As mentioned on the newest Secret Lair superdrop page, Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath is getting banned in Pioneer, Historic, and Modern (and maybe Legacy, Wizards isn't sure yet). This post will be updated if either Uro does get banned in Legacy, or if something else happens.
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."
See the pattern??? Oko > Uro > Tibalt 2.0 > next OP card in Forgotten Realms or Innistrad
I wish they'd finally ban Oko in Legacy. The fact they haven't and are considering banning Uro... shows they have no idea of what they are doing.
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Currently Playing: Standard:
Nothing, the format Bores me! Legacy: RBurn (Made on the Cheap!)R RGBelcherRG WSoldier StompyW BReanimatorB EDH: BUGRWSliver OverlordWRGUB BGeth, Lord of the VaultB
See the pattern??? Oko > Uro > Tibalt 2.0 > next OP card in Forgotten Realms or Innistrad
I wish they'd finally ban Oko in Legacy. The fact they haven't and are considering banning Uro... shows they have no idea of what they are doing.
They potentially could still ban Oko. This is just them getting it out there that they are definitely banning Uro so people don't buy the drop and feel cheated by a later announcement.
There's been a consecutive banning in every standard set (for the most part) since Ravnica Allegiance. I don't think that's ever happened even during the days of Mirrodin 1.0.
Whether Uro is banned people will still want the alternate artwork.
'buster
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'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset. Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
It's not Tibalt 2.0, it's Tibalt 3.0. Tibalt, rakish instigator is an amazing and yet fair designed card. It was my fav in standard when legal, hosed so much of the white lifegain nonsense out there.
It's not Tibalt 2.0, it's Tibalt 3.0. Tibalt, rakish instigator is an amazing and yet fair designed card. It was my fav in standard when legal, hosed so much of the white lifegain nonsense out there.
Thanks for the correction, I will fix it above. Tibalt 2.0 was entirely forgetable for me.
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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."
See the pattern??? Oko > Uro > Tibalt 2.0 > next OP card in Forgotten Realms or Innistrad
You forgot Omnath, the Companions and something from M21
Omnath isn't banned across the near spectrum like the Oko and Uro will. Companions are still around too, just nerfed not banned. (For now)
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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."
People need to realize that they intend to keep doing this. Their goal is to keep printing cards they can ban.
Banning cards isn't really in WotC's interest. Big money cards like Oko and Uro have lost value as a result of being banned.
It's more that it is in WotC's interest to push the envelope with big money cards like Oko and Uro to make sure they are highly sought after, and as a result, a number of such cards have been over the top. If you're deliberately aiming for top of the pack, sometimes they fall under and are more mediocre, sometimes they go over.
I'd say it's a case of WotC taking too many risks with these cards without enough playtesting to make sure they're in line.
Plus, WotC works on a delay between finalising the set and printing, so banning have flow-on effects of throwing off the balancing of the metagame that future sets were developed around. So banning can end up chaining like that.
Ok, so those formats will be shaken a bit, exciting times incoming !
If Uro gets banned in Legacy but not Oko, you know what I'll take it. But Oko is still the most over-represented card, it's in 75% of the Trop Island decks (Uro is in only 50%), and either ban wouldn't kill those said decks. You can replace the banned cards with other powerful 3-mana threats (Narset, TNN, Mentor, etc...), which would be acceptable. Wait & See.
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Pioneer - A bunch of stuff Modern - Humans Legacy - Grixis Phoenix / Death & Taxes
People need to realize that they intend to keep doing this. Their goal is to keep printing cards they can ban.
Banning cards isn't really in WotC's interest. Big money cards like Oko and Uro have lost value as a result of being banned.
It's more that it is in WotC's interest to push the envelope with big money cards like Oko and Uro to make sure they are highly sought after, and as a result, a number of such cards have been over the top. If you're deliberately aiming for top of the pack, sometimes they fall under and are more mediocre, sometimes they go over.
I'd say it's a case of WotC taking too many risks with these cards without enough playtesting to make sure they're in line.
Plus, WotC works on a delay between finalising the set and printing, so banning have flow-on effects of throwing off the balancing of the metagame that future sets were developed around. So banning can end up chaining like that.
