Quote from Terraxxion »Quote from FoodChainGoblins »It's much tougher to top 8 an SCG Open than a Grand Prix
I´m confused, why do you think that?
Quote from Ym1r »SCG Opens are tougher to top 8 than GPs? The narrative in this thread has been the opposite for years with people calling SCGs "glorified FNMs" (not that I agree with that mind you). I would like to know your perspective on thatQuote from FoodChainGoblins »Quote from icehippo »What’s with Amulet Titan’s performance at SCG? The deck put 2 copies in the top 8 in Philadelphia, yet was completely absent in the top 32 of both GP Bilbao and Tampa.
There are a few "known" Amulet players that play in SCG tournaments, like Daryl Ayers for example. It's much tougher to top 8 an SCG Open than a Grand Prix and I'm not sure many of those Amulet players actually played in the GPs.
Amulet is the kind of deck that really rewards playing for a long time. I think many of the SCG grinders have indeed done so, in easier competition. I am surprised that Edgar Magahaes didn't top 32 those GPs; maybe he didn't play?
I said it wrongly. I EDITED the above. Thanks.
It is easier to Top 8 SCG Opens. I've top 8ed 3 of something like 10 SCG Opens and been very close many other times, although this was with the Day 1 Swiss leading to the Day 2 morning Top 8s. I've played in at least 40 GPs and have not top 8ed one (yes, that's pretty embarrassing) of them.
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I would love to play Cunning Wish in Bug Teachings or Burning Wish/Living Wish in Eternal Command. UB would also kinda like Death Wish, since it can grab anything (for the low low cost of half your life
Furthermore, all but Cunning Wish also interact nicely with the new Teferi, being able to cast them with instant speed (and in case of Burning Wish the card you grab too) could spawn some new techs.
Greetings,
Kathal
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Greetings,
Kathal
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As a theoretical standpoint, Communism is equally fair to everyone, since it (should) treats everybody the same. Compared to every other system, alone from the theoretical standpoint it is impossible. Sure, in practise we all (should) know, that this is not the case.
Even than, the point you are making is basically irrelevant. There is not a single deck, which is even remotely competitive, in Modern which is absolutely ban proof. New printings happen, unbans happen, meta shifts happen. Eye of Ugin was for the most parts in its existent in Modern borderline garbage and only saw play in Tron cause it was capable to find Wurmcoil Engines and sometimes Emmi. Than Battle of Zendrika happened, it got banned 6 months later. Totally innocent card at first, busted in the end.
Second Sunrise as another example, KCI too, heck, even something as garbage as Summer Bloom got banned, cause of one deck and the interaction it provided. For example, you are playing Red Prison, what happens if Chalice/Blood Moon suddenly gets to an oppressive status due to different printings/unbans? What happens if SSG suddenly enables broken things and thus warps the whole format? Nah, rather hold of a manual fix of an format and watch it burn (different Standard formats e.g. (Faeries e.g.)) and hope for the best instead of doing something.
Sure, many things are quite easy to judge after a longer time period, that is history. But the question at the moment, when you need to pull the trigger or not, that is always a lose-lose scenario.
Given this, there will always be bans, it is the fundamental flaw of the game.
To get to the initial point: What is better:
a) Have a fix for one of the fundamental flaws of the games (amount of none games due to RNG) while running into the risk of maybe (!) needing to correct the meta of one (!) format?
b) Do nothing and accept, that the best fix for your issue (which this is) may not work, cause you need to do corrections to some formats.
Wizards want to promote Arena, Wizards wants to promote MTG as the premier TCG Esport (instead of Heartstone). Making the formats, which see solely play on THE premier platform (Arena), overall more enjoyable for everyone is the biggest reason for this change (besides fixing a long standing issue of the game). While Modern has a massive player base, people play Modern cause they enjoy Modern AND want to play with an extended card pool without the financial investment of Legacy. Sure, a portion of players might get pissed when somebody gets banned, some others will celebrate, others will not care, but keep in mind, that those cards, which would get banned with that Mulligan Rule (if at all) would slow the format down, which is something many people wish, if you take a look at the best 2+ years.
Will I be sad/mad when I see MY pet deck get banned into oblivion (Griselbanned)? Sure, but that is a sacrifice at least I would be willing to take to bring Magic forward on a fundamental problem.
Greetings,
Kathal
PS: And just as a note: I honestly do not think, that the overall changes to the powerlevel of different decks will be that influential, the sum of the changes is the important aspect and nobody is capable to judge those.
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Greetings,
Kathal
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Greetings,
Kathal
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I honestly never thought, that we could get an upgrade on the creature/enabler side, but here we are. Putting the problem with Path aside (which can be handled via different cards), that card is just bonkers. Why?
- It is a recurring cheat engine, since there is no way to remove it permanently (it will return sooner than later)
- It is cheap enough to get hard casted
- It doges most played removal, Lightning Axe, Dismember, Bolt and Push does nothing against Mr. Boar
- It is a three card combo with any other creature with only a single cheat spell, which is insane
The only con is: You want that guy in the classic none Shoal version, which is honestly not that big of an problem, since nobody plays control atm and GDS is either way a piss-poor match-up.
I was already starting to brew with Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion cause of how good his ability is in the Necrotic Ooze version (after brewing around with a Powder + Gemstone Cavern + Pull of Eternity Build), but now I put a stop on it and will go back to the classic version. Dunno if I want to go Powder route or not, has it's pro and cons.
