March 13th is the next available day that Wizards is able to make any ban decisions.
Is there any possibility that Standard could receive MORE bans?
Personally, while I don't think it's incredibly likely, I think a Felidar Guardian ban is possible. The deck isn't incredibly oppressive in the sense that it's winning tournaments, however, it's oppressive in that its restricting Tier 2 decks from successfully emerging, unless they have built in Anti-Saheeli. Also, they didn't anticipate the loop, so I feel like them banning it because it's a toxic strategy they didn't foresee isn't impossible.
Thoughts? Think we'll see anything? Due to the adoption of a State of Standard thread that includes this subject matter, this thread is locked. -hoser2
My hope is that nothing is banned. I think a lot of LGS goers are now trigger shy buying into standard because they don't know what will be banned next.
My fear is that they will ban Guardian, Heart, and Snek as part of this new strategy of targeting down the top decks to produce artificial rotations.
What I think: nothing, unless the metagame changes drastically in the next two weeks.
What I'd like: Ban the Cat, Save the Mage. The former prevents a lot of strategies from existing in Standard, while the latter keeps midrange decks honest and would slow down the Snek and Vehicles decks. It would also bring back Spirits, which I really miss.
Agreed the cat does need the hammer in my opinion since it forces everyone to run a sub theme that is anti cat combo but on the other hand wizards might want to just leave things be, a ban on one of the top tier decks would mostly confirm the suspicions of some that wizards is going to start a new ban the top decks cycle
Wizards doesnt blindly engage in "banning the top decks". cards are banned for a few reasons. either everybody has to play a certain card to be competitive, or everybody has to play against a certain card to be competitive, or both.
the cat combo is easy to disrupt, and all of the colors have competitive options for doing so. if you play competitively and are not prepared to deal with combo decks (either in the main or sideboard) then you've failed to prepare. the only reason I can see Wizards banning part of a combo is if it's impossible to stop, and cat isn't.
while Heart of Kiran is a prime example of power creep, it has many competitive answers. Smuggler's Copter needed the ban for the reasons I explained above. additionally, it dramatically increased the ability of players to filter through their decks. while not exactly card advantage, it was an obscene tempo advantage for a super low mana cost. Heart of Kiran is simply a beatstick, and thankfully a legendary one at that.
banning snek is a silly idea. it's a synergy card that does nothing special by itself. it has a fair mana cost. it has fair power/toughness for a two color, 2cmc creature. it's also easy to kill. Hardened Scales wasn't banned, so why should snek?
I think standard players often get tunnel vision regarding certain cards and decks. if you're willing to do a bit of research and playtesting rather than basing your success solely on netdecking, you'll be more competitive.
banning snek is a silly idea. it's a synergy card that does nothing special by itself. it has a fair mana cost. it has fair power/toughness for a two color, 2cmc creature. it's also easy to kill. Hardened Scales wasn't banned, so why should snek?
I think standard players often get tunnel vision regarding certain cards and decks. if you're willing to do a bit of research and playtesting rather than basing your success solely on netdecking, you'll be more competitive.
Another reason why snek won't get banned is simply because Amonkhet has -1/-1 counters. Snek is going to fall almost completely out of favor in 3 months.
tbh I think they should just leave the format and ban nothing for now and just leave the format. I don't like the idea of banning so many cards from the format in such a small frame of time
Wizards doesnt blindly engage in "banning the top decks".
That was true up until the point that they banned a card out of each of the top decks last announcement. In addition to that they doubled their scheduled ban announcement times for the year. It is clear that Wizards is going to take a much more aggressive stance when it comes to Standard bannings. I think the only question now is how aggressive that is.
The bannings feel a lot more like they want to push the next set that is coming out over the previous one, so my guess is they ban a card from each of the top tier decks. Once that happens they release the spoilers for Amonket and everyone goes rushing over there to start brewing. There definitely was a need to ban some of the unfun cards from Kaladesh and SoI, though. I can't think of anyone who liked playing against Turn 4 Emerakul.
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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!
If there is anything to be banned it SHOULD be Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. The guy is just a turbo-efficient clock that's incredibly difficult to remove. However he's also a Gatewatch walker and wizards I don't think is willing to have their flagship character get banned. Heart of Kiran might get banned to avoid having to ban Gideon, but that'd make for 2 cards that have eaten a ban to save the walker.
Copycat is a very poweful deck, of course, but it's put up all of 0 results since the first Open that AER was legal in. Zero top8s at the PT, I think only one top16. The deck is strong but too fragile for any ban to be reasonable.
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Wizards doesnt blindly engage in "banning the top decks".
That was true up until the point that they banned a card out of each of the top decks last announcement. In addition to that they doubled their scheduled ban announcement times for the year. It is clear that Wizards is going to take a much more aggressive stance when it comes to Standard bannings. I think the only question now is how aggressive that is.