I must vehemently disagree with you. It's not oversight to continue doing this kind of thing. It's a model and it's not an uncommon model in mobile gaming or free to play gaming. They've determined that they have sold enough of the product - the remaining profit exists on the secondary market where they are only indirect beneficiaries.
The decision makes perfect sense. They've made their money off Uro - time to make room for the next pushed crap to gouge.
People need to realize that they intend to keep doing this. Their goal is to keep printing cards they can ban.
Banning cards isn't really in WotC's interest. Big money cards like Oko and Uro have lost value as a result of being banned.
It's more that it is in WotC's interest to push the envelope with big money cards like Oko and Uro to make sure they are highly sought after, and as a result, a number of such cards have been over the top. If you're deliberately aiming for top of the pack, sometimes they fall under and are more mediocre, sometimes they go over.
I'd say it's a case of WotC taking too many risks with these cards without enough playtesting to make sure they're in line.
Plus, WotC works on a delay between finalising the set and printing, so banning have flow-on effects of throwing off the balancing of the metagame that future sets were developed around. So banning can end up chaining like that.
I will preface this with the statement that I am a designer by profession.
You don't encounter situations where your cards consistently trip bans by accidently pushing cards too far. Design is an iterative process and even when you are designing a backlog of product in advance - you only get to ride the "oops" train for so long before it is either apparent that the oops are deliberate or that your design process is a wreck. In this particular case, the bans have gone on long enough and with such frequency that whoever is in charge of it should have recognized their mistakes by now and addressed them or embraced them.
Not sure what you think WOTC has to lose from banning cards. The adjustment to their ban schedule has suggested they realized it is only upside for them. They get to push product short term, wait for print runs or demand to dwindle, then address the card. A classic bait and switch we have seen in video games for years now, where they release characters then power them down later.
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LEGACY|UWStonebladeCOMMANDER|UBGThe Mimeoplsm Ooze & Aghhs!MODERN|UWAzorius Control THE JUICE[BOX]³ CUBE
You don't encounter situations where your cards consistently trip bans by accidently pushing cards too far. Design is an iterative process and even when you are designing a backlog of product in advance - you only get to ride the "oops" train for so long before it is either apparent that the oops are deliberate or that your design process is a wreck. In this particular case, the bans have gone on long enough and with such frequency that whoever is in charge of it should have recognized their mistakes by now and addressed them or embraced them.
You don't encounter situations where your cards consistently trip bans by accidently pushing cards too far. Design is an iterative process and even when you are designing a backlog of product in advance - you only get to ride the "oops" train for so long before it is either apparent that the oops are deliberate or that your design process is a wreck. In this particular case, the bans have gone on long enough and with such frequency that whoever is in charge of it should have recognized their mistakes by now and addressed them or embraced them.
You're fighting against Hanlon's razor.
There is an entire team working on these sets. It isn't stupidity past a certain point. The likely hood of it being a mistake drops dramatically as time increases and as the number of designers involved increases.
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In the end, they can totally produce OP cards, as long as they put in some proper answers to these cards, so a metagame can evolve around them.
If every deck plays Uro as green can splash any color without a problem and not playing Uro becomes a "mistake" , the only decks not running the stupid card are decks that intentionally try to work under it (like red aggro decks).
If a card can warp a format so hard around itself, it simply means the answers are crap and the format is not equipped to work with its pushed cards.
----
Every time you make something powerful, produce a properly powerful answer to it (and put some form of answer in every color).
If each color has something powerful decks will naturally evolve around these cards, so a format can become stale quickly, if anything else lacks behind in power level.
Putting a card in your deck should have a reason and a cost, being ALL upside and good in every situation is producing cancerous cards and it becomes almost impossible to print any proper answer to such cards.
In the end, they can totally produce OP cards, as long as they put in some proper answers to these cards, so a metagame can evolve around them.
If every deck plays Uro as green can splash any color without a problem and not playing Uro becomes a "mistake" , the only decks not running the stupid card are decks that intentionally try to work under it (like red aggro decks).
If a card can warp a format so hard around itself, it simply means the answers are crap and the format is not equipped to work with its pushed cards.
