This thread contains the results for week 4 of All Blind Tournament #4 and is the start of week 1 of ABT#5.
Week 4 of ABT#4
This round was 5CB Freedom Round.
This round, we celebrated pure freedom. It was simple, and yet extremely complex. We played with no banned cards.
The Entries
01 Feyd_Ruin :: "Forgeline" Chancellor of the Forge / Chancellor of the Forge / Chancellor of the Forge / Leyline of the Meek / Leyline of the Meek I racked my brain for some time to build a Force deck that beats other Force decks. The only thing that hit me was a chancellor-force deck, or a Workshop-Defense Grid deck. It then occurred to me that everyone else would go for that - or they'd go for other "you can't play" disruption like magus, mage, and chancellor. I almost went with a land deck, but beating magus gimped the deck. I decided to gamble that Channel and Show and Tell would appear significantly less, and simply bypass all of the spell disruption battles with the pinnacle deck of no cast speed. All that said, I expected to do no better then decent.
02 Draco9 :: ":symr::symw::symu:" Black Lotus / Foil / Island / Magus of the Moon / Thalia, Guardian of Thraben The meta has changed. Last time 5CB went with almost no bans you won with this exact deck, but they also left Force of Will banned, and Chancellor of the Annex didn't exist yet. Chancellor forced you to drop your island to play out, which left you all-in on your critters.
03 Mogg :: "Bazaar Channel" Bazaar of Baghdad / Black Lotus / Channel / Chronomaton / Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre If Bazaar tapped for mana, you'd have done much better. Unfortunately, Chancellor stopped it right out of the gate, and 4 turns for the redraw was generally enough to lock you out. Bazaar shuffling just wasn't enough to stop all of the spell hate, was Wasteland fodder, etc. I also question Chronomaton. Chancellor, a way to get through Chancellor, or anything else really would have proven much more effective. Even Lich's Mirror would have gotten more points keeping the Chancellor losses.
04 Reyemile :: "Double Mage" Black Lotus / Chancellor of the Annex / Mystic Gate / Meddling Mage / Meddling Mage Double Mage was nice, and chancellor could sometimes stall a turn to get to them. However, opposing chancellors proved a huge speed bump that was sometimes enough to let your op play out.
05 WhammWhamme :: "Infistrip" Anurid Scavenger / Black Lotus / Chancellor of the Annex / Icatian Store / Strip Mine Strip Mine combined well with Chancellor. Anurid was very underwhelming here, though. This really felt like another layer of control or a better threat would have pushed this up quite a bit.
06 tomsloger :: "Double Force" Commandeer / Force of Will / Force of Will / Misthollow Griffin / Sand Silos Double Force with Commandeer backup was nice, but the onslaught of chancellors was rough. It stopped Force1, so if they could get through Force2, it was usually over. I would still consider this a Marquee deck.
07 Grolleter :: "Tax" Chancellor of the Annex / Mishra's Workshop / Phyrexian Revoker / Pithing Needle / Sphere of Resistance Revoker wasn't as great this round. He liked to stop lotus on the play, but Sphere/Chancellor liked that as well. I question Sphere of Resistance over Trinisphere, even though Sphere got through turn 1 Chancellor. Perhaps Trinisphere with a different kill over revoker?
08 Antonia :: "She Must Be Crazy!" Ancient Tomb / Cavern of Souls / Laboratory Maniac / Pithing Needle / Wasteland This needed just a little more disruption to make it to the top. Cavern and Needle was a great way to ensure Maniac made it through, but leaving your opponent to his own devices was sometimes too risky. Ulamog, Meddling Mage, and Magus shut you out.
09 VikingMetal4L :: "Elecution" Azor's Elocutors / Chancellor of the Annex / Force of Will / Icatian Store / Strip Mine Strip Mine, Chancellor and Force was a trilogy of awesomesauce. Although you only scored a little over 300, you only had losses to 2 unique decks. Elecutors was never used, although I could see it as a nice backup theory.
11 casual johnny :: "Trinimoon" Black Lotus / Black Lotus / Chancellor of the Annex / Magus of the Moon / Trinisphere Trinisphere over Thalia was thought provoking. Many people played through chancellor, which would play through Thalia. However, against an opposing chancellor, you could only drop Magus OR Trinisphere, so Thalia had merit too. Not sure which was the better call here.
12 fnord :: "Channel Ulamog" Black Lotus / Chancellor of the Annex / Channel / Karakas / Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre Karakas to play through Chancellor was a great call. I'm still surprised no one went with Lich's Mirror, which I thought would be a go-to card for channel. I didn't calculate, but I think it might have scored a little higher.
There were 12 players with 66 matches and 132 total games.
8 hands ended in a draw. 4 matches had at least one draw.
That's 6% of all games, averaging 0.7 games per player.
The following player(s) had the most drawn games, with 2 total draws: tomsloger : Grolleter
20 matches were a 3-3 split.
That's 30% of all matches, averaging 1.7 matches per player.
The following player(s) had the most split matches, with 4 total splits: fnord
52 matches were a 6-0 sweep.
That's 79% of all matches, averaging 4.3 matches per player.
The following player(s) had the most 6-0 match sweeps, at 8 total sweeps: Feyd_Ruin : benbuzz790
There were 32 unique cards submitted, out of 60 total.
12 card(s) were repeated:
Next Round will be '4CB Alt-Ban'.
Entries are due Sunday Night at Midnight.
4CB Alt-Ban
Description:
We start this tournament with Draco9's first format.
Last week we had freedom, perhaps too much.
This week, we'll have a more restricted format.
Perhaps we shall find new gems when we abandon our old habits?
Blind Magic is an online Magic format played here on the forums. Players play with an extremely limited deck size, such as 3 cards. Players begin with their entire deck (ie: those three cards) in hand and have no library (players don't lose when they fail to draw a card because of this). Due to the extremely limited number of play options given with their small deck size, games are calculated, rather then played, with an absolute determined winner (or a tie). Each player plays a match of two games against each other player who submitted - once going first, and once going second. Wins, losses, and ties for each of those two games are calculated by the moderator and players. The actual fun of the game comes from trying to decide which cards you will be playing.
What is the All Blind Tournament?
The All Blind Tournament is a four week quadrathlon XCB tournament, which spans all card blind formats and embraces a progressive anti-metagame. For each week of the four week tournament, a new XCB format is announced for players to enter. Players compete for points (similiar to the PotM points for previous XCB games) each round. At the end of the four week tournament, the player who has accumulated the most points over the four weeks wins the tournament, and receives a real-world prize.
Basic Rules of All Blind Tournament
Below lies the rules of ABT written in laymen's terms for ease of understanding.
While a comprehensive rule system exists, new players and quick glances are best left for this basic explination.
Overview
The All Blind Tournament (ABT) is a Magic tournament that consists of four rounds of X Card Blind (XCB), run entirely within this forum. To compete, entrants submit decks containing X cards which are played against each other. Scoring assumes optimal play, without randomness or concealed information.
Deck Construction Rules
1. A deck must contain exactly X cards.
2. A deck may contain any number of copies of any Vintage-legal card, but can't contain any cards on the ABT Banned List.
3. A player's deck must not enable that player to win the game before an opponent's second turn.
4. A player's deck must not enable that player to force an opponent to lose any cards in his or her hand before an opponent's second turn.
