I'm actually a little more optimistic on this new format. Is it perfect?? nope but I'm excited to see all the banned juggernauts go head to head. I've speculated that in a format with all of the best generals around then nothing will need to be banned. Time will tell.
Part of me still wonders if the answer is to just unban powerful generals that can fight VS like Tasigur. I wonder if delve is less powerful @20 life. You have less time to durdle and put cards in the GY now. Not that Tas would be bad, just slightly nerfed.
As i expressed earlier in this thread this is my thinking as well. Instead of banning every decent general that comes along why not unban a bunch of them (not all) in order to guage what a true metagame would be like. Marath, Tasigur, Yisan and oloro could all come off imo.
I have a different point of view. Now would be the time to unban a few of the stronger generals that were banned in the past. Instead of banning everything that is good, give players more options.
Partner Vial and Breya are studs right now, but that's only because most of the other "good" generals are banned. Instead of bannings to take them away unban generals like Marath, Tasigur, oloro and Yisan. Don't take tools away from the player base. It would be interesting to see a metagame with these juggernauts going against each other.
It's not the Partners ability, but Vial itself, if you take partners from the others they become unplayable, because they are freaking weak when compared to other legends. Partner is the only way the others become playable, if you take partner out, Vial continues to be playable and the other 14 are dead, if you just hammer him, all 14 are playable and none of them combined is meta shifting. None of them combined even got close to 5% of the meta, partner is NOT a broken mechanic on the commanders that are available, Vial is, because his ability is made specifically to fight multiplayer + 40LP, the others are totally okay. Having an extra card is a huge bonus, but it is not so huge if the extra card is like, some close to vanilla high cost creature for example.
who cares if the others aren't playable?? All commanders don't need to be playable. Vial without partner is quite reasonable in 20 life format
I would happily forgo the third or fourth colour(s) and just play a Rakdos burn deck if we just banned the partner aspect
We had some people testing it and founding it not being as oppressive as the Grixis version is. I was expecting VStF getting banned as a partner so people were given this option to play with still.
Balance being legal while cruise and dig stay banned is kinda strange. But these unbans don't change much of the testing many of us has been doing since the 20 life change which is both nice and disappointing at the same time. Glad 20 life is here to stay though.
http://www.duelcommander.com/2013/08/whats-in-a-banlist/
A couple of cards are especially strong in Duel Commander because of the structure of the format. Karakas is repeatable removal for the commander. While it’s tempting to errata the card so that it can’t target commanders, we prefer having cards play as close as possible to their actual wording, for one simple reason: if a player finds a card, that should be all the information they need. No extra knowledge such as “doesn’t work on commanders” should be necessary. That’s why we chose to simply ban it. Humility is another such card. Because every Duel Commander deck plays at least a creature (their commander) and most decks rely on being able to cast it and use it, Humility puts a big stress on the format, even though it has not been played that much.
(...)
To summarize, here are the main principles we’re using for the banlist:
1 No regular turn 4 kills
2 Power level
3 Spirit of format
4 Suitability for casual play groups
5 Deck balancing
From What I understand, the reasoning is that both Karakas and Humility break the spirit of the format, whether it's 30 or 20 life, it affects the game the same way
This seems silly to me because humility isn't even banned in multiplayer which I would think "spirit of the format" would hold more weight.
When did green only have Reclamation sage? That comment alone is funny as all hell, Reclamation Sage is way to new to be the only green answer to enchantments... EVER.... ^^
Unbanning cards that help against aggro when trying to make aggro more prevalent is not a right decision I would think at least, but oh wel.. people seem to just want all their good stuff being unbanned..
I realy dun mind either way mind you, but I find some opinions on why something should be unbanned at the very least funny to read.
But opinions can differ of course, wil see where this goes, though I doubt cards like Tabernacle wil be unbanned that easily/fast.. ^^
I edited my post to clarify before seeing yours but how many non creature enchantment removals do you see green decks running? Karn, Ugin, Ulamog?? And with humility banned they didn't have to. My point was that Humility was a card that could have helped balance the format in some ways but instead it was allowed to spiral into degeneracy.