----
Every time you make something powerful, produce a properly powerful answer to it (and put some form of answer in every color).
If each color has something powerful decks will naturally evolve around these cards, so a format can become stale quickly, if anything else lacks behind in power level.
Putting a card in your deck should have a reason and a cost, being ALL upside and good in every situation is producing cancerous cards and it becomes almost impossible to print any proper answer to such cards.
But answers to powerful cards are... unfun teehee
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LEGACY|UWStonebladeCOMMANDER|UBGThe Mimeoplsm Ooze & Aghhs!MODERN|UWAzorius Control THE JUICE[BOX]³ CUBE
In the end, they can totally produce OP cards, as long as they put in some proper answers to these cards, so a metagame can evolve around them.
If every deck plays Uro as green can splash any color without a problem and not playing Uro becomes a "mistake" , the only decks not running the stupid card are decks that intentionally try to work under it (like red aggro decks).
If a card can warp a format so hard around itself, it simply means the answers are crap and the format is not equipped to work with its pushed cards.
----
Every time you make something powerful, produce a properly powerful answer to it (and put some form of answer in every color).
If each color has something powerful decks will naturally evolve around these cards, so a format can become stale quickly, if anything else lacks behind in power level.
Putting a card in your deck should have a reason and a cost, being ALL upside and good in every situation is producing cancerous cards and it becomes almost impossible to print any proper answer to such cards.
While some of these cards are unexciting, a few of them are main-deckable. We have a mainstream deck that packs crypt in the main deck for the purpose of targeting it with trickery... a deck which runs valki (which comes down before they can cast uro and steals it) and Ugin (which just kills Uro)... and Uro is STILL taking a ban.
Compared with everything listed above, what sort of “Good Answer” would need to be printed for something like Uro to be balanced? I honestly don’t think that even Path/StP would do much to stop it. I don’t think that mana leak or counterspell would do enough to stop it, either. Uro is simply a mistake, plain and simple.
In the end, they can totally produce OP cards, as long as they put in some proper answers to these cards, so a metagame can evolve around them.
If every deck plays Uro as green can splash any color without a problem and not playing Uro becomes a "mistake" , the only decks not running the stupid card are decks that intentionally try to work under it (like red aggro decks).
If a card can warp a format so hard around itself, it simply means the answers are crap and the format is not equipped to work with its pushed cards.
----
Every time you make something powerful, produce a properly powerful answer to it (and put some form of answer in every color).
If each color has something powerful decks will naturally evolve around these cards, so a format can become stale quickly, if anything else lacks behind in power level.
Putting a card in your deck should have a reason and a cost, being ALL upside and good in every situation is producing cancerous cards and it becomes almost impossible to print any proper answer to such cards.
but how powerful would that answer need to be?
I mean.... even if you somehow print Swords to Plowshares on standard today....
Uro is still stupid.
I play Uro, draw a card, ramp a land, gain 3 life.
you stp it before I sac.
at the end of this interaction I gained 9 life drew a card and ramped one mana for 1UG, you've spent W and a card so I don't do that again soon.
and Swords to Plowshares is arguably the strongest creature removal ever printed.
so... what level of removal would we need to print to keep cards like Uro in check? would those even be printable without trashing all formats?
I mean, legacy is packed with all the most poweful answers ever to everything, and they're still considering banning uro there.
While some of these cards are unexciting, a few of them are main-deckable. We have a mainstream deck that packs crypt in the main deck for the purpose of targeting it with trickery... a deck which runs valki (which comes down before they can cast uro and steals it) and Ugin (which just kills Uro)... and Uro is STILL taking a ban.
Compared with everything listed above, what sort of “Good Answer” would need to be printed for something like Uro to be balanced? I honestly don’t think that even Path/StP would do much to stop it. I don’t think that mana leak or counterspell would do enough to stop it, either. Uro is simply a mistake, plain and simple.
With cards like Uro a simple "card advantage" balance is required.
The card is used as an Explore + gain 3 life first, then its played from the graveyard (+1 card) as a hyper efficient 6/6 for 4 mana, which again draws a card (+1 card) and gains 3 life again, while also ramping the player.
