The presence of 4x Figure of Destiny, and three near-identical builds, placing 2nd-5th, can hardly help but raise the question of a ban. We could ban either half of the deck; banning Denial would be a bigger change, but banning Figure might be enough, and it would mean I would never have to deal with it during results calculations again, which would be a plus. What do y'all think?
Rules:
0. Overview
Two Card Blind (2CB) is a Magic tournament, run entirely within this forum. To compete, players submit two-card decks which are played against each other by the moderator. Scoring assumes optimal play, without randomness or concealed information.
1. Game Rules
1.1. Except for the changes described in these rules, games follow the Magic: The Gathering Comprehensive Rules.
1.2. Players' decks contain exactly two cards, which begin the game in hand. Players do not mulligan or sideboard.
1.3. Players' libraries begin the game empty. A player does not lose the game as a result of being unable to draw a card.
1.4. A random effect produces the result that least benefits the owner of the source of the effect.
1.5 Whenever a player could play a Land card, that player may put a Basic Land card from outside the game onto the battlefield. (Basic Snow Lands are Basic.)
2. Tournament Rules
2.1. Players submit their decks to the 2CB moderator (Personman).
2.1a. The moderator informs players of mistakes in a timely manner. (Sometimes. Often I run kinda late. Be careful.)
2.1b. A player may submit multiple decks, but only the most recent as of the deadline is counted.
2.1c. If a player's final deck is illegal, their most recent legal deck is used. If no legal deck has been submitted, they do not participate.
2.2. A player may not submit a deck that can, against any deck, win the game or force one or more cards in an opponent's hand to change zones before an opponent's first turn, or force a specific card in an opponent's hand to change zones before an opponent's second turn. (Note that forcing your opponent to discard two cards is very likely to force a specific card their hand to change zones.)
2.3. A deck may include any number of any card legal in Vintage (Type 1).
2.4. Each player plays one match, consisting of two games, against each other player. Each player is the starting player once per match. Results assume optimal play and perfect information.
2.4a. If no player can win, the game is a draw.
2.4b. A player that can't win or draw plays to extend the game.
2.5. Points determine tournament standings. Players are ranked, first to last, in order of decreasing number of points.
2.5a. For each match, a player earns 3 points per game win and 1 point per drawn game. Matches in which each player wins one game and loses one game are worth only 2 points per player, rather than 3.
2.5b. A table of match results is posted each round. Its rows represent players and its columns represent opponents. Match results reflect the combined result of both games played in a match. A player's total points are listed at the end of his or her row.
3. Banned List
3.1 The following cards are banned. Any deck that includes a card on this list is illegal.
* Fastbond
* Meddling Mage
* Arcane Denial
* Figure of Destiny
* Nezumi Shortfang
* The Rack
* Black Lotus
POTM:
Each month, the player with the highest combined score from the four rounds that month is designated Player of the Month. Here are the previous winners, in reverse chronological order:
Lortian: I mostly agree. But if other people get too annoyed by it, it's probably worthwhile; it's not like 2CB gets significantly *less* interesting without that deck around.
I for one am have had my fun with Arcane Denial and am ready to see it go. (If nobody else agrees, I guess we could keep playing it and putting up results with it, but it would be nice to play something else.) I think it has a stifling effect on deckbuilding, as even 2-drops can only be resolved on the play. I don't think that "it hasn't won in a while" is a totally valid assessment either. It won four weeks in a row (19, 20, 21, 22), then I guess nobody was brave enough to play it week 23 (too bad for the guys who ran Demonfire!), then we had nub week twice, and this week it takes second (doubly), despite the difficulty of scoring points in so many Figure mirrors. As for "the metagame adjusting," well I feel it's had ample time to do so. Arcane Denial isn't broken, but it's ho-hum safe and dull and somewhat hard to hate out.
I might at least Hesitate before banning that other blue card, as (1) Hesitation has yet to really prove itself, and (2), crucially, your opponent can choose which of their spells resolves. In this sense, Hesitation is good, but is it really better than Rotting Rats?
On the other hand, I don't see banning Figure of Destiny doing much; Rhys + Arcane could have done significantly better this week if it didn't 0-6 to Figure + blank card. While Figure may be the best 1-drop right now, I've got to think a metagame less obsessed with 1-drops would see fewer Figures. In particular I feel there are plenty of otherwise-viable cards costing 2+ mana which trump Figure.
