My brother is gonna be pretty sad the opal got banned affinity was his first deck and it wasn’t even that deck that caused it to get banned it was urza decks
But seriously oko ban in modern you guys will think I’m crazy but I didn’t see that coming at all
Maybe now I can get Mycosynth
And yea I highly anticipated they will give balistia and Heliod combo a chance before they shoot the ban gun
We’re also aware of the community buzz around the combination of Heliod, Sun-Crowned and Walking Ballista in Pioneer. In keeping with our philosophy of letting the Pioneer metagame prove itself through play results, our plan is not to take any preemptive action against this combination. If, after the Pioneer Players Tour and Grand Prix tournaments, the results of league and tournament play bear out that this combination is a long-term threat to the health of the format, we’ll consider changes at that time.
So they knows about Heliod and Walking Ballista. They probably have their forum scouts checking out buzz on what could potentially be the next BUST ME OPEN WIDE NOW! combo that will require a good ol' fashioned ban hammer. If they get rid of Ballista but not Heliod you might want to stock up on Triskelion in case
'buster
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset. Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
They can't pre-empt Ban Ballista or Heliod without actual results.
Triskelion also costs 6 mana, as compared to two for Ballista, so it's unlikely to see play.
Mox Opal should have been bannend aeons ago, and this is coming from someone that really enjoyed Lantern Control; Lattice is just super uninteractive abd so is Oko, good riddance to all!
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The "Crazy One", playing casual magic and occasionally dipping his toes into regular play since 1994.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
Please, mill me. Mill my important cards. Mill my lands. Mill it all. Because I will still deal 20 damage before you can mill 45 cards most every time.
Triskelion is not legal in Pioneer. The statement seems to be directed towards Pioneer and not Modern, but who knows.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
I’m glad they’re aware of the Heliod combo. Wish they’d ban a part of it so people won’t hoard Heliod for this silly and likely temporary reason.
Can we just ban Oko in commander and call it a day?
No world of no. I might be the only one on the planet to admit it but I love oko, Commander is the only place he has left.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Embrace the dark you call a home,
Gaze upon an empty, white throne
A legacy of lies,
A familiar disguise
Sing with me a song of conquest and fate
The black pillar cracks beneath its weight
Night breaks through the day, hard as a stone
Lost in thoughts all alone
I’m glad they’re aware of the Heliod combo. Wish they’d ban a part of it so people won’t hoard Heliod for this silly and likely temporary reason.
Can we just ban Oko in commander and call it a day?
I think it's still very possible that Oko will end up banned in commander....
mainly because transforming commanders to elks is FAR stronger than removing them by destroying, exiling or whatever.
people may start complaining and labeling it "unfun" and then it becomes banned there as well.
It doesn't look like that for now, but Oko can make your commander into a Elk and then steal it next turn....
when that happens in 1x1 commander you think you need to rethink your life... lol.
I’m glad they’re aware of the Heliod combo. Wish they’d ban a part of it so people won’t hoard Heliod for this silly and likely temporary reason.
Can we just ban Oko in commander and call it a day?
I think it's still very possible that Oko will end up banned in commander....
mainly because transforming commanders to elks is FAR stronger than removing them by destroying, exiling or whatever.
people may start complaining and labeling it "unfun" and then it becomes banned there as well.
It doesn't look like that for now, but Oko can make your commander into a Elk and then steal it next turn....
when that happens in 1x1 commander you think you need to rethink your life... lol.
A friend uses him a lot. Oko is not that bad when you have 3 opponents gunning to kill him ASAP. Would not surprise me if the committee does ban him though. Really depends on how many people start fielding him and how many start complaining online.
Would he have still been broken with a -1 instead of a +1? The play pattern seems to have been make a lot of elk, and maybe some food. If it was make about of food and maybe some Elks, that feels less busted in the abstract. But I dunno.
Oko is genuinely unfun in commander. Even gets around indestructible. Any good card will have 3 opponents against it. Prophet of Kruphix for example; so it’s not a valid reason. Oko isn’t even tolerable in commander of all formats. It’s just very poor design that I find highly astounding slipped passed play testing, regardless of what excuses they’ve made for it. Just ban it across the board. Even as someone who loves Simic and shirtless men I can’t stand the design of that card to even use it myself. It just feels cheap.
I feel like Ballista is more likely to get the ban than Heliod. It’s a matter of time. No way that combo is surviving. Heliod will just have to stand out for his intended design, not a combo like that. He’s a well designed white card.
I said I wouldn't really be surprised if Oko got banned in modern. I'm not really surprised.
Mox Opal and Mycosinth are explicitly them targeting more oppressive/unfun cards just as much as it is powerful cards, to everyone upset/uncertain about those ones—
Mox Opal has long contributed to strategies that seek to end the game quickly and suddenly, whether with explosive attacks, one-turn win combos, or by locking out the opponent with “prison” elements.
