Finally we have a Phoenix which is worthy of our format: Rekindling Phoenix from Rivals of Ixalan.
Its power level is there in my opinion, especially in a world of walkers(but other than Big Red I am not sure if it has any home).
The fact that it is very mana efficient (requiring no more mana after the 4 mana investment) and is great both on offence or defence makes it great in my view.
Checked out that card, and while I do think it has the coolest phoenix art I've seen in a while (other than wing shards, how many barn owl's do you see in MTG art), I think it will be frightfully too slow for the format...if they dialed it down to 3 mana certainly playable, but not even definitively better than Chandra's Phoenix. 10 for the art, because as a lover of the natural world, owls (while shocking simple beasts in regards to their central nervous system which is often erroneously tauted) are pretty bad ass predators.
I am getting behind this Phoenix regardless. On the play, it does not even allow the Loxodon Smiter to get in for any damage, and then this owl can ride the value train thereafter.
When Lowman summons his Loxodon Smiter, Saskia or Falkenrath Aristocrat, I'm going to do a chewie dance because of all the value I will get from my Phoenix!)
LOL, I don't know how you put that dancing wookie in your message, but he's pretty cool. When I think of 4CMC Red drops that bridge well for the value deck I tend to think of Chandra, Torch of Defiance and Fiery Confluence; there are certainly more and some may be better in certain decks. But I think you realistically want to be using this card offensively and gaining value from it when your opponent is forced to block it or remove it to abate a racing situation. I don't think this is a defensive card by the nature of its qualities, and it becomes a lot more dubious when you're trading down, ie loxodon smiter; I think what gives saskia and Falkenrath Aristocrat a leg up is that both hit out of nowhere, one wins the game near instantaneously in a racing situation or a underdeveloped opposing board and the other grinds out games due to evasion and resilience (and it's just great vs PWs). This card does not win races instantaneously, it's a grinding tool, and while it does have both evasion and resilience it's resilience comes at near Bogardan Hammer speed and it can't hit out of nowhere, ie you telegraph your intentions with it. The issue is two fold, one this card does not play a game of hidden information well, and two it's over all comparative card quality vice the cards displayed is lower...three toughness is an issue as is the lack of haste. That said, I think this card will make a big splash in standard, but I think it's time in the limelight will die there...despite my love of the card's art.
I wanted to take the time to share some thoughts on the current 100c format and the future of it. Since the beginning of my odyssey in this wonderful format, it’s always been a quest of mine to build more and better decks, to explore all the options available through the long history of Magic: The Gathering’s past and current design trend. I’ve given many things a try from simple White Weenie Aggro, Midrange of many varieties, Reanimation Combo, RG Ramp, Storm/Doomsday Combo, Red Deck Wins, Elfball Alluren, URMoon, Esper Combo Control, BUGLoam Control, Jeskai Aggro/Control, Grixis Control, and many things in between or wackier.
For me the format is one of creation and exploration; that’s what keeps it fresh for me and gives me a desire to keep coming back to it for more gaming experience. When I first took over as host of the event, I proposed sweeping changes to the format due to strategy dominance of one deck: 4 Color Blood. The format ban list deliberately nerfed the top end power of control decks and the most powerful (but symmetrical) draw engines and tutors were banned weakening combo strategies in the format. This led to a format where generally folks smashed creatures into each other, but any deck that had the most efficient and disruptive creatures were able to win: enter 4 Color Blood. A strategy that is and was dominant in many other forms of highlander to include German Highlander and Canadian Highlander, despite a more permissive ban list, or, the case of the latter, no ban list at all.
The changes we made were initially debated quite hotly, but we adapted and I think found over time that while there were more lopsided matchups, there was also more general health in the overall meta and the good creature decks still did well. At this point in the season we currently have a healthy spread of general archetypes; with 6 control decks winning the tournament (ranging from 5C Scapeshift to simple U/W Control), 8 midrange decks (still heavily 4CB variants, but some R/G midrange and ramp, as well as U based aggro control decks), and 5 aggro decks (WW primarily and one RDW).
These numbers would tell of a healthy meta spread in the format.
However, I think when one measures the rate of presentation (how often each deck or archetype was played) vs rate of winning we’d come to a different determination of how healthy each archetype is. WW is the most represented deck with 600% more presentation than U/W based combo control decks but only four total 1st place finishes vs three 1st place finishes by the U/W lists. And of a large presentation of RDW over the course of this season, it has only grabbed one solitary 1st place finish. Why is that? I would proffer that it’s a by product of the continued strength of midrange and the boon to control of the powerful draw engines in Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time, and the most powerful card in the format: Mystical Tutor, sometimes a win condition and sometimes vast tempo and card advantage through use of terminus, or Life from the Loam. However, I again, I do not think that the best way to empower aggressive strategies is to weaken any given one archetype, but to make proactive changes to unban cards that make pure combo decks (storm, academy combo/eggs, reanimator, high tide) more viable.