Greetings,
Kathal
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That is at least what I found out about Search, when I tested it.
Greetings,
Kathal
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That are non-games for a whole bunch of decks. That those decks are mostly combo decks, is a different topic.
It is basically the same as the Zombie Loam deck, which had a 60-40 Eldrazie match-up during Eldrazie winter and even better afterwards (yeah, I know, it was absurd...), especially post banning of Eye playing Eldrazie vs that deck you just felt absolutely helpless. Nothing what you did mattered, just what the opp did. Those are the worst kind of games, cause mana flood or screw at least there is something you can blame on (to say it this way) instead of the "welp, you just got an auto loss paring". Ponza vs Tron is another prime example on those kind of match-ups.
Greetings,
Kathal
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Very interesting read btw.
Greetings,
Kathal
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AIR had no good Storm cards (grabbing 4 Hellkites via Dragonstorm was the best you could have done back then) so they needed to relay on different things (prison elements and fatties and the occasional Dragonstorm build). So Song/Rite of Flames is fine in that deck. However, those two in a deck with PiF, Mancers/Ascension is a completely different animal. If you would ban Grapeshot, Empty and Dragonstorm there is little to no reason to not unban Song (still little bit wary about Rites, cause of Chalice).
And yeah, I totally agree with your statement with Tron. However, this mainly stems from the bonkers payoff cards you can nowadays grab. If the best thing you could have done with the mana is playing Keiga, the Tide Star or Tooth and Nail for Kiki-jiki + Sky Hussar (or something as filthy as Plow Under in the Mirror...) it is something completely different than if you slam a Karn, Wurmcoil or Ulamog with it. The payoff cards just are so far and beyond better, it is not even funny.
That is also the reason, that only the most dedicated old school Tron players are playing those Tron style decks. Why should I try to Mindslaver somebody out of the game (although quite funny to do so) when I can just Karn reliable on Turn 3? Why should I play UW Tron with the Gifts package, when I can play Ugin the same turn they usually reanimate a fatty?
That is the reason, why people are hating Tron. Not because of the mana that it generates, but what spells you can cast with it.
To get back to your initial point. A lot of "design mistakes" are always contextual. Is Eye of Ugin a problem? Only when you are printing pushed Eldrazie cards with CMC not a billion. Is Dark Depths a problem? Only if you print Hexmage/Thespian Stage. Is Grapeshot/Empty a problem? Only if you have the necessary tools to abuse it. Is DRS a mistake? As Standard would have suggested, no. As we know, yes.
You can reprint so many broken cards in different environments, which would be absolutely atrocious (DRS in standard as a prime example). However, in a format as Modern, which is a huge pond, a small ripple can result into some huge waves. So while in hindsight you can always say: "XYZ was a design mistake", the context matters a ton. And that is why Modern cannot and will not become Standard++ nor Pauper (Pauper, at least till a few years ago, was more treniding towards a Vintage style than anything else). You would need a huge banlist to do so, which would kill the format outright.
There will always be big mana decks which will do a similar job to what Tron is doing. Should we now ban all big mana pay off cards too? So Titan, Scapeshift, Valakut,...?
Those decks struggle against big mana decks, cause they are weak to that archtype in general. If I play a Tempo deck (like Delver or Bug Shadow) I always moan when I need to play against Midrange decks, cause those are just the natural enemies of the deck. However, I am super happy when I can play against any form of Combo, which is usually a pretty darn good match-up.
That is the normal Rock-Paper-Scissor thematic of the Archetypes. If something has no bad match-ups it usually indicates that the deck is way to strong.
IMO Wizard had two paths back in the day, two decision which would been shaping the whole format. One was the Path they took, ban Pod, TC, DTT. That was the more conservative Path, since it was still done with the "what-a-mole" mentality of trying to keep the ever increasing powerlevel of non rotating formats down (especially Modern). The rest is history.
The other one would not to go that route and instead go the unban route of unleashing more cards into the format, things like Stoneforge and BBE would have been great cards back than, but it would have been the more risky path, since no one could say, where this would have lead too.
So, to get back to your initial question, yes, Pod needed to be banned, cause they decided to continue "whack-a-mole". Pod in summer already had peak performances (and that was with a more harmful environment), although in the Kiki Pod version. When TC and DTT entered the format, Rhino.Pod (or rather Angel Pod) became the (in my opinion) second best deck in the format, only DTT Scapeshift (which nobody played for w/e reason, echo champer syndrome I assume) was better. Pod had a decent to great match-up against all the Tier 1 meta decks, either they outvalued any value deck (BGx and UWR) or could keep on par with the card advantage of TC Delver. That combo decks (as in pure combo decks like Storm, Ad Nauseam, Griselbanned or something like Amulet Titan) where either non existent (cause they either didn't "exist" yet (Amulet Titan or Dredge), got no attention at all (Griselbanned, Ad Nauseam) or were considered bad decks (Storm)) helped Pod a lot. Combo and somewhat big mana (depends on which Pod version you played) were the worst match-ups for Pod. Only Infect with the freshly printed Become Immense (in conjunction with Probe) and Affinity were the only top tier decks (which saw play) could have been labeled as a combo deck back than. Sure, there was still Burn with the freshly printed Eidolon (just one set old), but even against that deck Angle.Pod had little to no trouble (Kitchen Finks into Resto into Rhino is gg).
So, tl;dr: Given the path they have chosen back then, it absolutely needed to get banned.
Greetings,
Kathal