I agree that NO and Bribery are not that similar. For example, when I'm playing my WW deck, I find NO pretty hard to beat especially when resolved on turn 3. On the other hand, Bribery is just not good against me- the best you're getting for 5 mana is a 3 or 4 mana creature that's better at attacking than blocking. Bribery is the reason I have Baneslayer in the SB instead of maindeck (funny how a single card is the difference between Bribery being meh and amazing in the matchup).
But even that comparison makes more sense than comparing NO to Mana Drain. One turns a creature into the best one in your deck, and the other is just a counterspell with potentially huge upside and no downside. They're similar to the extent that every good card is similar to every other good card in that they make you more likely to win, but that's about it.
Have fun today, unfortunately I won't be able to make it.
If they end up being oppressive, we can ban them. But I suspect there exists sufficient graveyard hate to keep them under control. Once your loam gets exiled, you aren't getting it back, barring Pull from Eternity nonsense or eldrazi processing.
I think the German highlander banlist has some good things about it, but I would rather not have such a sudden and drastic change. I agree with a lot of it. But I won't vote for changing over the banlist wholesale. There's nothing I feel really needs to be banned, but many things are banned for what seems to me like no good reason. Plenty of these cards are banned in legacy for good reason, but there's a big difference between having 4 in a 60 card deck and having 1 in a 100 card deck. So I propose we unban the following:
Channel
Crucible of Worlds
Demonic Consultation (we already have Tained Pact, which is basically a safer version of this card for many decks)
Entomb
Fastbond
Intuition
Life from the Loam
Lion's Eye Diamond (seriously there is NO reason this should be banned- what are you afraid of?!)
Mana Drain
Memory Jar
Merchant Scroll
Mind's Desire
Necropotence
Timetwister
Tolarian Academy
Trinisphere
Wheel of Fortune
Windfall
Yawgmoth's Bargain
Some of the others I think could be unbanned but I would rather take a more gradual approach.
I am not a huge fan of reddit either but to be completely honest I like it more than this forum. I like having a stable, simple URL (not like this one which can arbitrarily change at any time as we have seen with our tinyurl). I like the ability to have different threads so it's easier to follow certain discussions without having to read all that everyone's had to say about everything. On the other hand, I also think it's good to have multiple "bases". We don't have to abandon this thread.
The council thing seems like a more formal version of what we already do. I would be honored to participate!
Yes, I created a subreddit, https://www.reddit.com/r/S100/ I haven't added any posts yet. You are all welcome to! If you want to be mod just let me know.
Speaking of the ban list, do we plan on updating it on a regular basis? I think at least twice a year we should take a look at it and propose changes to vote on.
I agree that Bribery, while it can be very unfun to play against, is just good to have around to help prevent cheating. It's not unbeatable, either- there are ways to get your creature back (e.g. Homeward Path) or you can simply structure your deck in a way that Bribery is no good against you (for one don't put big bomb creatures in your aggro decks - I don't include Wurmcoil Engine there for precisely that reason). I don't think it's comparable to Stoneforge Mystic at all since that card just lets you have turn 3 Batterskull every time you open with it whereas Bribery is much more dependent on what your opponent is playing.
I spoke with longtimegone and he assured me that the automatic update for cards on Gatherling should be in place by the time the next set comes out. Let's hope he's right.
I think you are exaggerating how hard it would be to check. It would take very little time if you just use search with ctrl+f to verify that the card only appears once. Most of the time it's just one or two new cards that I can't use anyway. Yesterday I tried registering a deck that uses many new cards (since that seems to be the only way to find out if they have been uploaded!) and even then it was only 11 cards that weren't recognized. At this rate I am not optimistic that the new sets will be added in a timely manner and I think it's bad to ban cards just because of that.
My official vote is no team event. If we're being democratic can we vote to allow OGW cards in the tournament? I think it makes no sense to ban them just because Gatherling doesn't recognize them. Every other event on gatherling simply allows you to comment the cards in. The legality of the deck can be checked manually and it's very easy to do that in this format.
Edit: I just found out there are even some older cards that were never entered into gatherling and therefore it doesn't recognize them. This is utterly absurd, unacceptable, and indefensible. There is no timeframe for when the new sets will be added, for all we know OGW will NEVER be added. The spoiler for the new set is already out and we have no idea when they will add the OGW cards. At this rate we could be waiting years to play the "new" sets. There is no reason for this whatsoever.
Making a video would be cool, unfortunately I don't have the means to do that as my crappy old laptop can barely run just MTGO, no way it could handle recording video on top of that. I'd be willing to play against someone for the purposes of making one, though. I have a variety of decks at my disposal, so any matchup you want we can probably arrange it.
As for format variants, I'd be willing to try out a pauper version. I don't like heirloom since having legality based on the crazy, unregulated, wildly fluctuating market that is MTGO prices seems insane to me. Building and tuning 100CS decks is enough work without having to look up the price of every card to see if its legal. With pauper it's at least clear what is and isn't legal.
I definitely agree about the Modern banlist being a completely mismanaged joke, and the format is screwed beyond repair.
Also do we know when we will be allowed to use the new Oath cards? They are effectively banned in our tournament so I think it is misleading to not mention that in the OP.
I think variations on the format are a good thing to explore when we have more consistent players. As you point out, not everyone is interested in building decks for these variations. I find it time consuming to build 100 card singleton decks from scratch, which is what I'll have to do for each variation. I can't make it every time normally and this would probably make it harder for me.
I just want to say about bannings that I strongly dislike banning a card that isn't currently causing problems. If they become a problem, then it's appropriate to consider banning.
