Another difference though is that it's colorless. I think the last time Standard had a card that was so widespread and could be played in every color/combination deck, it was Mutavault. And while it didn't get banned, it did bring about this same sort of discussion.
What my point is that if you have a hand with multiple copies of Copter it's much worse than if you had multiple copies of the other cards I mentioned. Your opponent would never be happy to see three Rhinos in a row, but would be glad if all you had were Copters on the field or hand with no creatures to crew them with.
I think a case for banning can be made when the card starts to see over representation (32 of 32, 48 of 62 etc) and creates an environment where it is incorrect to not play the card. If attendance starts to drop because people are bored of playing against u/w flash over and over and over and when GPs roll around and it's basically nothing but mirror matches, then they will ban it for the sake of allowing the format to diversify itself. This is essentially twin. Twin didn't get banned because it was over powered. It got banned because it started to become overly represented and prevented certain decks from existing.
I think a case for banning can be made when the card starts to see over representation (32 of 32, 48 of 62 etc) and creates an environment where it is incorrect to not play the card. If attendance starts to drop because people are bored of playing against u/w flash over and over and over and when GPs roll around and it's basically nothing but mirror matches, then they will ban it for the sake of allowing the format to diversify itself. This is essentially twin. Twin didn't get banned because it was over powered. It got banned because it started to become overly represented and prevented certain decks from existing.
Twin was banned to shake up Modern for the pro tour. Twin existing allowed bigger blue decks to exist.
Let's be realistic here, is not going to get banned. This thread have no purpose since we're not at he same phase as last standard nor the card has proven to be oppresive.
CoCo wasn't banned and was twice as powerful as copter in it's standard environment... if you were behind, a single CoCo could bring you back to the game or even get you ahead, and if you were ahead most times a lucky CoCo just finished up the game on the spot. Copter is cute, very easily inserted in any deck but it isn't gonna warp the format or lead an archetype to absolute dominance.
Let's be realistic here, is not going to get banned. This thread have no purpose since we're not at he same phase as last standard nor the card has proven to be oppresive.
CoCo wasn't banned and was twice as powerful as copter in it's standard environment... if you were behind, a single CoCo could bring you back to the game or even get you ahead, and if you were ahead most times a lucky CoCo just finished up the game on the spot. Copter is cute, very easily inserted in any deck but it isn't gonna warp the format or lead an archetype to absolute dominance.
I think I disagree with you just in one section.
Thopter is ALREADY warping the format. You see, as I mentioned previously, when a card is as ubiquitous as copter, and it becomes incorrect to not play it, the format has warped. Just look at tournament records. You can clearly start to see a pattern where playing the copter is almost always correct. This is the definition of warping. Gideon is also not too far behind on that one.
Is it oppressive? No. Is it warping? Absolutely.
Wizards will look at two things: Are tournament attendance down? If yes, banning is possible. If not, unlikely to see any banning. Secondly, has standard become so stale that all we are getting are thopter mirrors and thopter victories? Then ya, it's likely going to be banned because wizards wants a format with variety.
Coco would have gotten banned if it didn't rotate when it did. Only reason it didn't get banned was due to the early rotation. Could you imagine another 6 months of that ******* card? No thanks.
Coco would have gotten banned if it didn't rotate when it did. Only reason it didn't get banned was due to the early rotation. Could you imagine another 6 months of that ******* card? No thanks.
CoCo didn't rotate early. It was always going to rotate when Kaladesh released. So it lived as long in Standard as any other card - like Siege Rhino or Gary or Thoughtseize.
Coco would have gotten banned if it didn't rotate when it did. Only reason it didn't get banned was due to the early rotation. Could you imagine another 6 months of that ******* card? No thanks.
CoCo didn't rotate early. It was always going to rotate when Kaladesh released. So it lived as long in Standard as any other card - like Siege Rhino or Gary or Thoughtseize.
CoCo didn't rotate early - I agree
pre-metamorphosis, metamorphosis, post-metamorphosis; CoCo always would have rotated in fall 2016 - I agree
cards all have the same standard life - I disagree. Pre- and post- metamorphosis cards are in standard for between 15 and 24 months. During metamorphosis, cards were in standard for 15-18 months. Khans and Fate had uniquely short times in standard for fall and winter sets. RTR, which I think included Thoughtseize, was in standard for 24 months. Khans, which included Siege Rhino, was in standard for 18 months.
Last stuff to get banned in standard were Jace and Stoneforge if i remember. Before that it was Skullclamp and affinity things. Copter is a level below those in ability to warp a game/metagame. Just being the best card in standard isn't enough to warrant a ban.
Just being the best card in standard isn't enough to warrant a ban.
I feel like this needs to be plastered on a banner at the top of the Standard forum.
Obviously, it's possible for the best card or best cards to be enough better than the rest of the pool to warrant discussing a ban, but there's always going to be something at the top.
Another question with regard to the point about Copter being playable in any colour deck would be this: is the fact that Copter is colourless stifling diversity, or assisting it by giving multiple archetypes access to a powerful card?
