It is apparent that the cycling and channeling mechanics have been able to bypass the rules for Infinity Card Blind that prevents more than one spell to be cast per turn per player. Luckily, we have multiple options at our disposal.
What do you, the players, think is the best solution?
A) Ban Decree of Silence, Decree of Justice, and Ghost-Lit Stalker: These are the only cycling/channeling cards that are causing any problems, so why should we force the other ones to suffer? Just hit the problems and be over it.
B) Add a rule "Players can only cycle/channel/cast a single spell per turn": Channeling/cycling is too similar to casting a spell in this format, so it should be subject to the same rules.
C) Keep it the same: nothing is wrong with forcing your opponent to draw being a win con.
D) Change the rules so that there is no restriction on casting spells: Since there are only 3 cards in your hand, will it really make that big of a difference if you can cast all 3 in one turn? At least now, spells and cycling would be equal.
E) Ban only Decree of Silence: Decree of Justice should be given another chance and is easily countered. Ghost-Lit is too slow to cause any problems.
If you are going with just straight bans then resounding scream needs to go as well, uncounterable instant speed discard is arguably better than the slower sorcery based full hand discard.
Another option would be to ban cards that force more than 1 card to be discarded prior to a players first turn.
resounding scream is a very strong card, but it's not a guaranteed win. Tons of stuff counters discard, including the highly played eldrazi. The only advantage this has over some other instant speed discard is that it's not a spell, and I suspect that's not as big an advantage as it seems.
I feel resounding scream makes too many decks unviable and should also be banned as a result. Also, the fact that it can't be countered by traditional counterspells makes it pretty brutal.
How about a restriction on how you can spend that infinite mana? This prevents the infinite cheese with activated abilities, such as Cycling or repeatable activated abilities. You'll need a card that can funnel infinite mana where you can spend it on activated abilities. Something like this:
Each player has infinite mana of every color at all times. That mana can only be spent to cast spells.
Also, with the casting restriction of one card per turn, you might want to put an additional deckbuilding restriction that is similar to 5CB:
A player may not submit a deck that can – against any deck – win the game or force more than one card in an opponent's hand to change zones before an opponent's first turn.
Personally, I'd rather remove the one spell per turn clause. In exchange, the rule above should be changed to second turn to prevent the setup of infinite combos that don't outright kill the opponent first turn. As for Decree of Silence, I'd outright ban it. The other cards can be taken care of by the two rules listed above.
How about a restriction on how you can spend that infinite mana? This prevents the infinite cheese with activated abilities, such as Cycling or repeatable activated abilities. You'll need a card that can funnel infinite mana where you can spend it on activated abilities. Something like this:
Each player has infinite mana of every color at all times. That mana can only be spent to cast spells.
Also, with the casting restriction of one card per turn, you might want to put an additional deckbuilding restriction that is similar to 5CB:
A player may not submit a deck that can – against any deck – win the game or force more than one card in an opponent's hand to change zones before an opponent's first turn.
Personally, I'd rather remove the one spell per turn clause. In exchange, the rule above should be changed to second turn to prevent the setup of infinite combos that don't outright kill the opponent first turn. As for Decree of Silence, I'd outright ban it. The other cards can be taken care of by the two rules listed above.
Decree of Silence gets taken out by the two rules listed above as well.
This certainly changes things though. Getting rid of all cycling/channeling might be a good thing, unless there are some neat channelers/cyclers I am forgetting about. It also kills the playability of self-pumpers, not that that's a bad things though.
As for the winning the game rule, if we did include before Turn 2 as the restriction, Emrakul would be illegal as a result. I'm not sure if I want to get this drastic yet. I don't even know if FTKs should be forbidden, because of the ease in which they are stopped.
Decree of Silence is still an issue even with the two stated rules being used. If you go first and play it and it resolves your opponent can only resolve uncounterable spells afterwards.
Decree of Silence is still an issue even with the two stated rules being used. If you go first and play it and it resolves your opponent can only resolve uncounterable spells afterwards.
This is the first time that Decree's other ability has been put into question. I don't think that it's really a big deal, however. Uncounterable creatures and the fact that it itself can be countered makes it much less desirable.
