Under your numbers saying 5p percent of a field like a pro tour is copy cat would be roughly 200 players are playing it which means 25 percent of those numbers is 50. Which means 50 copies of the copycat deck made top 64 payout meaning it dominated the pro tour. That doesn't sound like a boogie deck to me....
At this point the pros are all feeling that Saheeli is the strongest deck even with the new set. That is a very bad sign as those guys sleep and eat deck tech knowledge as well as play test their deck ideas in teams.
The other side is the public relations. Not banning the combo hurts the impressions of standard for more casual folks, which leads to fewer sales.
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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!
your misunderstanding the numbers then, or i didnt explain it clearly. So here is an example and i hope it gets a better representation
say a standard pro tour is 256 people (easy numbers) and the field distribution at the start looks like
50% play copycat (128)
~40% play mardu vehicles (102)
~10% play random.deck(s) (26)
in the top 64 the field distribution is
16 copycat (25%)
26 mardu vehicles (~40%)
22 random.deck(s) (~35%)
in the top 16 the field distribution is
5 copycat (~32%)
6 mardu vehicles (~37%)
5 random.deck(s) (~32%)
this distribution tells me the following:
mardu vehicles shows an almost equivalent % showing across the tiers (40%, 40%, 37%) and would tell me to be careful of what was added for this deck if we dont want it to pass 50% as it is a rather strong deck contender. If i was a WOTC employee doing this that is, i'm not.
Copy cat in here went from 50% to 25% to 32% of the feild. This would tell me that either it is starting to be hated out of the format or got a lucky showing in the top 16 which warrants a look at top 8 and more data collection. The fact that 128 people showed up playing it and that 16 made top 64 tells me that the deck is sporadic and can either fizzle out, pull out big, or is being hate on. This is backed up by 12.5% entry into the top 64 from the start and the stronger showing from the top 64 into the top 16
random.deck(s) info requires more looking into as they can be all of one type (IE channel fireball going in with a new deck type designed to hate on this meta) or of different types and would require more/finer data for a better view. But it comes off being the strongest showing deck(s) overall and may have a poor match up vs itself
I can't even bring myself to care to brew. New cards normally set me off on a week of cockatrice deck building/modifying and testing.
I don't want to even think about ****ing copycat for another moment. Let alone vehicles with glorybringer and more instant removal yet if you're going to play standard you have NO CHOICE at all but to brew based on instawin and ultra fast midrange beats.
They're worried about people feeling bad that they've lost value in the cards they've already bought, but they should be worried about all the people who aren't going to buy cards or play standard at all since they've teased us with bans to make things better, then didn't follow through.
They have no bloody clue how things are going to shake out, that should be obvious because they didn't see any of this coming with their horribe, awful, no-good, very bad design strategy.
Can individual game store enforce a ban on Felidar Guardian even though Wizards hasn't? It would likely then make Standard a non-sanctioned event but at least it would then be more likely to fire off?
Can individual game store enforce a ban on Felidar Guardian even though Wizards hasn't? It would likely then make Standard a non-sanctioned event but at least it would then be more likely to fire off?
That's a casual event and should be discussed in the casual sub-forum.
Copycat warps how you play (sub-optimal) and how you brew (you have to brew answers for every turn).
Gideon is a part of Vehicles which happens to be a confluence of cards that make a midrange strategy hit you as fast and hard as an aggro deck a high percentage of the time. Gideon has been oppressive for quite some time and the lack of good planeswalker hate does make him part of the problem.
The dumpster fire of standard is the distilled power of both these decks absolutely wipes out the competition, but quite frankly I'd rather deal with Gideon than being infinitely licked to death any time after turn 3. I blame felidar, heart of kiran, and the lack of Hero's Downfall.
Seconded. Even outside of Magic, out of nowhere alternate win conditions are never fun. They banned Splinter Twin in Modern, so it should be the case that same goes for Standard.
Gideon is powerful and can easily overtake the whole game if unanswered. However I think he will become slightly less oppressive this time around largely because of the power level from Amonkhet; it would make a mardu player think twice before dropping Gideon on Turn 4 when he's already facing a Rhonas/ Hazoret, potentially followed by a Glorybringer next turn. That being said, it would likely only stall Gideon a little bit longer, and if he does resolve, it's still a huge pain to deal with given the subpar planeswalker removals available. Many still agree: Gideon is next in line for the hammer behind Copycat.