That entire statement is baseless speculation. They banned cards for format diversity reasons mainly, as they should've banned CoCo months earlier but didn't. The bans at that point were clearly attempting to head off another CoCo type mess. As for the increase in B&R updates, this is something people have wanted on and off for a long time and after Eldrazi Winter and failing to respond to CoCo in a reasonable fashion it's not surprising they changed the schedule to be able to prevent similar issues in the future. I highly doubt they'll ban anything in Standard or Modern on the 13th, can't really guess on other formats.
If anything I think Heart of Kiran might get the axe this time, for broadly similar reasons Smuggler's Copter did. It really stifles diversity among aggro decks, it's much more difficult to answer properly then Smuggler's Copter ever was and it is just plain overpowered. It makes control decks obsolete almost by itself, not that lack of reasonable carddraw isn't doing those decks in already.
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In my dream, the world had suffered a terrible disaster. A black haze shut out the sun, and the darkness was alive with the moans and screams of wounded people. Suddenly, a small light glowed. A candle flickered into life, symbol of hope for millions. A single tiny candle, shining in the ugly dark. I laughed and blew it out.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
Wizards doesnt blindly engage in "banning the top decks".
That was true up until the point that they banned a card out of each of the top decks last announcement. In addition to that they doubled their scheduled ban announcement times for the year. It is clear that Wizards is going to take a much more aggressive stance when it comes to Standard bannings. I think the only question now is how aggressive that is.
That entire statement is baseless speculation. They banned cards for format diversity reasons mainly, as they should've banned CoCo months earlier but didn't. The bans at that point were clearly attempting to head off another CoCo type mess. As for the increase in B&R updates, this is something people have wanted on and off for a long time and after Eldrazi Winter and failing to respond to CoCo in a reasonable fashion it's not surprising they changed the schedule to be able to prevent similar issues in the future. I highly doubt they'll ban anything in Standard or Modern on the 13th, can't really guess on other formats.
There is zero speculation in my statements. Fact, they increased the frequency of ban announcements. Fact, they banned a card in each of the top 3 decks. Fact, Wizards has stated that the bar for bans in Standard was too high in the past. The only speculation is how aggressive they will be, I.e. whether or not we will see bans more regularly in the future. Coco reinforces this change in their stance to bannings in Standard, as it was admitted that they should have banned Coco. The fact that it wasn't only shows that they were still operating under the old banning philosophy at the time. Your argument would only make sense if it were Jan 8th 2017.
If anything I think Heart of Kiran might get the axe this time, for broadly similar reasons Smuggler's Copter did. It really stifles diversity among aggro decks, it's much more difficult to answer properly then Smuggler's Copter ever was and it is just plain overpowered. It makes control decks obsolete almost by itself, not that lack of reasonable carddraw isn't doing those decks in already.
Assuming wizards wants the meta to have control decks running around. I don't think they actually want FNM games running really long as a general rule of thumb and having Control decks become dominant will probably lead to very long tournament nights.
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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!
Fact, they banned a card in each of the top 3 decks.
Wrong.
They banned 1 card from the second best deck because the Mindslaver effect wasn't possible to interact with at all except for a single 4 mana card in the game and people overwhelmingly hated playing against it, even if it wasn't the actual top deck.
From there they banned to best card in the actual top performing deck, the Copter, because banning only the best card in the second best performing deck is HELLA BAD for the format.
And from there they banned the second best card in the actual top performing deck, because banning the Copter punished every well performing deck, and not just the top performing one.
Also Heart of Kiran is MUCH easier to interact with than Smugglers Copter thanks to Fatal Push.
Fact, they banned a card in each of the top 3 decks.
Wrong.
They banned 1 card from the second best deck because the Mindslaver effect wasn't possible to interact with at all except for a single 4 mana card in the game and people overwhelmingly hated playing against it, even if it wasn't the actual top deck.
From there they banned to best card in the actual top performing deck, the Copter, because banning only the best card in the second best performing deck is HELLA BAD for the format.
And from there they banned the second best card in the actual top performing deck, because banning the Copter punished every well performing deck, and not just the top performing one.
Also Heart of Kiran is MUCH easier to interact with than Smugglers Copter thanks to Fatal Push.
You say that I'm wrong and then proceed to explain that they were specifically banning cards out of the top decks. Ok... you do realise you are proving my point, right?
Whether or not tier 1 at the time was two or three types of decks is irrelevant. As the fact remains that Wizards was specifically targeting the tier 1 decks.
What I think: nothing, unless the metagame changes drastically in the next two weeks.
What I'd like: Ban the Cat, Save the Mage. The former prevents a lot of strategies from existing in Standard, while the latter keeps midrange decks honest and would slow down the Snek and Vehicles decks. It would also bring back Spirits, which I really miss.
reflector mage pushed siege rhino into extinction. that's not "keeping midrange honest" but "driving midrange out of the format" - if the overly-efficient rhino couldn't cut it in a mage world, what would?