I know the steady player base, and I appreciate you all, has a healthy distaste for what they assume to be Magic’s dark underbelly: Combo. But let’s make a causal assessment of what good combo decks do in a format. A good combo deck that can goldfish un-interrupted as soon as turn 2 but reliably at turn 4-5 (in the 100 card format) presents a meta solution to the midrange fair decks (like 4CB) and is reliably efficient enough and disruptive enough to get under control decks (beat those dirty Dig Through Time players). What a good 100 card combo deck does not do is beat aggressive decks reliably.
Historically, high tide decks in standard, type II [sic] were held in check not by opposing counter magic, but by dark ritual into phyrexian negator. This deck, similar to what I see as a reliable fishing kill at turn 4 or 5 for combo in 100 card singleton, could unreliably kill on T3 but realistically killed on T4. A turn 1 phyrexian negator against a non-interactive high tide deck followed up further clocks just smashed the mono blue combo deck into oblivion. The “Suicide” Black aggressive deck in turn lost to more midrange solutions or RDW, Sligh [sic] of the time, which in turn lost to the HT, because, believe it or not, RDW fished slower than Black Aggro did, but boy did it ever beat the living snot out of Black Aggro.
My point is, despite the distaste for combo decks, they serve a very important role in maintaining balance in the health of a format. Certainly, there are times when combo has grown to too great a dominance in a format, reference the Memory Jar decks of Combo Winter, but this is also true of all the archetypes; Draw-Go & Forbiddian (control and aggro/control respectively), Hazoret/Ramunap Red (in the recent past for aggro). Most standard formats tend to be defined by three dominant decks that abide the natural strategies provided by the available card pool. Almost every other deck is either bad or predatory in nature toward one or more of the natural strategies in a format. A good example of this would be Theros era constructed standard where there were three dominant devotion decks: Mono Blue Devotion, Mono Black Devotion, and Mono Red Devotion. Each of these decks had one good matchup in the triad, one bad one, and then the mirror. Most other decks played competitively were predatory in nature toward one or more of these strategies, but were not intrinsically the best choice available. An example of this in our own tournament would be my choice to run RG Ramp because it’s really good vs RDW, WW and 4CB, and no one had been playing blue decks, which tend to just beat RG Ramp. This was a deliberate choice to play a predatory deck that was not per se the best deck available, but the best deck given the expectation of what my opponents would play.
My point is, we have a meta that although rife with aggressive decks (likely because they’re cheap cost wise) is very unhealthy for them. I think one cause of this is that we do not have viable and strong combo decks to keep midrange and control (despite the fact that some folks may disagree, the best way to beat combo isn’t by trying to counter all their spells, eventually they overwhelm counter magic [if the combo deck is good and the player, ask @Michelle_Wong how well her mono Blue Sienfeld list did vs me piloting RDW...but that mana efficiency homie ]; the best way to beat combo is to just kill them—fast and consistently).
Another way of looking at RDW is as a combo deck—how well does this deck fair in our meta, despite being one of the most viable natural strategies available—spoiler it’s won twice in the last two seasons (two years). Why is that? I would claim that it primarily lies in the fact that due to the lack of other combo decks, most other builds are able to commit an overwhelming volume of board space to shore up this matchup. Imagine if UW/b combo control didn’t have 8-10 slots available to shore up this bad matchup. What if this deck had to reserve space for cards like Rest In Peace, Stoney Silence, Containment Priest, Flusterstorm, Arcane Laboratory, Mindlock Orb, Stifle, etc. Then turning what is generally a 40% game win rate in game one into a 65% game win rate game two and three is no longer a viable option because the UW/b combo control deck already has too many dead cards in this matchup and can no longer reserve such extensive board space without significant risk or a very keen meta call. This matchup is actually so bad, that in German Highlander, a very similar format to our own, excepting it does not allow sideboards, UW/b decks often main deck Rune of Protection: Red just in case they run into the matchup. Every other time they’re cycling it off at cost of 2 mana and that can't feel great.
I would offer that the only true combo deck that is viable (not buildable, but buildable and capable of repeatable success) given the available card pool is RDW—and because it is solitary in its presentation it just gets hated into the earth and can’t reasonably win. This is actually a true shame because 1. There are many pilots who enjoy playing burn on a regular basis and 2. Ensuring that this archetype is healthy is a good way to grow the format, because it can be built well for a very cheap price tag in a format that boasts some of the most expensive cards on MTGO. So how could we fix this issue?
There are a few key cards that would enable us to continue to balance the meta—I’m not saying the meta is terrible right now—but it could be better—and at the end of the day the more permissive a card pool is, without one deck or archetype achieving natural dominance, the better.
I think the following cards should be unbanned:
Birthing Pod: Included by me for reasons of increased range in the midrange archetype. Currently midrange is either aggro/control or 4C good stuff decks (efficiency over value). Birthing Pod opens up more value based G/x midrange decks that will tend to go over the top of the current format staple midrange decks, these builds will be better in the mirror match, but will tend to have a softer matchup vs. aggressive and control strategies.
Entomb: Included for reasons of increasing the viability of reanimator primarily, which has won only three tournaments in the last two years (2x5C reanimator lists, and 1xHermit Combo list). This also gives a boost to Loam based strategies, which despite vast debate and concern about the power of loam has yet to win a single tournament since its unbanning. This card is also a boon to storm combo decks playing cards like past in flames, etc.
