I remember, from the olden days of magic, long lists of "banned" or "restricted" cards...
Many of these cards were, yes, poorly designed and highly exploitable, but if you look at the list, many of the "restricted" and even some of the "banned" aren't as overwhelmingly game-deciding as many of the cards in the game now.
Seems like the current atmosphere is that because enchantment, creature, and artifact removal is "SOMEWHERE" in the game, then enchantments, creatures, and artifacts of a given color/variety should be free to be as game-breaking as possible, since you just might be able to stop them with the cards in your hand.
I'd like to see banned and restricted card lists come back into being... I get very tired of the same 12 ridiculous cards on the board every night... even when some of them are my own.
I'd name some, but, the know-it-alls of the community would leap to scream "zomg this card is better" and "zomg you should have 16 enchantment removals in every black deck!!!@!!@!#!111"
New sets are playtested enough that cards that break Standard in half to the point of necessitating banning just don't make it to print. Other than the Ravager Affinity deck, which wasn't seen coming simply because R&D must have been playing Atog affinity in their tests, there just hasn't been a need for anything to be banned in about eight years.
Older formats have plenty of bans. Standard just doesn't need them anymore.
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They only ban cards when they are really hurting a format (and they only restrict cards in vintage). This format is very healthy. The only card in recent memory you could even bring up the possibility of banning is bitterblossom, and even then it was fine, but especially now that faeries is just another deck, it is totally fine.
And being tired of the same cards being in play isn't really something you solve with bannings. If the best cards are banned, then everyone will just play the 2nd best cards, etc.
Ehh, there aren't "second best cards" to everything in the game... more often, there are like 3-4 cards that tie for second best, which adds a little more flavor...
In every block as of late, one or two cards rises to the top...
Cards should not be invented that utterly destroy the functionality of another card. I don't think the standard is healthy when the tournament decks mostly share a pool of about 10 non-land cards, and the rest of the cards in those decks are just spins on how to more quickly make those "big important" cards useful.
It extends beyond tournaments into casual and normal play, as well... any kind of constructed...
I'll go ahead and give an example of what i'm talking about...
Why would a white deck ever use Holy Strength when it has Edge of Divinity available to it? Both are enchantments that cost 1 mana, both do the same thing if the creature's just white, but on the chance that it's white/black, it is essentially casting Holy Strength and Unholy Strength for the cost of 1 mana and 1 card...
I'm not saying that card should be banned, per se, but, why make cards that seriously decimate the value of other cards like that?
Their lack of banning cards is making the game seem very dry to me... this is why Jitte was a problem, as well as tons of other cards throughout the past "8 years". It's either hubris or laziness to not put forth an "oops" list of cards that are so awesome that they mysteriously appear in 50% or more of top tourney decks.
The most popular cards are FoD, cryptic command bitterblossom. FoD is just a pumpable vanilla creature, bitterblossom is slow and requires losing life, and cryptic command is a counterspell. All amazing cards but they dont just wreck a game, they have to go in the right deck
In what universe? If you build a deck like that, and ever draw that hand, I will personally come to wherever you live, perform complicated acts of awestruck *********, then disembowel myself to escape the world that allowed something like to to occur and validate you.
exactly as i see it. there are definitely overpowered cards but until the day the goyf comes back with the same mana cost, pro-black and cannot be countered ( shudders at that thought ) standard can stay ban free.
Why would a white deck ever use Holy Strength when it has Edge of Divinity available to it? Both are enchantments that cost 1 mana, both do the same thing if the creature's just white, but on the chance that it's white/black, it is essentially casting Holy Strength and Unholy Strength for the cost of 1 mana and 1 card...
I'm not saying that card should be banned, per se, but, why make cards that seriously decimate the value of other cards like that?
Edge of the Divinity can be nuked by Celestial Purge whereas Holy Strength cannot. You can enchant Paladin en-Vec with Holy Strength but not Edge of the Divinity.
It's very rare for a card to be "strictly" better. Even when that is the case, it makes sense because WotC is a business. If they print better cards at higher rarities, it will make people buy more and make WotC more money. Banning those good cards would be a horrible business decision for Wizards.
