Really shocked nothing was hit in standard. I don't think I agree with their logic tbh, they'll be praying it works out or they will look very stupid when the pro tour is just a sea of mardu and copycat.
I had not expected any changes in modern but I think with the dominance of the current decks something like stoneforge or preordain could help power up other decks.
I think top has needed to go for a long time in legacy but that they finally did act on it is surprising. There's quite a few decks that had used it so legacy is about to have a serious shake up which after so many years of miracles domination can't be a bad thing.
Most excited for vintage. Based on what the pros on VSL have said, restricting those cards should open up more deck options without making workshops a lot better. I hope they're right.
CounterBalance would have been a much better ban...Top banned means decks like 12-post, Doomsday, Welder, ANT etc all took a bullet meant for Miracles. Not to mention you're basically cut off the best card filtering for any sort of non blue/rogue decks.
I think that is a feature, not a bug - Top is played in a lot of Tier 1 and Tier 2 decks, including the "Best Deck" of the format. It is a card that dramatically increases consistency while dramatically decreasing play speed. That's a whole lot of stuff WotC tends to not like in a format, particularly when it has fueled a metagame that is mostly shifting but generally solidified in its Tier 1 for a year plus.
I def get what you're saying. I 100% believe that a deck having 50%+ win rate against the field was busted and needed a nerf. However, the rest of the decks hardly needed such a huge nerf. With decks like Doomsday essentially dead. The slow play argument also really only applies to Miracles, as I personally rarely see other decks with top in them go to time like Miracles does. Most of these decks have a critical turn or critical amount of resource/cards they try to resolve, and win from that, Miracle can durdle all day because it doesn't have a guaranteed win after it reaches a certain point in game.
However it's too late now, we'll have to see what decks (elves) rise to the top with this ban. The ban also rubs me the wrong way with how WOTC's being doing things. You're gonna basically pull all tournament support from Legacy, then turn around and destroy a bunch of players decks? For what?
The problem with defining this format by what is "fun" is that everyone seems to define fun as what they don't lose to. If you keep losing to easily answered cards, that means you should improve your deck. If you don't want to improve your deck, then you should come to peace with the idea that you are going to lose because you chose to not interact with better strategies.
legacy got shaken up. I'm interested to see if banning top will affect legacy the same way banning splinter twin affected modern. as in miracles is kind of a deck that policed the format, like how twin policed modern. I wonder what kind of decks will become popular after miracles is no longer there to keep them down
Might buy into my post-rotation UR Dynatower deck if prices dip more due to Standard failing.
Guardian is a cool cat, especially with the new cat lord, but I doubt Wizards would ban a face PW (even if it saw no other major play in it's Standard tenure til now-and it'd help Temur Tower outside of Cat Combo)
Now if only Harsh Mentor hit ability triggers or also cared about PW activations.
I predicted last week no bans in Standard for exactly the reasons Forsythe said, as well as the additional reasons of:
1) Bans tend to make folks investing in the game nervous and they are releasing a set that I think they feel shaky about (hence the full-art lands)
2) They have no idea what the meta could, should, or may look like now. All their testing was based on BFZ rotating and Copter and Emrakul being legal. They also completely missed CopyCat and dramatically underestimated the power of vehicles. They're lost in the woods, so why not just see what the pros cook up before doing something that hurts player and investor confidence?
3) The advent of extra ban's per year means we are unlikely to ever see bans right before a set releases again unless the meta is truly unsalveagable.
Not super shocked at the banning of Top, but it does completely gut the Legacy metagame. Happy to nab more for my EDH decks though.
This guy knows what he's talking about. All of this makes logical sense
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Thanks to Rivenor for the signature and XenoNinja for the Avi!
There are so many, many cards that suffer from this artificial deflation yet we only hear about how terrible it'd be if Gideon or Heart of Kiran lost any value whatsoever. Boo-hoo.
Best comment of the thread. WotC is afraid of destroying value of Gideon/Kiran/Cat? What kind of pervasive value destruction have these cards wrought on the entire format?
"gather more data" - meaning we are completely scared of touching anything in Standard out of fear of putting away the last couple of guys still interested in the format.
It's maybe time to "gather more data" about the efficiency of the development team?
