banning anything other than guardian from standard is definitely a mistake. Even banning guardian is probably worse than just hoping Amonkhet is high enough power level to break the combo in half. Fatal Push is almost there. Something like dreadbore or a 4 damage burn spell would also be fantastic, just some cheap answer to saheeli that would make people afraid to tap out for the combo (sort of the role abrupt decay played vs Twin)
Broken or not it's eating a ban after this weekend. To claim otherwise is just wistful thinking.
Banning decisions are made at least a week in advance. I don't think the results of this weekend (which for those unaware, the Top 8 of the last Grand Prix was literally 4 CopyCat, 4 Vehicles) will have any impact on it.
Having an "ops I combo out and win" button isn't something you should want for Standard. If a similar combo was to good for Modern (think Splinter Twin) what makes people think WotC will suffer it in their showcase format? Banning Felidar Guardian doesn't exactly turn the rest of the deck into a crap-binder pile, it just keeps everyone honest.
I don't think the Modern comparison is valid, for two reasons. First, Splinter Twin was not too good for Modern. Its banning was blatantly just to try to shake things up for the Pro Tour. Second, in Modern, they had redundancy in the combo piece by Pestermite in addition to Deceiver Exarch. If the only combo pieces were Deceiver Exarch and Splinter Twin (making it more similar to CopyCat), the deck wouldn't have been as good.
Funny thing is, Splinter Twin was actually fine during its brief tenure in Standard (not to say it wasn't a good deck, but it wasn't dominant) even though it had access to both Ponder and Preordain to make it much easier to assemble. Turns out when there are good removal spells are less than 3 mana, it's much easier to deal with the combo.
I'm well aware that the bans are already locked-in, so to speak, but this weekend just about settled it that something had to be done.
When I made the Twin comparison I didn't mean 'exactly identical' but rather 'broadly similar.' Similar enough in the way their A-plans play out to question why WotC should keep the combo in a format they are much more invested in? Having it back in Modern would probably be fine, though the format is not that much worse off without it, but having it in Standard, even in a watered down form, is asking a lot of a format who's card pool is ten times smaller then the one available to Modern. Hell, the Copy Cat combo is even seeing play in Modern at this point. It's not exactly a mainstay but it's out there.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
Broken or not it's eating a ban after this weekend. To claim otherwise is just wistful thinking.
Banning decisions are made at least a week in advance. I don't think the results of this weekend (which for those unaware, the Top 8 of the last Grand Prix was literally 4 CopyCat, 4 Vehicles) will have any impact on it.
Having an "ops I combo out and win" button isn't something you should want for Standard. If a similar combo was to good for Modern (think Splinter Twin) what makes people think WotC will suffer it in their showcase format? Banning Felidar Guardian doesn't exactly turn the rest of the deck into a crap-binder pile, it just keeps everyone honest.
I don't think the Modern comparison is valid, for two reasons. First, Splinter Twin was not too good for Modern. Its banning was blatantly just to try to shake things up for the Pro Tour. Second, in Modern, they had redundancy in the combo piece by Pestermite in addition to Deceiver Exarch. If the only combo pieces were Deceiver Exarch and Splinter Twin (making it more similar to CopyCat), the deck wouldn't have been as good.
Funny thing is, Splinter Twin was actually fine during its brief tenure in Standard (not to say it wasn't a good deck, but it wasn't dominant) even though it had access to both Ponder and Preordain to make it much easier to assemble. Turns out when there are good removal spells are less than 3 mana, it's much easier to deal with the combo.
I'm well aware that the bans are already locked-in, so to speak, but this weekend just about settled it that something had to be done.
When I made the Twin comparison I didn't mean 'exactly identical' but rather 'broadly similar.' Similar enough in the way their A-plans play out to question why WotC should keep the combo in a format they are much more invested in? Having it back in Modern would probably be fine, though the format is not that much worse off without it, but having it in Standard, even in a watered down form, is asking a lot of a format who's card pool is ten times smaller then the one available to Modern. Hell, the Copy Cat combo is even seeing play in Modern at this point. It's not exactly a mainstay but it's out there.
Card pool size is part of the problem with standard at the moment. It's not been that long since they phased out core sets. They may need to bring them back. That would allow them to print more answer cards. I don't know if anything gets ban on the 13th but it will tell us about their confidence level in the next block.
With the one year cycle it's not a lack of card volume, it's their philosophy with design.
Wrath effects have been weak/situational since supreme verdict rotated, by design.
Counterspells are pushed to Cancel with a slight upside most of the time and 1UU. No more 2 mana full counters, by design.
Even kill spells are situational (Fatal Push), or 1BB, 1RB (best card in standard? it's been said), 1WW... etc.
Aside from Unlic Disint you can't 1 for 1 and still keep up because of OP creatures/interaction. By design.
They're not printing cards that stop their favored strategies. GY hate anyone? Once you have delirium you have it. Done. Oh yea and lets enable you with how many cards to help you get there? And creatures that help you get there too.
All they had to do was print the crypt again. Still nada.
With next block having been in the can before the start of the emergency banning, I seriously doubt next block will be any better. Just wait and see... they'll start printing decklists before the set even drops showing you (like a proud cat over a dead mouse) exactly how and what they'd like you to play because aren't their good ideas just so precious?