While the primary motivation for ((banning Mycosynth)) is the unfun play pattern,
I’m glad they’re aware of the Heliod combo. Wish they’d ban a part of it so people won’t hoard Heliod for this silly and likely temporary reason.
Can we just ban Oko in commander and call it a day?
I think it's still very possible that Oko will end up banned in commander....
mainly because transforming commanders to elks is FAR stronger than removing them by destroying, exiling or whatever.
people may start complaining and labeling it "unfun" and then it becomes banned there as well.
It doesn't look like that for now, but Oko can make your commander into a Elk and then steal it next turn....
when that happens in 1x1 commander you think you need to rethink your life... lol.
A friend uses him a lot. Oko is not that bad when you have 3 opponents gunning to kill him ASAP. Would not surprise me if the committee does ban him though. Really depends on how many people start fielding him and how many start complaining online.
well, in multiplayer free for all games, it really doesn't matter.
too much chaos for anything other than a board killing combo to be relevant.
I'm still trying to find any group anywhere in which big table commander free for alls don' become a race for who combos and is not countered first every single damn time... lol.
the only way that happens is if you play the "fair play" card and makes everyone to avoid instant win combos, because if you don't then everyone will always simply do that.
you either play the combo or a control heavy enough to disallow other people to combo.... there's no other way to win in a FFA game....
and, yes, sure, in a FFA game where anyone drops Oko, he'll be instantly killed, but that's just because of how stupid big of a threat it is.
Oko is genuinely unfun in commander. Even gets around indestructible. Any good card will have 3 opponents against it. Prophet of Kruphix for example; so it’s not a valid reason. Oko isn’t even tolerable in commander of all formats. It’s just very poor design that I find highly astounding slipped passed play testing, regardless of what excuses they’ve made for it. Just ban it across the board. Even as someone who loves Simic and shirtless men I can’t stand the design of that card to even use it myself. It just feels cheap.
I feel like Ballista is more likely to get the ban than Heliod. It’s a matter of time. No way that combo is surviving. Heliod will just have to stand out for his intended design, not a combo like that. He’s a well designed white card.
Yeah but commander has other options that can totally pacify a commander. I would argue that Darksteel Mutation, Imprisoned in the Moon, and Song of the Dryads are all a lot worse than Oko for the fact that the transformations dodges most creature based board wipes. If your commander gets elked you could always set up a political move to have an opponent swing into Oko or have one of their creatures block your elk so you can get it into the command zone. His -5 is a problem, but again then you would have to ban a plethora of cards that could take control of your commander. Prophet of Kruphix is another matter all together. Prophet untaps your entire team all of your lands and gives all of your creatures flash and unlike Oko can't be attacked directly. You could end up playing around 3 or more extra spells before you end up back on your turn. Oko is emmensly powerful in 1v1 enviroments but his power is just as fair as other cards in multiplayer. Leave my elk man alone lol.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Embrace the dark you call a home,
Gaze upon an empty, white throne
A legacy of lies,
A familiar disguise
Sing with me a song of conquest and fate
The black pillar cracks beneath its weight
Night breaks through the day, hard as a stone
Lost in thoughts all alone
Oko is annoying in commander, but quite frankly is around the threat level that any viable commander deck should be able to produce outside of very casual play. I like that he nerfs opposing commanders. I consider it poor play design when a deck relies on it's commander board state to win instead of the construction of the 99, and I appreciate cards that punish such a lack of forethought.
The mention of heliod and WB was clearly directed at pioneer. They focused on this specific two card interaction which is available in that format. In modern it would be more of heliod-x interactions since there are several other cards heliod could chain with in modern, such as the aforementioned but slow triskelion or the much more viable option of spike feeder.
Yeah but commander has other options that can totally pacify a commander. I would argue that Darksteel Mutation, Imprisoned in the Moon, and Song of the Dryads are all a lot worse than Oko for the fact that the transformations dodges most creature based board wipes.
I would argue that auras are much easier to interact with than Oko just snapping his fingers and turning off your commander. And that's on top of the fact that Oko is repeatable. Aura-based removal can be frustrating, but it still feels far more fair than what Oko can do.
I'm still trying to find any group anywhere in which big table commander free for alls don' become a race for who combos and is not countered first every single damn time... lol.
the only way that happens is if you play the "fair play" card and makes everyone to avoid instant win combos, because if you don't then everyone will always simply do that.
you either play the combo or a control heavy enough to disallow other people to combo.... there's no other way to win in a FFA game....
and, yes, sure, in a FFA game where anyone drops Oko, he'll be instantly killed, but that's just because of how stupid big of a threat it is.