Good card...yet. Ban worthy...Not IMO. Why? Because it can go into so many decks. This isn't a Coco situation where you're deck had to have alot of 2-3 mana creatures and a main color be green. Copter can go in r/w aggro, r/b aggro, r/b zombies, w/u flash, b/g delirium etc. Anything short of a pure control or combo deck can run it.
I imagine with Aether Revolt, red gets a really good artifact kill spell to go along with white and green(remember smash to smithereens...think of the liability copter is then).
What I'm more concerned with now with the combo decks being hated out by U/W Flash, G/B Delirium doesn't seem to have any bad matchups. Ishkana is just so good. Kalitas is annoying against Zombies but Ishkana is just impossible to beat.
Being format warping on its own isn't a good reason for a ban of a card. important misconception.
Every format has a few cards in the top-tier, the "best" in the format. Those cards by definition warp the format: they're the most efficient versions of the most powerful effects in the format, so you must be able to contend with them in deckbuilding.
Copter is certainly format warping, but there's no reason to think that entails a ban of the card yet.
It's not a oppressive card it is easy to deal with. The biggest problem is it's a 4 of in just about every deck. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets printed in some other product like a duel deck. Remember what happen to Hangarback Walker.
There's two easy ways to answer Copter: Kill it or play a flier big enough to block it. Rhino, CoCo, Pack Rat, Sphinx's Rev, and Thragtusk (the cards that have probably been the closest to being banworthy since Jace and SFM) are bad comparisons because if you didn't counter them (or, in the case of Pack Rat, kill it before they untapped, which was hard to do because of Thoughtseize), they were probably taking over the game. Copter is an undercosted beat stick, sure, but there's a ton of removal in every color that kills it, there are plenty of viable decks that don't play it. Compare it to something like Mutavault, which cost around $40 at one point and saw play in literally every deck that could take down a high level tournament. I don't think I ever played in that Standard without at least two Mutavaults in my 75.
On top of that, is having Copter in the format actually a bad thing? It makes for a more draw-dependent format, and it's hard to play aggro without it, but think about how diverse the format is right now (especially coming off arguably the worst year of Standard in recent memory) and how much less diverse it would get if Copter was banned.
Euhm, I've been playing the copter for the last two days, played it a lot, and I can say i'm again surprised about the ammount of moaning about it. It's a aritfact, yes, it's low cost for a flier, yes, the looting is good, yes, but...
There's a turn 3 kill combo deck in standard. There's a 3/2 artifact which comes back for 2 in the same format as a 2/3 for 1 and a 3/2 for one. There's a deck which throws down Emrakul on turn 4 with seemingly no tangible setup and not that much that you can do about it. You don't even know youre playing against that deck because it could be any number of GB things. The GB delirium deck is composed of a bunch of mythics and removal which can and will kill the chopper and probably also anything else you might be playing with the chopper. The GB delirium "deck" isn't a deck at all, really all it takes to be "pro" with that deck is a lot of money. There's this 0.06 tix rare artifact that can draw you a handful of cards for 1 and then R, which is frankly insane. I check the boards and nobody is raving about how good that card is, I check out the high placing pro decks and theres more or less 4X in every one, because, dooh, it breaks magic. Or at least some of the unwritten rules of it, and is certainly a better card than the copter. There's a card going around for 0.07 cents or something which for 3 mana can search anyone's everything and take out all copies of whatever non-artifact - in a format where 4X of any mythic are routinely played and you can practically tell how every match is going to go down, while at the same time a white card which (potentially) does the same thing to creatures on board costs a bunch. I bet folks were moaning about something else while Tarmogoyf was a dollar rare.
If anything is defining the format it's that spider or emrakul.
The decks are generally so simpleminded and the cards so out of proportion that if you just control the board a tiny bit or probe the other guys hand, you could probably win any match by ruining the other guys deck with repeated Wildest Dreams + Lost Legacy. Really, there's gotta be a deck which just runs those two things, some board control and card draw in the same vein that all the dip***** GB and Torrential Gremlin Fodder guys play and just take people's win conditions out of their decks. And possibly hitting themselves to exile that thing which you can play from exile.
I laughed hard at "diverse format" few posts above.
The main offender is busted tempo UW deck that just has answer for everything. The problem with it I believe is that it attacks from all angles - copter, flying threats, Gideon, counterspells, and sweeper insurance in Selfless spirit. GB delirium is only strong becauss of its strong UW "Flash" matchup, and still UW is able to take tournaments. Without Queller + Gideon + Avacyn deck GB would just get stomped by Bluehulk control and turn 4 Ulamogs.
I personally think copter is a fine card in itself. The great mix UW deck has is a problem.
And about above Lost Legacy reccursion deck idea - it would just get stomped by UW.
I laughed hard at "diverse format" few posts above.
The main offender is busted tempo UW deck that just has answer for everything. The problem with it I believe is that it attacks from all angles - copter, flying threats, Gideon, counterspells, and sweeper insurance in Selfless spirit. GB delirium is only strong becauss of its strong UW "Flash" matchup, and still UW is able to take tournaments. Without Queller + Gideon + Avacyn deck GB would just get stomped by Bluehulk control and turn 4 Ulamogs.