No. No they're not. Just print good cards, in all colors, and let people make them work together instead of this current cycle of over power creeped disasters. They thought Thragtusk was a mistake... they said so! But look at all the stuff they're doing now! crazysauce
There's not much outside Felidar Guardian they can ban without damaging the format and the player confidence even more. When they banned cards in Standard it used to be game breaking cards that still see play in legacyup to this day or that are alsobanned in there. The January bannings are nowhere near the power level of those cards, nor is anything that is currently in Standard right now. Not even CoCo was a bannable offense (okay, it was, but it wasn't because of the card per se, but due to other factors). The problem is not the power level. It's that there are no answers. They have adhered religiously to this idiotic mentality where creature removal should cost 3+ at sorcery speed, wraths at 5+ or that counterspells are "unfun", all while powercreeping the creatures to the absolute maximum. It's all about creatures, creatures, and more creatures, oh, and creatures again. It has turned into "Creatures: the Tappening".
They get on curve stats, if not above, with a plethora of super good EtB effects that basically even if you remove them, the caster still has gotten a benefit. Shock my Rogue Refiner, I've still gotten a card and two Energy out of the deal. Harnessed Lightning my Pia Nalaar, she still leaves behind a Thopter. They have screwed up so hard they messed with a fundamental game mechanic that has been around since Alpha and was never broken: mana dorks. Elvish Mystic and it's ilk are considered "too strong for Standard" now, but a 13/13 flying mindslaver with built in protection is ok. A 4/5 trampler that casts Lightning Helix on the opponent is also ok. If we had stuff like Go for the Throat, Lightning Strike or Mana Leak, let alone graveyard hate when you print a block chock full of graveyard mechanics, this would've never, ever happened. Period.
Remember the Theros era where if you said that if Standard was dying and that if things kept going downhill like that it would inevitably die people called you out on being a hater, being delusional, not knowing nothing, etc? I'd like to see all those people now.
I agree with your point but I think your examples are flawed. I expect that if I have a 3-drop creature like Rogue Refiner that dies to your Shock, I should come out ahead on resources from that exchange since I paid three mana for my guy and you paid one to remove it. I don't think Refiner is a problem, but if it is, it's because a 3/2 body is a bit too good if you don't kill it, not because it happens to be a resource-efficient creature. Elvish Visionary is hardly a problematic card, but you could argue that it trades with Shock better than Refiner does (1 card instead of 1 card and 2 energy, but for 1 less mana) - the difference of course is that Visionary basically doesn't matter on board on its own whereas Refiner is a real clock. Also think Harnessed Lightning on Pia Nalaar is a fair trade, the other person keeps a Thopter but you got 1 mana and 1 energy out of the deal, which are about equal to a Thopter. It's true that Siege Rhino didn't fairly trade with any widely-played removal well (except perhaps Valorous Stance or Crackling Doom), but it also costs four mana, which means that you're in the range of something like Dissolve or Disdainful Stroke being readily available as a mana-positive and even exchange for you (or in Dissolve's case getting the scry-1 extra upside). Sure, these cards are good and make you pick your spots with your answers, but that's always been the case with a healthy format's control decks; it's just as bad for the format if every answer is as good as Counterspell and you don't have to think about how to answer your opponent's threats because your answers are so good. If your deck is so reactive that it can't capitalize on these mana-efficient exchanges, that's a problem with your deck, not the exchanges.
But I think even that framing gets to your point, which is that threats are too good relative to answers. We actually have some pretty good removal-based answers (Harnessed Lightning is one of the best removal spells in years, as is Unlicensed Disintegration with an artifact lying around), but the most powerful threats easily overwhelm them, and the countermagic is slightly too weak to keep up. (Disallow's niche upsides make it the best Cancel available, but it's no Dissolve, which to me is the gold standard for Cancel variants and a very good Standard-level card; and we don't have a 1U: Counter target creature or planeswalker spell, or a Disdainful Stroke, to complement Negate and give us some good 1U counters.) You mentioned the Rhino but I'm shocked you made no mention of Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, who puts Rhino to shame as far as this phenomenon goes. If a Gideon resolves against an opponent with an empty board in this format, and they don't screw up in some way to expose Gideon to removal like Stasis Snare or even Blessed Alliance, you are dead, period. Emrakul is a good example of this that you did bring up.
I thought that Dragons of Tarkir Standard was a really great example of how Standard should look, perhaps with exception to something like Deathmist Raptor that was a bit too obnoxious for control decks at the time to handle. Esper Dragons wasn't your Sphinx's Revelation + Supreme Verdict + Detention Sphere kind of deck, but it didn't have to be - you still had Dig Through Time to lock up longer games, and what you lacked a bit in quality answers (like Verdict for instance) you made up for by having one of the best control closers in years in Dragonlord Ojutai, who in some games could come down on turn 5 and flip the narrative of the game on its head immediately. You had a plethora of aggressive and controlling midrange strategies and one really good aggressive deck with real burn spells in it. It might not be the golden years of INN-RTR and the like, but it's still a pretty reasonable expectation for what a Standard format should look like in 2017, and I think we can all agree - this format is far from that.
They ban cards to keep the player base from departing the game like what happened during Affinity Standard and Caw-Blade Standard, nothing more nothing less. Attendance and/or sales drop due to a perceived problem, they attempt to fix it, whether they succeed or not is another question entirely.
I don't always agree with you, but this paragraph is on point:
I thought that Dragons of Tarkir Standard was a really great example of how Standard should look, perhaps with exception to something like Deathmist Raptor that was a bit too obnoxious for control decks at the time to handle. Esper Dragons wasn't your Sphinx's Revelation + Supreme Verdict + Detention Sphere kind of deck, but it didn't have to be - you still had Dig Through Time to lock up longer games, and what you lacked a bit in quality answers (like Verdict for instance) you made up for by having one of the best control closers in years in Dragonlord Ojutai, who in some games could come down on turn 5 and flip the narrative of the game on its head immediately. You had a plethora of aggressive and controlling midrange strategies and one really good aggressive deck with real burn spells in it. It might not be the golden years of INN-RTR and the like, but it's still a pretty reasonable expectation for what a Standard format should look like in 2017, and I think we can all agree - this format is far from that.