Demonic Tutor: This card increases the viability of combo decks, and gives a boost to most value based or control strategies that can run it. The format is fast enough that the commitment in tempo of two mana during the early to midgame is of significant impact. In some matchups this card will be a life saver, in other matchups it will essentially be a time walk turn for your opponents. Despite it giving perfect selection, it’s a shockingly high variance card to draw given different matchups. (much like 4CB’s defense against Back to Basics or Blood Moon…just cast all of your stuff to kill them before it resolves and kill them with your 1-3 drops [it actually works :P]).
Wheel of Fortune: This card is included as a means of making storm combo and reanimator more viable in the meta, which in turn keep midrange and control in check. But try resolving this thing against a WW or RDW deck while their on 3-4 lands and 1-2 cards and see how that feels...not good man.
Yawgmoth’s Will: This card is often equated to being a boogie man in eternal formats and was dominant in the days of type II, standard with dark ritual and cabal ritual were available as 8 cards in a black deck. That said, I think the card’s history makes it out to be more scary or impactful than it is. I don’t mean to say that this card is not powerful, but it is a high variance/build around card in that it cannot be run in just any deck, it is both mana hungry and card (in the graveyard) hungry. So, it will make storm or graveyard-based decks more viable, but these decks will need to run many cantrips and ritual effects to make it worthwhile, which in and of themselves do absolutely nothing to impact the gamestate.
Oath of Druids: This card gives a strong boost to existing BUGLoam decks and spawns a near creature-less archetype that is both powerful, fragile, and elegant in the format. Acknowledging that this card is very powerful as essentially a 2 mana moat effect, it also spawns a wide design space for existing combo control shells to explore and I think it’s important that we try new things to make the format more inclusive of variation on construction. And here, I’d reference that we unbanned fastbond, the singularly most powerful card we unbanned, and it’s done absolutely zero to change or alter the meta. This card, I think will have higher impact, but will not acquire the fabled turn two oath kill with oath of druids and forbidden orchard more than .5% of the time. Most of the time this creature light deck will be hanging on for dear life cantripping, countering, and hopefully finding a wrath effect just to stay alive.
And that’s all I think we should do currently as far as changes. For some I know my ideas will instill temerity that we’re losing the format, but I ask that you trust my experience with the game and believe me when I say that these inclusions will enable a much wider meta, which in turn will promote greater health—and you know, likely even bring in more players because being able to play the game the way you want is a pretty big sell.
We’ve seen one big change with the last set of unbannings, which in the end has increased the spread of winning archetypes and promoted balance--despite initial resistance. I know we all approached this differently and some of us downright resisted every single recommendation, and that’s perfectly fine, but I think if we’re honest we’ve gotten the format to a better place. It might be more powerful, but it’s also a lot deeper and wider than it used to be.
Let me know what you think folks, voting will go up in two weeks (so I can announce during next week’s event), with an effective date one week after closing of polls (three weeks from now). Additionally if anyone thinks we need to remove a card or cards from the format, then please let me know and I’ll put it in the polls for ban recommendation, but as of right now no one card or cards has been dominant in victorious decks (alright maybe swords to plowshares; it's in the three top decks WW, 4CB, and UW/b). I will link the poll in both MTGS, reddit, and on our Discord for folks to follow and conduct their voting.
Thanks again folks, I appreciate all the support you give the format and enjoy playing with you all.
Thanks for your message on Magic Online. Sorry I forgot to close the program when I left the house, otherwise I would have been keen to have duelled you.
Also, may I ask if you would be interested in building a 60 card Australian Highlander deck (7 points max) to help me practice?
Can I recommend that the Opening page of this Forum (page 1) be updated to show the Discord link, for those who wish to keep up to date on Discord.
For me, I am not abandoning this forum, and I will use this forum exclusively moving forward, because:
1. Out of respect for MTGOCardMarket, it's important to stay on this forum because Discord gives no credit to Oscar at MTGOCardmarket;
2. I un-installed Discord because I was being spammed at every hour of the day and night from fellow gamers who were in the mood for a game; and
3. I disagree that this forum is a dinosaur. It serves our purposes well in my view.
Very good reasons, Michelle. I'm surprised, though, because I thought I'm rather alone with my dislike of discord.
Discord sucks! I tried to 'live with it' for another game, about 3,4 months ago. Beside the ceaseless 'spamming', that you described( a lot of 'status messages' pop up, too, like 'xy joined the channel') it let my game crash sometimes, which stopped after I had uninstalled discord again.
I think it is also a matter of generations, discord is probably less annoying for people who welcome to receive 5 or more SMS per hour, people who probably feel isolated or empty if they DON'T receive 5 SMS per hour. No matter if those were only generated automatically and have no information or urgency for them.
I never saw any link to discord here, I even don't know the name of the discord channel for our format, so I can't add that to starting post.