Ok I see you abit more clearly now and the numbers make sense but, even in your scenarios mardu vehicles and copycat are still way to prevalent and need to be answered for.
Some make the argument you deal with copy cat then vehicles solves itself but that's the short memory aspect people have to meta games. Vehicles started out the deck to beat and the prominent deck as heart of Kiran literally just replaced smugglers copter and was just the same deck but more streamlined and heart arguably being even worse than copter as an offender(not in the fact that the number of decks it's in but the fact the deck it's in clouds a lot of the meta game and the card itself stifles card selection)
Anyways my point is I'm not just for banning the cat and I don't think Gideon is as big of a issue as heart is a classic case as I feel like it'd be the same result as Bbe was for modern where something got banned but wasn't the true culprit.
Heart and cat both need to go. Neither is good for standard and both are slated to to stay for another whole year I I think if they wanna salvage anything they need to go and honestly if wizards is smart and sees that most likely nothing is really gonna change over the next few weeks they'll emergency ban both before the pro tour.
No use crying over spilled milk. Barring some kind of intervention from Gods Above the Copy Cat combo will be Standard legal for at least another six weeks. Spikes and grinders should make the most of it while the casual crowd can either step away or "walk it off" (at least the pros agree with that).
It's just sad that Standard, as a format, has devolved this much in such a short time period. It's been quite a while since we've had a two deck format and frankly it's not something I'm looking forward to repeating.
If I recall correctly there was maybe one occasion on which a initiative from the pros resulted in a policy change just before the PT. I think it was about them changing the format for the upcoming PT from Extended to Standard or something along those lines. Any chance of a repeat of that with a Felidar Guardian ban?
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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.
The worst thing that can happen now is that Rx aggro dominates the pro tour. Because then WotC won't ban anything which would be a fatal mistake. Just because cat combo has a huge target on its head, just because every deck is forced to have 8-12 dedicated sideboard/mainboard cards against it, and just because aggro can sometimes get under Saheeli and take advantage of new hate cards vs Mardu doesn't mean the meta is healthy. Just because cat combo doesn't win/dominate the pro tour doesn't mean it's not oppressive anymore.
The worst thing that can happen now is that Rx aggro dominates the pro tour. Because then WotC won't ban anything which would be a fatal mistake. Just because cat combo has a huge target on its head, just because every deck is forced to have 8-12 dedicated sideboard/mainboard cards against it, and just because aggro can sometimes get under Saheeli and take advantage of new hate cards vs Mardu doesn't mean the meta is healthy. Just because cat combo doesn't win/dominate the pro tour doesn't mean it's not oppressive anymore.
You are completely correct. They made the excuse in March to not ban because Temur was a blip on the screen and they won't tell us exactly what will make them understand the dumpster fire we are all sick of dealing with. Every single pro will either be playing copycat OR have main deck plan 1 vs copycat. It defies reason they don't understand that. If they don't get it now, they may never.
They have no clue how many people they are driving out of standard with every week copycat lives, and that's just sad. I'm just afraid that the people over the top of the design/balance team's head are suits that don't get the game at all and are shy of shaking things up with some firings and repositionings.
The other side is the public relations. Not banning the combo hurts the impressions of standard for more casual folks, which leads to fewer sales.
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!
say a standard pro tour is 256 people (easy numbers) and the field distribution at the start looks like
50% play copycat (128)
~40% play mardu vehicles (102)
~10% play random.deck(s) (26)
in the top 64 the field distribution is
16 copycat (25%)
26 mardu vehicles (~40%)
22 random.deck(s) (~35%)
in the top 16 the field distribution is
5 copycat (~32%)
6 mardu vehicles (~37%)
5 random.deck(s) (~32%)
this distribution tells me the following:
mardu vehicles shows an almost equivalent % showing across the tiers (40%, 40%, 37%) and would tell me to be careful of what was added for this deck if we dont want it to pass 50% as it is a rather strong deck contender. If i was a WOTC employee doing this that is, i'm not.