It sets up the witness tradewinds lock to continually bounce stomper on turn 7 after taking 16 damage (against stomper) and 0 (against Wurm)
afterwards it maintains the lock until it can start bouncing and replaying witness multiple times until Neither creature can be played for lack of lands in play.
Then I can start attacking.
It takes a long time (around 30-50 turns) but I do win.
VM4L: I hear you, but I'm hesitant to make the ban without a support from a few more people. Speak up if you want this to happen, guys!
Thundersnow: Thanks for the clarification. And yeah, Helix Pinnacle probably has shroud or something. Updated.
Also, now I think you get both games against Terra Stomper. On the draw, it's
1: Exploration
1: Nothing
2: 4 Land
2: Nothing
3: Stomper
3: Bounce it + land
4: Replay
4: Witness
5: Attack
5: 12, Bounce both
6: Replay
6: Witness
7: Attack
7: 4, Bounce both, play witness
8: Replay
8: bounce both, play witness
etc until you can bounce all the lands and win.
Why all this talk of bans? This thread should be about how great I am.
In all seriousness, there should be no need to ban arcane denial. It + a 1 drop is an entierly beatable deck, it just requires a bit of a meta shift. Isn't that what 2CB should be about?
edit - If we are going to ban anything, it should be figure, he squeezes all other 1 drops out of the format.
I'm in favor of banning Arcane Denial. 2CB should be about more than one-drops. Though we might just see it replaced by any of a number of UU counterspells. Mana Drain comes to mind.
Another relevant point, banning Arcane Denial without banning other2dropcounters doesn't accomplish all that much. How large do we want the ban list to be?
Counterspell/Mana Drain/etc doesn't work as well with Figure, or Pulse. With Figure, not swelling to 8/8 until turn 8 is actually sometimes relevant, as is not being able to play a first turn Figure second turn counter.
Edit: And Syncopate, etc. require you to keep a lot of mana open.
I agree that the XU Power Sink variants (well, and Prohibit) are probably the next best thing to Arcane Denial, at least alongside Figure/Rhys. It's been a while since we've seen a deck that wanted to hold up early UU for Mana Drain.
Obviously I don't know if the format shift would be as simple as Arcane Denial --> Syncopate (which would be pretty lame IMO), but at least Exploration dodges Syncopate.
Bah. This is a hard decision. I think I'm just going to ban both. Banning just either one seems like it opens up too much room for "but Syncopate is almost as good with Figure, we should ban that too... [repeat for other XU counters]... ok now Hesitation is almost as good as Syncopate with Figure, that has to go..." etc, etc, but if get rid of both, I think that decks made entirely out of replacements will be significantly enough weaker to avoid such slippery slopes.
So: Arcane Denial and Figure of Destiny are banned. The rules have been updated. Please resubmit if you have already submitted a now-illegal deck.
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http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tA_X7YcXL7yXMcZmBxhOSGA&output=html
The presence of 4x Figure of Destiny, and three near-identical builds, placing 2nd-5th, can hardly help but raise the question of a ban. We could ban either half of the deck; banning Denial would be a bigger change, but banning Figure might be enough, and it would mean I would never have to deal with it during results calculations again, which would be a plus. What do y'all think?
Rules:
0. Overview
Two Card Blind (2CB) is a Magic tournament, run entirely within this forum. To compete, players submit two-card decks which are played against each other by the moderator. Scoring assumes optimal play, without randomness or concealed information.
1. Game Rules
1.1. Except for the changes described in these rules, games follow the Magic: The Gathering Comprehensive Rules.
1.2. Players' decks contain exactly two cards, which begin the game in hand. Players do not mulligan or sideboard.
1.3. Players' libraries begin the game empty. A player does not lose the game as a result of being unable to draw a card.
1.4. A random effect produces the result that least benefits the owner of the source of the effect.
1.5 Whenever a player could play a Land card, that player may put a Basic Land card from outside the game onto the battlefield. (Basic Snow Lands are Basic.)
2. Tournament Rules
2.1. Players submit their decks to the 2CB moderator (Personman).
2.1a. The moderator informs players of mistakes in a timely manner. (Sometimes. Often I run kinda late. Be careful.)
2.1b. A player may submit multiple decks, but only the most recent as of the deadline is counted.
2.1c. If a player's final deck is illegal, their most recent legal deck is used. If no legal deck has been submitted, they do not participate.