I asked lowman for this, last Saturday, and you propably read his answer, that 'this forum is dead and nobody uses it'. Well this isn't the first time a forum moves, even this forum was moved before when WotC dismissed their forums. But it's the first time that there is no connection from the old place. Natural thing so far was a link to the new destination. This is no secret rave in the 90's! However, I told lowman about it, he declined and I'm done with it.
I don't care to utterly vacate this forum...I just don't always have the time to manage all of them and most of the newer players like discord a bit better and I tend to find that it can do more to link people both in real time; I've actually used it to video chat with stsung, and talk to folks from other singleton communities on it a decent bit. That aside decently big news:
Next week there will be a special prize pool because I came into some random valuable cards.
First Place will get a Karn, Liberated; 2nd Place if there are finals, or if there are not then randomly selected from all other players than 1st place (ie not a door prize because I don't want to incentivize doing poorly in the event) will be a snapcaster mage.
Please give discord a shot, and in regards to spamming, I haven't had that issue, but I have my privacy settings turned fairly high. In regards to what I've seen available it's not a bad place to interact with other people who love the format. And, if you so choose to stay here and only here, to appease your obdurate nature's I'll do my best to keep up with MTGS as well.
All that said, please promote to more friends, yesterday was a smaller event, justifiably so, because it was Easter (in half the world), but there's decent winnings to be had next week and as always great games to be played.
Kindly noted Lowman, glad you are not utterly vacating this forum.
May I ask, what is the status of the community vote regarding un-bannings? It seems there was going to be a vote, but then the cards like Demonic Tutor and Oath of Druids and so on just got magically un-banned?
Is there any chance that after 2 months or so, we can express our views as to whether the cards need to be re-banned? I for one am not happy that Oath of Druids is in our format.
However, be that as it may, the format is still great and the un-bannings cannot take that away. Thanks.
We'll vote again in 6 months, not trying to be draconian, but I also think it's right to give new cards time to either shine or utterly fail to provide any sense of fairness. Oath specifically was one of the cards that I personally was the most excited about getting in the CSM and the one that I thought objectively would provide the biggest shake up to the format. My own agenda with oath was two fold: 1. Oath in many ways acts as a moat that can also just win you the game, which means it's devilishly good against fast creature based aggressive decks and generally very good versus midrange as well; however, where it falls short is generally in both the control mirror and versus the most aggressive (combo style) RDW archetypes. We unbanned Loam and it actually had very little impact in the meta due to the general speed of decks that folks have chosen to bring (WW is still a very large part of the meta). Oath compliments this natural strategy which offers a deck archetype that is predatory versus a large part of the meta at the cost of being poor in the mirror or against hyper aggressive RDW decks, the latter of which I personally would like to see be more successful in the CSM. So in an effort to strengthen RDW, cap the aggressive power of WW, and support an archetype (loam) that hadn't done as well as I'd hoped, I thought that Oath of Druids was a great add to the format. At least from my position, format's with the deepest strategic variety are always the
best because it generates many games inside of games.
The rest of the cards (excepting birthing pod) were demonic tutor, entomb, wheel of fortune, and yawgmoth's will were all a nod to the sick man of the format: combo. Most combo decks currently played in the format are either mid-range creature based combo decks (where the combo compliments a generally good natural strategy) or combo-control (where winning with the combo is an after-thought and doesn't need to be rapidly pursued due to a high volume of interaction). These unbans allow reanimator (a strategy that only won twice in last season) to get a bit more on the map and for storm or other uninteracitve combo decks (aggro-combo [even if they're not damaging you with cantrips, they're damaging you]) to become stronger. These style of decks tend to generate love or hate by MTG pilots (much like PWs). But, for me at least, it's about setting a place at the table for everyone...if someone wants to play aggro, then I want it to be good, if someone wants to play storm, then I want that to be good too. And frankly, despite the fear and loathing that some folks have for hard combo decks, the pilot has opted to walk on a very narrow tight rope, given it may be a short rope, but one slight wind can generally knock them off...T1 duress go...oh runed halo in from the SB sorry about your scapeshift bro!
Birthing Pod although previously banned, I really thought had to get back in. Value-based midrange strategies have been dead for a while, right now most of our midrange decks play out more like aggro-control decks either literally in the case of Jeskai, or figuratively in the case of 4 Color Blood. So, I think Birthing Pod opens up options for ETB based midrange decks to shine which they really should because they're generally cool decks and of course Sensei loves them.
Just some thoughts and hope they make sense or help inform my intentions for the format...is it changing yeah, are there going to be cards we personally hate in the format yeah, but what format can't that be said about and heck there's even cards in 100C that I don't care for the gameplay of...but under the premise of inclusivity and increased viability they're all sacrifices I'm willing to make to increase the overall volume of fun that all folks who play can have.
You erased the short post with the unbanned cards, that I should take from the list in starting post! I took off Birthing Pod, ENtomb, Demonic Tutor, Oath of Druids, Wheel of Fortune, Yawgmoth's Will. Tell me, if there is one missing.