I personally think copter is a fine card in itself. The great mix UW deck has is a problem.
And about above Lost Legacy reccursion deck idea - it would just get stomped by UW.
The format is still better than early Theos standard... if that counts for anything.
I honestly don't feel like choptor is a problem at all. Standard has been like this for awhile.
I laughed hard at "diverse format" few posts above.
The main offender is busted tempo UW deck that just has answer for everything. The problem with it I believe is that it attacks from all angles - copter, flying threats, Gideon, counterspells, and sweeper insurance in Selfless spirit. GB delirium is only strong becauss of its strong UW "Flash" matchup, and still UW is able to take tournaments. Without Queller + Gideon + Avacyn deck GB would just get stomped by Bluehulk control and turn 4 Ulamogs.
I personally think copter is a fine card in itself. The great mix UW deck has is a problem.
And about above Lost Legacy reccursion deck idea - it would just get stomped by UW.
UW isn't even that good for being as wide a metagame presence as it is. WRx Vehicles beats it, GB Delirium beats it, and the emerging "diversified" RUG Aetherworks decks that aren't all-in on t4 Marvel into Eldrazi Titan have pretty good (near 50/50) game against it. UW has underperformed for a couple of weeks now given its metagame share and pro articles have openly been asking why its metagame share is still so high.
Going slightly off topic: but I failed hard vs UW flash with vehicles; always running out of gas before they do - and there's enough removal in white for the thopters - meaning depala (only way to gain card advantage) can't get tapped unless you risk attacking into an avacyn/gideon.
I just don't know what to do when the opponent is at (say) 10 life, 2 thopters are gone, I have depala, selfless spirit and veteran motorist on the field and no more hand. And the opponent just has a gideon token + gideon and a spell queller with the first strike dwarf below it (+ mana open for avacyn). With a counterspell/avacyn on hand.
Above situation happened at the standard showdown "final match", as well as on the fnm last week "for number 1 spot". (same person same deck). I just can't beat through that.
It's obviously not possible for me to tell you what you should have done in that specific scenario as of that specific moment because I don't have full information about how the game played out to get to that point.
I can say that there are more sources of card advantage than Depala, though, and that in my experience Depala isn't actually used for her X-ability very often when I play against UW. Veteran Motorist effectively cycles lands on top of your library late in the game. Key to the City actually cycles your lands, and even gives you some free damage as a bonus, which is a big deal when you get to those situations like with Avacyn that you describe. Gideon, Chandra, and Skysovereign (the best top ends in WR against UW) all generate incremental advantage every turn.
In fact, because of all these sources of card advantage, I've never had a game where I run out of gas before UW, once you remove the noise from statistical variance from the equation. (i.e. ignoring mulls to 5- where you obviously are supremely far behind in card advantage from the jump, entirely due to variance). When I do lose to them, it's usually because I didn't have a good aggressive draw and my opponent was able to curve very favorably (talking Reflector Mage or Thalia into Gisela or Gideon on the play). In other words, WR has to noticeably miss a beat and UW has to curve out flawlessly. If they don't, then they're consistently behind the whole game and they don't have any unique sources of CA to pull ahead.
As far as beating Avacyn, just don't attack into Avacyn mana until you have a Stasis Snare. By extension, if you see a Gideon come down on turn 4, go out of your way to kill him before they can untap and play a fifth land with him still in play. By extension, if they Reflector Mage you on 3, you're going to have to spend your turn after that setting up as much as possible to beat Gideon, which may involve putting extra bodies like a Toolcraft Exemplar + Veteran Motorist into play instead of a Depala (who can come down a turn later and still add attacking power to the board that turn with her anthem). I'm not saying you do this, but if your reaction to turn 4 Gideon is "oh ***** how do I beat a turn 4 Gideon?" instead of "alright, so I play this and crew and attack and that kills Gideon," you just are not going to be playing well enough even if you draw the tools to win to actually beat UW Flash consistently. UW Flash can basically only consistently beat you if they can get ahead of you early and land a Gideon that sticks until they untap and play land 5 for Avacyn. That gives you a very straightforward path to victory -- don't let them do that -- which should inform your sequencing from the beginning of the game.
Personally, the reason I haven't been playing this standard season is that it feels like modern. That might sound a little odd, but the games play usually two ways: Either the opposing deck is aggressively attempting to get your life total to 0 and the game ends at turn 4, or the game doesn't end turn 4 because the other guy is playing UW flash. Thankfully fnm hasn't evolved to that state completely yet as people are still playing werewolves and UW spirits, but it wont take long for these more powerful decks to take root and sweep the fnm scene. It's a pitty since I put a lot of money down on a few standard decks to run, but yeah.