So the moment someone plays a removal on Uro, the player already did draw 2 cards, gained 6 life, got 2 extra land drops, AND still has a 6/6 monster in play, that will keep drawing cards while attacking, AND if they dont exile it, it will come back for some more.
Yes, thats completely ridiculous and the answer to that needs to compensate all of the gains.
So what we talking here is tremendous (a very real problem of the power creep, that removal lacks behind).
Basically all the 1-for-1 removal does has no inherent card advantage, it will never really answer a problem like Uro.
The amount of exile removal speaks for itself, as non-exile removal wouldnt even remotely do anything to cards like Uro (and plenty more of the creatures that return from the graveyard).
----
Efficient removal like Swords to Plowshares could only be reasonable against Uro because you can hit it at instant speed the moment its first used to explore, then its exiled, but you still used a card to answer Uro, that provided a cantrip on its own, so the opponent has lost no card, while you spend a valuable removal, you lack behind.
And the classic issue of answer vs threat, the player with the Uro will never fall behind playing it, if the opponent does not have the answer right there, it just gets worse, a massive Snowball effect.
The removal will at best just do the 1-for-1 , if at all, nothing more, it will never produce card advantage, it can only produce tempo, as you spend less mana to get rid of a more expensive target.
So the extreme we would need to answer a card like Uro on a powerlevel standpoint would be tremendous, as the player using Uro would need to be punished for playing exactly that kind of card, so they might reconsider playing Uro at all.
To not get too much ahead of custom cards, but just something to imagine still for the cause of the argument:
Uros Demise B
Instant (Mythic rare)
Exile up to one creature, planeswalker or creature card from a graveyard with converted manacost 3 or less.
Until end of turn, if a player would gain life this turn, they lose that much life instead.
Until end of turn, if a player would draw a card this, except the first card they draw each turn, they exile a card from their hand instead.
The power level is tremendous, and it hits a lot more than just Uro, so the power creep into this kind of removal is equally disgusting and a format would need to acknowledge this removal and work around it to not get punished too harshly. But even a card like this might face a metagame of decks that are build so it does basically nothing against them.
Opposition Agent is the kind of hard pushed hate card against search effects, thats so tremendously powerful that a format needs to work around it and cannot just blindly fire lots of tutors around to get crushed by it.
To see a card like that is shocking at first, as we are not used to answers and removal being that efficient at all, while the threats get more powerful every day.
Making removal "only" cheap and efficient is not helping against cards that produce a snowball effect of card advantage.
While some of these cards are unexciting, a few of them are main-deckable. We have a mainstream deck that packs crypt in the main deck for the purpose of targeting it with trickery... a deck which runs valki (which comes down before they can cast uro and steals it) and Ugin (which just kills Uro)... and Uro is STILL taking a ban.
Compared with everything listed above, what sort of “Good Answer” would need to be printed for something like Uro to be balanced? I honestly don’t think that even Path/StP would do much to stop it. I don’t think that mana leak or counterspell would do enough to stop it, either. Uro is simply a mistake, plain and simple.
With cards like Uro a simple "card advantage" balance is required.
The card is used as an Explore + gain 3 life first, then its played from the graveyard (+1 card) as a hyper efficient 6/6 for 4 mana, which again draws a card (+1 card) and gains 3 life again, while also ramping the player.
So the moment someone plays a removal on Uro, the player already did draw 2 cards, gained 6 life, got 2 extra land drops, AND still has a 6/6 monster in play, that will keep drawing cards while attacking, AND if they dont exile it, it will come back for some more.
Yes, thats completely ridiculous and the answer to that needs to compensate all of the gains.
So what we talking here is tremendous (a very real problem of the power creep, that removal lacks behind).
Basically all the 1-for-1 removal does has no inherent card advantage, it will never really answer a problem like Uro.
The amount of exile removal speaks for itself, as non-exile removal wouldnt even remotely do anything to cards like Uro (and plenty more of the creatures that return from the graveyard).