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"I'm so far up the ass of big business, I think the whole world's a colon." - Denny Crane
Many, many cards are 95% better than other cards, and though you can find 5% wiggle room and special circumstances, you won't see the "sub-optimal" cards in tourney play very often.
This is of course GREAT for Wizards as a business... but I honestly think it hurts the game by effectively reducing the number of "playable" cards even further...
I think there was a shift a while back in the dynamic of how cards are designed and how cards get into the banned and restricted lists. I don't think those changes were 100% good.
I don't really think that a banned and restricted list is necessary for T2, but I am certainly in favor of some sort of change. I don't think a card should ever be an auto-include for any deck that plays that color the way Cryptic Command, Bitterblossom, and Thoughtseize are.
I'm always amazed that people want fantastic toys, and then whine because their neighbor got one, too.
you might play cryptic command in 5cc, but it's Broodmate Dragon that wins you the game.
Thoughtsieze followed by tidehollow sculler on the next turn can wreck your opponents hand, but you've still got to do some serious juju with those tokens.
bitterblossom simultaneously made fae competitive and put the player on a clock. er even in the slightest, and you could kill yourself.
hell, Goyf was an annoyance, but could still be killed by terror. do you think it'd survive in a meta when path to exile exists?
the format is fine, people. if anything, the tribal mechanic was worth *****ing about even more pre-alara, and nobody seemed to mind that.
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Agreed. Standard, like any environment, is very dependant on your local metagame. It is not a crime to have a couple of decks built, just to attack your local players. If you expect a lot of Faeries, and not much else, you just play Red or Kithkin. If you expect a lot of 5C, just play Faeries or Tokens. If you expect a lot of Tokens/RW Brew/Kithkin, play something that repeatedly sweeps the board.
Or you can man up, and build a deck that compiles elements of all of the above into the same list (Workin on it!!!)
If you're looking for decklists, I can help you out. If all you want to do is argue the same point that has been presented and proven wrong, I can't.
Most people think Standard needs the ban hammer's attention because it's grown stagnant. If that's your issue, build a deck that'll shake things up. There's no crime in being original, as long as you actually do your homework beforehand. To me, a disruptive deck that can put the opponent on a clock, without being vulnerable to Wrath effects would easily be the best choice. Also, Makeshift Mannequin is largely overlooked as a way to cheat big untargetable creatures with evasion into play quickly.... Just saying... That's pretty powerful too.
the format is fine, people. if anything, the tribal mechanic was worth *****ing about even more pre-alara, and nobody seemed to mind that.
That's true, but I do feel they should more often consider adjusting the meta (and not just in a Volcanic Fallout way - with their hammer). I'm not sure the game could handle another Ravager Affinity fiasco.
Then again, there are people (including on this forum) who don't believe that deck should have gotten the hammer.
(Hey, speaking of that quote, does this mean that the fanbase is going to stop whining about how Alara and mythic rares destroyed the game? :rolleyes:)
(Hey, speaking of that quote, does this mean that the fanbase is going to stop whining about how Alara and mythic rares destroyed the game? :rolleyes:)
Mythics should have never seen print. What was the point of making mythics in the first place again?
Why should the normal rarity system of rare/uncommon/common that has worked well for several years be changed?
Mythics should have never seen print. What was the point of making mythics in the first place again?
Why should the normal rarity system of rare/uncommon/common that has worked well for several years be changed?
Why fix what ain't broke?
when did WotC say that the normal rarity system was broken? Look Mythics didn't do anything wrong with the game, all their doing is just adding in another type of rarity to sell the game more which is just fine. The point to them was to make Legends feel more legendary, probably print cards that are a little more powerful, and make planeswalkers feel rarer.
Most people think Standard needs the ban hammer's attention because it's grown stagnant.
Which is what happens 5 months before every rotation because everyone believes that the format is solved and nobody (which doesn't include everybody;)) likes to innovate on these forums. When you ask for advice the most common answer is; "Play Faeries." or "Play 5CC."
