MTG Salvation

I dont think banning two cards that are reasonable cards so that the problem card can still be allowed to just "maybe" be a problem going forward is an efficient answer to the problem.

There haven't been alot of people even putting up real attempts at trying to solve the problem with cloudpost in actual game play. This season has been one of target whatever won the previous week if its obvious(gW midrange in response to burn)(then cloudpost to hose the midrange creature decks). Or just play whatever won and snowball the chances of the better deck winning more often.

If the case is that cloudpost is far and away superior, which TLR has shown math as such, it should be the target for ban IMO. I personally would like bannings to come along with rotation announcements for sake of clarity and preparation by the field of competitors.
If everyone feels its alot of gambling on which matchup the round you play cloudpost gets for the invitational deck and wants it banned for that (assuming a ban at rotation) I can get behind that, but dont personally have a preference either way pre season end.

Happy New year everyone.

With a new year and reflection, I want to say how happy I am that we unbanned some cards and as I had assumed they had almost zero impact on the environment. I hope that this leads to more in the coming rotations.

Hope everyone has a safe and happy end to this year, and as much success as you are willing to make for yourself in the coming year.

cheers
Littlefield

Subject
DREAM HALLS IS BUGGED< but they sold it to me anyways.

Response By Email (Support Rep) (11/14/2016 09:40 PM)
Hello Glenn,

Thank you for contacting us. Unfortunately, I cannot reverse any trades for you. All trades with other parties are final.

We are, however, aware of the issue with Dream Halls and are working to fix it. Thank you for your patience in the meantime.


The above has been reported. Currently Dream Halls doesn't really work on mtgo. I had spent a few weeks building a sweet Dream Halls brew up, and learned in testing the hard way.
So don't invest in this card unless you are trying to buy it while cheap and hold until the card is fixed.
Bringing this up because it was on a handful of cards I was really excited about rotating in this time around.

Now I guess I can figure out Birthing Pod and friends.

HOw is gorilla shaman rotating in, that card is 16 dollars?

anything sweet been happening? Ready for the rotation

Quote from Honorbound84 »

I support ML Berlin in that Lackey should be legal but Piledriver should be banned. If you understand his underlying philosophy, it's basically that he doesn't want a deck to win before turn 4. Lackey is objectively more powerful than Piledriver as a turn 1 threat is much more difficult to deal with than a turn 2 threat and Lackey is more consistently powerful. However, Lackey does not enable a turn 3 kill. At best, it enables a Siege-Gang to be dropped turn 2, followed up by a Lord turn 3. Between lackey, siege-gang, and the lord that is 1 damage done on turn 2, and 12 on turn 3. While that is certainly powerful, it provides an opportunity to respond with Engineered Plague for example. I accept this underlying philosophy.

However, if the philosophy behind the bans is primarily to prevent decks capable of winning turn 3 or earlier from existing, then it must unambiguously be the case that Misthollow Griffin, Hypergenesis, and Dark Ritual be legal. I don't have a problem with the philosophy, provided that it is consistent.

I dug this up on my journey for enlightenment. There is talk of goblins and talk of other things but I bolded what interested me the most. It seems that when banning a turn 4 format was atleast somewhat a goal from before.
Ironically the way of thinking from before was also, we dont want a turn 4 format, and we don't want a UW control turn 40 format even more. The flaw in logic is that they removed all the viable ways to prevent turn 2 and 3 wins trying to create a format where "No" was not being said. We have unwound the Swords to Plowshares banning from before which helps, more may be needed if we want a balance.

Is Goblin Piledriver one of the untouchables?

I am very torn about our format right now. We have a bunch of people wanting hymn to tourach banned, and in comparison with the cards that are banned that certainly seems reasonable.
However at the same time we have combo decks running around which can kill you before you even untap to put your 2nd land into play. Then again we have cards that cost 4 mana that draw 2-3 cards on average banned and the most effective way to make sure you do not die on turn 2 is also banned.
We have killed the balance of a natural rock, paper, scissors format. Control cannot exist in our current metagame at a competitive capacity.
I know the arguments we can all play a whole bunch of entirely specific hate cards in our sideboards and then if and only if MTGO actually lets the sideboarding function work, we can then try to win back the 2nd and 3rd games after not getting a 2nd or 3rd turn in the first. Still we banned invigorate preemptively for the very reason of not wanting a fragile but turn 2 deck existing in the format..... what gives?

