I'm not against the idea of bans to weaken a strategy like the aforementioned, but I have to ask why all three cards needed to be banned. Banning Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is a fair ban for being generally obnoxious however you cheat it into play, so I doubt anyone would cry at its loss, but there are many game ending targets. Banning Baral, Chief of Compliance at least slows the deck down, and banning Polymorph means blue has to wait till what, 6 mana, to do the same - 5 with Baral as a commander. I'm not seeing why one particular deck needed to be so thoroughly eviscerated -- Jace, Vrynn's Prodigy too -- like they read that he'd be the next commander if Baral was banned and just said nope to that. Anyone have insight into the logic here? I made Baral Polymorph under traditional banlist guidelines, and thought I'd build it in such a way that it was legal in every commander of note, and discovered the whole deck is banned in every 1v1 format. Part of me is excited at the prospect - I must be playing with power if every 1v1 RC is practically ready to ban Island to make sure such an unstoppable force never graces table again.
Baral is pretty fine right now I think. We've barely seen it around here, and we have a really control-heavy meta. Polymorph was really the issue, and Emrakul. With both gone Baral needs to use Rise from the Tides or something, which isn't all that.
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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.
It seems I partly conflated French Commander, where Polymorph and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn are banned, and MTGO where Baral, Chief of Compliance and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn are banned. Googling "Baral banned" leads you to a variety of announcements, both official and Reddit/message-board. It seemed odd that such a budget deck (compared to the other decks dominating the field) would be such a boogeyman.
Yeah, I also think Baral is fine right now in Duel. Tournament results I see on MTGTOP8 don't show him as an oppressive force in the format.
No one is currently playing it at the LGS. Two friends of mine each had a Baral deck a few months ago and had moderate success with them, but they said they didn't like playing control and ended up disassembling them.
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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.
No one is currently playing it at the LGS. Two friends of mine each had a Baral deck a few months ago and had moderate success with them, but they said they didn't like playing control and ended up disassembling them.