Well, lowman's fire was hot but short. He resigned as host. I will host next Saturday(s), unless somebody else from our community volunteers to do the job in the future. I was very surprised because I didn't expect that from him, at least not after half a year. Especially after he iniated a huge change in the ban list and shaped the format in a way he liked. So, there could be changes again, if you want to propose ideas here, please do not hesitate. At least, we all got experience about a 'modern' ban list for S100( literally, not the format in MTGO) in opposite of sticking close to the last official one, as we did before. Any resumes?(I can't type the French / on top of the e in resume Any comments?
Its power level is there in my opinion, especially in a world of walkers(but other than Big Red I am not sure if it has any home).
The fact that it is very mana efficient (requiring no more mana after the 4 mana investment) and is great both on offence or defence makes it great in my view.
Checked out that card, and while I do think it has the coolest phoenix art I've seen in a while (other than wing shards, how many barn owl's do you see in MTG art), I think it will be frightfully too slow for the format...if they dialed it down to 3 mana certainly playable, but not even definitively better than Chandra's Phoenix. 10 for the art, because as a lover of the natural world, owls (while shocking simple beasts in regards to their central nervous system which is often erroneously tauted) are pretty bad ass predators.
KB
I am getting behind this Phoenix regardless. On the play, it does not even allow the Loxodon Smiter to get in for any damage, and then this owl can ride the value train thereafter.
When Lowman summons his Loxodon Smiter, Saskia or Falkenrath Aristocrat, I'm going to do a chewie dance because of all the value I will get from my Phoenix!)
LOL, I don't know how you put that dancing wookie in your message, but he's pretty cool. When I think of 4CMC Red drops that bridge well for the value deck I tend to think of Chandra, Torch of Defiance and Fiery Confluence; there are certainly more and some may be better in certain decks. But I think you realistically want to be using this card offensively and gaining value from it when your opponent is forced to block it or remove it to abate a racing situation. I don't think this is a defensive card by the nature of its qualities, and it becomes a lot more dubious when you're trading down, ie loxodon smiter; I think what gives saskia and Falkenrath Aristocrat a leg up is that both hit out of nowhere, one wins the game near instantaneously in a racing situation or a underdeveloped opposing board and the other grinds out games due to evasion and resilience (and it's just great vs PWs). This card does not win races instantaneously, it's a grinding tool, and while it does have both evasion and resilience it's resilience comes at near Bogardan Hammer speed and it can't hit out of nowhere, ie you telegraph your intentions with it. The issue is two fold, one this card does not play a game of hidden information well, and two it's over all comparative card quality vice the cards displayed is lower...three toughness is an issue as is the lack of haste. That said, I think this card will make a big splash in standard, but I think it's time in the limelight will die there...despite my love of the card's art.
KB
I gain 4 tix of credis in 10/02 tournament, but i dont received it yet... What can i do?
I wanted to take the time to share some thoughts on the current 100c format and the future of it. Since the beginning of my odyssey in this wonderful format, it’s always been a quest of mine to build more and better decks, to explore all the options available through the long history of Magic: The Gathering’s past and current design trend. I’ve given many things a try from simple White Weenie Aggro, Midrange of many varieties, Reanimation Combo, RG Ramp, Storm/Doomsday Combo, Red Deck Wins, Elfball Alluren, URMoon, Esper Combo Control, BUGLoam Control, Jeskai Aggro/Control, Grixis Control, and many things in between or wackier.
For me the format is one of creation and exploration; that’s what keeps it fresh for me and gives me a desire to keep coming back to it for more gaming experience. When I first took over as host of the event, I proposed sweeping changes to the format due to strategy dominance of one deck: 4 Color Blood. The format ban list deliberately nerfed the top end power of control decks and the most powerful (but symmetrical) draw engines and tutors were banned weakening combo strategies in the format. This led to a format where generally folks smashed creatures into each other, but any deck that had the most efficient and disruptive creatures were able to win: enter 4 Color Blood. A strategy that is and was dominant in many other forms of highlander to include German Highlander and Canadian Highlander, despite a more permissive ban list, or, the case of the latter, no ban list at all.
The changes we made were initially debated quite hotly, but we adapted and I think found over time that while there were more lopsided matchups, there was also more general health in the overall meta and the good creature decks still did well. At this point in the season we currently have a healthy spread of general archetypes; with 6 control decks winning the tournament (ranging from 5C Scapeshift to simple U/W Control), 8 midrange decks (still heavily 4CB variants, but some R/G midrange and ramp, as well as U based aggro control decks), and 5 aggro decks (WW primarily and one RDW).
These numbers would tell of a healthy meta spread in the format.
However, I think when one measures the rate of presentation (how often each deck or archetype was played) vs rate of winning we’d come to a different determination of how healthy each archetype is. WW is the most represented deck with 600% more presentation than U/W based combo control decks but only four total 1st place finishes vs three 1st place finishes by the U/W lists. And of a large presentation of RDW over the course of this season, it has only grabbed one solitary 1st place finish. Why is that? I would proffer that it’s a by product of the continued strength of midrange and the boon to control of the powerful draw engines in Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time, and the most powerful card in the format: Mystical Tutor, sometimes a win condition and sometimes vast tempo and card advantage through use of terminus, or Life from the Loam. However, I again, I do not think that the best way to empower aggressive strategies is to weaken any given one archetype, but to make proactive changes to unban cards that make pure combo decks (storm, academy combo/eggs, reanimator, high tide) more viable.