It usually feels stagnate, but sometimes it helps to pull back from the feeling that you have to netdeck and look at the glaring weaknesses of the most played decks and then try to build a "meta-killer" from some of the unexplored possibilities in the card pool... just look at Mind Games I've seen people trade those like they were junk and now that they made a T8 appearance suddenly it's a good card.
If you can honestly look at the World's 2k6, 2k7, or 2k8 top 8 deck lists, and not feel like the game has lost charm and flavor, then I don't believe you've been playing for very long.
The poster above who said that Mythic Rares should never have been printed is completely correct. All this serves to do is pander to the "money-making" side of the game which is at direct odds with the "game design" side of the game... at a time when the "game design" side of the game needs more TLC than ever...
The special lands lists in those tourney top 8's is revoltingly identical between even remotely similar decks... and has been for years and years... either stop printing sub-optimal cards or stop printing cards that easily obviate other cards in most situations.
The whole:
"All [COLOR] creatures gain +1/+1"
"All [Different COLOR] creatures gain +1/+1"
Series of cards make mono-color anything similar pretty much instantaneously sub-optimal... do stuff like that and simultaneously reduce the number of cards in legal T2 rotation? And then people suddenly wonder why 2008 worlds had 40 decks that were 80% similar to one another? Hmmmmmmm....
I'm not saying the game is completely broken, I'm just saying that there are a ton of "cool" strategies that were purposefully built into the game by designers, but that are so easily blown completely away without even "skilled" deck building that the game reduces, brutally, to only a few "viable" decktypes.
I'm talking about competitive play, btw, so don't tell me to make a milling deck... my friends (never played in a tourney), can utterly decimate even the best net milling decks and other trick decks... A friend of mine tried a popular and blogged about sphinx-artifact-cheat-in deck against me and both my white/black "Random" deck and my "Rogue Tribal" ended up beating it, and that was with my deck underperforming... so, while really really "fun" and "cool" ... if not "competitive" there's no point...
If Wizards can't keep "fun and cool" decks competitive, and all they are going to change about the game is reduce the card count and create "higher rarity" cards, there's little hope for the game... for me, anyway.
You argue above that "creativity" is rewarded... I don't see that... I see Wizards of the Coast's creativity being rewarded... they "made" these strategies... and while creativity is rewarded when you make a "fun" deck (I played with some re-animation, and had fun with it), because you have fun, it's not fun to see your creations get burned up in 5 seconds. In fact, that is punishment for being creative.
You are REWARDED for net decking, by victory... and while I don't play expressly to win every game, when even one person in a group DOES, the others are forced to follow suit if they want to have any fun... because losing every game is not fun.
I know that idealists want to argue, so badly, that every strategy is viable in Magic... but, I believe you're completely disillusioned if you believe that... In fact, I believe one could more easily argue that MOST available strategies are not truly viable, beyond something to sit back from and say "oh, how neat, you beat my mono-black novelty deck with that dashing strategy old chap, shall we break out our real decks now?".
and xxTalonxx said:
"Which is what happens 5 months before every rotation because everyone believes that the format is solved and nobody (which doesn't include everybody) likes to innovate on these forums. When you ask for advice the most common answer is; "Play Faeries." or "Play 5CC.""
I think you're confused, and a bit optimistic about the format.
It isn't that people don't like to innovate on these forums... I've seen some wicked cool ideas come out of "help me with this deck" threads here... but the reason people say "Play Faeries" or "Play 5CC." wins out is because those decks are legitimately easier to score wins with. They are consistent, with strategies and tricks built in that rely on 1 or 2 cards with synergy and 4 or less mana cost, while other strategies don't play to the block theme very much and end up crumbling.
lol really? are u freaking serious? its not JUST A COUNTERSPELL its a BLUE FOG A MY CREATURES CANT BE BLOCKED CAUSE I SAY SO SPELL AND A BOOMANG ALL IN ONE THATS SAYS I GET AND AUTOMATIC 2-1 IF YOU ARENT PLAYING BLUE.
Caps lock is cruise control for cool, but you still need to know how to steer.