Not only was Esper Dragons a good deck, it rewarded longevity, it was far from oppressive and really "fun" to pilot. It was a tap out style control deck with tribal matters instants that allowed it to play spells that rewarded you for going deep in the tribal synergies. I had 4 PPTQ top 8's with the deck and 1 SCG IQ top 8 for a 5th place finish. That IQ was the pinnacle of the Abzan BLue/Red surge and I beat them both; In 1 match I had my Ojutai's extracted via Infinite Obliteration, but I still navigated the match to a win. There have been no such games for me with U based control decks in a while, nor has the current standard meta interested me in buying into it. For all the hate I spewed onto Rhino, Gideon was included into Abzan that same year and we have seen this card commit sin after sin.
Having played Gideon myself, he's also given me *redacted* wins in matches I had no business winning. While some say we forget how certain formats played out, I think I can say "God damn I actually wish for that meta again, I'd take that meta with all it's flaws over this". Edited to remove inappropriate language. - hoser2
I thought Deathmist Raptor was terrible back then and I too would go back to that meta again in a heartbeat.
Esper Dragons was very fun, so many good games.
Another thing they need to do IMO is go back to the 18 month rotation. I know it looks stupid for them to go back to it after walking it back so quickly, but one of the reasons why these formats aren't panning out well is because they get solved too quick. The players didn't like it, but they're bound to like these corrective bans even fewer. For example, I wouldn't advocate a Gideon ban if he rotated with Amonkhet like he was supposed to do.
Play 10 matches against cat with any deck other than vehicles. Percentages and the pros say you are wrong.
They are only supporting pushed cards and strategies. Isn't it cute though that after the pros pointed out the dirty kitty combo they missed, they tried to own it and published an article on their website about 'how cool' the combo was with a sample deck.
The combo is oppressive and limits deckbuilding. It's why vehicles and combo are the 2 decks that rule standard. Watch the New Jersey footage, see if you don't get bored.
they didnt miss it. They made it on purpose because it is not broken. Sorcery speed tap-out telecasted combo is not hard to stop. Heck, every deck has an answer to it that is useful elsewhere as well. In fact, they don't have a way mainboard to beat authority of the consuls, which is a great card in most matchups right now.
Sam Stoddard himself stated they missed it. It is a completely unintentional combo that they did not catch at all in development. Don't take my word for it; take Stoddard's:
I think Heart of Kiran is a nasty card but it has answers. It just happens to be the only thing powerful to take down the copy cat deck.
I've been testing GB non Heart of Kiran decks against Copycat and it can always stall me out to the point where I lose to the combo. The reason I was testing is to find a deck that would be viable to take to FNM without having to acquire a HoK playset.
Midrange decks just can't break through all the counterspells and card advantage in the late game which leads to getting combo killed while you try to beat down with the slower less powerful flyers like Mindwrack Demon and Aethersphere Harvester.
I expect 1 card to be banned along with an apology for a cheap 2 card infinite combo in standard. Might as well unban copter to wreck the deck fast if they don't ban it out.
They ban cards to keep the player base from departing the game like what happened during Affinity Standard and Caw-Blade Standard, nothing more nothing less. Attendance and/or sales drop due to a perceived problem, they attempt to fix it, whether they succeed or not is another question entirely.
Nice nitpicking you did there to try and make the argument void and null while ignoring obvious monstrosities like Necropotence or Tolarian Academy, but hey, no hard feelings about that, if you really wanna roll that way I'll gladly let you:
This deck, which was extremely oppressive back in the day, to the point it got Flash banned abused the errata the card received to combo it with Hulk and win as early as turn 1. The kill engine? Disciple of the Vault himself.
But hey, since I can already hear you nitpicking again "but Zephyr, this was 10 years ago, and I disregard that formats evolve and change over the years like they're suppossed to do with the introduction of newer cards to the cardpool, so since I don't like this example it is therefore not valid!" I have another link just for you:
This deck that went 6th in SCG Chicago two years ago also plays Disciple. Affinity in Legacy plays Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas for the kill, and in tandem with Disciple both can reduce a life total to 0 real quick.
Maybe next time you'd want to scour the banlist a little more to nitpick an example that better suits your point?
About the bannings done so people don't quit Standard, I agree. My point was and still is that in the past, these mass exodus were done due to mistake cards that as I was saying, see play in Legacy or are straight up banned there as well. None of the three cards banned in January, nor any of the cards they could ever ban today are of that caliber. The mistake here wasn't power level in cards but a *Redacted* design dogma towards answers which made these cards oppressive.
Wizards goes nuclear and unleashes a tidal wave of bannings on Standard that haven't been seen since the miserable Urza's Saga days. The first four bannings kill CopyCat and Mardu Vehicles outright. Constrictor is banned on the same logic as Reflector Mage: a card designed to weaken the BG archetype that would undoubtedly take over with the other top 2 decks being wiped out of the format. We enter uncharted territory as the game's health comes to a serious nadir, and several R&D members are "reassigned" to work on other games.
Well, if they do that, then standard is finished. If you ban those five cards, you nuke the three best decks in the format, and drop the prices of 3 mythic rares. People will straight up quit the format and probably wont come back with amonkhet.
They should make no changes at all, and look to print some useful answers in amonkhet. Pithing Needle is a much needed card right now.