Pretty sure the ban update is tomorrow not the 13th as it says on the site. tomorrow is 5 weeks after the PT.
Tomorrow isn't 5 weeks after the Pro Tour. The Pro Tour was on February 3-5. Five weeks after the Pro Tour is March 10-12, and the announcement is the Monday after, so therefore March 13.
Pretty sure the ban update is tomorrow not the 13th as it says on the site. tomorrow is 5 weeks after the PT.
According to at least one page on the mothership and the event thread I posted, the Pro Tour was 2/3-5. By my math, 3/13 is 5 weeks after the Pro Tour and is the same date referenced in the previous ban announcement here.
My gut feeling is that wizards could go the direction of only allowing one version of a walker in standard at a time, so that means Gideon and Liliana would get banned in favor of the newer printings coming in Amonket. Would it be "healthy" to do it? Probably not given the sort of decks running Gideon and liliana.
If they go the route of hating on everyone they may just ban a card from each of the top three decks. So solid snake, Mad Max, and Crazy Cat Lady all lose something. If that happens I got a feeling we will all be frequenting strictly better mtg deck techs to figure out where the heck to go from there.
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!
I think Standard on an FNM level would implode if they decided to do what they did last time and essentially ban cards out of the tier 1 decks. It would completely undermine confidence in the format at that level. No one wants to buy into a deck that might be banned 2 months later. We might as well return to the 2 rotations a year at that rate, since at least that's predictable and expected. The only card I could see getting the axe with minimal collateral damage is the Cat, purely because people have been somewhat expecting it to happen. However, if banning the Cat requires targeting other tier 1 decks to prevent a lopsided meta, I think Wizards is better off to to just leave it be.
I think Standard on an FNM level would implode if they decided to do what they did last time and essentially ban cards out of the tier 1 decks. It would completely undermine confidence in the format at that level. No one wants to buy into a deck that might be banned 2 months later. We might as well return to the 2 rotations a year at that rate, since at least that's predictable and expected. The only card I could see getting the axe with minimal collateral damage is the Cat, purely because people have been somewhat expecting it to happen. However, if banning the Cat requires targeting other tier 1 decks to prevent a lopsided meta, I think Wizards is better off to to just leave it be.
As for the topic, I totally agree with you.
The Cat could be banned, but that would leave the problem with the other two Tier 1 decks. And while we all see that Standard right now is boring and these three decks are dominating the format, it's more because of a bad Standard environment design than because of single cards. When the previous bans happened, all decks included the Copter, for example, and nowadays it's not the case with Heart of Kiran. So if banning the Cat means banning more cards that are just part of dominating decks but not dominating cards, I don't want any bans. I would even say that Mardu Vehicles and Gideon are worse for Standard than any Saheeli-Cat combo!
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Is there any possibility that Standard could receive MORE bans?
Personally, while I don't think it's incredibly likely, I think a Felidar Guardian ban is possible. The deck isn't incredibly oppressive in the sense that it's winning tournaments, however, it's oppressive in that its restricting Tier 2 decks from successfully emerging, unless they have built in Anti-Saheeli. Also, they didn't anticipate the loop, so I feel like them banning it because it's a toxic strategy they didn't foresee isn't impossible.
Thoughts? Think we'll see anything?
Due to the adoption of a State of Standard thread that includes this subject matter, this thread is locked. -hoser2
My fear is that they will ban Guardian, Heart, and Snek as part of this new strategy of targeting down the top decks to produce artificial rotations.
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)
What I'd like: Ban the Cat, Save the Mage. The former prevents a lot of strategies from existing in Standard, while the latter keeps midrange decks honest and would slow down the Snek and Vehicles decks. It would also bring back Spirits, which I really miss.
WBC Eldrazi & Taxes CBW
UR Keep on Cantripin' (UR Phoenix) RU
WU Surprise! It's not UW Control! (UW Midrange) UW
BG The Rock, Straight BG
U Mono-Blue Fish U
RBW Mardu Pyromancer BWR
RG Rabble! Rabble! (GR Blood Moon Aggro) GR
Legacy
W Death & Taxes W
the cat combo is easy to disrupt, and all of the colors have competitive options for doing so. if you play competitively and are not prepared to deal with combo decks (either in the main or sideboard) then you've failed to prepare. the only reason I can see Wizards banning part of a combo is if it's impossible to stop, and cat isn't.
while Heart of Kiran is a prime example of power creep, it has many competitive answers. Smuggler's Copter needed the ban for the reasons I explained above. additionally, it dramatically increased the ability of players to filter through their decks. while not exactly card advantage, it was an obscene tempo advantage for a super low mana cost. Heart of Kiran is simply a beatstick, and thankfully a legendary one at that.
banning snek is a silly idea. it's a synergy card that does nothing special by itself. it has a fair mana cost. it has fair power/toughness for a two color, 2cmc creature. it's also easy to kill. Hardened Scales wasn't banned, so why should snek?