Which is what happens 5 months before every rotation because everyone believes that the format is solved and nobody (which doesn't include everybody;)) likes to innovate on these forums. When you ask for advice the most common answer is; "Play Faeries." or "Play 5CC."
It usually feels stagnate, but sometimes it helps to pull back from the feeling that you have to netdeck and look at the glaring weaknesses of the most played decks and then try to build a "meta-killer" from some of the unexplored possibilities in the card pool... just look at Mind Games I've seen people trade those like they were junk and now that they made a T8 appearance suddenly it's a good card.
People who ask for advice on winning are given advice that will legitimately help them win. I know you don't like the fact that mtg is a competitive game with a defined metagame, and that playing a competitive archetype in that metagame helps you win, but thats how it is.
What happened to banned and restricted cards of old is a tale over 10 years old.
In 1996 or so, it was decided that only the Type 1 (now Vintage) would have a Restricted list; Type 2 (now Standard) would only have a Banned list, because of the feeling that if a particular card is too good to have 4 in a deck, it is too good to have 1 in a deck.
It was also decided that it would take a REALLY bad card to be banned because typically, banning is permanent. Also, ideally, it should never be possible to open up a pack of current set cards and find even one that you can't play because "it's too good."
As said by JohnnyRed, many people feel that the ban hammer needs to come out when the environment is too stagnant. Those people are wrong. These people also tend to believe that cards need to be banned if they are too popular. It stuns me (and makes me shake my head) how many people wanted Tarmogoyf banned in Standard even with them acknowledging that the card wasn't broken, but simply because it was everywhere.
The purpose of the banned list is not to promote diversity but to stop the uber-broken cards after they have been proven to be unstoppable, which is very, very rare. That's not just how it is, but how it should be.
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Guns don't kill people. Bullets kill people. Guns just make them move really, really fast.
I'm trying to figure out what you are arguing about here? You start off with wanting the banned/restricted back then start in on how they shouldn't make cards that obsolete older cards. Now you are talking about how the metagame is stagnant and the banhammer needs to be applied.
Last I knew the only cards that got banned were overpowered and went into every deck. Not just popular cards or overly expensive cards.
I'm trying to remember when there was a metagame with more than 5-6 tier 1 decks. tight now there are 5 and about twice as many tier 2.
I fail to see where the banhammer would be used today. There are too many answers to any given card to have anything banned.
lol really? are u freaking serious? its not JUST A COUNTERSPELL its a BLUE FOG A MY CREATURES CANT BE BLOCKED CAUSE I SAY SO SPELL AND A BOOMANG ALL IN ONE THATS SAYS I GET AND AUTOMATIC 2-1 IF YOU ARENT PLAYING BLUE.
I am aware and I think it is the best card in type 2. but it only does two things, it costs 4 mana, and none of the things are undercosted.
4 mana counter? sucks. 4 mana bounce? sucks. fog, especially at 4 mana, suckks. 4 mana draw only 1 card? sucks
you get to choose two, so its pretty good. its flexible, so its amazing.
but none of that is format warping, therefore it isnt ban worthy. how was that not clear before?
Ravager, Goyf, were broken because you built around them (i know goyf you could throw in any deck but people played chromatic star and tarfire ONLY because of goyf)
Cryptic command, you throw in a deck that can afford it. you dont build around it
In what universe? If you build a deck like that, and ever draw that hand, I will personally come to wherever you live, perform complicated acts of awestruck *********, then disembowel myself to escape the world that allowed something like to to occur and validate you.
What happened to banned and restricted cards of old is a tale over 10 years old.
In 1996 or so, it was decided that only the Type 1 (now Vintage) would have a Restricted list; Type 2 (now Standard) would only have a Banned list, because of the feeling that if a particular card is too good to have 4 in a deck, it is too good to have 1 in a deck.
It was also decided that it would take a REALLY bad card to be banned because typically, banning is permanent. Also, ideally, it should never be possible to open up a pack of current set cards and find even one that you can't play because "it's too good."