Amonkhet was finished by Development and sent to the printers long long ago. That ship has sailed. In fact, most of the upcoming sets have already been set in stone by the time Sam Stoddard admitted they needed to make answers stronger. A lot of future sets have been designed and developed under the "answers are feelbad; push the faces of the set" philosophy we're seeing right now. You're not going to be seeing stuff like Pithing Needle until in another 9-12 months or so.
Even worse, Amonkhet was being developed with the previous rotation schedule. Specifically, Amonkhet was being made with the assumption that Gideon would be rotating out by the time it came in. Don't trust on Amonkhet to fix Standard. Not when the Copycat combo will render a significant number of future cards unplayable due to the dynamic of how the deck works. Which, just so happens will be in Standard for a whopping 2 years thanks to the recent rotation changes they made.
Wizards goes nuclear and unleashes a tidal wave of bannings on Standard that haven't been seen since the miserable Urza's Saga days. The first four bannings kill CopyCat and Mardu Vehicles outright. Constrictor is banned on the same logic as Reflector Mage: a card designed to weaken the BG archetype that would undoubtedly take over with the other top 2 decks being wiped out of the format. We enter uncharted territory as the game's health comes to a serious nadir, and several R&D members are "reassigned" to work on other games.
A rather bold prediction, although not necessarily out of the realm of possibility. If you were to stick a gun to my head, here's what I would predict, in order of certainty:
1. Felidar Guardian. They admitted to not seeing it, and its proving to warp the format in unhealthy ways. The two Grand Prixs this weekend, while not being the sole reason, will likely settle the matter definitively for those who were on the fence. It's not a fun deck to play against, it's not good for coverage, it's proven to be strong enough in the format they devised, and most importantly it is not going anywhere anytime soon. It warps the format immensely, and completely nullifies 4+ drops (And particulary 6-cost sorcery speed creatures), even the ones that are insanely powerful. Tapping out for a 6 drop and getting punished is one thing; tapping out for it and just plain losing regardless of your life total or board state is just not healthy. They will likely have to ban it at some point, and getting bannings in standard out of the way all in one short time period is likely better in the long run than needlessly spreading them out over the course of several years. We have seen several high-level tournaments come to an abrupt end by one player drawing the second piece of the combo, and this just isn't good on camera. The commentators bumbling about when the game just ends is frustrating, embarrassing, and kills momentum for streaming. While this second point is not a reason for banning itself, it could be used to "sell" it.
2. Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. How they can't see the problematic nature of this card yet is beyond me. The numbers it has put up are absurd. Sigrist, if I recall correctly, stated that he moved to Gideon after realizing it's a mistake to not play it. If you are in white, you play 4 Gideons, full stop. If you don't, you are just plain wrong. He Brutalizes typical control, takes over against non-conventional midrange decks, and just doesn't anything short of non-aggressive decks time to formulate a game plan. It's an unreasonable card that has had a devastating impact on the format and stifles any sort of innovation due to both it being a staple 4-of in every white deck and being such a wrecking house against other decks. You are forced to warp your deck building and play decisions around Gideon coming down on turn 4 almost every game, and that just isn't pleasant.
3. Heart of Kiran. A little less certain, but frankly they dropped the ball too hard on Vehicles, and it shows. It's just too much power too early, and is too difficult to deal with. While it lacks the the format-defining that Copter had, it makes up for in ending the game in ridiculous time. Once again, it massively warps what removal package you need to be running in order to answer it.
4. Constrictor. As you said, it may suffer the fate of Reflector Mage (Which I honestly think was a fair ban in the Grand Scheme). I'm a little less sure this'll see a ban. Given the context of how they ban things, I could see it.
Scrounger I'm less sure of, however. Take out Gideon and Heart, and the deck operates fairly as an aggro deck. It does see play elsewhere, but it's hardly ubiquitous with the format in the same way that Copter was.
Finally, I do agree that we will likely see either some resignations or reassignments following this mess. I'm honestly surprised that someone already didn't get chopped after they completely missed the Saheeli-Cat combo. It's not even that one piece was all the way back in Battle for Zendikar and the other was in Aether Revolt, or a case of several cards that operate in an obscure way. This is a known combo-type from the past. They are in the same damn block. Hell, they are in the same damn draft format. It's absurd to me that they missed it given the fact that their entire job is to catch crap like this. If I were Forsythe (I assume he's the Brand manager for Magic, or something of the sort), I would be immediately reconsidering someone's position in Development if they told me they missed this combo. It's almost unforgivable as the entire point of Development in the first place is to catch these things. It's one thing if they caught it and put it through anyway; that wasn't what happened, however.
At this point I'm only certain about Felidar Guardian's ban and little else. You could make a case for any one, or even two, cards from the Mardu deck and it would still be an abominable, undeveloped mess.
I'm pretty sure Winding Constrictor is safe though. The format, as is, has enough solutions for it and there is still a chance that the next block will add to that. Also it is comparatively harmless in the company of cards that are currently discussed. Banning it based on the "Reflector Mage precedent" doesn't hold water since the card is nowhere near as obnoxious. Powerful yes, maybe even too much so (though I would contest that), but obnoxious it is not.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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 goes nuclear and unleashes a tidal wave of bannings on Standard that haven't been seen since the miserable Urza's Saga days. The first four bannings kill CopyCat and Mardu Vehicles outright. Constrictor is banned on the same logic as Reflector Mage: a card designed to weaken the BG archetype that would undoubtedly take over with the other top 2 decks being wiped out of the format. We enter uncharted territory as the game's health comes to a serious nadir, and several R&D members are "reassigned" to work on other games.
Well, if they do that, then standard is finished. If you ban those five cards, you nuke the three best decks in the format, and drop the prices of 3 mythic rares. People will straight up quit the format and probably wont come back with amonkhet.
