Ruinous Path or Ultimate Price on this card seems an overkill, but its the only way (Languish doesn't kill him, neither does Grasp of Darkness)
Any green deck not playing this card is doing something wrong in my opinion, having this said, why wouldn't you ban a card that is a must on every G Deck?
"I play CoCo,... oh nice, two "4/5 vigilance creatures" that make my manlands +4/+4 for just 3G, at instant speed! wonderful"
I guess there are ways to deal against Sylvan Advocate, but dealing with him is not the issue either, the tempo that it brings to the player that casts him is just too solid.
Regards!
yeah it seems like the prevalence of Sylvan Advocate plus the lack of solid red cards can push RDW out of the format. Plus mono white just being better is true. He is just such a good temp card that is a must answer threat
I'm not for an all out ban on advocate but wizards needs to nut up and at least start restricting some cards that are clearly preventing other cards from being played(isnt that the excuse they gave for banning twin, that as long as twin was in modern, why play any other blue deck because twin is just better).
There are no restricted cards outside of Vintage. The restricted list allows Vintage players to play pretty much any card just fewer copies and is aimed at lifers who have been playing since the game started.
In every other constructed format it's either 4, or none (barring specific rat and cultist-type cards). Anything else would be too confusing for most people.
If they started restricted cards in other formats - then Legacy may as well not exist and it should just be rolled back into Vintage.
No one at my FNM has been playing with Sylvan Advocate, so I can't speak to it's effectiveness or needing to be banned. I have played against Tarmogoyf and based on comments here it feels like this is pretty much a slightly later Tarmogoyf but with vigilance. Yikes! What is Wizards doing?
I'm pretty sure red decks will pick up in Kaladesh since Chandra is the main character and we presume she's leading a revolt against the government in AEther Revolt. Hopefully that means G/W will have some stronger opposition.
Metagame at my local shop FNM of 50+ people weekly has been roughly 70% GWx decks for months now. This presence of GWx decks has caused countless people to abandon standard completely for other formats. Wizards sure picked a bad time to push standard. Hopefully Eldritch Moon brings some diversity to the format, otherwise this is gonna be a very stagnant format until rotation.
Sorcery speed is actually a huge deal, even if it might not appear to be the case on the surface.
So is the exile clause though. Remember, Pillar of Flame was a very strong card for that reason, better than Shock would have been in that Standard format. In the current metagame, the exile isn't quite as relevant, but if something like Deathmist Raptor were a major player, it would be a different story.
Lightning Strike is obviously taking a break, but not because it's "too powerful."
What we needed was a red card. Deal 3 damage to target creature or 4/5 damage to target planeswalker for 1R instant.
That would be insane.
I mean at 4 it should be balanced.
Lightning strike and incinerate is 3 damage to target creature, player or planeswalker
So 3 damage to target creature or 4 to planeswalker for 1R would be like that old card that did 3 to target flying creature or 4 to target player. right now red decks have almost no way to deal with planeswalkers other than like double burn spell them and pray.
Interestingly, a perfect solution already exists for Sylvan Advocate: Roast. But because red in general is so weak right now, people playing Sylvan Advocate rarely have to worry about ever seeing that card.
I do agree that white and green are very pushed right now, but that in itself isn't the problem. There are two major deficiencies in Standard right now:
1. Severely weakened burn spells
2. Severely weakened counter magic
1: Collected Company The elephant in the room, the value engine/card selection engine that makes the Bant and G/W decks go. Resolving a Company is always a huge swing, and it was probably a mistake to print it as an Instant.
2: Reflector Mage Tempo + threat is bad enough, but this is often a Time Walk considering it has no limits on what it can bounce.
Honorable mentions:
1: Rattlechains and Spell Queller hasn't seen a lot of broken stuff yet, but the biggest weakness of control was always that it had to hold back mana for answers. These allow it to hold back mana to answer a removal spell, and provide a threat at the same time. Not banlist-worthy, but ones that I expect will find their way into multiple shells until someone manages to break them.
2: Sylvan Advocate isn't nearly as bad without Company. Definitely not banworthy in a vacuum, but with CoCo and manlands in the format, it's very strong. I thin banning CoCo would make it tolerable.
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Cards are game pieces, and should be treated as such, easily replaceable.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
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I mean I guess Nissa or Gideon would stop the tokens some, but the decks themselves would still be pretty powerful. I think its just a design mistake that we will have to live with for a while and they'll need to change by adding cards. I dont see banning any cards being as effective in this scenario.
FWIW, Rally would have given both decks problems as well since it clogged up the ground until you could rally/sac/rally.