Also, I'm really thinking energy is possibly more broken than infect. Dynavolt tower, Panharmonicon, Aetherworks Marvel, electrostatic pummeller, and some creatures with ETB effects that add huge amounts of energy can really lock down the field. I don't think that energy will survive as a mechanic in modern, but then again it just might be one of the rare edge cases if it gets enough support in aether revolt.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The thing is, UW Flash isn't even that good of a tempo deck. It's just a fundementally bad deck. It doesn't really have many cards that are capable of winning the game (Copter, Gideon and Avacyn's flipped form, but that's it). Beyond that, you've got, what, a bunch of 1/2s and 2/3s and no card advantage.
The thing with that is that, when you get down to it, almost no deck in standard right now is anything more than a vehicle for mythics or one signature card, with the exception of BG delirium which is a vehicle for multiple mythics. I've dealt upwards of 10 damage per game with Insolent Neonate and been dealt upwards of 10 damage per game by Thraben Inspector, as far as what can win the game is concerned. The thing with UW flash is that it's really, really good at preventing whatever your particular strategy is from winning, and beating you up with literally whatever is at hand OR the game takes long enough for them to draw one of their "pay cash, win at magic" nonsense cards. Like Gideon. I've just seen the following advice be given as a reply to "Why my deck isn't working, I have everything but Gideon" - "That's your problem, you need Gideon". And Gideon doesn't really sinergize with anything in the deck, the same advice can be given for mono W Humans, RW Humans, RW Vehicles, UW Flash, Mardu whatever - pay about 150 tix before you even consider bothering. I don't see decklists so much as stuff to put in a deck along with Gideon.
The price of the card in question doesn't have to be the thing, though. RG Hydra is cheap - but if they have Bristling Hydra, they win, if they don't they don't. Aetherworks Marvel deck doesn't even exist because of the mythic (although you're not really competitive unless you dish out for Iskanah and Emrakul) but because of the Vessel of Nascency being a decent-language-fails-to-describe-how-good-of-a-tutor-it-is for it and Woodveawers Puzzleknot being oddly good at buying people turns. There's a great RU reanimator, but the catch is that if you don't have Kozilek's Return, don't even bother, the deck can't beat a goldfish (put Kozilek's Return in and it places 3. at a big professional tourney). The zombie reanimator decks are mostly also - either you hit your nuts draw, or you don't really do anything. There's a billion BR builds around - I sold mine because it didn't have 3 Chandra's and 2 Kalitas in the sideboard which I have to assume how the deck ends up "working" for people. Had everything else inlcuding thc copter and everything needed for all sorts of builds - but if you don't have the big $$ stuff that can go into any deck, you can crash and burn in a firendly league. The UR control with the Torrential Gearhulk at least have the decency to run actual card draw with the intent of finding their "one thing" and lands to play it, but still, it's just some counters, some burn and some card draw with a few guys and man lands and the signature card. There's a big bunch of decks not being "competitive" because whoever plays Liliana against them just wins. Which kinda means that any black "deck" can lose game 1 horribly due to being a lousy pile piloted by a dingus and win games 2 and 3 because the dingus payed 120$ and drew his investment. Or a deck can draw it's stupid money card all day one day and seem great, and literally go 0-5 the next because it didn't draw it's silly card.
What wins it for UW flash, and many other decks, is Selfless Spirit, which is another, "don't bother playing without" card for white decks, but is deceptively strong in this deck in particular. Folks tend to be dissapointed with him but they tend to not see it from the other guy's point of view. The new simplified "regenerate" mechanic is probably easier to understand to new players, but it's orders of magnitude more powerful than anything similar before it was. Really, it is, it just happens that white got it without it's price being adjusted for the fact. The difference between it and "regenerate" is easy to demonstrate with even seemingly harmless little things - you attack with a 4/4 into my board with a copter on it, and have a Harnessed Lightning in hand - I activate the copter - you don't want to either be blocked or let me loot, so you blast him with the lightining - I play Built to Last - Your Harnessed Lightning failed AND you'r 4/4 is getting it AND my copter is still indistructible until EoT. The board situations you can set up with Selfless Spirit can be completely ridiculous, and if I'd ban a card in the current standard other than Vessel of Nascency it's him.
If you banned the Vessel GB delirium would kinda fall appart and so would Aetherworks Marvel. They're both very, very stupid decks.
And as for UW flash you can't not play into their cards. UW flash cards are meant to stall you around and prevent you from winning until they draw whatever their silly thing is. If you try to not play into their moves, they don't care, they want you to sit there not doing anything. More mana on the board for them to cast whatever with Spell Queller Backup, more time to protect their measly weenies with Selfless Spirit so you can't hope to 1-for-x them, and more time to loot with the copter which helps them do what they want - find their 30$ mythic or ridiculous answer to what you're doing and either stabilize or "play card - win game". It just happens that all their stalling effects come with creatures attached, so they can also quickly add up the damage. It all reminds me of Faeries to an almost sickening degree, especially the UW spirit variant with Rattlechains, except somehow even worse.