They should make no changes at all, and look to print some useful answers in amonkhet. Pithing Needle is a much needed card right now.
Amonkhet is way, way too soon to print anything with the current meta game in mind. It is honestly likely already off the printers. In fact, Hour of Devastation is already completely finalized, and sent off to the printers. The absolute earliest they could print anything into the format is in the Fall set, but that's likely also far too soon for anything to be added and it would be putting it to the wire. The absolute soonest they could likely comfortably put something into print if they decided today would be in the January 2018 set.
Wizards goes nuclear and unleashes a tidal wave of bannings on Standard that haven't been seen since the miserable Urza's Saga days. The first four bannings kill CopyCat and Mardu Vehicles outright. Constrictor is banned on the same logic as Reflector Mage: a card designed to weaken the BG archetype that would undoubtedly take over with the other top 2 decks being wiped out of the format. We enter uncharted territory as the game's health comes to a serious nadir, and several R&D members are "reassigned" to work on other games.
Well, if they do that, then standard is finished...
Oh, I guess you were never around when Urza's was standard. I have doubts the format would die but I do have doubts that wizards is going to ban 5 cards. I would suspect them banning Felidar Guardian.
I do question the Frontier because there are a few cards that seemed too good for standard and Frontier's card pool is only a few sets big, so there has to be a ban list for Frontier. We'll see what happens.
Wizards goes nuclear and unleashes a tidal wave of bannings on Standard that haven't been seen since the miserable Urza's Saga days. The first four bannings kill CopyCat and Mardu Vehicles outright. Constrictor is banned on the same logic as Reflector Mage: a card designed to weaken the BG archetype that would undoubtedly take over with the other top 2 decks being wiped out of the format. We enter uncharted territory as the game's health comes to a serious nadir, and several R&D members are "reassigned" to work on other games.
Well, if they do that, then standard is finished...
Oh, I guess you were never around when Urza's was standard. I have doubts the format would die but I do have doubts that wizards is going to ban 5 cards. I would suspect them banning Felidar Guardian.
I do question the Frontier because there are a few cards that seemed too good for standard and Frontier's card pool is only a few sets big, so there has to be a ban list for Frontier. We'll see what happens.
I think they wont ban anything just because this will make people scared into buying decks. Banning 5 cards is borderline crazy and banning only Felidar just gives the other two decks even larger dominance, so they dont solve anything with it. There is a shance that Emrakul is unbanned though.
All I was saying is that the format was around a long, long time. There was bans that players thought that wizards moved too slow and sometimes too fast. Memory Jar was banned/restricted 2 weeks before the card was legal, which screwed up many players buying into the card. I've been hearing a lot of talk about Felidar combo so the banning won't come to a surprise.
Also Frontier is not a sanctioned format so they wont do anything because of it.
True Frontier is not an official format but it's going to happen.
1. Ban Felidar Guardian. The deck is too hard to keep in check. Any slippage, tap out or temporary lack of removal and you're dead. It was an adimtted dev mistake. This will nuke the deck.
2. Probable ban Gideon, ally of zendikar. It was not planned to stay around for two years, is a bit too good within the meta and within his decks. People have had long enough play time with it that it won't feel too bad to lose him now. This would make Mardu merely a reasonable deck, not the power-house it currently is.
1. Ban Felidar Guardian. The deck is too hard to keep in check. Any slippage, tap out or temporary lack of removal and you're dead. It was an adimtted dev mistake. This will nuke the deck.
2. Probable ban Gideon, ally of zendikar. It was not planned to stay around for two years, is a bit too good within the meta and within his decks. People have had long enough play time with it that it won't feel too bad to lose him now. This would make Mardu merely a reasonable deck, not the power-house it currently is.
I've heard a lot of people with the same sentiments. Oh Saheeli Twin, what were they thinking?
It's an instant speed 5/5 trampler for 4. Wtf do you people want seriously? It has applications in populate/ above the curve beats decks, or in Bant control/ flash. I seriously think anyone mad at this card for any reason other than losing an attacker to instant speed wurm, should go home and make their own awesome card game and leave the rest of us alone.
2. Probable ban Gideon, ally of zendikar. It was not planned to stay around for two years, is a bit too good within the meta and within his decks. People have had long enough play time with it that it won't feel too bad to lose him now. This would make Mardu merely a reasonable deck, not the power-house it currently is.
It's a moot point now, but Gideon, ally of zendikar was always planned to be in Standard up until Amonkhet came in; so even in the original plans, he still has a month or so left. Which is why I would not have expected him to be banned.
With a new Gids coming in Amonkhet, and the original plans for the rotation, I could very well see him getting the banhammer in May with the new set, to reflect on the original plans basically.
As for the no changes, I'm a bit disappointed, but it's only another six weeks of Kitty FNM. I do wonder if they haven't fully examined the results of this weekend. Maybe they should have put the new ban announcement period on the Wednesday, both to give them time to reflect on the previous weekend and to give players time to react for the next weekend.
I feel it was the wrong decision to make and I don't often say that about banned and restricted announcements. There are too many deck builds being pushed out of viability in the highly competitive meta due to the strength of golgari snake decks, felidar guardian turn four combo, and Mardi vehicles it's nuts.
We are literally at the romance of the three kingdoms meta with small fiefdoms fighting just to make a dent in the world. Then again, that's still better than mirrodin block so maybe they just want to avoid sending a bad message.
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!
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I'm well aware that the bans are already locked-in, so to speak, but this weekend just about settled it that something had to be done.