Oh, it will. There's enough main-deckable artifact hate in Amonkhet to put Mardu Vehicles in its place. Still doesn't really change the Copycat combo's oppressiveness. The deck can straight up win out of nowhere unless you have an active answer on the board or in hand to stop it.
AND THIS
IMO, the logical step is for 4C Cat to gain more win % on Vehicles now that there is MD'able hate. Unless we're missing something huge, I'm guessing the PT Top 8 is 6 to 8 Cat variations, and Standard will be even more dead.
This is literally the dumbest decision Wizards has made in years. Who thought that this environment was in anyway better than the one they just banned three cards from?
I am going to agree with others and say it seems they should have banned Felidar Guardian. It seems unlikely it won't still be an issue after the pro tour. Banning means everyone can just move on and not worry about it.
Wow indeed!... Godwin's Law strikes with fewer than 75 posts? Seems a bit premature to say the least given the title and nature of this thread. In my opinion Leovold isn't even an oppressive card or hard to deal with. The very comparison alone is actually quite offensive and completely inappropriate. Is that really who this fictional cardboard game character reminds you of first and foremost? You should be ashamed and take a history lesson along with a sensitivity training class because I think you're spending too much time playing cards while not fully understanding and ignorantly minimizing the events and objectives of the third reich. How anyone could imply or even facetiously suggest that losing a card game under any circumstance is even remotely comparable to being rounded up, relocated, dehumanized, tortured, enslaved and used for forced labor, then slaughtered en-masse genocidally is beyond my comprehension. Alas, I digress. *sigh*
Back on topic...Even if I could understand how you could ever draw such a parallel, I probably still couldn't understand what the problem apparently was with Leovold to begin with. Talk about a banning decision that was capricious and arbitrary! Should I even bother to ask "Was he really that bad?" As per who or whom? What playgroups? which judges weighted in with their opinions? Confused, I'm so curious. What opposing Generals seemingly had the most difficulty against him? And were there sufficient attempts to understand why and adapt? Was one (or more) poll(s) taken before making a final decision? I certainly never got to vote, play as much commander as the next Magic player if not more, and wouldn't be biased in my oversight or dismissal of his potential. I never even built him despite getting my copy early on but wanted to eventually (my current bug deck is Mimeoplasm, I like all my decks optimized, and I only have so many duals). My friends and I also aren't intimidated to play against him (albeit with some decks more than others). I suppose we still can, but it's annoying that I could never play it outside my own living room if I were to build it. So yeah, what was the issue again? Can someone enlighten me? It's not like he's indestructible or has hexproof making him difficult to remove. Can't run prophet. Could he enter on turn 1? Sure, but it's unlikely without a perfect opening hand and still can't do too much damage (literally or metaphorically) before he's taken off the field as far as I'm concerned. Hell, I've had Kaalia in play with greaves and a big friend attacking on turn 2, not to mention various other equally powerful opening turns with other decks when starting which make it extremely difficult for opponents to catch up and gain tempo (if at all possible). Call me naive, but I don't even see how their justification for banning Leovold holds water when Grand Arbiter Augustin iv (amongst others) is much more annoying to play against, especially when he comes out on turn 2 after a turn 1 sol ring or mana crypt + medallion. Ever play a 3-color deck well against a turn 2 Purphorus or blood moon? It's usually a much quicker scoop-fest. What about players who drop an early mishra's workshop or cheat in an early Vorinclex? Those dropping ban-hammers should see how broken countless other generals can be are (when playing first) with ideal opening hands while opponents' hands are only good to average. EDH has so much variance and politics as a singleton multiplayer format that I think people all too often seem to forget that circumstantially, virtually any (finely tuned) deck can beat any other. Top-deck tutor a terminus or use a chaos warp, problem solved. My point is that every deck should have a 'plan b', or at the very least a few answers to deal with almost every type of threat, disadvantageous situation, or general, because let's face facts...if all your deck does is focus on its own strategy while completely ignoring what your opposition might be doing, you'll always get caught being helpless in situations which are fairly easy to anticipate and should be just as easy to react to and neutralize at least some of the time. My personal conclusion can only be that an omission of sufficient removal or otherwise inability to deal Leovold is careless negligence at best if not intentionally poor deck building by his opposition. If anything, they should only have banned him in duel commander as a test since players in multiplayer games naturally team up against presumably more threatening generals/decks to offset and counterbalance their strengths.
