I agree and understand everything you are saying. Yet this time I am certain that the engine is being completely mistaken in this case of the dominant Caw-blade deck.
Well, really, it's 2 engines in Caw: SFM and Jace. SFM is brutally good, but it's like a 9.5/10 whereas Jace is an 11/10. Jace is a source of repeatable, hard CA for no mana investment, which is a hallmark of an overpowered card.
If jtms was the only card banned what is stopping me from playing this deck?
I have heard vague rumors of a moustache-dispensing vending machine in a distant laundromat, across the street from a tattoo parlor. However, this information is shaky, and time is of the essence.
i still can't get over how strange it is that people are advocating banning totally fair cards in order to spare the life of obviously completely unfair cards. this just reeks of being too clever by half. you think you can carefully engineer a format by taking out specific utility cards in specific decks? this just sounds like nonsense to me. you don't win because you cast more Preordains then your opponent. you win because you stuck a Jace or an SFM. get real.
Wizards already did this with Necropotence. I think they're smarter than that at this point although the SFM/Batterskull combo in a Standard environment and sure to pollute Legacy and Extended for a long time makes me wonder.
I'm wondering if SFM and Jace might not get banned in both Standard and Extended at this point?
Someone played against me last week with the W/B. Basically the advantage that tutelage grabs is well worth it. You can the life back anyway with batterskull, or vampire nighthawk. Its a good deck.
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Modern:
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i still can't get over how strange it is that people are advocating banning totally fair cards in order to spare the life of obviously completely unfair cards. this just reeks of being too clever by half. you think you can carefully engineer a format by taking out specific utility cards in specific decks? this just sounds like nonsense to me. you don't win because you cast more Preordains then your opponent. you win because you stuck a Jace or an SFM. get real.
I was alluding to the video one of the members posted earlier in the thread. He makes some good points about Preordain and Mana Leak. Preordain makes consistency a non-issue for Caw-Blade, while Mana Leak counters everthing an opponent will play early without a drawback(bouncing land, discarding a blue card, etc.) giving a huge tempo swing. Stoneforge Mystic is not "broken" outside of the abusive UW shell.
People are quick to dismiss Vampires and RDW as good Anti-Stoneforge decks. The run efficient removal to get rid of her. Yes she tutors powerful equipements and can flash them in without fear of a counter. She is, however, a 1/2 that dies to any efficient removal spell.
Look, if a banning were to happen, I don't think any one card, specifically would be banned, since it would tip the scales too far any any one direction for "the next best" deck to dominate in caw-blade's shoes. I would say that there is an unhealthy balance of power already, with Jace/Stoneforge being played in the same deck. I know a lot of players would hate me for saying this, but it may be the only real way to balance out the format.
Ban all three: Jace, Stoneforge Mystic and Valakut simultaneously.
If Jace alone gets Banned, Valakut will run wild and destroy everything in its path. If Valakut alone gets banned, Caw-blade and GW aggro will be the only real decks in the format, and will just be a pissing contest to see who's stoneforge mystic is better. If Stoneforge Mystic alone gets banned, Splinter Twin and Valakut will completely annihilate the format as well.
I think it may be the fairest thing to do. Although, I highly douby any bannings will happen at all. If they do ban one card, though i fear it will tip the scales too far in favor of another dominant deck, which is exactly what they don't want.
I was alluding to the video one of the members posted earlier in the thread. He makes some good points about Preordain and Mana Leak. Preordain makes consistency a non-issue for Caw-Blade, while Mana Leak counters everthing an opponent will play early without a drawback(bouncing land, discarding a blue card, etc.) giving a huge tempo swing. Stoneforge Mystic is not "broken" outside of the abusive UW shell.
People are quick to dismiss Vampires and RDW as good Anti-Stoneforge decks. The run efficient removal to get rid of her. Yes she tutors powerful equipements and can flash them in without fear of a counter. She is, however, a 1/2 that dies to any efficient removal spell.
You're talking about Shmanka's video? I watched it too. There was some insightful commentary there but I think he basically just whiffed on getting the analysis right. I agree with him that Preordain and Mana Leak are both very good cards. I completely disagree that either is appropriate for banning or that either one is responsible for Cawblade's dominance. The only thing banning one (or both) of those cards would accomplish is forcing Jace/SFM decks to use slightly worse utility effects.
Lets get real on this. We've seen effects just like Preordain and Mana Leak for the entire history of magic and there has never been a Standard banning of any of them. Trying to defang an overpowered deck by pulling its fair cards is just wrong-headed. The deck is unfair because it plays with some unfair cards. Thats the source of the problem.
And yes, Stoneforge Mystic is also an unfair card outside of the UW Shell. It is simultaneously an overpowered tutor and an overpowered mana-cheating effect. It doesn't matter that its less good in non CawBlade decks, it still overpowered. This can be seen easily by how apparently powerful GreyBlade is. The fact that decks packing sufficient cheap removal for it can beat it is not a good argument for keeping it. There's always been hate cards. You could play Oxidize and Viridian Shaman and Electrostatic Bolt to hate on Affinity and even beat it pretty reliably if that was your maindeck, but that didn't mean Affinity was fair or didn't deserve to be banned to hell.