And the card which never gets mentioned is also Linvala, the Preserver. They stall, get mana for her, play her, she undoes everything you've done before. In order to lessen her impact you're kinda supposed to... not do damage. Or not have more creatures than the other guy. Yay! There's been this assumption that if something costs more than 4 mana it's supposed to win the game on the spot and the combination of eithe blue spirits, Thraben Inspector, Selfless Spirit, Smuggler's Copter, Spell Queller, Reflector Mage and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, with some choicy spells, make it kinda trivial to get there. It even looks like an aggro or tempo deck, until you realize that it isn't, really.
Copter can win games, it's true, but it's highly overrated and certainly isn't for every deck. Activating it into removal, unless there's a Selfless Spirit on board or you're running Built to Last (which noone is) or Blossoming Defense (Which also isn't played in decks which run the copter) sets you back pretty hard. Running good copter removal also means you've got good removal that kills most of everything else, so if there was a point to banning it it would be to maybe stop every single 2 drop ever from eating removal because everyone's packing. But Thraben Inspector, Selfless Spirit and Vessel of Nascency are what actually rules the format. The first one maeks a lot of creatures which would otherwise mean something not mean anything and smooths out draws / crews vehicles / is always there for mass pump for too many decks, the second makes it impossibly difficult to kills stuff or answer threats and the third wasn't really meant to effectively read "1GG: Draw 4 Cards and make delirium trivial" or "1GG: Tutor up a semi-guaranteed free Emrakul on turn 4", because it would not have been a common.
Other than the planeswalkers, which are and have always been just a design mistake the marketing latched onto for some reason. It seems like people love to believe Planeswalkers are legit and enjoy playing them, but people always like to play unfair sillyness and people like it when their money lets them win games. IDK how MtG can compete as a serious E-Sport this way, though, which seems to be what the planeswalker pushing menagerial types seem to want and think is the way to go. The "bare minimum" entry barrier is just way too high. I remember when you could put together a tier 1 standard deck for less money than it took to buy the 4 pain lands it needed. The guy who had the pain lands won every tourney in our community because his mana was just infinitely more reliable in the mirror, but the price of being obviously competitive was about 10 or more times lower. Rosewater said it a bunch, if your theme isn't at common, it's not your theme, and this actually applies. If what you absolutely need to compete is planeswalkers, and they're all mythic, and you need them in the same quantities as you'd need a common, then you're making a card that's supposed to be as widely avaliable as a common cost so much to buy individually that a person can get 2 good board games for the price of a playset of one standard-season worthy card. It's a bit much, honestly.
What also isn't helping standard is the policy of making every must-have answer that actually answers the commonly played stuff a rare or a mythic.
Is there some catch to how everyone seems to have a playset of Gideon or Liliana?
Another difference though is that it's colorless. I think the last time Standard had a card that was so widespread and could be played in every color/combination deck, it was Mutavault. And while it didn't get banned, it did bring about this same sort of discussion.
Standard: BG Golgari Midrange
Modern: U Merfolk GWUBR 5 Color Humans UBW Esper Gifts GW Bogles
Twin was banned to shake up Modern for the pro tour. Twin existing allowed bigger blue decks to exist.
UR Blue-Red Control
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
UWR Jeskai Control
CoCo wasn't banned and was twice as powerful as copter in it's standard environment... if you were behind, a single CoCo could bring you back to the game or even get you ahead, and if you were ahead most times a lucky CoCo just finished up the game on the spot. Copter is cute, very easily inserted in any deck but it isn't gonna warp the format or lead an archetype to absolute dominance.
I think I disagree with you just in one section.
Thopter is ALREADY warping the format. You see, as I mentioned previously, when a card is as ubiquitous as copter, and it becomes incorrect to not play it, the format has warped. Just look at tournament records. You can clearly start to see a pattern where playing the copter is almost always correct. This is the definition of warping. Gideon is also not too far behind on that one.
Is it oppressive? No. Is it warping? Absolutely.
Wizards will look at two things: Are tournament attendance down? If yes, banning is possible. If not, unlikely to see any banning. Secondly, has standard become so stale that all we are getting are thopter mirrors and thopter victories? Then ya, it's likely going to be banned because wizards wants a format with variety.
Coco would have gotten banned if it didn't rotate when it did. Only reason it didn't get banned was due to the early rotation. Could you imagine another 6 months of that ******* card? No thanks.
CoCo didn't rotate early. It was always going to rotate when Kaladesh released. So it lived as long in Standard as any other card - like Siege Rhino or Gary or Thoughtseize.
RNA Standard: Grixis Midrange, Jund Deathwhirler, Sultai Vannifar
GRN Standard: Red Midrange, Mono-Blue Tempo, Wr Aggro, Gruul Experimental Dinosaurs, Sultai Midrange, Jeskai Midrange
Modern: Bant Spirits
Forcing a single archetype in all formats: too many colors, bad mana.
In Progress
GBIshkanah, Grafwidow ~ BWGRTymna the Weaver & Tana, the Bloodsower ~ UGRashmi, Eternities Crafter ~ RGAtarka, World Render
I feel like this needs to be plastered on a banner at the top of the Standard forum.