One can't help but wonder if perhaps the players (who were) having trouble against Leovold just weren't starting games as often, had sub-par cards in their own decks or opening hands, have bad match up pairings against him at no fault of their own (as some generals and archetypes inherently have slight to moderate advantages and/or disadvantages compared with others), poor luck (not drawing the right answers in time as needed while opponents seemingly hit theirs more often), and/or simply need to upgrade their sideboards with better suited and more versatile top-tier staples. Regardless, he's certainly not "Rofellos broken", and honestly, protean hulk combos still seem more degenerate that I wouldn't be at all surprised if they reverse their decision within the year. I'd have sooner unbanned Braids.
As for the Top ban in legacy, I'm not sure how to feel yet. I have many copies already, want more for edh, but don't even anticipate much of a price drop if any. Of course as time goes on we'll have a better picture of it's impact on the game and market price as the meta adapts. Sorry, I wrote a bit more than I initially anticipated. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
Anyhow, the best I can come up with myself is a game in the top 8 of a PTQ back during Urza block in which we were starting game 3 with time already expired, so the tiebreaker rule was that whoever had more life after 3 turns would win. And I lost to... healing salve.
That's the spirit!
I def get what you're saying. I 100% believe that a deck having 50%+ win rate against the field was busted and needed a nerf. However, the rest of the decks hardly needed such a huge nerf. With decks like Doomsday essentially dead. The slow play argument also really only applies to Miracles, as I personally rarely see other decks with top in them go to time like Miracles does. Most of these decks have a critical turn or critical amount of resource/cards they try to resolve, and win from that, Miracle can durdle all day because it doesn't have a guaranteed win after it reaches a certain point in game.
However it's too late now, we'll have to see what decks (elves) rise to the top with this ban. The ban also rubs me the wrong way with how WOTC's being doing things. You're gonna basically pull all tournament support from Legacy, then turn around and destroy a bunch of players decks? For what?
modern continues to be sweet
legacy got shaken up. I'm interested to see if banning top will affect legacy the same way banning splinter twin affected modern. as in miracles is kind of a deck that policed the format, like how twin policed modern. I wonder what kind of decks will become popular after miracles is no longer there to keep them down
I'll also continue to not care about vintage
Guardian is a cool cat, especially with the new cat lord, but I doubt Wizards would ban a face PW (even if it saw no other major play in it's Standard tenure til now-and it'd help Temur Tower outside of Cat Combo)
Now if only Harsh Mentor hit ability triggers or also cared about PW activations.
This guy knows what he's talking about. All of this makes logical sense
Thanks to Rivenor for the signature and XenoNinja for the Avi!
Quotes:
Best comment of the thread. WotC is afraid of destroying value of Gideon/Kiran/Cat? What kind of pervasive value destruction have these cards wrought on the entire format?
THIS
AND THIS
IMO, the logical step is for 4C Cat to gain more win % on Vehicles now that there is MD'able hate. Unless we're missing something huge, I'm guessing the PT Top 8 is 6 to 8 Cat variations, and Standard will be even more dead.
On tcg player seeing them at $10 for lightly played.
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/pro-tour-copycat/
Pure unbridled idiocy. I have no more words...
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
Behind the eyes of truth, is a world of illustions.
Dragon Riderof a Mist Dragonn anyway with the Dragon Riders Clan.
Yea but 2018-2019 later eldrazis will be in standard again.