5. A player's deck must enable that player to win the game.
Deck Submission Rules
6. An entrant submits his or her deck to the ABT moderator by private message (pm).
Playing the Decks
7. Entrants don't actually play their decks, because game results can be determined theoretically.
8. Each player starts the game with the cards in his or her deck in his or her hand.
9. A player doesn't lose the game as a result of being unable to draw a card.
10. A random effect resolves in favor of the opponent of the owner of that effect.
11. Players know all information that would normally be concealed from them.
12. Each player plays one two-game match against each other player, and each player is the starting player once per match.
Points
13. The entrant with the most points in a round is the round winner. For each match, an entrant earns 3 points per game win and 1 point per drawn game. However, an entrant earns only 2 points for a split match (each player wins a game).
14. The entrant with the most points in the four rounds comprising the ABT is the tournament winner.
Extra Rules
15. Some optional rules may be used; see Optional Rules.
16. The Basic Rules don't cover every issue. For in-depth rules, see Comprehensive Rules.
Optional Rules
Land Rule
Any player may play a basic land of his or her choice from outside the game any time he or she could normally play a land.
Expanded Land Rule
Any player may play a basic land of his or her choice from outside the game any time he or she could normally play a land. Any player may play an additional land on each of his or her turns from his or her hand.
Alternative Land Rule
If a player would draw a card from an empty library, that player puts a basic land card of his or her choice from outside the game into his or her hand instead. The starting player doesn't skip the draw step of his or her first turn.
Sanctioned Magic Format
A deck may contain only cards contained in sets legal in the specified format.
Counter Rule
Until each player has completed two turns, each player ignores any part of an effect of a source an opponent owns that would counter a spell that player controls.
Life Rule
If neither player would win otherwise, then the player who maintains the higher life total wins the game. Determine whether a deck enables the player of that deck to win the game as though this rule didn't exist.
Special Format
Other rules are specified.
XCB Comprehensive Rules
Below lies the comprehensive rules system for all XCBs, including ABT.
Rules are written for precision and game clarification. They are not written for ease of reading.
Game Rules
1.1. There are many versions of XCB. Each version has a name, of the form XCB 'Land Rule' 'Sanctioned Magic Format' 'Special Format' '(Bonus)' 'Counter Rule' 'Life Rule'.
1.1a. X is a number.
1.1b. 'Land Rule' can be LR, ELR, ALR, or nothing. LR indicates that the basic land rule is in effect, ELR indicates that the expanded land rule is in effect, and ALR indicates that the alternative land rule is in effect (see Rule 1.7).
1.1c. 'Sanctioned Magic Format' can be the name of a sanctioned Magic constructed format or nothing. The name of a format indicates that only cards contained in sets legal in that format may be submitted. This is an exception to rule 2.3c.
1.1d. 'Special Format' can be the name of at least one special format or nothing. The name of a special format indicates that the special format in effect (see Rule 1.8).
1.1e. 'Bonus' can be (Bonus) or nothing. (Bonus) modifies the preceding special format, indicating that an entrant must not follow the rules of that format, but that entrant will earn a specified number of bonus points if he or she does (see Rule 2.4f).
1.1f. 'Counter Rule' can be C or nothing. C indicates that the counter rule is in effect (see Rule 1.9).
1.1g. 'Life Rule' can be LF, AL, or nothing. LF indicates that the life rule is in effect and AL indicates that the alternative life rule is in effect (see Rule 1.10).
1.2. Decks are not played, but are scored as though they were. The player of a deck is the entrant who submitted that deck.
1.3. Except for the changes described in these rules, games follow the rules for a normal game of Magic.
1.3a. Ignore any part of an instruction that isn't covered by these rules or the rules of Magic.
1.4. An entrant's deck contains exactly X cards (see Rule 1.1).
1.4a. A player's opening hand contains the cards in his or her deck.
1.4b. Players don't draw hands or mulligan.
1.4c. Players don't have sideboards.
1.5. Players' libraries begin the game empty.
1.5a. A player doesn't lose the game as a result of being unable to draw a card.
1.6. A cost or effect that would produce a random result produces the result that least benefits the player who paid the cost or the owner of the source of the effect instead.
1.7. Some versions of XCB use a land rule.
1.7a. This is the basic land rule (LR). Any player may play a basic land or basic snow land of the subtype of his or her choice from outside the game any time he or she could normally play a land.
1.7b. This is the expanded land rule (ELR). Any player may play a basic land or basic snow land of the subtype of his or her choice from outside the game any time he or she could normally play a land. Any player may play an additional land on each of his or her turns from his or her hand.
1.7c. This is the alternative land rule (ALR). If a player would draw a card from an empty library, that player puts a basic land or basic snow land card of the subtype of his or her choice from outside the game into his or her hand instead. The starting player doesn't skip the draw step of his or her first turn.
1.8. Some versions of XCB use a special format. A special format is an extra set of rules. These rules overwrite any other applicable rules. A non-comprehensive list of special formats is maintained here.
1.8a. Some special formats cause players to draw hands. The drawn cards become part of that player's opening hand.
1.8b. Some special formats generate continuous effects. Continuous effects generated by special formats are applied in the order those formats are listed in the XCB version name, before any other effects that could be applied in a layer.
1.8c. Some special formats require an entrant to make some number of decisions in addition to or instead of submitting a deck. An entrant's submission is that entrant's deck and any decisions that entrant makes. An entrant's submission must not violate rule 2.3 if all instances of the word 'deck' in that rule are replaced with 'submission'.
1.8d. Some special formats refer to decks that obtain or could obtain results. Saying that a deck obtains or could obtain a result means that the player of that deck obtains or could obtain that result in a game or match against another player (see Rule 1.11). If a deck obtains or could obtain a result against another deck, then the player of that deck obtains or could obtain that result against the player of the other deck.
1.9. Some versions of XCB use the counter rule.
1.9a. This is the counter rule (C). Until each player has completed two turns, each player ignores any part of an effect of a source an opponent owns that would counter a spell that player controls.
1.10. Some versions of XCB use a life rule.
1.10a. This is the life rule (LF). If neither player would win otherwise, then the player who maintains the higher life total wins the game. Determine whether a deck enables the player of that deck to win a match as though this rule didn't exist (see Rule 2.3b).
1.10b. This is the alternative life rule (AL). If neither player would win otherwise, then the player who maintains the higher life total wins the game.
1.11. Each player plays one match against each other player.
1.11a. Each match has two games.
1.11b. Each player is the starting player for one game in each match.
1.11c. Games are played with perfect information; players know the identities of face-down cards and cards in hidden zones, and players know which decisions have been made by other players.
1.11d. Games are played optimally. The best outcome for a player is to win the game and the worst outcome is to lose the game.
1.11e. If a game would continue indefinitely, then the game is a draw.
Tournament Rules
2.1. Entrants compete in a competition.
2.1a. The shortest type of competition is a round. Typically, each round lasts one week.
2.1b. The ABT is a competition consisting of four rounds.
2.2. An entrant submits his or her deck to the ABT moderator.
2.2a. An entrant submits his or her deck by private message (pm).
2.2b. An entrant may submit multiple decks, but only the most recently submitted deck is counted.