Format warping dominance is the chief problem we have here. The issue is you have to either play the broken cards or hate on the broken cards. No other strategies make any sense in a broken metagame. And we all know that playing the brokenness is basically always better than hating on it. The brokenness beats random stuff, the hate can only beat the brokenness (and sometimes not even).
Flores' article is full of complete rubbish though. Blah blah blah caw blade isn't good anymore... blah blah blah vampires won 1 event so it must be the best... what a moron.
Anyone who thinks there's going to be no bans, please look at the top of Mike Flores' article,
*EDIT* Flores mentions Forsythe's Twitter and says that there has been a lot of discussion and rumors about this coming Monday. Look at this thread as example. There has been a lot of discussion, it's undeniable.
He then goes on to explain why Caw isn't really a problem.
Flores has also been defending Caw and Jace on Twitter.
Quote from Cavelcade »
or Aaron Forsythe's twitter.
Defends Batterskull and hints at ExarchTwin being watched:
"I said we missed Exarch/Twin. We did not miss Batterskull, however." ~Aaron Forsythe
...and is pretty pleased with the performance of the event deck that includes Stoneforge Mystic:
"Yes, I suppose so. We are shipping more and printing more. We likely underestimated demand." ~Aaron Forsythe
...and didn't see a problem with Jace, the Mind Sculptor the last time (and yes, Caw was dominant at the time):
"I don't believe anything needed banning on 3/20 (the last time we could have banned something). What's not sensible?" ~Aaron Forsythe
Quote from Cavelcade »
In the face of those words, how can you still hold that position?
...because he has also basically told the whiners to "get over it":
"And "having fun" doesn't mean "finally winning at the frequency I feel I deserve." " ~Aaron Forsythe
(btw, that Ertai87, classy guy )
Reading back through his tweets I also get the impression that he likes to troll a bit (hell, he even admits doing it a couple times).
Much of the rest of the site is seemingly caught in the grips of the Magic: The Gathering Commander release this Friday (some of those cards are pretty cool!), but we here at Top Decks are concerned, per usual, with tournament Magic results.
As with many of you, I am anxiously awaiting the possible news that will come out next week RE: potential Standard bannings; these seem imminent, especially considering the not-ambiguous social communications of our beloved Magic boss:
The sentiment among many players is that Caw-Blade has reached "Affinity" levels. Most of you know that I actually like this format and don't see a huge problem around Caw-Blade or its primary weapons, Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic, but it is hard to argue the success that the deck has had since its inaugural Pro Tour win in the hands of Ben Stark back in Paris.
That said, I claimed a few weeks ago that the "Age of Caw-Blade" is done, and despite some continued success (e.g., PV's win in the recent Grand Prix), the deck's stranglehold seems to have loosened up. Consider the Top 8 of the most recent Star City Games Standard Open in Denver, Colorado:
Not only did Caw-Blade fail to take 50% of the Top 8, but Brandon Montoya (Open Champion, with Vampires) and Jason Bulkowski (Red Deck) kept Caw-Blade out of the finals! Unprecedented! (Well, not really, but it's still pretty refreshing considering the last couple of months.)
<snip>
@ 8DC: He's talking about the tweet from Forsythe where he compares the current Standard format to the one from the last Mirrodin when Affinity got banned.
When you compare the current Standard format to one where eight cards were banned, it is inevitable that SFM/Jace cannot dodge the executioner's axe any longer.
@ 8DC: He's talking about the tweet from Forsythe where he compares the current Standard format to the one from the last Mirrodin when Affinity got banned.
When you compare the current Standard format to one where eight cards were banned, it is inevitable that SFM/Jace cannot dodge the executioner's axe any longer.
"I know this is the worst we've screwed up since Mirrodin. But the system is set up to find errors more quickly." ~Aaron Forsythe
...almost makes it sound like it's something from New Phyrexia that they are looking at. Banning cards from Worldwake (JtMS, SFM) now really doesn't jive with a "system that is set up to find errors more quickly".
Besides Forsythe defending the card in a later tweet, I would suspect Batterskull of taking Caw too far... there's also the admission of them not seeing ExarchTwin during development...
I wonder if he's referring to the system they use at Wizards or how current netdecking combined with live tourney results systematically reveals errors they make more quickly...
He's refering to the community as the system, today everything is overconnected and people just come up with broken decklists faster. If they made an "error", read print a broken card, the community find a way to make a broken deck around it more quickly.
Just dropped by to point out that the poll appears to be broken.
If my math is correct it adds up to 145.49%.
Also: I hope Jace gets banned on Monday. I - who have never owned one (But have access to them) and once said that I loved the challenge he creates when deckbuilding (You HAVE to be able to beat Jace) have even grown sick. Enough is enough, Wizards. Quit being the #1 Jace fanboys and ban his ass already.
Just dropped by to point out that the poll appears to be broken.
If my math is correct it adds up to 145.49%.
Also: I hope Jace gets banned on Monday. I - who have never owned one (But have access to them) and once said that I loved the challenge he creates when deckbuilding (You HAVE to be able to beat Jace) have even grown sick. Enough is enough, Wizards. Quit being the #1 Jace fanboys and ban his ass already.
You can vote for more than 1 card, so it is indeed not broken.
@8DC: Is he talking about Commander or the SFM event deck? The SFM deck is marked up $5, not the $10 that the poster he is responding to and the event deck is NOT a casual product, also what the poster he is referring to is talking about.