Wow indeed!... Godwin's Law strikes with fewer than 75 posts? Seems a bit premature to say the least given the title and nature of this thread. In my opinion Leovold isn't even an oppressive card or hard to deal with. The very comparison alone is actually quite offensive and completely inappropriate. Is that really who this fictional cardboard game character reminds you of first and foremost? You should be ashamed and take a history lesson along with a sensitivity training class because I think you're spending too much time playing cards while not fully understanding and ignorantly minimizing the events and objectives of the third reich. How anyone could imply or even facetiously suggest that losing a card game under any circumstance is even remotely comparable to being rounded up, relocated, dehumanized, tortured, enslaved and used for forced labor, then slaughtered en-masse genocidally is beyond my comprehension. Alas, I digress. *sigh*
Back on topic...Even if I could understand how you could ever draw such a parallel, I probably still couldn't understand what the problem apparently was with Leovold to begin with. Talk about a banning decision that was capricious and arbitrary! Should I even bother to ask "Was he really that bad?" As per who or whom? What playgroups? which judges weighted in with their opinions? Confused, I'm so curious. What opposing Generals seemingly had the most difficulty against him? And were there sufficient attempts to understand why and adapt? Was one (or more) poll(s) taken before making a final decision? I certainly never got to vote, play as much commander as the next Magic player if not more, and wouldn't be biased in my oversight or dismissal of his potential. I never even built him despite getting my copy early on but wanted to eventually (my current bug deck is Mimeoplasm, I like all my decks optimized, and I only have so many duals). My friends and I also aren't intimidated to play against him (albeit with some decks more than others). I suppose we still can, but it's annoying that I could never play it outside my own living room if I were to build it. So yeah, what was the issue again? Can someone enlighten me? It's not like he's indestructible or has hexproof making him difficult to remove. Can't run prophet. Could he enter on turn 1? Sure, but it's unlikely without a perfect opening hand and still can't do too much damage (literally or metaphorically) before he's taken off the field as far as I'm concerned. Hell, I've had Kaalia in play with greaves and a big friend attacking on turn 2, not to mention various other equally powerful opening turns with other decks when starting which make it extremely difficult for opponents to catch up and gain tempo (if at all possible). Call me naive, but I don't even see how their justification for banning Leovold holds water when Grand Arbiter Augustin iv (amongst others) is much more annoying to play against, especially when he comes out on turn 2 after a turn 1 sol ring or mana crypt + medallion. Ever play a 3-color deck well against a turn 2 Purphorus or blood moon? It's usually a much quicker scoop-fest. What about players who drop an early mishra's workshop or cheat in an early Vorinclex? Those dropping ban-hammers should see how broken countless other generals
can beare (when playing first) with ideal opening hands while opponents' hands are only good to average. EDH has so much variance and politics as a singleton multiplayer format that I think people all too often seem to forget that circumstantially, virtually any (finely tuned) deck can beat any other. Top-deck tutor a terminus or use a chaos warp, problem solved. My point is that every deck should have a 'plan b', or at the very least a few answers to deal with almost every type of threat, disadvantageous situation, or general, because let's face facts...if all your deck does is focus on its own strategy while completely ignoring what your opposition might be doing, you'll always get caught being helpless in situations which are fairly easy to anticipate and should be just as easy to react to and neutralize at least some of the time. My personal conclusion can only be that an omission of sufficient removal or otherwise inability to deal Leovold is careless negligence at best if not intentionally poor deck building by his opposition. If anything, they should only have banned him in duel commander as a test since players in multiplayer games naturally team up against presumably more threatening generals/decks to offset and counterbalance their strengths.One can't help but wonder if perhaps the players (who were) having trouble against Leovold just weren't starting games as often, had sub-par cards in their own decks or opening hands, have bad match up pairings against him at no fault of their own (as some generals and archetypes inherently have slight to moderate advantages and/or disadvantages compared with others), poor luck (not drawing the right answers in time as needed while opponents seemingly hit theirs more often), and/or simply need to upgrade their sideboards with better suited and more versatile top-tier staples. Regardless, he's certainly not "Rofellos broken", and honestly, protean hulk combos still seem more degenerate that I wouldn't be at all surprised if they reverse their decision within the year. I'd have sooner unbanned Braids.
As for the Top ban in legacy, I'm not sure how to feel yet. I have many copies already, want more for edh, but don't even anticipate much of a price drop if any. Of course as time goes on we'll have a better picture of it's impact on the game and market price as the meta adapts. Sorry, I wrote a bit more than I initially anticipated. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
In theory, any given player with a specific deck could say that about a given card/strategy in the format. As well as the opposite.
And neither of those statements make them fact for the entire format as whole.
Yep it's like a average of $13 for both version at mint/lightly played.
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!