It sounds like everyone you played with wants to play cEDH. Casual groups still retain balance between combo-control-aggro strategies. The higher the power level of the playgroup the more it gravitates toward combo winconditions. Which is unfortunate because I would gladly play cEDH with more varied winconditions.
Yeah but commander has other options that can totally pacify a commander. I would argue that Darksteel Mutation, Imprisoned in the Moon, and Song of the Dryads are all a lot worse than Oko for the fact that the transformations dodges most creature based board wipes.
I would argue that auras are much easier to interact with than Oko just snapping his fingers and turning off your commander. And that's on top of the fact that Oko is repeatable. Aura-based removal can be frustrating, but it still feels far more fair than what Oko can do.
Auras, yes, but elkified commander remains a creature which dies easily in block, to removal and can be sacrificed to something (outlets for that should be present in well built decks as preventive measure against stealing your creatures etc, High Market is basically free include). Like @utonacho said, too much reliance on your commander makes you vulnerable to a lot of stuff and well built decks should have measures to mitigate that or, if they use commander as combo piece, they should play their commander when they go off which makes Oko do nothing against it.
As for Heliod... Play-design does not consist of idiots. They know perfectly well what they are doing, which is selling packs with chase mythic. If it becomes too powerful it's not their problem, it will get the axe and the problem will be passed on players who shelled out money for this card. If it's not overpowered? Well then everything is fine and we will just have more deckbuilding options.
I'm still trying to find any group anywhere in which big table commander free for alls don' become a race for who combos and is not countered first every single damn time... lol.
the only way that happens is if you play the "fair play" card and makes everyone to avoid instant win combos, because if you don't then everyone will always simply do that.
you either play the combo or a control heavy enough to disallow other people to combo.... there's no other way to win in a FFA game....
and, yes, sure, in a FFA game where anyone drops Oko, he'll be instantly killed, but that's just because of how stupid big of a threat it is.
It sounds like everyone you played with wants to play cEDH. Casual groups still retain balance between combo-control-aggro strategies. The higher the power level of the playgroup the more it gravitates toward combo winconditions. Which is unfortunate because I would gladly play cEDH with more varied winconditions.
yeah, thank god for playgroups that actually care about good games and dismantle the "hey, I won" decks.
and no, I don't want to play CEDH, I mostly don`t even want to play EDH. My experience with the format has not been good all along mainly because like 70% of the time you bring 2 unknown guys to a very casual table, one of them will have a combo do burst the entire table down on turn 6 or something.
My point was just that.... if you don't enforce a local rule to avoid instant win combos in FFA matches, then, every single one of those will be decided by those every single time.... because the combo will win or because it will be countered enough times so the guy playing it will only be frustrated.
so.... banning anything at all will always simply be irrelevant unless that thing makes such combos even faster somehow....
I just said that because the argument that Oko could be labeled as "unfun" was countered with "when you drop it, all your 3 opponents will bash him down"
and sure he'd not be that much of an issue in a FFA multiplayer game.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
But seriously oko ban in modern you guys will think I’m crazy but I didn’t see that coming at all
Maybe now I can get Mycosynth
And yea I highly anticipated they will give balistia and Heliod combo a chance before they shoot the ban gun
This part here caught my attention:
We’re also aware of the community buzz around the combination of Heliod, Sun-Crowned and Walking Ballista in Pioneer. In keeping with our philosophy of letting the Pioneer metagame prove itself through play results, our plan is not to take any preemptive action against this combination. If, after the Pioneer Players Tour and Grand Prix tournaments, the results of league and tournament play bear out that this combination is a long-term threat to the health of the format, we’ll consider changes at that time.
So they knows about Heliod and Walking Ballista. They probably have their forum scouts checking out buzz on what could potentially be the next BUST ME OPEN WIDE NOW! combo that will require a good ol' fashioned ban hammer. If they get rid of Ballista but not Heliod you might want to stock up on Triskelion in case
'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset.
Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
Can we just ban Oko in commander and call it a day?
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
Triskelion also costs 6 mana, as compared to two for Ballista, so it's unlikely to see play.
Mox Opal should have been bannend aeons ago, and this is coming from someone that really enjoyed Lantern Control; Lattice is just super uninteractive abd so is Oko, good riddance to all!
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
Hopefully.
'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset.
Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
"We know its OP, but please buy our product, before we ban the cards you spend money on."
----
Pathetic idiots, seriously ...
What is their PLAYTEST team actually doing all day ?
Do your job and PLAYTEST the cards for the formats you support.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
I'm currently looking for:
80 UltraPro Sorin Markov Sleeves
80 UltraPro Sarkhan the Mad SleevesGot em'80 UltraPro Ajani Vengeant Sleeves
80 UltraPro Nicol Bolas Sleeves (Conflux)
No world of no. I might be the only one on the planet to admit it but I love oko, Commander is the only place he has left.