I think standard players often get tunnel vision regarding certain cards and decks. if you're willing to do a bit of research and playtesting rather than basing your success solely on netdecking, you'll be more competitive.
Another reason why snek won't get banned is simply because Amonkhet has -1/-1 counters. Snek is going to fall almost completely out of favor in 3 months.
That was true up until the point that they banned a card out of each of the top decks last announcement. In addition to that they doubled their scheduled ban announcement times for the year. It is clear that Wizards is going to take a much more aggressive stance when it comes to Standard bannings. I think the only question now is how aggressive that is.
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)
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!
Copycat is a very poweful deck, of course, but it's put up all of 0 results since the first Open that AER was legal in. Zero top8s at the PT, I think only one top16. The deck is strong but too fragile for any ban to be reasonable.
Currently Playing:
GBStandard - Golgari Safari MidrangeBG
RBWModern - Mardu PyromancerWBR
RLegacy - Good Old Fashioned BurnR
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That entire statement is baseless speculation. They banned cards for format diversity reasons mainly, as they should've banned CoCo months earlier but didn't. The bans at that point were clearly attempting to head off another CoCo type mess. As for the increase in B&R updates, this is something people have wanted on and off for a long time and after Eldrazi Winter and failing to respond to CoCo in a reasonable fashion it's not surprising they changed the schedule to be able to prevent similar issues in the future. I highly doubt they'll ban anything in Standard or Modern on the 13th, can't really guess on other formats.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
There is zero speculation in my statements. Fact, they increased the frequency of ban announcements. Fact, they banned a card in each of the top 3 decks. Fact, Wizards has stated that the bar for bans in Standard was too high in the past. The only speculation is how aggressive they will be, I.e. whether or not we will see bans more regularly in the future. Coco reinforces this change in their stance to bannings in Standard, as it was admitted that they should have banned Coco. The fact that it wasn't only shows that they were still operating under the old banning philosophy at the time. Your argument would only make sense if it were Jan 8th 2017.
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)
Assuming wizards wants the meta to have control decks running around. I don't think they actually want FNM games running really long as a general rule of thumb and having Control decks become dominant will probably lead to very long tournament nights.
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!
Wrong.
They banned 1 card from the second best deck because the Mindslaver effect wasn't possible to interact with at all except for a single 4 mana card in the game and people overwhelmingly hated playing against it, even if it wasn't the actual top deck.
From there they banned to best card in the actual top performing deck, the Copter, because banning only the best card in the second best performing deck is HELLA BAD for the format.
And from there they banned the second best card in the actual top performing deck, because banning the Copter punished every well performing deck, and not just the top performing one.
Also Heart of Kiran is MUCH easier to interact with than Smugglers Copter thanks to Fatal Push.
If they hit standard with another wave of bans after Modern Masters leaks, no way Standard doesnt take a maaaaaaaaaaaaaassive hit.
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You say that I'm wrong and then proceed to explain that they were specifically banning cards out of the top decks. Ok... you do realise you are proving my point, right?
Whether or not tier 1 at the time was two or three types of decks is irrelevant. As the fact remains that Wizards was specifically targeting the tier 1 decks.
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)
reflector mage pushed siege rhino into extinction. that's not "keeping midrange honest" but "driving midrange out of the format" - if the overly-efficient rhino couldn't cut it in a mage world, what would?
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Tomorrow isn't 5 weeks after the Pro Tour. The Pro Tour was on February 3-5. Five weeks after the Pro Tour is March 10-12, and the announcement is the Monday after, so therefore March 13.
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.
If they go the route of hating on everyone they may just ban a card from each of the top three decks. So solid snake, Mad Max, and Crazy Cat Lady all lose something. If that happens I got a feeling we will all be frequenting strictly better mtg deck techs to figure out where the heck to go from there.
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!
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)
I'm asking myself the same all the time. I knew it was the Constrictor, but why calling it "Snek"?
As for the topic, I totally agree with you.
The Cat could be banned, but that would leave the problem with the other two Tier 1 decks. And while we all see that Standard right now is boring and these three decks are dominating the format, it's more because of a bad Standard environment design than because of single cards. When the previous bans happened, all decks included the Copter, for example, and nowadays it's not the case with Heart of Kiran. So if banning the Cat means banning more cards that are just part of dominating decks but not dominating cards, I don't want any bans. I would even say that Mardu Vehicles and Gideon are worse for Standard than any Saheeli-Cat combo!
Before the glory of Yawgmoth, yes, even this makes sense.