As said by JohnnyRed, many people feel that the ban hammer needs to come out when the environment is too stagnant. Those people are wrong. These people also tend to believe that cards need to be banned if they are too popular. It stuns me (and makes me shake my head) how many people wanted Tarmogoyf banned in Standard even with them acknowledging that the card wasn't broken, but simply because it was everywhere.
The purpose of the banned list is not to promote diversity but to stop the uber-broken cards after they have been proven to be unstoppable, which is very, very rare. That's not just how it is, but how it should be.
I'm trying to figure out what you are arguing about here? You start off with wanting the banned/restricted back then start in on how they shouldn't make cards that obsolete older cards. Now you are talking about how the metagame is stagnant and the banhammer needs to be applied.
Last I knew the only cards that got banned were overpowered and went into every deck. Not just popular cards or overly expensive cards.
I'm trying to remember when there was a metagame with more than 5-6 tier 1 decks. tight now there are 5 and about twice as many tier 2.
I fail to see where the banhammer would be used today. There are too many answers to any given card to have anything banned.
What cards would you want to see banned then?
Kudos, guys! Finally, a modicum of common sense surfaces. As Winter said, there has NEVER been a Restricted list for Type 2, or Standard. It's always been Banned or not. Before the Legend Rule was changed a few years ago, the old rule meant that when two decks played the same Legend, the first one played got to keep his and the other player was, basically screwed...until he could kill the first one. That's why Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero was banned in Masque Block. Rebels were so solid at that time, that if you got yours out first, it was totally unfair to the other player. It "warped" the play environment enough to warrant a banning. The reason that Rishadan Port was also banned was because it was played in, literally, every deck...regardless of color. That was also environment warping.
The point is that there is not a single card in Standard, nor has there been for some time now, that so "warps" the environment that it warrants a banning. The FFL at Wizards can and does make the occasional mistake, letting a card through that is broken in one way or another. Tarmogoyf and Bitterblossom are prime examples of those mistakes. But you have to, at the very least, splash green or black, respectively, to run those cards. They were/are not run in every deck in Standard.
Gripe all you want about Standard being stagnant, boring, or whatever. But banning cards is very serious business and something that Wizards takes just as seriously. Nothing in Standard today warrants a banning. Period.
The reason that Rishadan Port was also banned was because it was played in, literally, every deck...regardless of color. That was also environment warping.
This reasoning isn't sound, otherwise Mutavault ought to be banned. (A utility land not tied to color that appears in every deck, just like port...)
This reasoning isn't sound, otherwise Mutavault ought to be banned. (A utility land not tied to color that appears in every deck, just like port...)
Yeah, the reasoning he posted isn't perfect. But there is a significant difference between the two, that made Port too good for standard wheras mutavault (like Tarmogoyf) may be played everywhere but it's not like it's as format warping as port was.
Mutavault may be playable in a lot of decks in standard (provided your manabase can handle some colorless lands that is) but it is just a 2/2 creature... not that it's completely ineffectual, but in a vacuum I would think that a land that denies mana (well, non-instand mana anyway) all on it's lonesome, with a very cheap investment cost at that has a much larger chance of giving you a seriously unbalanced advantage than an extra critter.
Many of these cards were, yes, poorly designed and highly exploitable, but if you look at the list, many of the "restricted" and even some of the "banned" aren't as overwhelmingly game-deciding as many of the cards in the game now.
Seems like the current atmosphere is that because enchantment, creature, and artifact removal is "SOMEWHERE" in the game, then enchantments, creatures, and artifacts of a given color/variety should be free to be as game-breaking as possible, since you just might be able to stop them with the cards in your hand.
I'd like to see banned and restricted card lists come back into being... I get very tired of the same 12 ridiculous cards on the board every night... even when some of them are my own.
I'd name some, but, the know-it-alls of the community would leap to scream "zomg this card is better" and "zomg you should have 16 enchantment removals in every black deck!!!@!!@!#!111"
Anyway, just a thought.
Older formats have plenty of bans. Standard just doesn't need them anymore.
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And being tired of the same cards being in play isn't really something you solve with bannings. If the best cards are banned, then everyone will just play the 2nd best cards, etc.
In every block as of late, one or two cards rises to the top...