Obviously, it's possible for the best card or best cards to be enough better than the rest of the pool to warrant discussing a ban, but there's always going to be something at the top.
Another question with regard to the point about Copter being playable in any colour deck would be this: is the fact that Copter is colourless stifling diversity, or assisting it by giving multiple archetypes access to a powerful card?
I imagine with Aether Revolt, red gets a really good artifact kill spell to go along with white and green(remember smash to smithereens...think of the liability copter is then).
What I'm more concerned with now with the combo decks being hated out by U/W Flash, G/B Delirium doesn't seem to have any bad matchups. Ishkana is just so good. Kalitas is annoying against Zombies but Ishkana is just impossible to beat.
Modern: R Skred -- WBG Melira Co -- URW Nahiri Control
Legacy: R Mono Red Burn -- UWB Stoneblade
Commander: R Krenko, Mob Boss -- WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon -- WUBRG Maze’s End
Other: R No Rares Red (Standard) -- URC Izzet Tron (Pauper)
Every format has a few cards in the top-tier, the "best" in the format. Those cards by definition warp the format: they're the most efficient versions of the most powerful effects in the format, so you must be able to contend with them in deckbuilding.
Copter is certainly format warping, but there's no reason to think that entails a ban of the card yet.
GW ~ Angels ~ WG
Modern:
RBW ~ Shadowmancer ~ WBR
Legacy:
BUG ~ Shadow Delver ~ GUB
Don't get me wrong, its good. But it's hardly the most broken card in standard we've seen.
Twitter: twitter.com/axmanonline
Stream: twitch.tv/axman
Current Decks
Modern: Affinity
Standard: BW Control
Legacy: Death and Taxes :symw::symr:
Vintage: NA
On top of that, is having Copter in the format actually a bad thing? It makes for a more draw-dependent format, and it's hard to play aggro without it, but think about how diverse the format is right now (especially coming off arguably the worst year of Standard in recent memory) and how much less diverse it would get if Copter was banned.
There's a turn 3 kill combo deck in standard. There's a 3/2 artifact which comes back for 2 in the same format as a 2/3 for 1 and a 3/2 for one. There's a deck which throws down Emrakul on turn 4 with seemingly no tangible setup and not that much that you can do about it. You don't even know youre playing against that deck because it could be any number of GB things. The GB delirium deck is composed of a bunch of mythics and removal which can and will kill the chopper and probably also anything else you might be playing with the chopper. The GB delirium "deck" isn't a deck at all, really all it takes to be "pro" with that deck is a lot of money. There's this 0.06 tix rare artifact that can draw you a handful of cards for 1 and then R, which is frankly insane. I check the boards and nobody is raving about how good that card is, I check out the high placing pro decks and theres more or less 4X in every one, because, dooh, it breaks magic. Or at least some of the unwritten rules of it, and is certainly a better card than the copter. There's a card going around for 0.07 cents or something which for 3 mana can search anyone's everything and take out all copies of whatever non-artifact - in a format where 4X of any mythic are routinely played and you can practically tell how every match is going to go down, while at the same time a white card which (potentially) does the same thing to creatures on board costs a bunch. I bet folks were moaning about something else while Tarmogoyf was a dollar rare.
If anything is defining the format it's that spider or emrakul.
The decks are generally so simpleminded and the cards so out of proportion that if you just control the board a tiny bit or probe the other guys hand, you could probably win any match by ruining the other guys deck with repeated Wildest Dreams + Lost Legacy. Really, there's gotta be a deck which just runs those two things, some board control and card draw in the same vein that all the dip***** GB and Torrential Gremlin Fodder guys play and just take people's win conditions out of their decks. And possibly hitting themselves to exile that thing which you can play from exile.
The main offender is busted tempo UW deck that just has answer for everything. The problem with it I believe is that it attacks from all angles - copter, flying threats, Gideon, counterspells, and sweeper insurance in Selfless spirit. GB delirium is only strong becauss of its strong UW "Flash" matchup, and still UW is able to take tournaments. Without Queller + Gideon + Avacyn deck GB would just get stomped by Bluehulk control and turn 4 Ulamogs.
I personally think copter is a fine card in itself. The great mix UW deck has is a problem.
And about above Lost Legacy reccursion deck idea - it would just get stomped by UW.
The format is still better than early Theos standard... if that counts for anything.
I honestly don't feel like choptor is a problem at all. Standard has been like this for awhile.
Twitter: twitter.com/axmanonline
Stream: twitch.tv/axman
Current Decks
Modern: Affinity
Standard: BW Control
Legacy: Death and Taxes :symw::symr:
Vintage: NA
UW isn't even that good for being as wide a metagame presence as it is. WRx Vehicles beats it, GB Delirium beats it, and the emerging "diversified" RUG Aetherworks decks that aren't all-in on t4 Marvel into Eldrazi Titan have pretty good (near 50/50) game against it. UW has underperformed for a couple of weeks now given its metagame share and pro articles have openly been asking why its metagame share is still so high.
Deck is not broken, not close.