----
Efficient removal like Swords to Plowshares could only be reasonable against Uro because you can hit it at instant speed the moment its first used to explore, then its exiled, but you still used a card to answer Uro, that provided a cantrip on its own, so the opponent has lost no card, while you spend a valuable removal, you lack behind.
And the classic issue of answer vs threat, the player with the Uro will never fall behind playing it, if the opponent does not have the answer right there, it just gets worse, a massive Snowball effect.
The removal will at best just do the 1-for-1 , if at all, nothing more, it will never produce card advantage, it can only produce tempo, as you spend less mana to get rid of a more expensive target.
So the extreme we would need to answer a card like Uro on a powerlevel standpoint would be tremendous, as the player using Uro would need to be punished for playing exactly that kind of card, so they might reconsider playing Uro at all.
To not get too much ahead of custom cards, but just something to imagine still for the cause of the argument:
Uros Demise B
Instant (Mythic rare)
Exile up to one creature, planeswalker or creature card from a graveyard with converted manacost 3 or less.
Until end of turn, if a player would gain life this turn, they lose that much life instead.
Until end of turn, if a player would draw a card this, except the first card they draw each turn, they exile a card from their hand instead.
The power level is tremendous, and it hits a lot more than just Uro, so the power creep into this kind of removal is equally disgusting and a format would need to acknowledge this removal and work around it to not get punished too harshly. But even a card like this might face a metagame of decks that are build so it does basically nothing against them.
Opposition Agent is the kind of hard pushed hate card against search effects, thats so tremendously powerful that a format needs to work around it and cannot just blindly fire lots of tutors around to get crushed by it.
To see a card like that is shocking at first, as we are not used to answers and removal being that efficient at all, while the threats get more powerful every day.
Making removal "only" cheap and efficient is not helping against cards that produce a snowball effect of card advantage.
yeah, even straight up "exile target permanent" for 0 doesn't undo everything that Uro did.
that said.....
when answers completely negate the entire card while costing less mana, then control becomes waaaaaay to strong.
pro-active play NEEDS to be slightly stronger, because if it's not, then control decks will simply take over the meta every time.
that's why they don't print Counterspell anymore.
negating the effects of virtually ANY card in the history of magic for 2 mana...
you counter their 4drop for 2 mana, and then do something else with your other 2 mana.
a card like that shifts the entire metagame to a position where you only play VERY CHEAP threats, or you go full on control.
it's a hard balance to really make work.
and yes, Uro is absolutely too strong, a crazy bonkers card.
but bringing answers to that level would only transform the meta into a crazy controlfest.
Yeah... can we collectively agree as a community that if a creature not only needs removal... not only needs to be exiled... not only needs this to happen at instant speed... not only needs to have all of its abilities negated... but needs to be actively punished by a card that would make the "good answers" of yesteryear blush to stop that card from suffusing every format in which it is legal... that the card was probably a mistake?
There is a point at which the tried truism of asking wizards to "add good answers" to add safety valves for good threats is no longer a practical response. I feel that Uro has passed that point by a good margin.
See the pattern??? Oko > Uro > Tibalt 3.0 > next OP card in Forgotten Realms or Innistrad
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 wish they'd finally ban Oko in Legacy. The fact they haven't and are considering banning Uro... shows they have no idea of what they are doing.
Currently Playing:
Standard:
Nothing, the format Bores me!
Legacy:
RBurn (Made on the Cheap!)R
RGBelcherRG
WSoldier StompyW
BReanimatorB
EDH:
BUGRWSliver OverlordWRGUB
BGeth, Lord of the VaultB
They potentially could still ban Oko. This is just them getting it out there that they are definitely banning Uro so people don't buy the drop and feel cheated by a later announcement.
Whether Uro is banned people will still want the alternate artwork.
'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset.
Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
THE JUICE[BOX]³ CUBE
Thanks for the correction, I will fix it above. Tibalt 2.0 was entirely forgetable for me.
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."
Omnath isn't banned across the near spectrum like the Oko and Uro will. Companions are still around too, just nerfed not banned. (For now)
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."
Banning cards isn't really in WotC's interest. Big money cards like Oko and Uro have lost value as a result of being banned.