Cards should not be invented that utterly destroy the functionality of another card. I don't think the standard is healthy when the tournament decks mostly share a pool of about 10 non-land cards, and the rest of the cards in those decks are just spins on how to more quickly make those "big important" cards useful.
It extends beyond tournaments into casual and normal play, as well... any kind of constructed...
I'll go ahead and give an example of what i'm talking about...
Why would a white deck ever use Holy Strength when it has Edge of Divinity available to it? Both are enchantments that cost 1 mana, both do the same thing if the creature's just white, but on the chance that it's white/black, it is essentially casting Holy Strength and Unholy Strength for the cost of 1 mana and 1 card...
I'm not saying that card should be banned, per se, but, why make cards that seriously decimate the value of other cards like that?
Their lack of banning cards is making the game seem very dry to me... this is why Jitte was a problem, as well as tons of other cards throughout the past "8 years". It's either hubris or laziness to not put forth an "oops" list of cards that are so awesome that they mysteriously appear in 50% or more of top tourney decks.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=187889
Edge of the Divinity can be nuked by Celestial Purge whereas Holy Strength cannot. You can enchant Paladin en-Vec with Holy Strength but not Edge of the Divinity.
It's very rare for a card to be "strictly" better. Even when that is the case, it makes sense because WotC is a business. If they print better cards at higher rarities, it will make people buy more and make WotC more money. Banning those good cards would be a horrible business decision for Wizards.
Many, many cards are 95% better than other cards, and though you can find 5% wiggle room and special circumstances, you won't see the "sub-optimal" cards in tourney play very often.
This is of course GREAT for Wizards as a business... but I honestly think it hurts the game by effectively reducing the number of "playable" cards even further...
I think there was a shift a while back in the dynamic of how cards are designed and how cards get into the banned and restricted lists. I don't think those changes were 100% good.
you might play cryptic command in 5cc, but it's Broodmate Dragon that wins you the game.
Thoughtsieze followed by tidehollow sculler on the next turn can wreck your opponents hand, but you've still got to do some serious juju with those tokens.
bitterblossom simultaneously made fae competitive and put the player on a clock. er even in the slightest, and you could kill yourself.
hell, Goyf was an annoyance, but could still be killed by terror. do you think it'd survive in a meta when path to exile exists?
the format is fine, people. if anything, the tribal mechanic was worth *****ing about even more pre-alara, and nobody seemed to mind that.
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Or you can man up, and build a deck that compiles elements of all of the above into the same list (Workin on it!!!)
If you're looking for decklists, I can help you out. If all you want to do is argue the same point that has been presented and proven wrong, I can't.
Most people think Standard needs the ban hammer's attention because it's grown stagnant. If that's your issue, build a deck that'll shake things up. There's no crime in being original, as long as you actually do your homework beforehand. To me, a disruptive deck that can put the opponent on a clock, without being vulnerable to Wrath effects would easily be the best choice. Also, Makeshift Mannequin is largely overlooked as a way to cheat big untargetable creatures with evasion into play quickly.... Just saying... That's pretty powerful too.
That's true, but I do feel they should more often consider adjusting the meta (and not just in a Volcanic Fallout way - with their hammer). I'm not sure the game could handle another Ravager Affinity fiasco.
Then again, there are people (including on this forum) who don't believe that deck should have gotten the hammer.
(Hey, speaking of that quote, does this mean that the fanbase is going to stop whining about how Alara and mythic rares destroyed the game? :rolleyes:)
Mythics should have never seen print. What was the point of making mythics in the first place again?
Why should the normal rarity system of rare/uncommon/common that has worked well for several years be changed?
Why fix what ain't broke?
when did WotC say that the normal rarity system was broken? Look Mythics didn't do anything wrong with the game, all their doing is just adding in another type of rarity to sell the game more which is just fine. The point to them was to make Legends feel more legendary, probably print cards that are a little more powerful, and make planeswalkers feel rarer.
There was once [The Pack], but no more.
Which is what happens 5 months before every rotation because everyone believes that the format is solved and nobody (which doesn't include everybody;)) likes to innovate on these forums. When you ask for advice the most common answer is; "Play Faeries." or "Play 5CC."