The format is only "stale" if and because people in general are not innovating at all. A few people build new decks every few weeks, and around rotation time, the rest play the same deck as always (which is fine), or wait and copy whatever decks seem to be delivering results in the current metagame. I have atleast half a dozen decks that are fresh and either could be played in the upcoming weeks or are 1 or 2 cards short of being viable and waiting to see how rotation helps. The recent price drops are going to help the entire format get better mana over the next 1 plus rotations and it should open up tri color decks, more efficient control , etc.

Ooze has a ton of infinite combo graveyard synergies, most easily set up by buried alive alone.

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Quote from dleifelttiL »

Happy New year everyone.

With a new year and reflection, I want to say how happy I am that we unbanned some cards and as I had assumed they had almost zero impact on the environment. I hope that this leads to more in the coming rotations.

Hope everyone has a safe and happy end to this year, and as much success as you are willing to make for yourself in the coming year.

cheers
Littlefield

and the crowd starts chanting. Suicide Black Suicide Black Suicide Black.....

GIVE US DARK RITUAL. :)Or maybe that is just me wanting to play my favorite deck of all time... Its been jesus close to 15 years since I played that deck.... Back when Phyrexian Negator was considered a good card... and Stiflenaut vs Suicide black was something that was seen at the top tables of 1.5 Tourneys....

Really awesome General, thanks.

As an announcement since there was some discussion previously, Mana Bloom and Mind Bend are both bugged for the worse, Mana Bloom adds no mana when counters are removed, and Mind Bend can only change land types, even if only color is mentioned. I've reported to customer service, but in case anyone else was brewing jank with those cards, they should hold back to save tix.

Quick question, is the highest rarity of a card the one used to determine legality? Trying to think about Argothian Enchantress, she's mythic in EMA so hopefully she survives next rotation

Quote from PauperRBust »

I would agree that Hymn should not be banned, I disagree that mono red needs a banning though. My previous janky combo decks were made to be good against low to the ground aggro, and would consistently fail against Hymn decks or Twin. My Sundial deck was built with facing the latter matches more, and didn't include as much hate for aggro and it showed in those matchups, although both times I played against mono-red I was pretty close to taking a game off of them. Personally I think of it like building a cube, you want mono-red aggro or something similar in a format to keep the combo/control decks at a high level of efficiency. In terms of bannings next rotation, I'd love to see Misthollow Griffin unbanned if it still falls in the price range, it seems like it could be a solid control deck, but not too overpowered.

Hymn needs to be banned Not because of what we currently have but because of what we may have cycling in. If Vindicate Sinkhole Caves Of kolias and Languish all come in I literally just do not want to play... I have a rough draft of the deck together and it would just not be fun to play against and Would complete just remove creature decks from being viable.

Turn 1 STP
Turn 2 Sinkhole/Smallpox/Hymn
Turn 3 Vindicate/Sinkhole/Smallpox/Hymn

The deck would just destroy this format. Combo would have almost no chance against it stripping your hand/killing your lands and Agro decks would just flop.


Rough Outline of the deck would be like

4x smallpox
4x STP
4x sinkhole
4x Vindicate
4x sign in blood
2-4x languish
4x Thalia (main or sb)

I would agree that Hymn should not be banned, I disagree that mono red needs a banning though. My previous janky combo decks were made to be good against low to the ground aggro, and would consistently fail against Hymn decks or Twin. My Sundial deck was built with facing the latter matches more, and didn't include as much hate for aggro and it showed in those matchups, although both times I played against mono-red I was pretty close to taking a game off of them. Personally I think of it like building a cube, you want mono-red aggro or something similar in a format to keep the combo/control decks at a high level of efficiency. In terms of bannings next rotation, I'd love to see Misthollow Griffin unbanned if it still falls in the price range, it seems like it could be a solid control deck, but not too overpowered.