It's easy to seem him defend Batterskull because it's the type of card that would never get banned; again, how many times do we have to point out you ban the engine? He says they didn't miss Batterskull; that's not an indication that he feels it is ok or not overpowered. It could also easily be that he knew they were going to be banning SFM if the community didn't find an answer (this is the exact same thing they did with Affinity, thinking Oxidize would be enough. Perhaps they overestimated Torpor Orb's power?).
The point is his defense of Batterskull means nothing about SFM or Jace being banned since it's never the type of card that would be banned.
You're talking about Shmanka's video? I watched it too. There was some insightful commentary there but I think he basically just whiffed on getting the analysis right. I agree with him that Preordain and Mana Leak are both very good cards. I completely disagree that either is appropriate for banning or that either one is responsible for Cawblade's dominance. The only thing banning one (or both) of those cards would accomplish is forcing Jace/SFM decks to use slightly worse utility effects.
Lets get real on this. We've seen effects just like Preordain and Mana Leak for the entire history of magic and there has never been a Standard banning of any of them. Trying to defang an overpowered deck by pulling its fair cards is just wrong-headed. The deck is unfair because it plays with some unfair cards. Thats the source of the problem.
This is exactly what I thought as well at first, but if you watched the end of my video even though I spoke about the parts of Caw-Blade which I believe need to be looked at (Mana Leak, Preordain, Squadron Hawk, Stoneforge Mystic, Jace the Mind Sculptor). I came to the conclusion of these three: Preordain, Squadron Hawk, and Stoneforge Mystic. I think that Squadron Hawk, and Stoneforge Mystic easily speak for themselves, but I suppose when I had learnt that videos need to be less than 10 minutes on youtube, I needed to cut a large amount of discussion. (You can check the video I made here)
So in order to speak about preordain, although as I have mentioned before it is not the main offender but I have a few points to show where my logic came about to ban it.
1) it appears in all the same decks where Jace does (this includes RUG, UB, UW, Splinter)
2) It is also in a complete four set along with Jaces in those winning decklists
3) It makes mulligans more profitable (It helps risky openers, etc)
But this isn't why I warranted the whole reason why I am advocating it to be banned. Try this example:
Let's say just on the basis of power level we compared your choice of either Primeval Titan, Vengevine, or Koth of the Hammer etc. Now we compare all of those to Jace, the Mind Sculptor. All of these cards have tremendous impact and power level in a format we have not seen in years. Unfortunately it is obvious that Jace is more efficient than the others. So let's say for example Jace is an 11/10, and the other cards have lower ratings from 8-9/10. The problem is that this is vacuum thinking. Let's add cards such as Preordain now into the mix, it's power level is obviously somewhere near 5-6/10 compensating what it does.
Would you change your overall rating of Koth, Vengevine, or Primeval Titan higher should preordain switch into those colors? I know I would. It wouldn't even be close. If I had this manipulation ability in red, and I all of a sudden drew Koth almost twice as much as my opponent drew Jace. It's obvious who is going to win the game eventually. What if we added Mana Leak into the mix? Obviously any of these cards that you choose, should you give them a beyond amazing context to work with, will dominate more than the others.
This I believe, is the exact reason we never saw it in the standard previously with Shards of Alara. I believe banning Preordain, Stoneforge Mystic and Squadron Hawk relieve most of the problems in standard, and most of the concerns such as:
1) Not many (if at all) angry wallets
2) Consistency in for playing Blue is diminished
3) RUG/UB/UW/Splinter will not immediately dominate the format should Stoneforge alone be banned, meanwhile banning Mindsculptor may actually help some archetypes have more success than others. (Ex, UB could potentially since there are multiple cards like Inquisition which just gain more value)
4) Aggro decks will be at foot consistent with control decks until turn 4+ (this in turn makes mulligans, and opening hand decisions have equal footing. Which also dictates proper sideboarding and technical play)
I may be completely wrong, and that's fine, but I have not heard a suggestion yet that answers as many problems as possible for both the health of the game and financial customer lash.
I'll still stick to my guns on the subject of banning JTMS.
Short of a board sweep he's an entire control deck wrapped up in one very hard to deal with card. He lets you dig three deep and gain a card every turn for free. How is that NOT broken?
I'll still stick to my guns on the subject of banning JTMS.
Short of a board sweep he's an entire control deck wrapped up in one very hard to deal with card. He lets you dig three deep and gain a card every turn for free. How is that NOT broken?
I don't think this is anywhere near true, better players understand the most efficient method of sideboarding against the aggressive decks includes removing JTMS in favor of other options ranging from removal to disruption.
I am not saying JTMS isn't the best card printed in a decade, but if you drew Koth/Primeval Titan/Vengevine twice as much as anyone who drew a Jace, you would be equally annoyed if not more.
This is exactly what I thought as well at first, but if you watched the end of my video even though I spoke about the parts of Caw-Blade which I believe need to be looked at (Mana Leak, Preordain, Squadron Hawk, Stoneforge Mystic, Jace the Mind Sculptor). I came to the conclusion of these three: Preordain, Squadron Hawk, and Stoneforge Mystic. I think that Squadron Hawk, and Stoneforge Mystic easily speak for themselves, but I suppose when I had learnt that videos need to be less than 10 minutes on youtube, I needed to cut a large amount of discussion. (You can check the video I made here)
So in order to speak about preordain, although as I have mentioned before it is not the main offender but I have a few points to show where my logic came about to ban it.