When I made the Twin comparison I didn't mean 'exactly identical' but rather 'broadly similar.' Similar enough in the way their A-plans play out to question why WotC should keep the combo in a format they are much more invested in? Having it back in Modern would probably be fine, though the format is not that much worse off without it, but having it in Standard, even in a watered down form, is asking a lot of a format who's card pool is ten times smaller then the one available to Modern. Hell, the Copy Cat combo is even seeing play in Modern at this point. It's not exactly a mainstay but it's out there.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
Wrath effects have been weak/situational since supreme verdict rotated, by design.
Counterspells are pushed to Cancel with a slight upside most of the time and 1UU. No more 2 mana full counters, by design.
Even kill spells are situational (Fatal Push), or 1BB, 1RB (best card in standard? it's been said), 1WW... etc.
Aside from Unlic Disint you can't 1 for 1 and still keep up because of OP creatures/interaction. By design.
They're not printing cards that stop their favored strategies. GY hate anyone? Once you have delirium you have it. Done. Oh yea and lets enable you with how many cards to help you get there? And creatures that help you get there too.
All they had to do was print the crypt again. Still nada.
With next block having been in the can before the start of the emergency banning, I seriously doubt next block will be any better. Just wait and see... they'll start printing decklists before the set even drops showing you (like a proud cat over a dead mouse) exactly how and what they'd like you to play because aren't their good ideas just so precious?
No. No they're not. Just print good cards, in all colors, and let people make them work together instead of this current cycle of over power creeped disasters. They thought Thragtusk was a mistake... they said so! But look at all the stuff they're doing now! crazysauce
I agree with your point but I think your examples are flawed. I expect that if I have a 3-drop creature like Rogue Refiner that dies to your Shock, I should come out ahead on resources from that exchange since I paid three mana for my guy and you paid one to remove it. I don't think Refiner is a problem, but if it is, it's because a 3/2 body is a bit too good if you don't kill it, not because it happens to be a resource-efficient creature. Elvish Visionary is hardly a problematic card, but you could argue that it trades with Shock better than Refiner does (1 card instead of 1 card and 2 energy, but for 1 less mana) - the difference of course is that Visionary basically doesn't matter on board on its own whereas Refiner is a real clock. Also think Harnessed Lightning on Pia Nalaar is a fair trade, the other person keeps a Thopter but you got 1 mana and 1 energy out of the deal, which are about equal to a Thopter. It's true that Siege Rhino didn't fairly trade with any widely-played removal well (except perhaps Valorous Stance or Crackling Doom), but it also costs four mana, which means that you're in the range of something like Dissolve or Disdainful Stroke being readily available as a mana-positive and even exchange for you (or in Dissolve's case getting the scry-1 extra upside). Sure, these cards are good and make you pick your spots with your answers, but that's always been the case with a healthy format's control decks; it's just as bad for the format if every answer is as good as Counterspell and you don't have to think about how to answer your opponent's threats because your answers are so good. If your deck is so reactive that it can't capitalize on these mana-efficient exchanges, that's a problem with your deck, not the exchanges.
But I think even that framing gets to your point, which is that threats are too good relative to answers. We actually have some pretty good removal-based answers (Harnessed Lightning is one of the best removal spells in years, as is Unlicensed Disintegration with an artifact lying around), but the most powerful threats easily overwhelm them, and the countermagic is slightly too weak to keep up. (Disallow's niche upsides make it the best Cancel available, but it's no Dissolve, which to me is the gold standard for Cancel variants and a very good Standard-level card; and we don't have a 1U: Counter target creature or planeswalker spell, or a Disdainful Stroke, to complement Negate and give us some good 1U counters.) You mentioned the Rhino but I'm shocked you made no mention of Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, who puts Rhino to shame as far as this phenomenon goes. If a Gideon resolves against an opponent with an empty board in this format, and they don't screw up in some way to expose Gideon to removal like Stasis Snare or even Blessed Alliance, you are dead, period. Emrakul is a good example of this that you did bring up.
I thought that Dragons of Tarkir Standard was a really great example of how Standard should look, perhaps with exception to something like Deathmist Raptor that was a bit too obnoxious for control decks at the time to handle. Esper Dragons wasn't your Sphinx's Revelation + Supreme Verdict + Detention Sphere kind of deck, but it didn't have to be - you still had Dig Through Time to lock up longer games, and what you lacked a bit in quality answers (like Verdict for instance) you made up for by having one of the best control closers in years in Dragonlord Ojutai, who in some games could come down on turn 5 and flip the narrative of the game on its head immediately. You had a plethora of aggressive and controlling midrange strategies and one really good aggressive deck with real burn spells in it. It might not be the golden years of INN-RTR and the like, but it's still a pretty reasonable expectation for what a Standard format should look like in 2017, and I think we can all agree - this format is far from that.
GW ~ Angels ~ WG
Modern:
RBW ~ Shadowmancer ~ WBR
Legacy:
BUG ~ Shadow Delver ~ GUB
Wait, so Disciple of the Vault sees play in Legacy?
They ban cards to keep the player base from departing the game like what happened during Affinity Standard and Caw-Blade Standard, nothing more nothing less. Attendance and/or sales drop due to a perceived problem, they attempt to fix it, whether they succeed or not is another question entirely.
Not only was Esper Dragons a good deck, it rewarded longevity, it was far from oppressive and really "fun" to pilot. It was a tap out style control deck with tribal matters instants that allowed it to play spells that rewarded you for going deep in the tribal synergies. I had 4 PPTQ top 8's with the deck and 1 SCG IQ top 8 for a 5th place finish. That IQ was the pinnacle of the Abzan BLue/Red surge and I beat them both; In 1 match I had my Ojutai's extracted via Infinite Obliteration, but I still navigated the match to a win. There have been no such games for me with U based control decks in a while, nor has the current standard meta interested me in buying into it. For all the hate I spewed onto Rhino, Gideon was included into Abzan that same year and we have seen this card commit sin after sin.