If you ask me the state of the current ban list is that it needs to get shorter, not longer. Things like Brainstorm and Ponder simply don't need to be banned; I realize that they are "auto-includes" in blue decks but banning them just shifts the same slots over to Preordain and other slightly less effective cantrips. The problem with banning cards that aren't causing any issues is that once they're banned, they no longer have the chance to prove that they don't need to be banned.
I realize I'm the only one who plays Entomb but I honestly think it isn't too overpowered because there's plenty of incidental graveyard hate that many people play maindeck such as Deathrite Shaman or Scavenging Ooze, not to mention fine sideboard options like Relic of Progenitus, Grafdigger's Cage, or Nihil Spellbomb that anyone can make use of. Green and black both have direct graveyard hate, blue has counterspells, white has stuff like Swords to Plowshares, Path, etc. as well as Rest in Peace and Containment Priest, and red has speed and consistency. Every color has ways of fighting it if they need to.
So as for an official vote, here is what I propose:
Ban: Nothing
Unban:
Brainstorm
Lotus Petal
Ponder
Thirst for Knowledge
These are all things that I have no idea why they are even on the ban list, besides being banned and/or restricted in Legacy and/or Vintage. Brainstorm and Ponder, while good cantrips, simply do not need to be banned. Thirst for Knowledge and Lotus Petal I don't even know why they are banned. Are you really afraid of someone's crazy combo deck being enabled by having access to one Lotus Petal? Thirst for Knowledge is another card draw spell that is simply good but not crazy or anything.
As for tournament structure, I have no opinions on that.
I strongly disagree with banning Wasteland, but unbanning Strip Mine to allow players with a budget access to the effect seems reasonable. I don't like either option but I would prefer to unban Strip Mine than to ban Wasteland. Are we going to ban every card that gets expensive? Why not start with Misdirection, Rishadan Port, etc?
But even that comparison makes more sense than comparing NO to Mana Drain. One turns a creature into the best one in your deck, and the other is just a counterspell with potentially huge upside and no downside. They're similar to the extent that every good card is similar to every other good card in that they make you more likely to win, but that's about it.
Have fun today, unfortunately I won't be able to make it.
I think the German highlander banlist has some good things about it, but I would rather not have such a sudden and drastic change. I agree with a lot of it. But I won't vote for changing over the banlist wholesale. There's nothing I feel really needs to be banned, but many things are banned for what seems to me like no good reason. Plenty of these cards are banned in legacy for good reason, but there's a big difference between having 4 in a 60 card deck and having 1 in a 100 card deck. So I propose we unban the following:
Channel
Crucible of Worlds
Demonic Consultation (we already have Tained Pact, which is basically a safer version of this card for many decks)
Entomb
Fastbond
Intuition
Life from the Loam
Lion's Eye Diamond (seriously there is NO reason this should be banned- what are you afraid of?!)
Mana Drain
Memory Jar
Merchant Scroll
Mind's Desire
Necropotence
Timetwister
Tolarian Academy
Trinisphere
Wheel of Fortune
Windfall
Yawgmoth's Bargain
Some of the others I think could be unbanned but I would rather take a more gradual approach.
Yes, I created a subreddit, https://www.reddit.com/r/S100/ I haven't added any posts yet. You are all welcome to! If you want to be mod just let me know.
Edit: I just found out there are even some older cards that were never entered into gatherling and therefore it doesn't recognize them. This is utterly absurd, unacceptable, and indefensible. There is no timeframe for when the new sets will be added, for all we know OGW will NEVER be added. The spoiler for the new set is already out and we have no idea when they will add the OGW cards. At this rate we could be waiting years to play the "new" sets. There is no reason for this whatsoever.
As for format variants, I'd be willing to try out a pauper version. I don't like heirloom since having legality based on the crazy, unregulated, wildly fluctuating market that is MTGO prices seems insane to me. Building and tuning 100CS decks is enough work without having to look up the price of every card to see if its legal. With pauper it's at least clear what is and isn't legal.
Also do we know when we will be allowed to use the new Oath cards? They are effectively banned in our tournament so I think it is misleading to not mention that in the OP.
I think variations on the format are a good thing to explore when we have more consistent players. As you point out, not everyone is interested in building decks for these variations. I find it time consuming to build 100 card singleton decks from scratch, which is what I'll have to do for each variation. I can't make it every time normally and this would probably make it harder for me.
If you ask me the state of the current ban list is that it needs to get shorter, not longer. Things like Brainstorm and Ponder simply don't need to be banned; I realize that they are "auto-includes" in blue decks but banning them just shifts the same slots over to Preordain and other slightly less effective cantrips. The problem with banning cards that aren't causing any issues is that once they're banned, they no longer have the chance to prove that they don't need to be banned.
I realize I'm the only one who plays Entomb but I honestly think it isn't too overpowered because there's plenty of incidental graveyard hate that many people play maindeck such as Deathrite Shaman or Scavenging Ooze, not to mention fine sideboard options like Relic of Progenitus, Grafdigger's Cage, or Nihil Spellbomb that anyone can make use of. Green and black both have direct graveyard hate, blue has counterspells, white has stuff like Swords to Plowshares, Path, etc. as well as Rest in Peace and Containment Priest, and red has speed and consistency. Every color has ways of fighting it if they need to.
So as for an official vote, here is what I propose:
Ban: Nothing
Unban:
Brainstorm
Lotus Petal
Ponder
Thirst for Knowledge
These are all things that I have no idea why they are even on the ban list, besides being banned and/or restricted in Legacy and/or Vintage. Brainstorm and Ponder, while good cantrips, simply do not need to be banned. Thirst for Knowledge and Lotus Petal I don't even know why they are banned. Are you really afraid of someone's crazy combo deck being enabled by having access to one Lotus Petal? Thirst for Knowledge is another card draw spell that is simply good but not crazy or anything.
As for tournament structure, I have no opinions on that.