GW ~ Angels ~ WG
Modern:
RBW ~ Shadowmancer ~ WBR
Legacy:
BUG ~ Shadow Delver ~ GUB
It's obviously not possible for me to tell you what you should have done in that specific scenario as of that specific moment because I don't have full information about how the game played out to get to that point.
I can say that there are more sources of card advantage than Depala, though, and that in my experience Depala isn't actually used for her X-ability very often when I play against UW. Veteran Motorist effectively cycles lands on top of your library late in the game. Key to the City actually cycles your lands, and even gives you some free damage as a bonus, which is a big deal when you get to those situations like with Avacyn that you describe. Gideon, Chandra, and Skysovereign (the best top ends in WR against UW) all generate incremental advantage every turn.
In fact, because of all these sources of card advantage, I've never had a game where I run out of gas before UW, once you remove the noise from statistical variance from the equation. (i.e. ignoring mulls to 5- where you obviously are supremely far behind in card advantage from the jump, entirely due to variance). When I do lose to them, it's usually because I didn't have a good aggressive draw and my opponent was able to curve very favorably (talking Reflector Mage or Thalia into Gisela or Gideon on the play). In other words, WR has to noticeably miss a beat and UW has to curve out flawlessly. If they don't, then they're consistently behind the whole game and they don't have any unique sources of CA to pull ahead.
As far as beating Avacyn, just don't attack into Avacyn mana until you have a Stasis Snare. By extension, if you see a Gideon come down on turn 4, go out of your way to kill him before they can untap and play a fifth land with him still in play. By extension, if they Reflector Mage you on 3, you're going to have to spend your turn after that setting up as much as possible to beat Gideon, which may involve putting extra bodies like a Toolcraft Exemplar + Veteran Motorist into play instead of a Depala (who can come down a turn later and still add attacking power to the board that turn with her anthem). I'm not saying you do this, but if your reaction to turn 4 Gideon is "oh ***** how do I beat a turn 4 Gideon?" instead of "alright, so I play this and crew and attack and that kills Gideon," you just are not going to be playing well enough even if you draw the tools to win to actually beat UW Flash consistently. UW Flash can basically only consistently beat you if they can get ahead of you early and land a Gideon that sticks until they untap and play land 5 for Avacyn. That gives you a very straightforward path to victory -- don't let them do that -- which should inform your sequencing from the beginning of the game.
GW ~ Angels ~ WG
Modern:
RBW ~ Shadowmancer ~ WBR
Legacy:
BUG ~ Shadow Delver ~ GUB
Also, I'm really thinking energy is possibly more broken than infect. Dynavolt tower, Panharmonicon, Aetherworks Marvel, electrostatic pummeller, and some creatures with ETB effects that add huge amounts of energy can really lock down the field. I don't think that energy will survive as a mechanic in modern, but then again it just might be one of the rare edge cases if it gets enough support in aether revolt.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
The thing with that is that, when you get down to it, almost no deck in standard right now is anything more than a vehicle for mythics or one signature card, with the exception of BG delirium which is a vehicle for multiple mythics. I've dealt upwards of 10 damage per game with Insolent Neonate and been dealt upwards of 10 damage per game by Thraben Inspector, as far as what can win the game is concerned. The thing with UW flash is that it's really, really good at preventing whatever your particular strategy is from winning, and beating you up with literally whatever is at hand OR the game takes long enough for them to draw one of their "pay cash, win at magic" nonsense cards. Like Gideon. I've just seen the following advice be given as a reply to "Why my deck isn't working, I have everything but Gideon" - "That's your problem, you need Gideon". And Gideon doesn't really sinergize with anything in the deck, the same advice can be given for mono W Humans, RW Humans, RW Vehicles, UW Flash, Mardu whatever - pay about 150 tix before you even consider bothering. I don't see decklists so much as stuff to put in a deck along with Gideon.
The price of the card in question doesn't have to be the thing, though. RG Hydra is cheap - but if they have Bristling Hydra, they win, if they don't they don't. Aetherworks Marvel deck doesn't even exist because of the mythic (although you're not really competitive unless you dish out for Iskanah and Emrakul) but because of the Vessel of Nascency being a decent-language-fails-to-describe-how-good-of-a-tutor-it-is for it and Woodveawers Puzzleknot being oddly good at buying people turns. There's a great RU reanimator, but the catch is that if you don't have Kozilek's Return, don't even bother, the deck can't beat a goldfish (put Kozilek's Return in and it places 3. at a big professional tourney). The zombie reanimator decks are mostly also - either you hit your nuts draw, or you don't really do anything. There's a billion BR builds around - I sold mine because it didn't have 3 Chandra's and 2 Kalitas in the sideboard which I have to assume how the deck ends up "working" for people. Had everything else inlcuding thc copter and everything needed for all sorts of builds - but if you don't have the big $$ stuff that can go into any deck, you can crash and burn in a firendly league. The UR control with the Torrential Gearhulk at least have the decency to run actual card draw with the intent of finding their "one thing" and lands to play it, but still, it's just some counters, some burn and some card draw with a few guys and man lands and the signature card. There's a big bunch of decks not being "competitive" because whoever plays Liliana against them just wins. Which kinda means that any black "deck" can lose game 1 horribly due to being a lousy pile piloted by a dingus and win games 2 and 3 because the dingus payed 120$ and drew his investment. Or a deck can draw it's stupid money card all day one day and seem great, and literally go 0-5 the next because it didn't draw it's silly card.