Copy cat in here went from 50% to 25% to 32% of the feild. This would tell me that either it is starting to be hated out of the format or got a lucky showing in the top 16 which warrants a look at top 8 and more data collection. The fact that 128 people showed up playing it and that 16 made top 64 tells me that the deck is sporadic and can either fizzle out, pull out big, or is being hate on. This is backed up by 12.5% entry into the top 64 from the start and the stronger showing from the top 64 into the top 16
random.deck(s) info requires more looking into as they can be all of one type (IE channel fireball going in with a new deck type designed to hate on this meta) or of different types and would require more/finer data for a better view. But it comes off being the strongest showing deck(s) overall and may have a poor match up vs itself
I don't want to even think about ****ing copycat for another moment. Let alone vehicles with glorybringer and more instant removal yet if you're going to play standard you have NO CHOICE at all but to brew based on instawin and ultra fast midrange beats.
They're worried about people feeling bad that they've lost value in the cards they've already bought, but they should be worried about all the people who aren't going to buy cards or play standard at all since they've teased us with bans to make things better, then didn't follow through.
They have no bloody clue how things are going to shake out, that should be obvious because they didn't see any of this coming with their horribe, awful, no-good, very bad design strategy.
This is awesome!
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/pro-tour-copycat/
Also when talking about numbers just look at MTGO results for the past 2 months posted on TCG. It's almost all Vehicles and copycat.
That's a casual event and should be discussed in the casual sub-forum.
Gideon is a part of Vehicles which happens to be a confluence of cards that make a midrange strategy hit you as fast and hard as an aggro deck a high percentage of the time. Gideon has been oppressive for quite some time and the lack of good planeswalker hate does make him part of the problem.
The dumpster fire of standard is the distilled power of both these decks absolutely wipes out the competition, but quite frankly I'd rather deal with Gideon than being infinitely licked to death any time after turn 3. I blame felidar, heart of kiran, and the lack of Hero's Downfall.
Gideon is powerful and can easily overtake the whole game if unanswered. However I think he will become slightly less oppressive this time around largely because of the power level from Amonkhet; it would make a mardu player think twice before dropping Gideon on Turn 4 when he's already facing a Rhonas/ Hazoret, potentially followed by a Glorybringer next turn. That being said, it would likely only stall Gideon a little bit longer, and if he does resolve, it's still a huge pain to deal with given the subpar planeswalker removals available. Many still agree: Gideon is next in line for the hammer behind Copycat.
Some make the argument you deal with copy cat then vehicles solves itself but that's the short memory aspect people have to meta games. Vehicles started out the deck to beat and the prominent deck as heart of Kiran literally just replaced smugglers copter and was just the same deck but more streamlined and heart arguably being even worse than copter as an offender(not in the fact that the number of decks it's in but the fact the deck it's in clouds a lot of the meta game and the card itself stifles card selection)
Anyways my point is I'm not just for banning the cat and I don't think Gideon is as big of a issue as heart is a classic case as I feel like it'd be the same result as Bbe was for modern where something got banned but wasn't the true culprit.
Heart and cat both need to go. Neither is good for standard and both are slated to to stay for another whole year I I think if they wanna salvage anything they need to go and honestly if wizards is smart and sees that most likely nothing is really gonna change over the next few weeks they'll emergency ban both before the pro tour.
That's just my 2 cents though
It's just sad that Standard, as a format, has devolved this much in such a short time period. It's been quite a while since we've had a two deck format and frankly it's not something I'm looking forward to repeating.
If I recall correctly there was maybe one occasion on which a initiative from the pros resulted in a policy change just before the PT. I think it was about them changing the format for the upcoming PT from Extended to Standard or something along those lines. Any chance of a repeat of that with a Felidar Guardian ban?
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
Here is why copycat will become worse explained by a pro...
You are completely correct. They made the excuse in March to not ban because Temur was a blip on the screen and they won't tell us exactly what will make them understand the dumpster fire we are all sick of dealing with. Every single pro will either be playing copycat OR have main deck plan 1 vs copycat. It defies reason they don't understand that. If they don't get it now, they may never.
They have no clue how many people they are driving out of standard with every week copycat lives, and that's just sad. I'm just afraid that the people over the top of the design/balance team's head are suits that don't get the game at all and are shy of shaking things up with some firings and repositionings.
So
completely
true