I'm not for an all out ban on advocate but wizards needs to nut up and at least start restricting some cards that are clearly preventing other cards from being played(isnt that the excuse they gave for banning twin, that as long as twin was in modern, why play any other blue deck because twin is just better).
I seriously hope hearthstone, hex , or eternal just kicks the heck out of magic to the point wizards wakes up from its ivory tower and listens to fans.
Gideon and reflector mage, I'd say those are the two main culprits. Reflector Mage interrupts the opponents flow more than any other creature and adds massive tempo swings. Being able to stick a Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet would help against bant. Gideon is just broken, always has been and always will be, free tokens and an anthem on the turn it comes down is just dumb.
I agree 100% on this. Sylvan Advocate is a card that has too much value for what it costs and has made G/W (or any combination of G/x)overperform against other decks.
It is good aginst basically every deck:
-Aggro/burn decks that depend on small creatures (Zurgo Bellstriker, Abbot of Keral Keep, etc)to deal damage on the early stages of the game become useless against a 2/3 vigilance, even more useless against a 4/5 vigilance.
-Control also has its problems against this card, wasting a Ruinous Path or Ultimate Price on this card seems an overkill, but its the only way (Languish doesn't kill him, neither does Grasp of Darkness)
Any green deck not playing this card is doing something wrong in my opinion, having this said, why wouldn't you ban a card that is a must on every G Deck?
"I play CoCo,... oh nice, two "4/5 vigilance creatures" that make my manlands +4/+4 for just 3G, at instant speed! wonderful"
I guess there are ways to deal against Sylvan Advocate, but dealing with him is not the issue either, the tempo that it brings to the player that casts him is just too solid.
Regards!
My Peasant Cube - CubeCobra
yeah it seems like the prevalence of Sylvan Advocate plus the lack of solid red cards can push RDW out of the format. Plus mono white just being better is true. He is just such a good temp card that is a must answer threat
There are no restricted cards outside of Vintage. The restricted list allows Vintage players to play pretty much any card just fewer copies and is aimed at lifers who have been playing since the game started.
In every other constructed format it's either 4, or none (barring specific rat and cultist-type cards). Anything else would be too confusing for most people.
If they started restricted cards in other formats - then Legacy may as well not exist and it should just be rolled back into Vintage.
No one at my FNM has been playing with Sylvan Advocate, so I can't speak to it's effectiveness or needing to be banned. I have played against Tarmogoyf and based on comments here it feels like this is pretty much a slightly later Tarmogoyf but with vigilance. Yikes! What is Wizards doing?
I'm pretty sure red decks will pick up in Kaladesh since Chandra is the main character and we presume she's leading a revolt against the government in AEther Revolt. Hopefully that means G/W will have some stronger opposition.
C Long Live Eldrazi C
Incendiary Flow is just sorcery speed Lightning Strike/Searing Spear with exile clause.
Sorcery speed is actually a huge deal, even if it might not appear to be the case on the surface.
So is the exile clause though. Remember, Pillar of Flame was a very strong card for that reason, better than Shock would have been in that Standard format. In the current metagame, the exile isn't quite as relevant, but if something like Deathmist Raptor were a major player, it would be a different story.
Lightning Strike is obviously taking a break, but not because it's "too powerful."
That would be insane.
Standard: BG Golgari Midrange
Modern: U Merfolk GWUBR 5 Color Humans UBW Esper Gifts GW Bogles
I mean at 4 it should be balanced.
Lightning strike and incinerate is 3 damage to target creature, player or planeswalker
So 3 damage to target creature or 4 to planeswalker for 1R would be like that old card that did 3 to target flying creature or 4 to target player. right now red decks have almost no way to deal with planeswalkers other than like double burn spell them and pray.
I do agree that white and green are very pushed right now, but that in itself isn't the problem. There are two major deficiencies in Standard right now:
1. Severely weakened burn spells
2. Severely weakened counter magic
2: Reflector Mage Tempo + threat is bad enough, but this is often a Time Walk considering it has no limits on what it can bounce.
Honorable mentions:
1: Rattlechains and Spell Queller hasn't seen a lot of broken stuff yet, but the biggest weakness of control was always that it had to hold back mana for answers. These allow it to hold back mana to answer a removal spell, and provide a threat at the same time. Not banlist-worthy, but ones that I expect will find their way into multiple shells until someone manages to break them.
2: Sylvan Advocate isn't nearly as bad without Company. Definitely not banworthy in a vacuum, but with CoCo and manlands in the format, it's very strong. I thin banning CoCo would make it tolerable.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.