I know the steady player base, and I appreciate you all, has a healthy distaste for what they assume to be Magic’s dark underbelly: Combo. But let’s make a causal assessment of what good combo decks do in a format. A good combo deck that can goldfish un-interrupted as soon as turn 2 but reliably at turn 4-5 (in the 100 card format) presents a meta solution to the midrange fair decks (like 4CB) and is reliably efficient enough and disruptive enough to get under control decks (beat those dirty Dig Through Time players). What a good 100 card combo deck does not do is beat aggressive decks reliably.
Historically, high tide decks in standard, type II [sic] were held in check not by opposing counter magic, but by dark ritual into phyrexian negator. This deck, similar to what I see as a reliable fishing kill at turn 4 or 5 for combo in 100 card singleton, could unreliably kill on T3 but realistically killed on T4. A turn 1 phyrexian negator against a non-interactive high tide deck followed up further clocks just smashed the mono blue combo deck into oblivion. The “Suicide” Black aggressive deck in turn lost to more midrange solutions or RDW, Sligh [sic] of the time, which in turn lost to the HT, because, believe it or not, RDW fished slower than Black Aggro did, but boy did it ever beat the living snot out of Black Aggro.
My point is, despite the distaste for combo decks, they serve a very important role in maintaining balance in the health of a format. Certainly, there are times when combo has grown to too great a dominance in a format, reference the Memory Jar decks of Combo Winter, but this is also true of all the archetypes; Draw-Go & Forbiddian (control and aggro/control respectively), Hazoret/Ramunap Red (in the recent past for aggro). Most standard formats tend to be defined by three dominant decks that abide the natural strategies provided by the available card pool. Almost every other deck is either bad or predatory in nature toward one or more of the natural strategies in a format. A good example of this would be Theros era constructed standard where there were three dominant devotion decks: Mono Blue Devotion, Mono Black Devotion, and Mono Red Devotion. Each of these decks had one good matchup in the triad, one bad one, and then the mirror. Most other decks played competitively were predatory in nature toward one or more of these strategies, but were not intrinsically the best choice available. An example of this in our own tournament would be my choice to run RG Ramp because it’s really good vs RDW, WW and 4CB, and no one had been playing blue decks, which tend to just beat RG Ramp. This was a deliberate choice to play a predatory deck that was not per se the best deck available, but the best deck given the expectation of what my opponents would play.
My point is, we have a meta that although rife with aggressive decks (likely because they’re cheap cost wise) is very unhealthy for them. I think one cause of this is that we do not have viable and strong combo decks to keep midrange and control (despite the fact that some folks may disagree, the best way to beat combo isn’t by trying to counter all their spells, eventually they overwhelm counter magic [if the combo deck is good and the player, ask @Michelle_Wong how well her mono Blue Sienfeld list did vs me piloting RDW...but that mana efficiency homie
Another way of looking at RDW is as a combo deck—how well does this deck fair in our meta, despite being one of the most viable natural strategies available—spoiler it’s won twice in the last two seasons (two years). Why is that? I would claim that it primarily lies in the fact that due to the lack of other combo decks, most other builds are able to commit an overwhelming volume of board space to shore up this matchup. Imagine if UW/b combo control didn’t have 8-10 slots available to shore up this bad matchup. What if this deck had to reserve space for cards like Rest In Peace, Stoney Silence, Containment Priest, Flusterstorm, Arcane Laboratory, Mindlock Orb, Stifle, etc. Then turning what is generally a 40% game win rate in game one into a 65% game win rate game two and three is no longer a viable option because the UW/b combo control deck already has too many dead cards in this matchup and can no longer reserve such extensive board space without significant risk or a very keen meta call. This matchup is actually so bad, that in German Highlander, a very similar format to our own, excepting it does not allow sideboards, UW/b decks often main deck Rune of Protection: Red just in case they run into the matchup. Every other time they’re cycling it off at cost of 2 mana and that can't feel great.
I would offer that the only true combo deck that is viable (not buildable, but buildable and capable of repeatable success) given the available card pool is RDW—and because it is solitary in its presentation it just gets hated into the earth and can’t reasonably win. This is actually a true shame because 1. There are many pilots who enjoy playing burn on a regular basis and 2. Ensuring that this archetype is healthy is a good way to grow the format, because it can be built well for a very cheap price tag in a format that boasts some of the most expensive cards on MTGO. So how could we fix this issue?
There are a few key cards that would enable us to continue to balance the meta—I’m not saying the meta is terrible right now—but it could be better—and at the end of the day the more permissive a card pool is, without one deck or archetype achieving natural dominance, the better.
I think the following cards should be unbanned:
Birthing Pod: Included by me for reasons of increased range in the midrange archetype. Currently midrange is either aggro/control or 4C good stuff decks (efficiency over value). Birthing Pod opens up more value based G/x midrange decks that will tend to go over the top of the current format staple midrange decks, these builds will be better in the mirror match, but will tend to have a softer matchup vs. aggressive and control strategies.