It usually feels stagnate, but sometimes it helps to pull back from the feeling that you have to netdeck and look at the glaring weaknesses of the most played decks and then try to build a "meta-killer" from some of the unexplored possibilities in the card pool... just look at Mind Games I've seen people trade those like they were junk and now that they made a T8 appearance suddenly it's a good card.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=5401186#post5401186
The poster above who said that Mythic Rares should never have been printed is completely correct. All this serves to do is pander to the "money-making" side of the game which is at direct odds with the "game design" side of the game... at a time when the "game design" side of the game needs more TLC than ever...
The special lands lists in those tourney top 8's is revoltingly identical between even remotely similar decks... and has been for years and years... either stop printing sub-optimal cards or stop printing cards that easily obviate other cards in most situations.
The whole:
"All [COLOR] creatures gain +1/+1"
"All [Different COLOR] creatures gain +1/+1"
Series of cards make mono-color anything similar pretty much instantaneously sub-optimal... do stuff like that and simultaneously reduce the number of cards in legal T2 rotation? And then people suddenly wonder why 2008 worlds had 40 decks that were 80% similar to one another? Hmmmmmmm....
I'm not saying the game is completely broken, I'm just saying that there are a ton of "cool" strategies that were purposefully built into the game by designers, but that are so easily blown completely away without even "skilled" deck building that the game reduces, brutally, to only a few "viable" decktypes.
I'm talking about competitive play, btw, so don't tell me to make a milling deck... my friends (never played in a tourney), can utterly decimate even the best net milling decks and other trick decks... A friend of mine tried a popular and blogged about sphinx-artifact-cheat-in deck against me and both my white/black "Random" deck and my "Rogue Tribal" ended up beating it, and that was with my deck underperforming... so, while really really "fun" and "cool" ... if not "competitive" there's no point...
If Wizards can't keep "fun and cool" decks competitive, and all they are going to change about the game is reduce the card count and create "higher rarity" cards, there's little hope for the game... for me, anyway.
You argue above that "creativity" is rewarded... I don't see that... I see Wizards of the Coast's creativity being rewarded... they "made" these strategies... and while creativity is rewarded when you make a "fun" deck (I played with some re-animation, and had fun with it), because you have fun, it's not fun to see your creations get burned up in 5 seconds. In fact, that is punishment for being creative.
You are REWARDED for net decking, by victory... and while I don't play expressly to win every game, when even one person in a group DOES, the others are forced to follow suit if they want to have any fun... because losing every game is not fun.
I know that idealists want to argue, so badly, that every strategy is viable in Magic... but, I believe you're completely disillusioned if you believe that... In fact, I believe one could more easily argue that MOST available strategies are not truly viable, beyond something to sit back from and say "oh, how neat, you beat my mono-black novelty deck with that dashing strategy old chap, shall we break out our real decks now?".
and xxTalonxx said:
"Which is what happens 5 months before every rotation because everyone believes that the format is solved and nobody (which doesn't include everybody) likes to innovate on these forums. When you ask for advice the most common answer is; "Play Faeries." or "Play 5CC.""
I think you're confused, and a bit optimistic about the format.
It isn't that people don't like to innovate on these forums... I've seen some wicked cool ideas come out of "help me with this deck" threads here... but the reason people say "Play Faeries" or "Play 5CC." wins out is because those decks are legitimately easier to score wins with. They are consistent, with strategies and tricks built in that rely on 1 or 2 cards with synergy and 4 or less mana cost, while other strategies don't play to the block theme very much and end up crumbling.
Posts merged.
lol really? are u freaking serious? its not JUST A COUNTERSPELL its a BLUE FOG A MY CREATURES CANT BE BLOCKED CAUSE I SAY SO SPELL AND A BOOMANG ALL IN ONE THATS SAYS I GET AND AUTOMATIC 2-1 IF YOU ARENT PLAYING BLUE.
Caps lock is cruise control for cool, but you still need to know how to steer.
That card is very good. Compare it to the black or Red equivalents.