What wins it for UW flash, and many other decks, is Selfless Spirit, which is another, "don't bother playing without" card for white decks, but is deceptively strong in this deck in particular. Folks tend to be dissapointed with him but they tend to not see it from the other guy's point of view. The new simplified "regenerate" mechanic is probably easier to understand to new players, but it's orders of magnitude more powerful than anything similar before it was. Really, it is, it just happens that white got it without it's price being adjusted for the fact. The difference between it and "regenerate" is easy to demonstrate with even seemingly harmless little things - you attack with a 4/4 into my board with a copter on it, and have a Harnessed Lightning in hand - I activate the copter - you don't want to either be blocked or let me loot, so you blast him with the lightining - I play Built to Last - Your Harnessed Lightning failed AND you'r 4/4 is getting it AND my copter is still indistructible until EoT. The board situations you can set up with Selfless Spirit can be completely ridiculous, and if I'd ban a card in the current standard other than Vessel of Nascency it's him.
If you banned the Vessel GB delirium would kinda fall appart and so would Aetherworks Marvel. They're both very, very stupid decks.
And as for UW flash you can't not play into their cards. UW flash cards are meant to stall you around and prevent you from winning until they draw whatever their silly thing is. If you try to not play into their moves, they don't care, they want you to sit there not doing anything. More mana on the board for them to cast whatever with Spell Queller Backup, more time to protect their measly weenies with Selfless Spirit so you can't hope to 1-for-x them, and more time to loot with the copter which helps them do what they want - find their 30$ mythic or ridiculous answer to what you're doing and either stabilize or "play card - win game". It just happens that all their stalling effects come with creatures attached, so they can also quickly add up the damage. It all reminds me of Faeries to an almost sickening degree, especially the UW spirit variant with Rattlechains, except somehow even worse.
And the card which never gets mentioned is also Linvala, the Preserver. They stall, get mana for her, play her, she undoes everything you've done before. In order to lessen her impact you're kinda supposed to... not do damage. Or not have more creatures than the other guy. Yay! There's been this assumption that if something costs more than 4 mana it's supposed to win the game on the spot and the combination of eithe blue spirits, Thraben Inspector, Selfless Spirit, Smuggler's Copter, Spell Queller, Reflector Mage and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, with some choicy spells, make it kinda trivial to get there. It even looks like an aggro or tempo deck, until you realize that it isn't, really.
Copter can win games, it's true, but it's highly overrated and certainly isn't for every deck. Activating it into removal, unless there's a Selfless Spirit on board or you're running Built to Last (which noone is) or Blossoming Defense (Which also isn't played in decks which run the copter) sets you back pretty hard. Running good copter removal also means you've got good removal that kills most of everything else, so if there was a point to banning it it would be to maybe stop every single 2 drop ever from eating removal because everyone's packing. But Thraben Inspector, Selfless Spirit and Vessel of Nascency are what actually rules the format. The first one maeks a lot of creatures which would otherwise mean something not mean anything and smooths out draws / crews vehicles / is always there for mass pump for too many decks, the second makes it impossibly difficult to kills stuff or answer threats and the third wasn't really meant to effectively read "1GG: Draw 4 Cards and make delirium trivial" or "1GG: Tutor up a semi-guaranteed free Emrakul on turn 4", because it would not have been a common.
Other than the planeswalkers, which are and have always been just a design mistake the marketing latched onto for some reason. It seems like people love to believe Planeswalkers are legit and enjoy playing them, but people always like to play unfair sillyness and people like it when their money lets them win games. IDK how MtG can compete as a serious E-Sport this way, though, which seems to be what the planeswalker pushing menagerial types seem to want and think is the way to go. The "bare minimum" entry barrier is just way too high. I remember when you could put together a tier 1 standard deck for less money than it took to buy the 4 pain lands it needed. The guy who had the pain lands won every tourney in our community because his mana was just infinitely more reliable in the mirror, but the price of being obviously competitive was about 10 or more times lower. Rosewater said it a bunch, if your theme isn't at common, it's not your theme, and this actually applies. If what you absolutely need to compete is planeswalkers, and they're all mythic, and you need them in the same quantities as you'd need a common, then you're making a card that's supposed to be as widely avaliable as a common cost so much to buy individually that a person can get 2 good board games for the price of a playset of one standard-season worthy card. It's a bit much, honestly.
What also isn't helping standard is the policy of making every must-have answer that actually answers the commonly played stuff a rare or a mythic.
Is there some catch to how everyone seems to have a playset of Gideon or Liliana?
To think I had already adapted hehe
I was OK with spending money on a new standard deck every six months, but this is too much. Now I have nothing.
Youtube Channel