It's more that it is in WotC's interest to push the envelope with big money cards like Oko and Uro to make sure they are highly sought after, and as a result, a number of such cards have been over the top. If you're deliberately aiming for top of the pack, sometimes they fall under and are more mediocre, sometimes they go over.
I'd say it's a case of WotC taking too many risks with these cards without enough playtesting to make sure they're in line.
Plus, WotC works on a delay between finalising the set and printing, so banning have flow-on effects of throwing off the balancing of the metagame that future sets were developed around. So banning can end up chaining like that.
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
If Uro gets banned in Legacy but not Oko, you know what I'll take it. But Oko is still the most over-represented card, it's in 75% of the Trop Island decks (Uro is in only 50%), and either ban wouldn't kill those said decks. You can replace the banned cards with other powerful 3-mana threats (Narset, TNN, Mentor, etc...), which would be acceptable. Wait & See.
I must vehemently disagree with you. It's not oversight to continue doing this kind of thing. It's a model and it's not an uncommon model in mobile gaming or free to play gaming. They've determined that they have sold enough of the product - the remaining profit exists on the secondary market where they are only indirect beneficiaries.
The decision makes perfect sense. They've made their money off Uro - time to make room for the next pushed crap to gouge.
I will preface this with the statement that I am a designer by profession.
You don't encounter situations where your cards consistently trip bans by accidently pushing cards too far. Design is an iterative process and even when you are designing a backlog of product in advance - you only get to ride the "oops" train for so long before it is either apparent that the oops are deliberate or that your design process is a wreck. In this particular case, the bans have gone on long enough and with such frequency that whoever is in charge of it should have recognized their mistakes by now and addressed them or embraced them.
Not sure what you think WOTC has to lose from banning cards. The adjustment to their ban schedule has suggested they realized it is only upside for them. They get to push product short term, wait for print runs or demand to dwindle, then address the card. A classic bait and switch we have seen in video games for years now, where they release characters then power them down later.
THE JUICE[BOX]³ CUBE
You're fighting against Hanlon's razor.
---
#BLM
#DefundThePolice
There is an entire team working on these sets. It isn't stupidity past a certain point. The likely hood of it being a mistake drops dramatically as time increases and as the number of designers involved increases.
THE JUICE[BOX]³ CUBE
If every deck plays Uro as green can splash any color without a problem and not playing Uro becomes a "mistake" , the only decks not running the stupid card are decks that intentionally try to work under it (like red aggro decks).
If a card can warp a format so hard around itself, it simply means the answers are crap and the format is not equipped to work with its pushed cards.
----
Every time you make something powerful, produce a properly powerful answer to it (and put some form of answer in every color).
If each color has something powerful decks will naturally evolve around these cards, so a format can become stale quickly, if anything else lacks behind in power level.
Putting a card in your deck should have a reason and a cost, being ALL upside and good in every situation is producing cancerous cards and it becomes almost impossible to print any proper answer to such cards.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
But answers to powerful cards are... unfun teehee
THE JUICE[BOX]³ CUBE
You know what? I don’t fully understand this.
agonizing demise
banishing light
cling to dust
eat to extinction
elspeth conquers death
Epic Downfall
Erebos’s Intervention
Extinction Event
Immersturm Predator
Kitesail Freebooter
Klothys, God of Destiny
Memory Leak
Ravenform
Return to Nature
Scavenging Ooze
Shadows’ Verdict
Skyclave Apparition
Soul-Guide Lantern
Tormod’s Crypt
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Valki, God of Lies
Weathered Runestone
While some of these cards are unexciting, a few of them are main-deckable. We have a mainstream deck that packs crypt in the main deck for the purpose of targeting it with trickery... a deck which runs valki (which comes down before they can cast uro and steals it) and Ugin (which just kills Uro)... and Uro is STILL taking a ban.
Compared with everything listed above, what sort of “Good Answer” would need to be printed for something like Uro to be balanced? I honestly don’t think that even Path/StP would do much to stop it. I don’t think that mana leak or counterspell would do enough to stop it, either. Uro is simply a mistake, plain and simple.
but how powerful would that answer need to be?
I mean.... even if you somehow print Swords to Plowshares on standard today....
Uro is still stupid.