1) it appears in all the same decks where Jace does (this includes RUG, UB, UW, Splinter)
2) It is also in a complete four set along with Jaces in those winning decklists
3) It makes mulligans more profitable (It helps risky openers, etc)
But this isn't why I warranted the whole reason why I am advocating it to be banned. Try this example:
Let's say just on the basis of power level we compared your choice of either Primeval Titan, Vengevine, or Koth of the Hammer etc. Now we compare all of those to Jace, the Mind Sculptor. All of these cards have tremendous impact and power level in a format we have not seen in years. Unfortunately it is obvious that Jace is more efficient than the others. So let's say for example Jace is an 11/10, and the other cards have lower ratings from 8-9/10. The problem is that this is vacuum thinking. Let's add cards such as Preordain now into the mix, it's power level is obviously somewhere near 5-6/10 compensating what it does.
Would you change your overall rating of Koth, Vengevine, or Primeval Titan higher should preordain switch into those colors? I know I would. It wouldn't even be close. If I had this manipulation ability in red, and I all of a sudden drew Koth almost twice as much as my opponent drew Jace. It's obvious who is going to win the game eventually. What if we added Mana Leak into the mix? Obviously any of these cards that you choose, should you give them a beyond amazing context to work with, will dominate more than the others.
This I believe, is the exact reason we never saw it in the standard previously with Shards of Alara. I believe banning Preordain, Stoneforge Mystic and Squadron Hawk relieve most of the problems in standard, and most of the concerns such as:
1) Not many (if at all) angry wallets
2) Consistency in for playing Blue is diminished
3) RUG/UB/UW/Splinter will not immediately dominate the format should Stoneforge alone be banned, meanwhile banning Mindsculptor may actually help some archetypes have more success than others. (Ex, UB could potentially since there are multiple cards like Inquisition which just gain more value)
4) Aggro decks will be at foot consistent with control decks until turn 4+ (this in turn makes mulligans, and opening hand decisions have equal footing. Which also dictates proper sideboarding and technical play)
I may be completely wrong, and that's fine, but I have not heard a suggestion yet that answers as many problems as possible for both the health of the game and financial customer lash.
I don't think you're wrong in that preordain makes mulligans and snap-keeps less skillful, but that does not really determine the health of the format. I think the problem with the format is not lack of skill in mulligans. However, I really don't see the other possibilities being any better than the scenario you put forth. I think that you may be right in terms of "this causes the least backlash", in fact, i think you are 100% right. However, I think that you just allow for more Jace decks to dominate. Nobody wants that. I know you think that banning preordain lowers the ability of Jace decks to be as stupidly consistent as they are, but I don't think that is a huge factor. Sure, they lose some consistency, but decks like U/B are basically "Answers.dec". I just don't think banning preordain will have enough of an impact on the blue decks to keep them from dominating as per usual.
Then again, I don't think anything should be banned, but I'm stupid. Take this as you will.
So in order to speak about Preordain, although as I have mentioned before it is not the main offender but I have a few points to show where my logic came about to ban it.
1) it appears in all the same decks where Jace does (this includes RUG, UB, UW, Splinter)
2) It is also in a complete four set along with Jaces in those winning decklists
3) It makes mulligans more profitable (It helps risky openers, etc)
points 1) and 2) on your list are simple correlations. this is something i'm deeply concerned about regarding your argument. you have implicitly draw a connection between the correlation of these cards appearing in the deck and the causation that the deck is dominant. you shouldn't make that assumption, its a very common logical flaw. correlation does not necessarily imply causation. you could correlate just as heavily with Celestial Collonade or sideboarded Flashfreeze. are those cards driving the dominance of the deck? They probably have nearly the same correlation as Preordain. we should ignore the correlation here and look for more compelling evidence.
point 3) i wouldn't consider grounds for banning. increasing deck consistency is the only thing that Preordain actually does. it does this in a fair way. Jace is the card that increases deck consistency in the unfair way.
But this isn't why I warranted the whole reason why I am advocating it to be banned. Try this example:
...Would you change your overall rating of Koth, Vengevine, or Primeval Titan higher should preordain switch into those colors? ...
Not sure why this is a relevant example. Would you change your rating of Jace if you could cast Explore with blue mana? This is a just-so story. It hardly proves anything. And in fact, mana fixing in Standard is pretty good anyway so we can run Explore in Blue decks and Preordain in Green decks. Whats your point? I think your point is that Preordain makes it easier to find your broken cards. Yep. Sure does. You know what fixes that more convincingly? Removing the broken cards. You can't find them at all if they're banned.