2.2. A player may not submit a deck that can, against any deck, win the game or force one or more cards in an opponent's hand to change zones before an opponent's first turn, or force a specific card in an opponent's hand to change zones before an opponent's second turn. (Note that forcing your opponent to discard two cards is very likely to force a specific card their hand to change zones.)
2.3. A deck may include any number of any card legal in Vintage (Type 1).
2.4. Each player plays one match, consisting of two games, against each other player. Each player is the starting player once per match. Results assume optimal play and perfect information.
2.4a. If no player can win, the game is a draw.
2.4b. A player that can't win or draw plays to extend the game.
2.5. Points determine tournament standings. Players are ranked, first to last, in order of decreasing number of points.
2.5a. For each match, a player earns 3 points per game win and 1 point per drawn game. Matches in which each player wins one game and loses one game are worth only 2 points per player, rather than 3.
2.5b. A table of match results is posted each round. Its rows represent players and its columns represent opponents. Match results reflect the combined result of both games played in a match. A player's total points are listed at the end of his or her row.
3. Banned List
3.1 The following cards are banned. Any deck that includes a card on this list is illegal.
* Fastbond
* Meddling Mage
* Arcane Denial
* Figure of Destiny
* Nezumi Shortfang
* The Rack
* Black Lotus
POTM:
Each month, the player with the highest combined score from the four rounds that month is designated Player of the Month. Here are the previous winners, in reverse chronological order:
POTM 6: VikingMetal4L
POTM 5: Tails2k5
POTM 4: VikingMetal4L
POTM 3: VikingMetal4L
POTM 2: VikingMetal4L
POTM 1: DragonDart
Next week is Normal. Deadline is next Wednesday at 11:59 PM EST, but don't submit until we decide whether something is getting banned.
The "Can't be countered" effect of Terrastomper is nice, but Boldwyr Heavyweights hits the table a turn earlier.
Modern UW Taking Turns
Given full information I should have waited until donate was on the stack and fizzled it with tradewinds.
Thundersnow: Yep, good call. Fixed.
I might at least Hesitate before banning that other blue card, as (1) Hesitation has yet to really prove itself, and (2), crucially, your opponent can choose which of their spells resolves. In this sense, Hesitation is good, but is it really better than Rotting Rats?
On the other hand, I don't see banning Figure of Destiny doing much; Rhys + Arcane could have done significantly better this week if it didn't 0-6 to Figure + blank card. While Figure may be the best 1-drop right now, I've got to think a metagame less obsessed with 1-drops would see fewer Figures. In particular I feel there are plenty of otherwise-viable cards costing 2+ mana which trump Figure.
AEther Tradewinds
should win against
Exploration
Terra Stomper
when on the play
And both games against
Show and Tell
Novablast Wurm
It sets up the witness tradewinds lock to continually bounce stomper on turn 7 after taking 16 damage (against stomper) and 0 (against Wurm)
afterwards it maintains the lock until it can start bouncing and replaying witness multiple times until Neither creature can be played for lack of lands in play.
Then I can start attacking.
It takes a long time (around 30-50 turns) but I do win.
I also do not know How I drew with Helix Pinnacle Wall of Denial
Thundersnow: Thanks for the clarification. And yeah, Helix Pinnacle probably has shroud or something. Updated.
Also, now I think you get both games against Terra Stomper. On the draw, it's
1: Exploration
1: Nothing
2: 4 Land
2: Nothing
3: Stomper
3: Bounce it + land
4: Replay
4: Witness
5: Attack
5: 12, Bounce both
6: Replay
6: Witness
7: Attack
7: 4, Bounce both, play witness
8: Replay
8: bounce both, play witness
etc until you can bounce all the lands and win.
In all seriousness, there should be no need to ban arcane denial. It + a 1 drop is an entierly beatable deck, it just requires a bit of a meta shift. Isn't that what 2CB should be about?
edit - If we are going to ban anything, it should be figure, he squeezes all other 1 drops out of the format.
Modern UW Taking Turns
and
Arcane Denial + Beacon of Creation
are format defining. They also make running only one win condition untenable unless it's cheap.
In CB's, most people don't metagame that much IME. Better to nerf the overpowered stuff.
Edit: And Syncopate, etc. require you to keep a lot of mana open.
Obviously I don't know if the format shift would be as simple as Arcane Denial --> Syncopate (which would be pretty lame IMO), but at least Exploration dodges Syncopate.
Modern UW Taking Turns
So: Arcane Denial and Figure of Destiny are banned. The rules have been updated. Please resubmit if you have already submitted a now-illegal deck.