I play Uro, draw a card, ramp a land, gain 3 life.
you stp it before I sac.
at the end of this interaction I gained 9 life drew a card and ramped one mana for 1UG, you've spent W and a card so I don't do that again soon.
and Swords to Plowshares is arguably the strongest creature removal ever printed.
so... what level of removal would we need to print to keep cards like Uro in check? would those even be printable without trashing all formats?
I mean, legacy is packed with all the most poweful answers ever to everything, and they're still considering banning uro there.
With cards like Uro a simple "card advantage" balance is required.
The card is used as an Explore + gain 3 life first, then its played from the graveyard (+1 card) as a hyper efficient 6/6 for 4 mana, which again draws a card (+1 card) and gains 3 life again, while also ramping the player.
So the moment someone plays a removal on Uro, the player already did draw 2 cards, gained 6 life, got 2 extra land drops, AND still has a 6/6 monster in play, that will keep drawing cards while attacking, AND if they dont exile it, it will come back for some more.
Yes, thats completely ridiculous and the answer to that needs to compensate all of the gains.
So what we talking here is tremendous (a very real problem of the power creep, that removal lacks behind).
Basically all the 1-for-1 removal does has no inherent card advantage, it will never really answer a problem like Uro.
The amount of exile removal speaks for itself, as non-exile removal wouldnt even remotely do anything to cards like Uro (and plenty more of the creatures that return from the graveyard).
----
Efficient removal like Swords to Plowshares could only be reasonable against Uro because you can hit it at instant speed the moment its first used to explore, then its exiled, but you still used a card to answer Uro, that provided a cantrip on its own, so the opponent has lost no card, while you spend a valuable removal, you lack behind.
And the classic issue of answer vs threat, the player with the Uro will never fall behind playing it, if the opponent does not have the answer right there, it just gets worse, a massive Snowball effect.
The removal will at best just do the 1-for-1 , if at all, nothing more, it will never produce card advantage, it can only produce tempo, as you spend less mana to get rid of a more expensive target.
So the extreme we would need to answer a card like Uro on a powerlevel standpoint would be tremendous, as the player using Uro would need to be punished for playing exactly that kind of card, so they might reconsider playing Uro at all.
To not get too much ahead of custom cards, but just something to imagine still for the cause of the argument:
Uros Demise B
Instant (Mythic rare)
Exile up to one creature, planeswalker or creature card from a graveyard with converted manacost 3 or less.
Until end of turn, if a player would gain life this turn, they lose that much life instead.
Until end of turn, if a player would draw a card this, except the first card they draw each turn, they exile a card from their hand instead.
The power level is tremendous, and it hits a lot more than just Uro, so the power creep into this kind of removal is equally disgusting and a format would need to acknowledge this removal and work around it to not get punished too harshly. But even a card like this might face a metagame of decks that are build so it does basically nothing against them.
Opposition Agent is the kind of hard pushed hate card against search effects, thats so tremendously powerful that a format needs to work around it and cannot just blindly fire lots of tutors around to get crushed by it.
To see a card like that is shocking at first, as we are not used to answers and removal being that efficient at all, while the threats get more powerful every day.
Making removal "only" cheap and efficient is not helping against cards that produce a snowball effect of card advantage.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
yeah, even straight up "exile target permanent" for 0 doesn't undo everything that Uro did.
that said.....
when answers completely negate the entire card while costing less mana, then control becomes waaaaaay to strong.
pro-active play NEEDS to be slightly stronger, because if it's not, then control decks will simply take over the meta every time.
that's why they don't print Counterspell anymore.
negating the effects of virtually ANY card in the history of magic for 2 mana...
you counter their 4drop for 2 mana, and then do something else with your other 2 mana.
a card like that shifts the entire metagame to a position where you only play VERY CHEAP threats, or you go full on control.
it's a hard balance to really make work.
and yes, Uro is absolutely too strong, a crazy bonkers card.
but bringing answers to that level would only transform the meta into a crazy controlfest.
There is a point at which the tried truism of asking wizards to "add good answers" to add safety valves for good threats is no longer a practical response. I feel that Uro has passed that point by a good margin.