People who ask for advice on winning are given advice that will legitimately help them win. I know you don't like the fact that mtg is a competitive game with a defined metagame, and that playing a competitive archetype in that metagame helps you win, but thats how it is.
Also you mean head games
In 1996 or so, it was decided that only the Type 1 (now Vintage) would have a Restricted list; Type 2 (now Standard) would only have a Banned list, because of the feeling that if a particular card is too good to have 4 in a deck, it is too good to have 1 in a deck.
It was also decided that it would take a REALLY bad card to be banned because typically, banning is permanent. Also, ideally, it should never be possible to open up a pack of current set cards and find even one that you can't play because "it's too good."
As said by JohnnyRed, many people feel that the ban hammer needs to come out when the environment is too stagnant. Those people are wrong. These people also tend to believe that cards need to be banned if they are too popular. It stuns me (and makes me shake my head) how many people wanted Tarmogoyf banned in Standard even with them acknowledging that the card wasn't broken, but simply because it was everywhere.
The purpose of the banned list is not to promote diversity but to stop the uber-broken cards after they have been proven to be unstoppable, which is very, very rare. That's not just how it is, but how it should be.
Last I knew the only cards that got banned were overpowered and went into every deck. Not just popular cards or overly expensive cards.
I'm trying to remember when there was a metagame with more than 5-6 tier 1 decks. tight now there are 5 and about twice as many tier 2.
I fail to see where the banhammer would be used today. There are too many answers to any given card to have anything banned.
What cards would you want to see banned then?
I am aware and I think it is the best card in type 2. but it only does two things, it costs 4 mana, and none of the things are undercosted.
4 mana counter? sucks. 4 mana bounce? sucks. fog, especially at 4 mana, suckks. 4 mana draw only 1 card? sucks
you get to choose two, so its pretty good. its flexible, so its amazing.
but none of that is format warping, therefore it isnt ban worthy. how was that not clear before?
Ravager, Goyf, were broken because you built around them (i know goyf you could throw in any deck but people played chromatic star and tarfire ONLY because of goyf)
Cryptic command, you throw in a deck that can afford it. you dont build around it
Kudos, guys! Finally, a modicum of common sense surfaces. As Winter said, there has NEVER been a Restricted list for Type 2, or Standard. It's always been Banned or not. Before the Legend Rule was changed a few years ago, the old rule meant that when two decks played the same Legend, the first one played got to keep his and the other player was, basically screwed...until he could kill the first one. That's why Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero was banned in Masque Block. Rebels were so solid at that time, that if you got yours out first, it was totally unfair to the other player. It "warped" the play environment enough to warrant a banning. The reason that Rishadan Port was also banned was because it was played in, literally, every deck...regardless of color. That was also environment warping.
The point is that there is not a single card in Standard, nor has there been for some time now, that so "warps" the environment that it warrants a banning. The FFL at Wizards can and does make the occasional mistake, letting a card through that is broken in one way or another. Tarmogoyf and Bitterblossom are prime examples of those mistakes. But you have to, at the very least, splash green or black, respectively, to run those cards. They were/are not run in every deck in Standard.
Gripe all you want about Standard being stagnant, boring, or whatever. But banning cards is very serious business and something that Wizards takes just as seriously. Nothing in Standard today warrants a banning. Period.
Courtesy is contagious. Go out and catch some.
<Sigh> My quest for intelligent life on the internet continues.
This reasoning isn't sound, otherwise Mutavault ought to be banned. (A utility land not tied to color that appears in every deck, just like port...)
Yeah, the reasoning he posted isn't perfect. But there is a significant difference between the two, that made Port too good for standard wheras mutavault (like Tarmogoyf) may be played everywhere but it's not like it's as format warping as port was.
Mutavault may be playable in a lot of decks in standard (provided your manabase can handle some colorless lands that is) but it is just a 2/2 creature... not that it's completely ineffectual, but in a vacuum I would think that a land that denies mana (well, non-instand mana anyway) all on it's lonesome, with a very cheap investment cost at that has a much larger chance of giving you a seriously unbalanced advantage than an extra critter.