Entomb: Included for reasons of increasing the viability of reanimator primarily, which has won only three tournaments in the last two years (2x5C reanimator lists, and 1xHermit Combo list). This also gives a boost to Loam based strategies, which despite vast debate and concern about the power of loam has yet to win a single tournament since its unbanning. This card is also a boon to storm combo decks playing cards like past in flames, etc.
Demonic Tutor: This card increases the viability of combo decks, and gives a boost to most value based or control strategies that can run it. The format is fast enough that the commitment in tempo of two mana during the early to midgame is of significant impact. In some matchups this card will be a life saver, in other matchups it will essentially be a time walk turn for your opponents. Despite it giving perfect selection, it’s a shockingly high variance card to draw given different matchups. (much like 4CB’s defense against Back to Basics or Blood Moon…just cast all of your stuff to kill them before it resolves and kill them with your 1-3 drops [it actually works :P]).
Wheel of Fortune: This card is included as a means of making storm combo and reanimator more viable in the meta, which in turn keep midrange and control in check. But try resolving this thing against a WW or RDW deck while their on 3-4 lands and 1-2 cards and see how that feels...not good man.
Yawgmoth’s Will: This card is often equated to being a boogie man in eternal formats and was dominant in the days of type II, standard with dark ritual and cabal ritual were available as 8 cards in a black deck. That said, I think the card’s history makes it out to be more scary or impactful than it is. I don’t mean to say that this card is not powerful, but it is a high variance/build around card in that it cannot be run in just any deck, it is both mana hungry and card (in the graveyard) hungry. So, it will make storm or graveyard-based decks more viable, but these decks will need to run many cantrips and ritual effects to make it worthwhile, which in and of themselves do absolutely nothing to impact the gamestate.
Oath of Druids: This card gives a strong boost to existing BUGLoam decks and spawns a near creature-less archetype that is both powerful, fragile, and elegant in the format. Acknowledging that this card is very powerful as essentially a 2 mana moat effect, it also spawns a wide design space for existing combo control shells to explore and I think it’s important that we try new things to make the format more inclusive of variation on construction. And here, I’d reference that we unbanned fastbond, the singularly most powerful card we unbanned, and it’s done absolutely zero to change or alter the meta. This card, I think will have higher impact, but will not acquire the fabled turn two oath kill with oath of druids and forbidden orchard more than .5% of the time. Most of the time this creature light deck will be hanging on for dear life cantripping, countering, and hopefully finding a wrath effect just to stay alive.
And that’s all I think we should do currently as far as changes. For some I know my ideas will instill temerity that we’re losing the format, but I ask that you trust my experience with the game and believe me when I say that these inclusions will enable a much wider meta, which in turn will promote greater health—and you know, likely even bring in more players because being able to play the game the way you want is a pretty big sell.
We’ve seen one big change with the last set of unbannings, which in the end has increased the spread of winning archetypes and promoted balance--despite initial resistance. I know we all approached this differently and some of us downright resisted every single recommendation, and that’s perfectly fine, but I think if we’re honest we’ve gotten the format to a better place. It might be more powerful, but it’s also a lot deeper and wider than it used to be.
Let me know what you think folks, voting will go up in two weeks (so I can announce during next week’s event), with an effective date one week after closing of polls (three weeks from now). Additionally if anyone thinks we need to remove a card or cards from the format, then please let me know and I’ll put it in the polls for ban recommendation, but as of right now no one card or cards has been dominant in victorious decks (alright maybe swords to plowshares; it's in the three top decks WW, 4CB, and UW/b). I will link the poll in both MTGS, reddit, and on our Discord for folks to follow and conduct their voting.
Thanks again folks, I appreciate all the support you give the format and enjoy playing with you all.
Thanks for your message on Magic Online. Sorry I forgot to close the program when I left the house, otherwise I would have been keen to have duelled you.
Also, may I ask if you would be interested in building a 60 card Australian Highlander deck (7 points max) to help me practice?
https://imgur.com/a/Gvjcm
For me, I am not abandoning this forum, and I will use this forum exclusively moving forward, because:
1. Out of respect for MTGOCardMarket, it's important to stay on this forum because Discord gives no credit to Oscar at MTGOCardmarket;
2. I un-installed Discord because I was being spammed at every hour of the day and night from fellow gamers who were in the mood for a game; and
3. I disagree that this forum is a dinosaur. It serves our purposes well in my view.
I'm staying here!
Discord sucks! I tried to 'live with it' for another game, about 3,4 months ago. Beside the ceaseless 'spamming', that you described( a lot of 'status messages' pop up, too, like 'xy joined the channel') it let my game crash sometimes, which stopped after I had uninstalled discord again.
I think it is also a matter of generations, discord is probably less annoying for people who welcome to receive 5 or more SMS per hour, people who probably feel isolated or empty if they DON'T receive 5 SMS per hour. No matter if those were only generated automatically and have no information or urgency for them.
I never saw any link to discord here, I even don't know the name of the discord channel for our format, so I can't add that to starting post.