Having played Gideon myself, he's also given me *redacted* wins in matches I had no business winning. While some say we forget how certain formats played out, I think I can say "God damn I actually wish for that meta again, I'd take that meta with all it's flaws over this".
Edited to remove inappropriate language. - hoser2
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now:
G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record)
C Eldrazi Tron (9-5)
UG Infect
RW Burn
Esper Dragons was very fun, so many good games.
GW ~ Angels ~ WG
Modern:
RBW ~ Shadowmancer ~ WBR
Legacy:
BUG ~ Shadow Delver ~ GUB
Sam Stoddard himself stated they missed it. It is a completely unintentional combo that they did not catch at all in development. Don't take my word for it; take Stoddard's:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/latest-developments/m-files-aether-revolt-part-1-2017-02-03
I think Heart of Kiran is a nasty card but it has answers. It just happens to be the only thing powerful to take down the copy cat deck.
I've been testing GB non Heart of Kiran decks against Copycat and it can always stall me out to the point where I lose to the combo. The reason I was testing is to find a deck that would be viable to take to FNM without having to acquire a HoK playset.
Midrange decks just can't break through all the counterspells and card advantage in the late game which leads to getting combo killed while you try to beat down with the slower less powerful flyers like Mindwrack Demon and Aethersphere Harvester.
I expect 1 card to be banned along with an apology for a cheap 2 card infinite combo in standard. Might as well unban copter to wreck the deck fast if they don't ban it out.
Nice nitpicking you did there to try and make the argument void and null while ignoring obvious monstrosities like Necropotence or Tolarian Academy, but hey, no hard feelings about that, if you really wanna roll that way I'll gladly let you:
http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/legacy/14117_The_Real_Deal_Hulk_Flash_The_New_Face_of_Legacy_Plus_More.html
This deck, which was extremely oppressive back in the day, to the point it got Flash banned abused the errata the card received to combo it with Hulk and win as early as turn 1. The kill engine? Disciple of the Vault himself.
But hey, since I can already hear you nitpicking again "but Zephyr, this was 10 years ago, and I disregard that formats evolve and change over the years like they're suppossed to do with the introduction of newer cards to the cardpool, so since I don't like this example it is therefore not valid!" I have another link just for you:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/legacy-affinity-21142#paper
This deck that went 6th in SCG Chicago two years ago also plays Disciple. Affinity in Legacy plays Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas for the kill, and in tandem with Disciple both can reduce a life total to 0 real quick.
Maybe next time you'd want to scour the banlist a little more to nitpick an example that better suits your point?
About the bannings done so people don't quit Standard, I agree. My point was and still is that in the past, these mass exodus were done due to mistake cards that as I was saying, see play in Legacy or are straight up banned there as well. None of the three cards banned in January, nor any of the cards they could ever ban today are of that caliber. The mistake here wasn't power level in cards but a *Redacted* design dogma towards answers which made these cards oppressive.
Edited to remove inappropriate language - hoser2
Thanks to DNC from Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sig
Check my Pauper Cube!
- Felidar Guardian is banned.
- Gideon, Ally of Zendikar is banned.
- Heart of Kiran is banned.
- Scrapheap Scrounger is banned.
- Winding Constrictor is banned.
Wizards goes nuclear and unleashes a tidal wave of bannings on Standard that haven't been seen since the miserable Urza's Saga days. The first four bannings kill CopyCat and Mardu Vehicles outright. Constrictor is banned on the same logic as Reflector Mage: a card designed to weaken the BG archetype that would undoubtedly take over with the other top 2 decks being wiped out of the format. We enter uncharted territory as the game's health comes to a serious nadir, and several R&D members are "reassigned" to work on other games.
Amonkhet was finished by Development and sent to the printers long long ago. That ship has sailed. In fact, most of the upcoming sets have already been set in stone by the time Sam Stoddard admitted they needed to make answers stronger. A lot of future sets have been designed and developed under the "answers are feelbad; push the faces of the set" philosophy we're seeing right now. You're not going to be seeing stuff like Pithing Needle until in another 9-12 months or so.
Even worse, Amonkhet was being developed with the previous rotation schedule. Specifically, Amonkhet was being made with the assumption that Gideon would be rotating out by the time it came in. Don't trust on Amonkhet to fix Standard. Not when the Copycat combo will render a significant number of future cards unplayable due to the dynamic of how the deck works. Which, just so happens will be in Standard for a whopping 2 years thanks to the recent rotation changes they made.
A rather bold prediction, although not necessarily out of the realm of possibility. If you were to stick a gun to my head, here's what I would predict, in order of certainty:
1. Felidar Guardian. They admitted to not seeing it, and its proving to warp the format in unhealthy ways. The two Grand Prixs this weekend, while not being the sole reason, will likely settle the matter definitively for those who were on the fence. It's not a fun deck to play against, it's not good for coverage, it's proven to be strong enough in the format they devised, and most importantly it is not going anywhere anytime soon. It warps the format immensely, and completely nullifies 4+ drops (And particulary 6-cost sorcery speed creatures), even the ones that are insanely powerful. Tapping out for a 6 drop and getting punished is one thing; tapping out for it and just plain losing regardless of your life total or board state is just not healthy. They will likely have to ban it at some point, and getting bannings in standard out of the way all in one short time period is likely better in the long run than needlessly spreading them out over the course of several years. We have seen several high-level tournaments come to an abrupt end by one player drawing the second piece of the combo, and this just isn't good on camera. The commentators bumbling about when the game just ends is frustrating, embarrassing, and kills momentum for streaming. While this second point is not a reason for banning itself, it could be used to "sell" it.
2. Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. How they can't see the problematic nature of this card yet is beyond me. The numbers it has put up are absurd. Sigrist, if I recall correctly, stated that he moved to Gideon after realizing it's a mistake to not play it. If you are in white, you play 4 Gideons, full stop. If you don't, you are just plain wrong. He Brutalizes typical control, takes over against non-conventional midrange decks, and just doesn't anything short of non-aggressive decks time to formulate a game plan. It's an unreasonable card that has had a devastating impact on the format and stifles any sort of innovation due to both it being a staple 4-of in every white deck and being such a wrecking house against other decks. You are forced to warp your deck building and play decisions around Gideon coming down on turn 4 almost every game, and that just isn't pleasant.
3. Heart of Kiran. A little less certain, but frankly they dropped the ball too hard on Vehicles, and it shows. It's just too much power too early, and is too difficult to deal with. While it lacks the the format-defining that Copter had, it makes up for in ending the game in ridiculous time. Once again, it massively warps what removal package you need to be running in order to answer it.
4. Constrictor. As you said, it may suffer the fate of Reflector Mage (Which I honestly think was a fair ban in the Grand Scheme). I'm a little less sure this'll see a ban. Given the context of how they ban things, I could see it.
Scrounger I'm less sure of, however. Take out Gideon and Heart, and the deck operates fairly as an aggro deck. It does see play elsewhere, but it's hardly ubiquitous with the format in the same way that Copter was.
Finally, I do agree that we will likely see either some resignations or reassignments following this mess. I'm honestly surprised that someone already didn't get chopped after they completely missed the Saheeli-Cat combo. It's not even that one piece was all the way back in Battle for Zendikar and the other was in Aether Revolt, or a case of several cards that operate in an obscure way. This is a known combo-type from the past. They are in the same damn block. Hell, they are in the same damn draft format. It's absurd to me that they missed it given the fact that their entire job is to catch crap like this. If I were Forsythe (I assume he's the Brand manager for Magic, or something of the sort), I would be immediately reconsidering someone's position in Development if they told me they missed this combo. It's almost unforgivable as the entire point of Development in the first place is to catch these things. It's one thing if they caught it and put it through anyway; that wasn't what happened, however.
I'm pretty sure Winding Constrictor is safe though. The format, as is, has enough solutions for it and there is still a chance that the next block will add to that. Also it is comparatively harmless in the company of cards that are currently discussed. Banning it based on the "Reflector Mage precedent" doesn't hold water since the card is nowhere near as obnoxious. Powerful yes, maybe even too much so (though I would contest that), but obnoxious it is not.
Many thanks to HotP Studios. Special thanks to DNC for this great sig.
Amonkhet is way, way too soon to print anything with the current meta game in mind. It is honestly likely already off the printers. In fact, Hour of Devastation is already completely finalized, and sent off to the printers. The absolute earliest they could print anything into the format is in the Fall set, but that's likely also far too soon for anything to be added and it would be putting it to the wire. The absolute soonest they could likely comfortably put something into print if they decided today would be in the January 2018 set.
Oh, I guess you were never around when Urza's was standard. I have doubts the format would die but I do have doubts that wizards is going to ban 5 cards. I would suspect them banning Felidar Guardian.
I do question the Frontier because there are a few cards that seemed too good for standard and Frontier's card pool is only a few sets big, so there has to be a ban list for Frontier. We'll see what happens.
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
All I was saying is that the format was around a long, long time. There was bans that players thought that wizards moved too slow and sometimes too fast. Memory Jar was banned/restricted 2 weeks before the card was legal, which screwed up many players buying into the card. I've been hearing a lot of talk about Felidar combo so the banning won't come to a surprise.
True Frontier is not an official format but it's going to happen.
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
1. Ban Felidar Guardian. The deck is too hard to keep in check. Any slippage, tap out or temporary lack of removal and you're dead. It was an adimtted dev mistake. This will nuke the deck.
2. Probable ban Gideon, ally of zendikar. It was not planned to stay around for two years, is a bit too good within the meta and within his decks. People have had long enough play time with it that it won't feel too bad to lose him now. This would make Mardu merely a reasonable deck, not the power-house it currently is.
(W/U)(B/R)GForm of Progenitus, Shape of a Scrubland
BRGJund Tokens with Prossh, the Magic Dragon Foil
URGAnimar, the RUG CleanerFoil
RRRFeldon of the Third Path 2.0 Foil
BG(B/G)Not Another Meren DeckFoil
UR(U/R)Mizzix, Y Control and X Burn Spells
(W/U)(B/R)GHarold Ramos - The 35 Foot Long Twinkie (In +1/+1 counters)
UB(U/B)Dragonlord Silumgar
It's a moot point now, but Gideon, ally of zendikar was always planned to be in Standard up until Amonkhet came in; so even in the original plans, he still has a month or so left. Which is why I would not have expected him to be banned.
With a new Gids coming in Amonkhet, and the original plans for the rotation, I could very well see him getting the banhammer in May with the new set, to reflect on the original plans basically.
As for the no changes, I'm a bit disappointed, but it's only another six weeks of Kitty FNM. I do wonder if they haven't fully examined the results of this weekend. Maybe they should have put the new ban announcement period on the Wednesday, both to give them time to reflect on the previous weekend and to give players time to react for the next weekend.
We are literally at the romance of the three kingdoms meta with small fiefdoms fighting just to make a dent in the world. Then again, that's still better than mirrodin block so maybe they just want to avoid sending a bad message.
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!