I believe banning Preordain, Stoneforge Mystic and Squadron Hawk relieve most of the problems in standard, and most of the concerns such as:
1) Not many (if at all) angry wallets
2) Consistency in for playing Blue is diminished
3) RUG/UB/UW/Splinter will not immediately dominate the format should Stoneforge alone be banned, meanwhile banning Mindsculptor may actually help some archetypes have more success than others. (Ex, UB could potentially since there are multiple cards like Inquisition which just gain more value)
4) Aggro decks will be at foot consistent with control decks until turn 4+ (this in turn makes mulligans, and opening hand decisions have equal footing. Which also dictates proper sideboarding and technical play)
I may be completely wrong, and that's fine, but I have not heard a suggestion yet that answers as many problems as possible for both the health of the game and financial customer lash.
re 1): Anger in the player base is to be expected regardless of what happens. We're very angry right now. Your proposed ban would cause quite a bit of anger in its own right. SFM is not a cheap card and banning it would cause all the equipment to drop in value by alot also. You don't really get to avoid angry wallets with your proposal. Besides, this is Standard anyway. Card value fluctuates wildly and nothing in Standard is expected to maintain long term value unless it also becomes a Legacy staple. Jace and SFM are both legacy staples so will retain some value even if banned in Standard.
re 2): Blue is supposed to increase deck consistency. Really. Thats one of the incentives to play the color. Its intentional. Its ok. Its good. Jace is too good at it. Thats all. When power levels are acceptable there is no problem with blue increasing consistency.
re 3): I disagree with you profoundly on this point. I think a ban to SFM but not Jace almost definitely leads to RUG or Splinter Twin becoming nearly as dominant as CawBlade is now.
re 4): Aggro decks have always had to contend with cheap answers from control decks. I'm not sure why you think Mana Leak is to blame for the decline of aggro. Its very obviously the impact of SFM + Batterskull that is hating aggro out of the metagame. Why is it that every other time Mana Leak has been standard legal its been fine and aggro has not had an issue with it? This is the single point that I disagree most strongly with you. I think you're just way off base on this one. I'd argue the opposite case. Without Mana Leak in the format control decks and combo decks are far too weak to contend with the stronger early game of aggro. Remember what the metagame looked like before M11? What control? Exactly.
All of the archetypes deserve a fair shot at prospering. We ought not to try too hard to artificially engineer the metagame with pinpoint targetted bannings such as you have proposed. The appropriate strategy is to level the playing field by removing the problematic (i.e. broken) cards and then seeing what develops.
Seems like a lot of the back and forth on here has devolved into people who own JaceTMS and those who don't arguing against and for the banning of said card. Cognative Dissonance much?
"He's really OK, it's these other cards (mana leak, preordain) blah blah blah." - Owners
"He's overpowered, here's the evidence to prove it." - Non-owners
That alone should be reason enough to ban it. The card is ridiculously powerful, outrageously hard to get and is as seen by many tournament results; warping the format. Get over it Jace investors, the card is overpowered ban-bait and it's unfun to play against. It's the perfect storm.
I welcome the day JTMS leaves Standard. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
I just laugh at the certitude of people here. Last week's PTQ results came in. Caw Blade won like 2 out of 5 with lots of other types of decks in the top 8.
Nothing in this game is degenerate or completely dominant. They haven't banned anything in standard in a long, long time. Hell they should have banned affinity right away, but they didn't until boxed sales collapsed too. Hasbro had to come in and fire people.
I'll enjoy watching all the whiners eat crow monday.
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“Legacy is awesome because it lets you play with all the powerful cards from throughout Magic's history, like Jace and Stoneforge Mystic.”
The problem with that Logic Shmanka is that there has always been blue manipulation and strong cards to find with it. Banning blue utility cards sets a terrible precedant - blue gets those abilities, whether you like it or not. Green or red will never have deck manipulation like preordain, which comes back to the main issue.
Jace is too strong. Regardless of the cards that help find him, he's too good. Blue has the ability to dig for cards - other colors don't. That's magic - that's never been a problem before, and it's not a problem now. Jace and Stoneforge are the problem now. There have been many strong one mana cantrips in the past, and they never caused a deck to be "over the top". That logic is flawed.
Also, I'm annoyed if my opponent draws even one Jace because he's blue. Since that is the color of manipulation they are much better able to protect him, especially when you put white's removal into the mix. It's not a matter of not drawing red and green cards enough, it's a matter of Jace being protected because of the colors he's in.
(Koth is actually stronger than Jace in a vaccum - it's the protection that Jace affords himself because he's blue that makes it so utterly ridiculous)
I just laugh at the certitude of people here. Last week's PTQ results came in. Caw Blade won like 2 out of 5 with lots of other types of decks in the top 8.
Nothing in this game is degenerate or completely dominant. They haven't banned anything in standard in a long, long time. Hell they should have banned affinity right away, but they didn't until boxed sales collapsed too. Hasbro had to come in and fire people.
I'll enjoy watching all the whiners eat crow monday.
1 week Vs. 4 months and you're gloating about it? Interesting, but unfortunately caw can simply shuffle a few cards about and grind all of those decks out of the meta. Not hard to understand. You'll be the one that is crying about his Jaces on Monday.
Trust me, it's not an ownership issue, we've been over this ad naseum. I won 4, he's broken. I want him banned. We also own 4 SFM. And 5 Valakuts. And 7 PT.
@Diogenes: Seriously, you add nothing to this conversation; if bans are to occur, are you going to be eating crow on Monday? Forecast says 100% you say WotC made the wrong decision. It's not that people haven't made convincing arguments backed both logically and historically, you simply won't change you mind no matter what.
I'm glad you think ONE PTQ result is enough to say it's ok when dozens of results elsewhere say otherwise. But hey, think what you want, you obviously come here to get daily feedings.