2.2c. An illegal deck is not counted. At the moderator’s discretion, an illegal deck may be replaced by a similar deck – in which any cards causing that deck to be illegal have been removed or replaced.
2.2d. The moderator determines the result of each match. Entrants may challenge results, but not after the results of the first round of a new ABT has been posted, except at the moderator's discretion.
2.2e. An entrant may name his or her deck. If an entrant doesn't, then the moderator may name it.
2.3. Decks are subject to some restrictions.
2.3a. An entrant may not submit a deck that could enable the player of that deck to win the game or force any cards in an opponent's hand to change zones before an opponent's second turn. A card is forced to change zones if the owner of that card could make no sequence of decisions that would not result in that card changing zones. Ignore this rule in the following cases:
i. All cards in an opponent's hand that would be forced to change zones would not be cast by that opponent and would enter the battlefield under that opponent's control. For example, a 4CB deck with two copies of Black Lotus could contain Stronghold Gambit but could not contain Wild Evocation.
ii. All cards in an opponent's hand that weren't there as a result of a cost or effect that opponent controlled that would be forced to change zones during the resolution of a spell or ability would be in that opponent's hand after that spell or ability resolved. For example, a 3CB deck could contain Timetwister and Black Lotus but an 8CB deck could not.
iii. Cards in an opponent's hand would be forced to change zones only if cards in that opponent's hand that started outside the game would cause that opponent's maximum hand size at the start of the game to be exceeded. For example, a 3CB LR deck could contain two copies of Ancestral Recall.
iv. The rule would be violated only in a game that existed as a result of an effect that resolved not before the specified turn or until each player had completed the specified number of turns that restarted the game or created a subgame. For example, a 2CB LR deck could contain Karn Liberated.
2.3b. An entrant may not submit a deck that wouldn't enable the player of that deck to win a match (see Rule 2.4d) against the player of at least one deck satisfying all rules.
2.3c. A deck may contain any number of copies of any card legal in Vintage (Type 1). Except as modified by a special format, all cards used in a game must be legal in Vintage.
2.3d. A deck may contain any number of copies of any card that will become legal in Vintage upon release of a set that's been revealed fully and officially since the start of the round.
2.3e. A deck may not contain any cards on the ABT Banned List.
2.4. Points determine round standings.
2.4a. Entrants are ranked – first to last – in order of decreasing number of points.
2.4b. For each match, an entrant earns 3 points per game win and 1 point per drawn game.
2.4c. The combined result of both games in a match is called a match result. Possible match results are: 6 – two wins, 4 – a win and a draw, 3 or 2 or S – a win and a loss, 2 – two draws, 1 – a draw and a loss, and 0 – two losses.
2.4d. Some match results are also denoted by names: two wins – match win, a win and a loss – split match, two draws – draw, and two losses – match loss. An entrant wins the match if he or she wins both games, splits the match if he or she wins a game and loses a game, draws a match if he or she draws both games, and loses the match if he or she loses both games.
2.4e. An entrant earns only 2 points for a split match. This is an exception to rule 2.4b.
2.4f. An entrant may earn a number of bonus points defined by a special format. An entrant earns these points in addition to any other points.
2.4g. A table of match results is posted at the end of each round. Its rows represent entrants and its columns represent those entrants' opponents. An entrant's total number of points is listed at the end of his or her row.
2.5. The entrant with the most tournament points over the course of the ABT is the tournament winner.
2.5a. Each round, an entrant receives tournament points equal to his or her average match result for that round multiplied by 100, rounded to the nearest integer or some number of decimal places chosen at the moderator's discretion. For example, an entrant scoring 6-6-6-6-X-0-0-0 in a round with 8 entrants receives 340 tournament points ((6 + 6 + 6 + 6) / (8 - 1) x 100).
2.5b. If two or more entrants would win the ABT, then each of those entrants competes in additional rounds specified by the moderator, until only one entrant has the most tournament points. Each additional round contains only the entrants who have the most tournament points. The moderator may specify a limit to the number of additional rounds.
3. Prize Rules
3.1. A prize shall be given to the tournament winner.
3.1a. The winner of the tournament shall be given the prize described within the tournament, or a suitable replacement upon the tournament's end.
3.1b. If the winner of the tournament has won two or more tournaments, then the highest ranked entrant who hasn't won two or more tournaments shall be given the prize instead.
3.1c. If the winner was a moderator for two or more rounds of the tournament, then the highest ranked entrant who wasn't the moderator for two or more rounds of that tournament shall be given the prize instead. This is to ensure fair play.
3.1d. An entrant may decline the prize. If he or she does, then that entrant may designate another entrant to receive the prize.
3.1e. Entrants under the age of 18 are ineligible for prizes, due to federal laws regarding the sharing of personal information of minors.
3.1f. In the event that a prize can't be given to an entrant, the moderator will do his best to find another suitable way to reward that entrant.
3.1g. No prize is 100% guaranteed, but is assumed upon a good faith basis. Let's face it, with international customs, weird laws, etc, we can't guarantee anything. We'll do our best.
3.2. As a prized tournament, special scoring rules and practices are in place.
3.2a. Entrants are responsible for their own scoring. Assistance will be given, especially to new entrants, but it is ultimately up to each entrant to ensure his or her scoring is completed and accurate.
3.2b. Incomplete scores are considered losses, even to both players in a match if necessary. This is to make sure a winner is determined at the end of a tournament.
3.2c. The moderator always has the final word regarding scores and rules. Entrants may question any scoring the moderator does, until the moderator says that a match's scoring is final.
3.2d. The moderator may, at his or her discretion, determine a match is too difficult to calculate and give it a tie score, or his or her best guess. Again, this is final.
3.2e. Once a winner has been announced as final, that entrant shall receive the prize, even if errors in scoring or points are shown later.
Permanently Banned Cards
The following cards are permanently banned in the All Blind Tournament.
Each round will have an additional banned list that extends beyond, but always includes, these cards.
This tournament, Feyd_Ruin has graciously donated the prize up for grabs.
Players will be playing for a FOIL Boros Reckoner.
Player Standings
Previous standings will always be posted below the opening post of each week's thread.
Standings will be updated after the current week has been completed and score checking has finished.
Next week begins a new tournament, with a special twist.
Draco9 has provided the tournament prize.
Any Steam game valued at $30 or less!
Steam is a safe, free system to purchase and download games.
Nothing beyond a normal computer is needed, and the game will be gifted to you free!
You can pick anything you want within the price range!
As part of this deal, Draco9 has picked out all 4 formats for next tournament.
I can tell you they are very interesting, without being overly confusing and complex.
So everyone thank Draco9 for a sweet sweet prize next tourney
I PMed Feyd about the prize before I read this thread. In addition to the game, any DLC content related to the chosen game can be included in the prize. As long as the total value doesn't exceed $30.00.
For those who don't know, the steam download page is here.
Half of all decks played Chancellor of the Annex, which really underlines its power and significance to the format.
Many matchups came down to how the deck dealt with Chancellor.
Comically, two other decks played Chancellor of the Forge, and slaughtered the meta.
I didn't expect this, even though I was one of those two.
Also, no Show and Tell or Flash-Wurm? Very odd.
I was hesitant to play Forge-Line for these decks, and they didn't even show.
Based on this week's results, will there be revisions to the permabanned list?
Also, just so there's no confusion, "Special Rules: Nothing beyond the extended banned list." isn't referring to this, right?