I asked lowman for this, last Saturday, and you propably read his answer, that 'this forum is dead and nobody uses it'. Well this isn't the first time a forum moves, even this forum was moved before when WotC dismissed their forums. But it's the first time that there is no connection from the old place. Natural thing so far was a link to the new destination. This is no secret rave in the 90's! However, I told lowman about it, he declined and I'm done with it.
Hi Lowman, we hope you come back to this forum.
Even the Sensei did not know where to find the information about recent un-bannings.
Thanks.
I don't care to utterly vacate this forum...I just don't always have the time to manage all of them and most of the newer players like discord a bit better and I tend to find that it can do more to link people both in real time; I've actually used it to video chat with stsung, and talk to folks from other singleton communities on it a decent bit. That aside decently big news:
Next week there will be a special prize pool because I came into some random valuable cards.
First Place will get a Karn, Liberated; 2nd Place if there are finals, or if there are not then randomly selected from all other players than 1st place (ie not a door prize because I don't want to incentivize doing poorly in the event) will be a snapcaster mage.
Please give discord a shot, and in regards to spamming, I haven't had that issue, but I have my privacy settings turned fairly high. In regards to what I've seen available it's not a bad place to interact with other people who love the format. And, if you so choose to stay here and only here, to appease your obdurate nature's I'll do my best to keep up with MTGS as well.
All that said, please promote to more friends, yesterday was a smaller event, justifiably so, because it was Easter (in half the world), but there's decent winnings to be had next week and as always great games to be played.
Thanks team and take it easy.
--KB
May I ask, what is the status of the community vote regarding un-bannings? It seems there was going to be a vote, but then the cards like Demonic Tutor and Oath of Druids and so on just got magically un-banned?
Is there any chance that after 2 months or so, we can express our views as to whether the cards need to be re-banned? I for one am not happy that Oath of Druids is in our format.
However, be that as it may, the format is still great and the un-bannings cannot take that away. Thanks.
We'll vote again in 6 months, not trying to be draconian, but I also think it's right to give new cards time to either shine or utterly fail to provide any sense of fairness. Oath specifically was one of the cards that I personally was the most excited about getting in the CSM and the one that I thought objectively would provide the biggest shake up to the format. My own agenda with oath was two fold: 1. Oath in many ways acts as a moat that can also just win you the game, which means it's devilishly good against fast creature based aggressive decks and generally very good versus midrange as well; however, where it falls short is generally in both the control mirror and versus the most aggressive (combo style) RDW archetypes. We unbanned Loam and it actually had very little impact in the meta due to the general speed of decks that folks have chosen to bring (WW is still a very large part of the meta). Oath compliments this natural strategy which offers a deck archetype that is predatory versus a large part of the meta at the cost of being poor in the mirror or against hyper aggressive RDW decks, the latter of which I personally would like to see be more successful in the CSM. So in an effort to strengthen RDW, cap the aggressive power of WW, and support an archetype (loam) that hadn't done as well as I'd hoped, I thought that Oath of Druids was a great add to the format. At least from my position, format's with the deepest strategic variety are always the
best because it generates many games inside of games.
The rest of the cards (excepting birthing pod) were demonic tutor, entomb, wheel of fortune, and yawgmoth's will were all a nod to the sick man of the format: combo. Most combo decks currently played in the format are either mid-range creature based combo decks (where the combo compliments a generally good natural strategy) or combo-control (where winning with the combo is an after-thought and doesn't need to be rapidly pursued due to a high volume of interaction). These unbans allow reanimator (a strategy that only won twice in last season) to get a bit more on the map and for storm or other uninteracitve combo decks (aggro-combo [even if they're not damaging you with cantrips, they're damaging you]) to become stronger. These style of decks tend to generate love or hate by MTG pilots (much like PWs). But, for me at least, it's about setting a place at the table for everyone...if someone wants to play aggro, then I want it to be good, if someone wants to play storm, then I want that to be good too. And frankly, despite the fear and loathing that some folks have for hard combo decks, the pilot has opted to walk on a very narrow tight rope, given it may be a short rope, but one slight wind can generally knock them off...T1 duress go...oh runed halo in from the SB sorry about your scapeshift bro!
Birthing Pod although previously banned, I really thought had to get back in. Value-based midrange strategies have been dead for a while, right now most of our midrange decks play out more like aggro-control decks either literally in the case of Jeskai, or figuratively in the case of 4 Color Blood. So, I think Birthing Pod opens up options for ETB based midrange decks to shine which they really should because they're generally cool decks and of course Sensei loves them.
Just some thoughts and hope they make sense or help inform my intentions for the format...is it changing yeah, are there going to be cards we personally hate in the format yeah, but what format can't that be said about and heck there's even cards in 100C that I don't care for the gameplay of...but under the premise of inclusivity and increased viability they're all sacrifices I'm willing to make to increase the overall volume of fun that all folks who play can have.
Take it easy guys
I look forward to voting after 6 months. And then hopefully the community will all unite against Oath of Druids and it will be time to celebrate.
In the meantime, this is what I will be doing to Oath of Druids------>
Thanks, think you only missed Yawgmoth's Will and Wheel of Fortune. Otherwise it looks accurate. Thanks all