If you can play more than 1 spell a turn it's not hard at all to resolve, also it invalidates so many decks by just existing in my opinion. Then again I'm not sure how many of those decks were really valid to begin with lol. I think my main issue with it is that if you don't have counters or uncounterable threats you auto lose to it on the draw. It may not really be an issue, we can probably just wait and see if it is.
I think you are underestimating how strong counterspells are in this format.
If you get rid of channel and cycling is there anything that can beat Time Stop/Time Stop/Emrakul, the Aeons Torn ?
No it can't. Time STOP not Time WALK/WARP/STRETCH/WHATEVER
And for the record, that deck loses to Quagnoth/Gather Specimens/the Ace of Spades. That said, I'm not sure there's anything other than Quagnoth that gets past Time Stop.
Anything else with split second gets past time stop, except that they can time stop before you can play it if just buying that one turn is good enough. Hence sulfur elemental rocking. Instant/flash + split second = good.
With regards to the Time Stop x2+ Emrakul, the main weak point is the actual playing of Emrakul which allows for any instant speed response, or with Leyline of Anticipation any response.
Besides the split-second creatures manlands may end up having a place as they are uncounterable as well, and have some nice abilities (see Lavaclaw Reaches).
Manland + Time Stop + Anything will beat that Emrakul deck. With 3CB only I doubt any deck can win versus everything.
Since the votes have been in its favor, I think I may just ban those three aforementioned cards for now and allow other cyclers/channelrs to be performed as normal.
This would be for week 3 though, since I already have decklists from week 2.
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What do you, the players, think is the best solution?
A) Ban Decree of Silence, Decree of Justice, and Ghost-Lit Stalker: These are the only cycling/channeling cards that are causing any problems, so why should we force the other ones to suffer? Just hit the problems and be over it.
B) Add a rule "Players can only cycle/channel/cast a single spell per turn": Channeling/cycling is too similar to casting a spell in this format, so it should be subject to the same rules.
C) Keep it the same: nothing is wrong with forcing your opponent to draw being a win con.
D) Change the rules so that there is no restriction on casting spells: Since there are only 3 cards in your hand, will it really make that big of a difference if you can cast all 3 in one turn? At least now, spells and cycling would be equal.
E) Ban only Decree of Silence: Decree of Justice should be given another chance and is easily countered. Ghost-Lit is too slow to cause any problems.
But definitely A.
IMO, of course.
No longer staff here.
Another option would be to ban cards that force more than 1 card to be discarded prior to a players first turn.
Each player has infinite mana of every color at all times. That mana can only be spent to cast spells.
Also, with the casting restriction of one card per turn, you might want to put an additional deckbuilding restriction that is similar to 5CB:
A player may not submit a deck that can – against any deck – win the game or force more than one card in an opponent's hand to change zones before an opponent's first turn.
Personally, I'd rather remove the one spell per turn clause. In exchange, the rule above should be changed to second turn to prevent the setup of infinite combos that don't outright kill the opponent first turn. As for Decree of Silence, I'd outright ban it. The other cards can be taken care of by the two rules listed above.
Decree of Silence gets taken out by the two rules listed above as well.
This certainly changes things though. Getting rid of all cycling/channeling might be a good thing, unless there are some neat channelers/cyclers I am forgetting about. It also kills the playability of self-pumpers, not that that's a bad things though.
As for the winning the game rule, if we did include before Turn 2 as the restriction, Emrakul would be illegal as a result. I'm not sure if I want to get this drastic yet. I don't even know if FTKs should be forbidden, because of the ease in which they are stopped.
This is the first time that Decree's other ability has been put into question. I don't think that it's really a big deal, however. Uncounterable creatures and the fact that it itself can be countered makes it much less desirable.
If you get rid of channel and cycling is there anything that can beat
Time Stop/Time Stop/Emrakul, the Aeons Torn ?
And for the record, that deck loses to Quagnoth/Gather Specimens/the Ace of Spades. That said, I'm not sure there's anything other than Quagnoth that gets past Time Stop.
Besides the split-second creatures manlands may end up having a place as they are uncounterable as well, and have some nice abilities (see Lavaclaw Reaches).
Manland + Time Stop + Anything will beat that Emrakul deck. With 3CB only I doubt any deck can win versus everything.
This would be for week 3 though, since I already have decklists from week 2.