Karn might come off, since his issues are fixed..
I've considered removing Balance, since game rules stop its abuse.
Chancellor has been wanting to be put on there for a while.
..but oddly, I've considered these for awhile and this round doesn't really change much.
And yeah, the extended banned list is just referring to the more restrictive list of banned cards for the round. Lotus/Workshop/etc are banned on a non-land-rule round, which forces us to play in a completely different style. Should be interesting.
Chancellor-Leyline was a great call. The best cards are on the banned list are disruption that don't affect the deck, and the banned acceleration and win conditions aren't effective for attrition.
It amuses me that both of the winners of the final round were tournament winners of a sort - Feyd_Ruin won the tournament and benbuzz790 won the prize.
Also, I just want to explain Chronomaton. Its purpose is three-fold. First, it lets me win if Ulamog is countered. I don't have sufficient life to cast Ulamog twice. Second, it enables Ulamog's casting trigger. To stop Chronomaton, Ensnaring Bridge or Karakas must be played before Ulamog. Third, it gives me an answer to Magus of the Moon and a counterspell. Against Magus, Bazaar taps for mana and Chronomaton gets big.
The meta has changed. Last time 5CB went with almost no bans you won with this exact deck, but they also left Force of Will banned, and Chancellor of the Annex didn't exist yet. Chancellor forced you to drop your island to play out, which left you all-in on your critters.
I had a feeling that my deck wouldn't do well. Just wanted to see what would happen.
Forge/Leyline feels similar to Empty the Warrens. Festering, resilient Goblins everywhere. Ban all Goblins I say! Except for Mogg. He can stay.
Chancellor-Leyline was a great call. The best cards are on the banned list are disruption that don't affect the deck, and the banned acceleration and win conditions aren't effective for attrition.
I gambled that there would be a lot more of the disruption then combo, which paid off. It really is odd to me that Flash/Show and Tell/etc didn't show up at all. Flash-Wurm with Chancellor/Land or Force would be a good explorable option. I guess I'm lucky others didn't feel the same. Comically, I 6-0d your original deck and had a 600 average with 9 decks in. I then received your deck-change submission and benbuzz's submission at the same time when I logged in. I thought this was going to be a turning point, like some flash went off in everyone's head, and my deck would fall back to where I figured itd end up.
Personally, I think it's just an early birthday present, given that I'm turning 30 in a couple days
Minor corrections may still come in, but this is where we stand, and it should end close to this.
It's pretty much definite that I will win the tournament and benbuzz790 will get the foil Boros Reckoner.
(As moderator, I'm ineligible, which is good since mailing myself a prize seems redundant )
This is also the first ABTournament that Mogg didn't win. Down with the bloody green goblin!
This is also the first ABTournament that Mogg didn't win. Down with the bloody green goblin!
Red. Moggs are red, not green. Green goblins mostly hail from Shadowmoor, not Rath.
No time to double-check my results at the moment. I might get around to it later, but I'm probably going to end up ranked low-mid for the week and low for the tournament even if there are corrections.
Moggs are green. I believe they were brought to the plane of Rath from either Dominaria directly, or Yawgmoth had some small goblin numbers in phyrexia from the time that they used the portals between the thran empire and phyrexia. (Shivan Goblins and Thran worked together). There weren't any natives to Rath - it was an artifical plane created by Yawgmoth, and races were taken from other planes to inhabit it. Parts of Dominaria were brought to Rath as part of a long complex process, so this may have taken the goblins directly from Dominaria, although nothing was explicitly stated as I remember. Either way, the breed would have originated from Dominaria, which are green skinned.
I've heard someone refer to Moggs are being redskinned before, but I'm not sure where this comes form. I've never read this anywhere in cannon material, and they've always been depicted as green skinned; occasionally yellow-green.
Perhaps you're thinking of the Akki?
Sidenote; you should always beware: Artichokes exert stress on the liver.
Karn might come off, since his issues are fixed..
I've considered removing Balance, since game rules stop its abuse.
Chancellor has been wanting to be put on there for a while.
..but oddly, I've considered these for awhile and this round doesn't really change much.
I think quite a few cards could come off.
Flash didn't make an appearance this week and didn't see that much play before it was banned. It's not really that broken in general; it just sometimes becomes more powerful due to special rules.
Balance isn't broken since you can't submit a deck which can play it before an opponent's second turn.
Leyline of Anticipation does not seem to generally be worth a card in the general case. It seems fine unless a special rule makes it too powerful.
Trinisphere doesn't seem broken at all when there's a land rule. Even for no land rule weeks, it's not that much (if at all) better than similar disruption.
All the lands on the list are fine for land-rule weeks. And even in non-land rule weeks, they generally aren't that potent as long as artifact mana and lands which only need to be used once are big parts of the meta.
Barren Glory is probably not even a good card, given the high mana cost and the fact that you can't submit a deck which can t1 it. Even Maniac might not be too strong....
I'm as giddy as a schoolgirl! I didn't think I would even be in the running.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Some facts of magic:
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
Flash didn't make an appearance this week and didn't see that much play before it was banned. It's not really that broken in general; it just sometimes becomes more powerful due to special rules.
Balance isn't broken since you can't submit a deck which can play it before an opponent's second turn.
Leyline of Anticipation does not seem to generally be worth a card in the general case. It seems fine unless a special rule makes it too powerful.
Trinisphere doesn't seem broken at all when there's a land rule. Even for no land rule weeks, it's not that much (if at all) better than similar disruption.
All the lands on the list are fine for land-rule weeks. And even in non-land rule weeks, they generally aren't that potent as long as artifact mana and lands which only need to be used once are big parts of the meta.
Barren Glory is probably not even a good card, given the high mana cost and the fact that you can't submit a deck which can t1 it. Even Maniac might not be too strong....
....
These ideas are terrible. This week had a distorted meta, where the most broken and unfun of the broken and unfun made the less broken of the broken and unfun not seem good. This is not grounds for unbanning the ones that are *less* obnoxious.
Anyway, some specific rebuttals:
Trinisphere (and Meddling Mage) are not banned for being overpowered, they're banned for leading to 3-3 matchups; Trinisphere + Smokestack wins on the play against a gigantic swathe of decks, and the other cards in the deck narrow it even more. First turn Meddling Mage (possibly x2) has a similar effect.
Leyline of Anticipation was only kept in check by Chancellor. 0th turn Magus beats lands, 0th turn Meddling Mage/Voidstone Gargoyle/Nullstone Gargoyle/March of the Machines + Mycosinth Lattice beats practically everything that isn't running counterspells.
The lands are horrible - they hose Storage Lands, who don't actually need the kicking, and lead to yet more "all in on the first turn" game play. Dust Bowl requires enough of a commitment to be fair. Strip Mine is OP. Plus, in land rule weeks? Strip Mine or Ghost Quarter + Crucible of Worlds is probably a bad thing to allow.
Onto the more reasonable ones...
Barren Glory is an artifact of "2nd turn" being the turn you could win; it's still a very straightforward and easy win condition, mind you.
Laboratory Maniac is less of an artifact of the 2nd turn rule... he is also the single easiest win condition in XCB. He's just... so obvious, and better than pretty much any other creature. Do we really need to narrow the meta that much, so that practically the only creature worth running is a 2U 2/2?