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Well, really, it's 2 engines in Caw: SFM and Jace. SFM is brutally good, but it's like a 9.5/10 whereas Jace is an 11/10. Jace is a source of repeatable, hard CA for no mana investment, which is a hallmark of an overpowered card.
Valakut.
Wizards already did this with Necropotence. I think they're smarter than that at this point although the SFM/Batterskull combo in a Standard environment and sure to pollute Legacy and Extended for a long time makes me wonder.
I'm wondering if SFM and Jace might not get banned in both Standard and Extended at this point?
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Curse PremiumI was alluding to the video one of the members posted earlier in the thread. He makes some good points about Preordain and Mana Leak. Preordain makes consistency a non-issue for Caw-Blade, while Mana Leak counters everthing an opponent will play early without a drawback(bouncing land, discarding a blue card, etc.) giving a huge tempo swing. Stoneforge Mystic is not "broken" outside of the abusive UW shell.
People are quick to dismiss Vampires and RDW as good Anti-Stoneforge decks. The run efficient removal to get rid of her. Yes she tutors powerful equipements and can flash them in without fear of a counter. She is, however, a 1/2 that dies to any efficient removal spell.
Ban all three: Jace, Stoneforge Mystic and Valakut simultaneously.
If Jace alone gets Banned, Valakut will run wild and destroy everything in its path. If Valakut alone gets banned, Caw-blade and GW aggro will be the only real decks in the format, and will just be a pissing contest to see who's stoneforge mystic is better. If Stoneforge Mystic alone gets banned, Splinter Twin and Valakut will completely annihilate the format as well.
I think it may be the fairest thing to do. Although, I highly douby any bannings will happen at all. If they do ban one card, though i fear it will tip the scales too far in favor of another dominant deck, which is exactly what they don't want.
You're talking about Shmanka's video? I watched it too. There was some insightful commentary there but I think he basically just whiffed on getting the analysis right. I agree with him that Preordain and Mana Leak are both very good cards. I completely disagree that either is appropriate for banning or that either one is responsible for Cawblade's dominance. The only thing banning one (or both) of those cards would accomplish is forcing Jace/SFM decks to use slightly worse utility effects.
Lets get real on this. We've seen effects just like Preordain and Mana Leak for the entire history of magic and there has never been a Standard banning of any of them. Trying to defang an overpowered deck by pulling its fair cards is just wrong-headed. The deck is unfair because it plays with some unfair cards. Thats the source of the problem.
And yes, Stoneforge Mystic is also an unfair card outside of the UW Shell. It is simultaneously an overpowered tutor and an overpowered mana-cheating effect. It doesn't matter that its less good in non CawBlade decks, it still overpowered. This can be seen easily by how apparently powerful GreyBlade is. The fact that decks packing sufficient cheap removal for it can beat it is not a good argument for keeping it. There's always been hate cards. You could play Oxidize and Viridian Shaman and Electrostatic Bolt to hate on Affinity and even beat it pretty reliably if that was your maindeck, but that didn't mean Affinity was fair or didn't deserve to be banned to hell.
Format warping dominance is the chief problem we have here. The issue is you have to either play the broken cards or hate on the broken cards. No other strategies make any sense in a broken metagame. And we all know that playing the brokenness is basically always better than hating on it. The brokenness beats random stuff, the hate can only beat the brokenness (and sometimes not even).
*EDIT* Flores mentions Forsythe's Twitter and says that there has been a lot of discussion and rumors about this coming Monday. Look at this thread as example. There has been a lot of discussion, it's undeniable.
He then goes on to explain why Caw isn't really a problem.
Flores has also been defending Caw and Jace on Twitter.
Defends Batterskull and hints at ExarchTwin being watched:
"I said we missed Exarch/Twin. We did not miss Batterskull, however." ~Aaron Forsythe
...and is pretty pleased with the performance of the event deck that includes Stoneforge Mystic:
"Yes, I suppose so. We are shipping more and printing more. We likely underestimated demand." ~Aaron Forsythe
...and didn't see a problem with Jace, the Mind Sculptor the last time (and yes, Caw was dominant at the time):
"I don't believe anything needed banning on 3/20 (the last time we could have banned something). What's not sensible?" ~Aaron Forsythe
...because he has also basically told the whiners to "get over it":
"And "having fun" doesn't mean "finally winning at the frequency I feel I deserve." " ~Aaron Forsythe
(btw, that Ertai87, classy guy
Reading back through his tweets I also get the impression that he likes to troll a bit (hell, he even admits doing it a couple times).
Forsythe's Twitter:
http://twitter.com/#!/mtgaaron
Flores' Twitter:
http://twitter.com/#!/fivewithflores
Flores' Blog:
http://fivewithflores.com/
*EDIT* I believe this is "the Flores article":
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/td/147
This one.
When you compare the current Standard format to one where eight cards were banned, it is inevitable that SFM/Jace cannot dodge the executioner's axe any longer.
"I know this is the worst we've screwed up since Mirrodin. But the system is set up to find errors more quickly." ~Aaron Forsythe
...almost makes it sound like it's something from New Phyrexia that they are looking at. Banning cards from Worldwake (JtMS, SFM) now really doesn't jive with a "system that is set up to find errors more quickly".