Gaze upon an empty, white throne
A legacy of lies,
A familiar disguise
Sing with me a song of conquest and fate
The black pillar cracks beneath its weight
Night breaks through the day, hard as a stone
Lost in thoughts all alone
I think it's still very possible that Oko will end up banned in commander....
mainly because transforming commanders to elks is FAR stronger than removing them by destroying, exiling or whatever.
people may start complaining and labeling it "unfun" and then it becomes banned there as well.
It doesn't look like that for now, but Oko can make your commander into a Elk and then steal it next turn....
when that happens in 1x1 commander you think you need to rethink your life... lol.
A friend uses him a lot. Oko is not that bad when you have 3 opponents gunning to kill him ASAP. Would not surprise me if the committee does ban him though. Really depends on how many people start fielding him and how many start complaining online.
I feel like Ballista is more likely to get the ban than Heliod. It’s a matter of time. No way that combo is surviving. Heliod will just have to stand out for his intended design, not a combo like that. He’s a well designed white card.
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
Mox Opal and Mycosinth are explicitly them targeting more oppressive/unfun cards just as much as it is powerful cards, to everyone upset/uncertain about those ones—
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
well, in multiplayer free for all games, it really doesn't matter.
too much chaos for anything other than a board killing combo to be relevant.
I'm still trying to find any group anywhere in which big table commander free for alls don' become a race for who combos and is not countered first every single damn time... lol.
the only way that happens is if you play the "fair play" card and makes everyone to avoid instant win combos, because if you don't then everyone will always simply do that.
you either play the combo or a control heavy enough to disallow other people to combo.... there's no other way to win in a FFA game....
and, yes, sure, in a FFA game where anyone drops Oko, he'll be instantly killed, but that's just because of how stupid big of a threat it is.
Yeah but commander has other options that can totally pacify a commander. I would argue that Darksteel Mutation, Imprisoned in the Moon, and Song of the Dryads are all a lot worse than Oko for the fact that the transformations dodges most creature based board wipes. If your commander gets elked you could always set up a political move to have an opponent swing into Oko or have one of their creatures block your elk so you can get it into the command zone. His -5 is a problem, but again then you would have to ban a plethora of cards that could take control of your commander. Prophet of Kruphix is another matter all together. Prophet untaps your entire team all of your lands and gives all of your creatures flash and unlike Oko can't be attacked directly. You could end up playing around 3 or more extra spells before you end up back on your turn. Oko is emmensly powerful in 1v1 enviroments but his power is just as fair as other cards in multiplayer. Leave my elk man alone lol.
Gaze upon an empty, white throne
A legacy of lies,
A familiar disguise
Sing with me a song of conquest and fate
The black pillar cracks beneath its weight
Night breaks through the day, hard as a stone
Lost in thoughts all alone
The mention of heliod and WB was clearly directed at pioneer. They focused on this specific two card interaction which is available in that format. In modern it would be more of heliod-x interactions since there are several other cards heliod could chain with in modern, such as the aforementioned but slow triskelion or the much more viable option of spike feeder.
Auras, yes, but elkified commander remains a creature which dies easily in block, to removal and can be sacrificed to something (outlets for that should be present in well built decks as preventive measure against stealing your creatures etc, High Market is basically free include). Like @utonacho said, too much reliance on your commander makes you vulnerable to a lot of stuff and well built decks should have measures to mitigate that or, if they use commander as combo piece, they should play their commander when they go off which makes Oko do nothing against it.
As for Heliod... Play-design does not consist of idiots. They know perfectly well what they are doing, which is selling packs with chase mythic. If it becomes too powerful it's not their problem, it will get the axe and the problem will be passed on players who shelled out money for this card. If it's not overpowered? Well then everything is fine and we will just have more deckbuilding options.
yeah, thank god for playgroups that actually care about good games and dismantle the "hey, I won" decks.
and no, I don't want to play CEDH, I mostly don`t even want to play EDH. My experience with the format has not been good all along mainly because like 70% of the time you bring 2 unknown guys to a very casual table, one of them will have a combo do burst the entire table down on turn 6 or something.
My point was just that.... if you don't enforce a local rule to avoid instant win combos in FFA matches, then, every single one of those will be decided by those every single time.... because the combo will win or because it will be countered enough times so the guy playing it will only be frustrated.
so.... banning anything at all will always simply be irrelevant unless that thing makes such combos even faster somehow....
I just said that because the argument that Oko could be labeled as "unfun" was countered with "when you drop it, all your 3 opponents will bash him down"
and sure he'd not be that much of an issue in a FFA multiplayer game.