Flash is pretty much only ever good when it breaks a format. Unbanning it, having it see no play, and having people forget it was unbanned (leading to a curbstomping) is a bad XCB experience. It doesn't *add* anything to the format, and when it's good it's ridiculous. Make people pay the 5 for Through The Breach or Sneak Attack, they're actually costed for the effect.
Balance is ridiculous in a (relatively) fair format. A deck that can cast Balance turn 3 with a Rack in play is remarkably hard to interact with. It's an all-time superstar OP card that gets better in XCB because you don't draw cards in XCB. That's... not a good recommendation. It's still the card that unbanning would be the least disastrous. Well, maybe Barren Glory.
These ideas are terrible. This week had a distorted meta, where the most broken and unfun of the broken and unfun made the less broken of the broken and unfun not seem good. This is not grounds for unbanning the ones that are *less* obnoxious.
The meta was distorted by Chancellor, rather than by any of the banlist cards.
Trinisphere (and Meddling Mage) are not banned for being overpowered, they're banned for leading to 3-3 matchups; Trinisphere + Smokestack wins on the play against a gigantic swathe of decks, and the other cards in the deck narrow it even more. First turn Meddling Mage (possibly x2) has a similar effect.
Doesn't the rule that 3-3 results give each player only 2 points discourage such strategies? Plus, there are many weeks where Trini+stack isn't even a viable deck, so a permaban seems unwarranted.
Leyline of Anticipation was only kept in check by Chancellor. 0th turn Magus beats lands, 0th turn Meddling Mage/Voidstone Gargoyle/Nullstone Gargoyle/March of the Machines + Mycosinth Lattice beats practically everything that isn't running counterspells.
Again, how often is such a deck even possible? The permaban list is for cards which are nearly always broken, not for cards which are broken under very narrow week rules.
The lands are horrible - they hose Storage Lands, who don't actually need the kicking, and lead to yet more "all in on the first turn" game play. Dust Bowl requires enough of a commitment to be fair. Strip Mine is OP. Plus, in land rule weeks? Strip Mine or Ghost Quarter + Crucible of Worlds is probably a bad thing to allow.
Do storage lands see enough play that devoting a slot to hosing them is smart? I think this kind of LD is useful as a check incase storage land strategies become too powerful. As for your Crucible example...that's more of an argument for banning Crucible in land-rule weeks.
Barren Glory is an artifact of "2nd turn" being the turn you could win; it's still a very straightforward and easy win condition, mind you.
It's straightforward and easy, but doesn't seem powerful enough to ban. It's just not that good.
Laboratory Maniac is less of an artifact of the 2nd turn rule... he is also the single easiest win condition in XCB. He's just... so obvious, and better than pretty much any other creature. Do we really need to narrow the meta that much, so that practically the only creature worth running is a 2U 2/2?
I very much doubt that Maniac would be the only creature worth running. He's powerful, but not overly so since you can't T1 him. As for obvious, so what? Emrakul and Lotus are obvious too.
Flash is pretty much only ever good when it breaks a format. Unbanning it, having it see no play, and having people forget it was unbanned (leading to a curbstomping) is a bad XCB experience. It doesn't *add* anything to the format, and when it's good it's ridiculous. Make people pay the 5 for Through The Breach or Sneak Attack, they're actually costed for the effect.
Then let people try to make good use of it. It does add something to the format, as it's an interesting and unique card which uses different targets than Breach/Sneak.
Balance is ridiculous in a (relatively) fair format. A deck that can cast Balance turn 3 with a Rack in play is remarkably hard to interact with. It's an all-time superstar OP card that gets better in XCB because you don't draw cards in XCB. That's... not a good recommendation. It's still the card that unbanning would be the least disastrous. Well, maybe Barren Glory.
The fact that your deck with Balance cannot have access to 1W on your second turn makes it not ridiculous and probably not even good most of the time.
The best way to check whether a particular card deserves to get banned is by running a giant gauntlet and looking at the trends. Since this is greater than 1CB, most of the cards don't work in a vacuum. Banning for power level reasons and banning for the sake of deck diversity are equally important.
Maybe adopting WotC's Modern approach to banning would be the best way. Set criteria and ban cards as appropriate.
The meta was distorted by Chancellor, rather than by any of the banlist cards.
...and yet you don't seem to think Chancellor deserves banning? Surely the logic follows that if X Y and Z did poorly this week they can't be broken flips around to 'Chancellor distorted the entire format, it's too good and should be banned'?
Anyway, you're not looking at this right; Strip Mine and friends were incredibly oppressive in terms of viable deck choices, as was Magus (forcing everyone into artifact mana, making Chancellor better than usual); you can't just look at what was played, but at what was basically not even worth considering.
(Frankly, this was the worst format for XCB I've ever had the misfortune to endure, and convinced me I never want to see an unbanning of anything - every card on that list renders large numbers of other cards unplayably bad)
Doesn't the rule that 3-3 results give each player only 2 points discourage such strategies? Plus, there are many weeks where Trini+stack isn't even a viable deck, so a permaban seems unwarranted.
Decks that get at least 2 points per match are very solid. Much of the time, Workshop/Trinisphere is functionally identical to first turn Amnesia. The format is better when people get to play their cards, rather than being about wars of pre-emptively stopping the other deck from doing anything at all.
Again, how often is such a deck even possible? The permaban list is for cards which are nearly always broken, not for cards which are broken under very narrow week rules.
??? 0th turn locks are eminently possible in "just XCB" (all the options I listed are viable in straight 5CB; 4CB gives you "turn 0 Thalia or Magus of the Moon".deck - Lotus plus those two - or turn 0 Voidstone Gargoyle - oh wait. Turn 0 Chalice of the Void - automatically beat every lotus deck.). So "every week, barring very very occasional special rule weeks".
Do storage lands see enough play that devoting a slot to hosing them is smart? I think this kind of LD is useful as a check incase storage land strategies become too powerful. As for your Crucible example...that's more of an argument for banning Crucible in land-rule weeks.
If they 'become too powerful' there are numerous checks you can use. Allowing an incidental hate card that utterly destroys essentially any deck that isn't trying to vomit it's entire hand out on the first turn - and can be thrown in as the 4th or 5th card in basically any deck because it costs 0 mana to use - is stupid.
It's straightforward and easy, but doesn't seem powerful enough to ban. It's just not that good.
If it's not very good, why bother taking it off? See, here's what'll happen if you get listened to: it'll sink into obscurity. Then, months down the track, some bright spark will go "why don't we change the turn you can win back to turn two!" and it'll be forgotten that we took it off and oh look, the stupid boring OP deck is back.
It's a card that's only worth playing when it's ending matches in an anti-climactic fashion.
I very much doubt that Maniac would be the only creature worth running. He's powerful, but not overly so since you can't T1 him. As for obvious, so what? Emrakul and Lotus are obvious too.
Emrakul and Lotus allow for multiple applications - Lotus single-handedly enables a huge swath of decks to function AT ALL, while Emrakul goes in quite diverse strategies (Pox, sneak, Bazaar-reshuffle).
Maniac is just "cast, win". Any deck that could include him could just include a different, more interactive win condition.
Then let people try to make good use of it. It does add something to the format, as it's an interesting and unique card which uses different targets than Breach/Sneak.