Besides Forsythe defending the card in a later tweet, I would suspect Batterskull of taking Caw too far... there's also the admission of them not seeing ExarchTwin during development...
I wonder if he's referring to the system they use at Wizards or how current netdecking combined with live tourney results systematically reveals errors they make more quickly...
If my math is correct it adds up to 145.49%.
Also: I hope Jace gets banned on Monday. I - who have never owned one (But have access to them) and once said that I loved the challenge he creates when deckbuilding (You HAVE to be able to beat Jace) have even grown sick. Enough is enough, Wizards. Quit being the #1 Jace fanboys and ban his ass already.
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You can vote for more than 1 card, so it is indeed not broken.
Thanks to Heroes of the Plane Studios for the amazing sig.
NO RUG: Primer
Tempo Thresh: Primer
It's easy to seem him defend Batterskull because it's the type of card that would never get banned; again, how many times do we have to point out you ban the engine? He says they didn't miss Batterskull; that's not an indication that he feels it is ok or not overpowered. It could also easily be that he knew they were going to be banning SFM if the community didn't find an answer (this is the exact same thing they did with Affinity, thinking Oxidize would be enough. Perhaps they overestimated Torpor Orb's power?).
The point is his defense of Batterskull means nothing about SFM or Jace being banned since it's never the type of card that would be banned.
I was unaware. Still odd, though.
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This is exactly what I thought as well at first, but if you watched the end of my video even though I spoke about the parts of Caw-Blade which I believe need to be looked at (Mana Leak, Preordain, Squadron Hawk, Stoneforge Mystic, Jace the Mind Sculptor). I came to the conclusion of these three: Preordain, Squadron Hawk, and Stoneforge Mystic. I think that Squadron Hawk, and Stoneforge Mystic easily speak for themselves, but I suppose when I had learnt that videos need to be less than 10 minutes on youtube, I needed to cut a large amount of discussion. (You can check the video I made here)
So in order to speak about preordain, although as I have mentioned before it is not the main offender but I have a few points to show where my logic came about to ban it.
1) it appears in all the same decks where Jace does (this includes RUG, UB, UW, Splinter)
2) It is also in a complete four set along with Jaces in those winning decklists
3) It makes mulligans more profitable (It helps risky openers, etc)
But this isn't why I warranted the whole reason why I am advocating it to be banned. Try this example:
Let's say just on the basis of power level we compared your choice of either Primeval Titan, Vengevine, or Koth of the Hammer etc. Now we compare all of those to Jace, the Mind Sculptor. All of these cards have tremendous impact and power level in a format we have not seen in years. Unfortunately it is obvious that Jace is more efficient than the others. So let's say for example Jace is an 11/10, and the other cards have lower ratings from 8-9/10. The problem is that this is vacuum thinking. Let's add cards such as Preordain now into the mix, it's power level is obviously somewhere near 5-6/10 compensating what it does.
Would you change your overall rating of Koth, Vengevine, or Primeval Titan higher should preordain switch into those colors? I know I would. It wouldn't even be close. If I had this manipulation ability in red, and I all of a sudden drew Koth almost twice as much as my opponent drew Jace. It's obvious who is going to win the game eventually. What if we added Mana Leak into the mix? Obviously any of these cards that you choose, should you give them a beyond amazing context to work with, will dominate more than the others.
This I believe, is the exact reason we never saw it in the standard previously with Shards of Alara. I believe banning Preordain, Stoneforge Mystic and Squadron Hawk relieve most of the problems in standard, and most of the concerns such as:
1) Not many (if at all) angry wallets
2) Consistency in for playing Blue is diminished
3) RUG/UB/UW/Splinter will not immediately dominate the format should Stoneforge alone be banned, meanwhile banning Mindsculptor may actually help some archetypes have more success than others. (Ex, UB could potentially since there are multiple cards like Inquisition which just gain more value)
4) Aggro decks will be at foot consistent with control decks until turn 4+ (this in turn makes mulligans, and opening hand decisions have equal footing. Which also dictates proper sideboarding and technical play)
I may be completely wrong, and that's fine, but I have not heard a suggestion yet that answers as many problems as possible for both the health of the game and financial customer lash.
Short of a board sweep he's an entire control deck wrapped up in one very hard to deal with card. He lets you dig three deep and gain a card every turn for free. How is that NOT broken?
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I don't think this is anywhere near true, better players understand the most efficient method of sideboarding against the aggressive decks includes removing JTMS in favor of other options ranging from removal to disruption.
I am not saying JTMS isn't the best card printed in a decade, but if you drew Koth/Primeval Titan/Vengevine twice as much as anyone who drew a Jace, you would be equally annoyed if not more.
I don't think you're wrong in that preordain makes mulligans and snap-keeps less skillful, but that does not really determine the health of the format. I think the problem with the format is not lack of skill in mulligans. However, I really don't see the other possibilities being any better than the scenario you put forth. I think that you may be right in terms of "this causes the least backlash", in fact, i think you are 100% right. However, I think that you just allow for more Jace decks to dominate. Nobody wants that. I know you think that banning preordain lowers the ability of Jace decks to be as stupidly consistent as they are, but I don't think that is a huge factor. Sure, they lose some consistency, but decks like U/B are basically "Answers.dec". I just don't think banning preordain will have enough of an impact on the blue decks to keep them from dominating as per usual.