It's a boring card that interacts with a tiny handful of cards in a broken fashion. We don't need more cards that end the game on turn 1.
The fact that your deck with Balance cannot have access to 1W on your second turn makes it not ridiculous and probably not even good most of the time.
So why unban it? So it can randomly wreck some week? The biggest problem with unbannings is it messes with continuity. People miss that cards have been unbanned constantly. Personally, I think that unbanning cards is categorically a mistake, regardless of whether the card would be banned now had it just been printed for the first time in a new set. It's actually quite hard to notice the absence of a card on a list.
People have always had different feelings on the banned list.
Some people like more extensive lists, some more freeing.
Part of ABT is that I want to go back and forth a bit.
This is why I sometimes do and sometimes don't ban certain cards in formats.
The permban list is there for those that I don't want to go back and forth on.
I also don't want the "I lost bad because I missed that wasn't banned this round!"
People should never lose because they didn't understand the format rules and such.
When that happens, it's my fault for not being clear and concise.
This round was an extreme on ban freedom, obviously, but it was suggested and fit the theme.
We haven't had a completely broken power-level round in a while.
In the end, beyond the always-ban-it cards, what I want on the perm ban list are things that I will almost always ban in either Land-Rule rounds (LR) or always ban in non-Land-Rule rounds (nLR), and aren't viable strategies in the other. For instance, Trinisphere isn't a viable strategy in LR rounds, but I'll always ban it in nLR rounds. Thus, it should always remain off. This is why Trinisphere, Leyline of Anticipation, and Force of Will are on there.
I've gone into the Rock-Paper-Scissors of it before, but basically, we want a lot of viable strategies. This keeps us from feeling so limited in our options. Once things start feeling redundant and it's more like a guessing game then a "think of something cool game" interest dwindles quickly, and the game just isn't fun anymore. Keeping a lot of options fights this off a bit and keeps the format more fresh, since new decks can keep springing up. For instance: Flash is at the cusp of ban worthy or not, but keeping it off the list makes other things viable strategies because they're not strictly worse then a legal deck using Flash. This means we get to see 3 or 4 times as many different "huge fat threat" decks as we used to, with each of them playing out a little different.
The land hosers (Strip Mine, et al) are because Lotus Hate + LD is just too limiting. Any deck can be played around, but forcing everyone to play around them just stifles the format and makes it less fun after a while. I want people to have the ability to think and make new exciting decks that haven't been seen before.
Karn will probably come off.
It's not broken, just had rules issues.
Balance might come off because of the 2nd turn rule change.
It was originally on there because of the discard rule being 1st turn.
It's cheaper but still comparable to Balancing Act.
Chancellor I'm not completely set on or not.
It's perfectly acceptable in LR rounds, but not that viable.
Once in a blue moon might be ok, but it's generally banned in nLR rounds.
my opinion:
i dont think the ban list should be full of dominant cards. black lotus has always been the most used card (nLR only, obviously) and no one wants to ban that. just because something is really good is no reason to ban it.
what should be banned is cards that make the game less fun. when you look at the other decks and say things like "oh, fnord played chancellor of the annex. i guess my deck doesnt work against him" then perhaps that is not a fun card...
i dont think flash is unfun or format warping. ditto laboratory maniac, channel, and vampire hexmage force of will, despite its poor showing, is clearly both unfun and format warping. i feel the same about meddling mage, trinisphere, and strip mine
Balance places significant constraints on the deck that includes it. The deck must be unable to cast Balance until its third turn, it must be able to actually eliminate most of an opponent's hand and board when Balance resolves, it must be able to win after Balance resolves, and it would certainly help if the deck could deal with artifacts (or planeswalkers or enchantments).
Most of these constraints will carry across to any format, allowing many decks to win or draw against Balance incidentally, such that I don't foresee a format where Balance has a warping effect.
Furthermore, Balance is an interesting card. Good Balance decks are interesting decks, and building them can be an interesting challenge.
Counterpoint: Balance decks, as a meta component, are most easily beaten by deploying your entire hand on turn one.
Deploying your entire hand on turn one is the game plan that needs the least encouraging.
Worse, Balance even destroys land-based decks that have some insurance against having their hand discard.
If you want to run Balance, Restore Balance is the fair version of Balance and you can run that. Or Balancing Act. We don't need to make that specific strategy stronger; Garga-Resto shows up periodically anyway.
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This thread contains the results for week 4 of All Blind Tournament #4 and is the start of week 1 of ABT#5.
Week 4 of ABT#4 Next Round : Week 1 of ABT#5 Information
No longer staff here.
No longer staff here.
Draco9 has provided the tournament prize.
Any Steam game valued at $30 or less!
Steam is a safe, free system to purchase and download games.
Nothing beyond a normal computer is needed, and the game will be gifted to you free!
You can pick anything you want within the price range!
As part of this deal, Draco9 has picked out all 4 formats for next tournament.
I can tell you they are very interesting, without being overly confusing and complex.
So everyone thank Draco9 for a sweet sweet prize next tourney
No longer staff here.
I PMed Feyd about the prize before I read this thread. In addition to the game, any DLC content related to the chosen game can be included in the prize. As long as the total value doesn't exceed $30.00.
For those who don't know, the steam download page is here.
Half of all decks played Chancellor of the Annex, which really underlines its power and significance to the format.
Many matchups came down to how the deck dealt with Chancellor.
Comically, two other decks played Chancellor of the Forge, and slaughtered the meta.
I didn't expect this, even though I was one of those two.
Also, no Show and Tell or Flash-Wurm? Very odd.
I was hesitant to play Forge-Line for these decks, and they didn't even show.
No longer staff here.
Also, just so there's no confusion, "Special Rules: Nothing beyond the extended banned list." isn't referring to this, right?
Practice for Khans of Tarkir Limited:
Draft: (#1) (#2) (#3) (#4) (#5)
Karn might come off, since his issues are fixed..
I've considered removing Balance, since game rules stop its abuse.
Chancellor has been wanting to be put on there for a while.
..but oddly, I've considered these for awhile and this round doesn't really change much.
And yeah, the extended banned list is just referring to the more restrictive list of banned cards for the round. Lotus/Workshop/etc are banned on a non-land-rule round, which forces us to play in a completely different style. Should be interesting.
No longer staff here.
vs. 07 Grolleter :: "Tax"
Chancellor of the Annex / Mishra's Workshop / Phyrexian Revoker / Pithing Needle / Sphere of Resistance
listed 0-6, suggested 2-2
i never even have to force. just drop my 3/3. pithing needle cant stop silos.
It amuses me that both of the winners of the final round were tournament winners of a sort - Feyd_Ruin won the tournament and benbuzz790 won the prize.
Also, I just want to explain Chronomaton. Its purpose is three-fold. First, it lets me win if Ulamog is countered. I don't have sufficient life to cast Ulamog twice. Second, it enables Ulamog's casting trigger. To stop Chronomaton, Ensnaring Bridge or Karakas must be played before Ulamog. Third, it gives me an answer to Magus of the Moon and a counterspell. Against Magus, Bazaar taps for mana and Chronomaton gets big.
BWTeysa, Orzhov Scion
GWRhys the Redeemed
GUKruphix, God of Horizons
GRXenagos, God of Revels
GThrun, the Last Troll
GStompy
I had a feeling that my deck wouldn't do well. Just wanted to see what would happen.
Forge/Leyline feels similar to Empty the Warrens. Festering, resilient Goblins everywhere. Ban all Goblins I say! Except for Mogg. He can stay.
Taken.
I mistook Silos for Cove. :/
I gambled that there would be a lot more of the disruption then combo, which paid off. It really is odd to me that Flash/Show and Tell/etc didn't show up at all. Flash-Wurm with Chancellor/Land or Force would be a good explorable option. I guess I'm lucky others didn't feel the same. Comically, I 6-0d your original deck and had a 600 average with 9 decks in. I then received your deck-change submission and benbuzz's submission at the same time when I logged in. I thought this was going to be a turning point, like some flash went off in everyone's head, and my deck would fall back to where I figured itd end up.
Personally, I think it's just an early birthday present, given that I'm turning 30 in a couple days
___________________________________________________
_________-:[ TOURNAMENT POINT STANDING ]:-_________
PLAYER_______________ WK1 _ WK2 _ WK3 _ WK4 _ Total _
Feyd_Ruin____________ 338 _ 440 _ 250 _ 491 _ 1518 _
benbuzz790___________ 313 _ 400 _ 200 _ 491 _ 1403 _
fnord________________ 263 _ 307 _ 400 _ 382 _ 1351 _
VikingMetal4L________ 313 _ 353 _ 350 _ 318 _ 1334 _
Mogg_________________ 275 _ 440 _ 429 _ 145 _ 1289 _
tomsloger____________ 356 _ 347 _ 300 _ 236 _ 1239 _
WhammWhamme__________ 375 _ 373 _ 157 _ 309 _ 1215 _
casual johnny________ 338 _ 300 _ 293 _ 282 _ 1212 _
Lithel_______________ 319 _ 267 _ 371 _ PNP _ 0957 _
Draco9_______________ 338 _ 260 _ 200 _ 136 _ 0934 _
Reyemile_____________ 163 _ 307 _ 300 _ 145 _ 0915 _
Antonia______________ 275 _ PNP _ 329 _ 218 _ 0822 _
Grolleter____________ 213 _ 107 _ 186 _ 218 _ 0723 _
Parsley______________ 300 _ 013 _ 386 _ PNP _ 0699 _
bateleur_____________ 313 _ 267 _ 086 _ PNP _ 0665 _
Naphtali_____________ 213 _ 160 _ PNP _ PNP _ 0373 _
pininja______________ 063 _ 113 _ PNP _ PNP _ 0176 _
(The above is designed for the default forum style's colors.)
(So if you can read this, the grid above may be hard to read.)
Minor corrections may still come in, but this is where we stand, and it should end close to this.
It's pretty much definite that I will win the tournament and benbuzz790 will get the foil Boros Reckoner.
(As moderator, I'm ineligible, which is good since mailing myself a prize seems redundant )
This is also the first ABTournament that Mogg didn't win. Down with the bloody green goblin!
No longer staff here.
And that is why I didn't play Black Lotus / Black Lotus / Leyline of Anticipation / Meddling Mage / Meddling Mage. Well, that and Force of Will. And decks that don't rely on casting spells. You get the idea.
Red. Moggs are red, not green. Green goblins mostly hail from Shadowmoor, not Rath.
No time to double-check my results at the moment. I might get around to it later, but I'm probably going to end up ranked low-mid for the week and low for the tournament even if there are corrections.
I've heard someone refer to Moggs are being redskinned before, but I'm not sure where this comes form. I've never read this anywhere in cannon material, and they've always been depicted as green skinned; occasionally yellow-green.
Perhaps you're thinking of the Akki?
Sidenote; you should always beware: Artichokes exert stress on the liver.
No longer staff here.
I think quite a few cards could come off.
Flash didn't make an appearance this week and didn't see that much play before it was banned. It's not really that broken in general; it just sometimes becomes more powerful due to special rules.
Balance isn't broken since you can't submit a deck which can play it before an opponent's second turn.
Leyline of Anticipation does not seem to generally be worth a card in the general case. It seems fine unless a special rule makes it too powerful.
Trinisphere doesn't seem broken at all when there's a land rule. Even for no land rule weeks, it's not that much (if at all) better than similar disruption.
All the lands on the list are fine for land-rule weeks. And even in non-land rule weeks, they generally aren't that potent as long as artifact mana and lands which only need to be used once are big parts of the meta.
Barren Glory is probably not even a good card, given the high mana cost and the fact that you can't submit a deck which can t1 it. Even Maniac might not be too strong....
Practice for Khans of Tarkir Limited:
Draft: (#1) (#2) (#3) (#4) (#5)
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
More facts of magic
....
These ideas are terrible. This week had a distorted meta, where the most broken and unfun of the broken and unfun made the less broken of the broken and unfun not seem good. This is not grounds for unbanning the ones that are *less* obnoxious.
Anyway, some specific rebuttals:
Trinisphere (and Meddling Mage) are not banned for being overpowered, they're banned for leading to 3-3 matchups; Trinisphere + Smokestack wins on the play against a gigantic swathe of decks, and the other cards in the deck narrow it even more. First turn Meddling Mage (possibly x2) has a similar effect.
Leyline of Anticipation was only kept in check by Chancellor. 0th turn Magus beats lands, 0th turn Meddling Mage/Voidstone Gargoyle/Nullstone Gargoyle/March of the Machines + Mycosinth Lattice beats practically everything that isn't running counterspells.
The lands are horrible - they hose Storage Lands, who don't actually need the kicking, and lead to yet more "all in on the first turn" game play. Dust Bowl requires enough of a commitment to be fair. Strip Mine is OP. Plus, in land rule weeks? Strip Mine or Ghost Quarter + Crucible of Worlds is probably a bad thing to allow.
Onto the more reasonable ones...
Barren Glory is an artifact of "2nd turn" being the turn you could win; it's still a very straightforward and easy win condition, mind you.
Laboratory Maniac is less of an artifact of the 2nd turn rule... he is also the single easiest win condition in XCB. He's just... so obvious, and better than pretty much any other creature. Do we really need to narrow the meta that much, so that practically the only creature worth running is a 2U 2/2?
Flash is pretty much only ever good when it breaks a format. Unbanning it, having it see no play, and having people forget it was unbanned (leading to a curbstomping) is a bad XCB experience. It doesn't *add* anything to the format, and when it's good it's ridiculous. Make people pay the 5 for Through The Breach or Sneak Attack, they're actually costed for the effect.
Balance is ridiculous in a (relatively) fair format. A deck that can cast Balance turn 3 with a Rack in play is remarkably hard to interact with. It's an all-time superstar OP card that gets better in XCB because you don't draw cards in XCB. That's... not a good recommendation. It's still the card that unbanning would be the least disastrous. Well, maybe Barren Glory.
The meta was distorted by Chancellor, rather than by any of the banlist cards.
Doesn't the rule that 3-3 results give each player only 2 points discourage such strategies? Plus, there are many weeks where Trini+stack isn't even a viable deck, so a permaban seems unwarranted.
Again, how often is such a deck even possible? The permaban list is for cards which are nearly always broken, not for cards which are broken under very narrow week rules.