Then again, I don't think anything should be banned, but I'm stupid. Take this as you will.
points 1) and 2) on your list are simple correlations. this is something i'm deeply concerned about regarding your argument. you have implicitly draw a connection between the correlation of these cards appearing in the deck and the causation that the deck is dominant. you shouldn't make that assumption, its a very common logical flaw. correlation does not necessarily imply causation. you could correlate just as heavily with Celestial Collonade or sideboarded Flashfreeze. are those cards driving the dominance of the deck? They probably have nearly the same correlation as Preordain. we should ignore the correlation here and look for more compelling evidence.
point 3) i wouldn't consider grounds for banning. increasing deck consistency is the only thing that Preordain actually does. it does this in a fair way. Jace is the card that increases deck consistency in the unfair way.
Not sure why this is a relevant example. Would you change your rating of Jace if you could cast Explore with blue mana? This is a just-so story. It hardly proves anything. And in fact, mana fixing in Standard is pretty good anyway so we can run Explore in Blue decks and Preordain in Green decks. Whats your point? I think your point is that Preordain makes it easier to find your broken cards. Yep. Sure does. You know what fixes that more convincingly? Removing the broken cards. You can't find them at all if they're banned.
re 1): Anger in the player base is to be expected regardless of what happens. We're very angry right now. Your proposed ban would cause quite a bit of anger in its own right. SFM is not a cheap card and banning it would cause all the equipment to drop in value by alot also. You don't really get to avoid angry wallets with your proposal. Besides, this is Standard anyway. Card value fluctuates wildly and nothing in Standard is expected to maintain long term value unless it also becomes a Legacy staple. Jace and SFM are both legacy staples so will retain some value even if banned in Standard.
re 2): Blue is supposed to increase deck consistency. Really. Thats one of the incentives to play the color. Its intentional. Its ok. Its good. Jace is too good at it. Thats all. When power levels are acceptable there is no problem with blue increasing consistency.
re 3): I disagree with you profoundly on this point. I think a ban to SFM but not Jace almost definitely leads to RUG or Splinter Twin becoming nearly as dominant as CawBlade is now.
re 4): Aggro decks have always had to contend with cheap answers from control decks. I'm not sure why you think Mana Leak is to blame for the decline of aggro. Its very obviously the impact of SFM + Batterskull that is hating aggro out of the metagame. Why is it that every other time Mana Leak has been standard legal its been fine and aggro has not had an issue with it? This is the single point that I disagree most strongly with you. I think you're just way off base on this one. I'd argue the opposite case. Without Mana Leak in the format control decks and combo decks are far too weak to contend with the stronger early game of aggro. Remember what the metagame looked like before M11? What control? Exactly.
All of the archetypes deserve a fair shot at prospering. We ought not to try too hard to artificially engineer the metagame with pinpoint targetted bannings such as you have proposed. The appropriate strategy is to level the playing field by removing the problematic (i.e. broken) cards and then seeing what develops.
"He's really OK, it's these other cards (mana leak, preordain) blah blah blah." - Owners
"He's overpowered, here's the evidence to prove it." - Non-owners
That alone should be reason enough to ban it. The card is ridiculously powerful, outrageously hard to get and is as seen by many tournament results; warping the format. Get over it Jace investors, the card is overpowered ban-bait and it's unfun to play against. It's the perfect storm.
I welcome the day JTMS leaves Standard. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
My Kamigawa cube.
My Mirage Cube
Nothing in this game is degenerate or completely dominant. They haven't banned anything in standard in a long, long time. Hell they should have banned affinity right away, but they didn't until boxed sales collapsed too. Hasbro had to come in and fire people.
I'll enjoy watching all the whiners eat crow monday.
“Legacy is awesome because it lets you play with all the powerful cards from throughout Magic's history, like Jace and Stoneforge Mystic.”
-Aaron Forsythe
Jace is too strong. Regardless of the cards that help find him, he's too good. Blue has the ability to dig for cards - other colors don't. That's magic - that's never been a problem before, and it's not a problem now. Jace and Stoneforge are the problem now. There have been many strong one mana cantrips in the past, and they never caused a deck to be "over the top". That logic is flawed.
Also, I'm annoyed if my opponent draws even one Jace because he's blue. Since that is the color of manipulation they are much better able to protect him, especially when you put white's removal into the mix. It's not a matter of not drawing red and green cards enough, it's a matter of Jace being protected because of the colors he's in.
(Koth is actually stronger than Jace in a vaccum - it's the protection that Jace affords himself because he's blue that makes it so utterly ridiculous)
EDIT:
1 week Vs. 4 months and you're gloating about it? Interesting, but unfortunately caw can simply shuffle a few cards about and grind all of those decks out of the meta. Not hard to understand. You'll be the one that is crying about his Jaces on Monday.
My DCI ELO Ratings - May they rest in peace :'(
@Diogenes: Seriously, you add nothing to this conversation; if bans are to occur, are you going to be eating crow on Monday? Forecast says 100% you say WotC made the wrong decision. It's not that people haven't made convincing arguments backed both logically and historically, you simply won't change you mind no matter what.
I'm glad you think ONE PTQ result is enough to say it's ok when dozens of results elsewhere say otherwise. But hey, think what you want, you obviously come here to get daily feedings.