Do storage lands see enough play that devoting a slot to hosing them is smart? I think this kind of LD is useful as a check incase storage land strategies become too powerful. As for your Crucible example...that's more of an argument for banning Crucible in land-rule weeks.
It's straightforward and easy, but doesn't seem powerful enough to ban. It's just not that good.
I very much doubt that Maniac would be the only creature worth running. He's powerful, but not overly so since you can't T1 him. As for obvious, so what? Emrakul and Lotus are obvious too.
Then let people try to make good use of it. It does add something to the format, as it's an interesting and unique card which uses different targets than Breach/Sneak.
The fact that your deck with Balance cannot have access to 1W on your second turn makes it not ridiculous and probably not even good most of the time.
Practice for Khans of Tarkir Limited:
Draft: (#1) (#2) (#3) (#4) (#5)
Maybe adopting WotC's Modern approach to banning would be the best way. Set criteria and ban cards as appropriate.
...and yet you don't seem to think Chancellor deserves banning? Surely the logic follows that if X Y and Z did poorly this week they can't be broken flips around to 'Chancellor distorted the entire format, it's too good and should be banned'?
Anyway, you're not looking at this right; Strip Mine and friends were incredibly oppressive in terms of viable deck choices, as was Magus (forcing everyone into artifact mana, making Chancellor better than usual); you can't just look at what was played, but at what was basically not even worth considering.
(Frankly, this was the worst format for XCB I've ever had the misfortune to endure, and convinced me I never want to see an unbanning of anything - every card on that list renders large numbers of other cards unplayably bad)
Decks that get at least 2 points per match are very solid. Much of the time, Workshop/Trinisphere is functionally identical to first turn Amnesia. The format is better when people get to play their cards, rather than being about wars of pre-emptively stopping the other deck from doing anything at all.
??? 0th turn locks are eminently possible in "just XCB" (all the options I listed are viable in straight 5CB; 4CB gives you "turn 0 Thalia or Magus of the Moon".deck - Lotus plus those two - or turn 0 Voidstone Gargoyle - oh wait. Turn 0 Chalice of the Void - automatically beat every lotus deck.). So "every week, barring very very occasional special rule weeks".
If they 'become too powerful' there are numerous checks you can use. Allowing an incidental hate card that utterly destroys essentially any deck that isn't trying to vomit it's entire hand out on the first turn - and can be thrown in as the 4th or 5th card in basically any deck because it costs 0 mana to use - is stupid.
If it's not very good, why bother taking it off? See, here's what'll happen if you get listened to: it'll sink into obscurity. Then, months down the track, some bright spark will go "why don't we change the turn you can win back to turn two!" and it'll be forgotten that we took it off and oh look, the stupid boring OP deck is back.
It's a card that's only worth playing when it's ending matches in an anti-climactic fashion.
Emrakul and Lotus allow for multiple applications - Lotus single-handedly enables a huge swath of decks to function AT ALL, while Emrakul goes in quite diverse strategies (Pox, sneak, Bazaar-reshuffle).
Maniac is just "cast, win". Any deck that could include him could just include a different, more interactive win condition.
It's a boring card that interacts with a tiny handful of cards in a broken fashion. We don't need more cards that end the game on turn 1.
So why unban it? So it can randomly wreck some week? The biggest problem with unbannings is it messes with continuity. People miss that cards have been unbanned constantly. Personally, I think that unbanning cards is categorically a mistake, regardless of whether the card would be banned now had it just been printed for the first time in a new set. It's actually quite hard to notice the absence of a card on a list.
Some people like more extensive lists, some more freeing.
Part of ABT is that I want to go back and forth a bit.
This is why I sometimes do and sometimes don't ban certain cards in formats.
The permban list is there for those that I don't want to go back and forth on.
I also don't want the "I lost bad because I missed that wasn't banned this round!"
People should never lose because they didn't understand the format rules and such.
When that happens, it's my fault for not being clear and concise.
This round was an extreme on ban freedom, obviously, but it was suggested and fit the theme.
We haven't had a completely broken power-level round in a while.
In the end, beyond the always-ban-it cards, what I want on the perm ban list are things that I will almost always ban in either Land-Rule rounds (LR) or always ban in non-Land-Rule rounds (nLR), and aren't viable strategies in the other. For instance, Trinisphere isn't a viable strategy in LR rounds, but I'll always ban it in nLR rounds. Thus, it should always remain off. This is why Trinisphere, Leyline of Anticipation, and Force of Will are on there.
I've gone into the Rock-Paper-Scissors of it before, but basically, we want a lot of viable strategies. This keeps us from feeling so limited in our options. Once things start feeling redundant and it's more like a guessing game then a "think of something cool game" interest dwindles quickly, and the game just isn't fun anymore. Keeping a lot of options fights this off a bit and keeps the format more fresh, since new decks can keep springing up. For instance: Flash is at the cusp of ban worthy or not, but keeping it off the list makes other things viable strategies because they're not strictly worse then a legal deck using Flash. This means we get to see 3 or 4 times as many different "huge fat threat" decks as we used to, with each of them playing out a little different.
The land hosers (Strip Mine, et al) are because Lotus Hate + LD is just too limiting. Any deck can be played around, but forcing everyone to play around them just stifles the format and makes it less fun after a while. I want people to have the ability to think and make new exciting decks that haven't been seen before.
Karn will probably come off.
It's not broken, just had rules issues.
Balance might come off because of the 2nd turn rule change.
It was originally on there because of the discard rule being 1st turn.
It's cheaper but still comparable to Balancing Act.
Chancellor I'm not completely set on or not.
It's perfectly acceptable in LR rounds, but not that viable.
Once in a blue moon might be ok, but it's generally banned in nLR rounds.
No longer staff here.
i dont think the ban list should be full of dominant cards. black lotus has always been the most used card (nLR only, obviously) and no one wants to ban that. just because something is really good is no reason to ban it.
what should be banned is cards that make the game less fun. when you look at the other decks and say things like "oh, fnord played chancellor of the annex. i guess my deck doesnt work against him" then perhaps that is not a fun card...
i dont think flash is unfun or format warping. ditto laboratory maniac, channel, and vampire hexmage
force of will, despite its poor showing, is clearly both unfun and format warping. i feel the same about meddling mage, trinisphere, and strip mine
just my two cents.
Balance should be unbanned.
Balance places significant constraints on the deck that includes it. The deck must be unable to cast Balance until its third turn, it must be able to actually eliminate most of an opponent's hand and board when Balance resolves, it must be able to win after Balance resolves, and it would certainly help if the deck could deal with artifacts (or planeswalkers or enchantments).
Most of these constraints will carry across to any format, allowing many decks to win or draw against Balance incidentally, such that I don't foresee a format where Balance has a warping effect.
Furthermore, Balance is an interesting card. Good Balance decks are interesting decks, and building them can be an interesting challenge.
BWTeysa, Orzhov Scion
GWRhys the Redeemed
GUKruphix, God of Horizons
GRXenagos, God of Revels
GThrun, the Last Troll
GStompy
Deploying your entire hand on turn one is the game plan that needs the least encouraging.
Worse, Balance even destroys land-based decks that have some insurance against having their hand discard.
If you want to run Balance, Restore Balance is the fair version of Balance and you can run that. Or Balancing Act. We don't need to make that specific strategy stronger; Garga-Resto shows up periodically anyway.