Aggro was never a thing at 30 life with or without humility/tabernacle so that point is moot. The change to 20 life evens up the playing field drastically. Those cards are no longer "GG" against the best aggro decks. I have a feeling most people advocating for the bans of hum/tab have never played against these cards. I saw one person in this thread call tabernacle a "wrath" for 0 mana. Tabernacle is not a wrath. Are we going to ban glacial chasm too? Maze of ith?
Tabernacle doesn't do much against elves, it's basically a Wasteland for Gaea's Cradle or a Snuff Out for Priest of Titania. Definitely not one of the best cards for slowing them down; Earthquake, Wrath of God, Damnation are really the only way to significantly turn the tide of the game.
Correct but it slows them since they don't get to use all of the extra mana.
I am also a HUGE advocate for humility to be unbanned as well.
I have to ask. . .
Why?
I don't mean that to insult you or anything, I genuinely just don't get it.
Whats the reason for it being banned? In my humble opinion the fact that both humility and tabernacle were both banned was the reason the format went to hell in the first place. Those were some of the best cards at slowing down elf decks but with them gone those decks ran amok and basically force the RC to think about banned green cards until things evened out. That's just my opinion though.
In a 20 life meta, 1/1's can still kill you and mono red has the reach to still win and white weenie decks play disenchants so the card isn't as strong as before when all green had was reclamation sage. Which was strange because green (along with white) is the best at killing enchantments but since people who play this format don't like to make deck building adjustments to cards they lose to their mindset is to have everything banned instead of playing around cards.
Most green decks only play creature removal (reclamation sage, harmonic sliver etc.), but that's a choice not any rule you have to only play those cards.
If you play a 3 color deck and you know price of progress is a card you could lose to, play more basics. Same goes for B2B. There's no need to ban these cards when you can build your deck to compensate. This is how competitive formats work.
When people see a format where humility is banned but survival and to a lesser extent Sylvan library are banned then something is really wrong.
If that's the case I don't think we deserve to call the format competitive.
In a format where a majority of decks have a total of 3-6 basic lands you think back to basics is ok? Its a permanent ruination.
I don't look at cards in best case scenario. The better question is why is it fine to only run 3-6 basics?
Perfect mana is a struggle, not a right.
This guy absolutely gets it. The same reason why price of progress shouldnt be banned. No one is forcing anyone to play a ton of non basics, that's a choice. You play a bunch on non basics and have perfect mana to cast your spells but the cost is losing to cards like b2b/blood moon etc.
I am also a HUGE advocate for humility to be unbanned as well.
To add to the tabernacle discussion. Tabernacle is fine to come off. it's not even good against red decks who have lots of haste creatures and can finish with burn and against most aggro decks with huge threats they just keep the relevant ones. Tabernacle is excellent against weenie/token decks but its not even close to a format warping card.
Regarding Oloro: I would keep it banned for diversity reasons. If oloro is legal that would become the default control deck and imo thats not a good thing.
I'm all for unbanning of Cruise, dig, tabernacle, Tomb, B2B, Humility, Entomb, Food Chain, Grindstone, Loyal Retainers (stupidest ban imo), top, Serra Ascendant, ooze.
As for commanders: Yisan, Marath and Erayo could be freed. I very much agree Derevi is the most broken commander the format had ever seen.
Price of Progress is obvious, yes. Anyways, I'm very happy with that decision. 30 life shifted the format by default, and it was way too big a change for a competitive setting. Though we'll have to see if an always available 8th card is too much as well.
I'm actually fine with price of progress being legal. Make playing 3 colors a hard choice to make. Or play more basic lands. 20 life is a new thing but lets not go crazy with senseless bans.
Vial was only absurd because of partner. On its own it was a very mediocre deck.
As i expressed earlier in this thread this is my thinking as well. Instead of banning every decent general that comes along why not unban a bunch of them (not all) in order to guage what a true metagame would be like. Marath, Tasigur, Yisan and oloro could all come off imo.
Partner Vial and Breya are studs right now, but that's only because most of the other "good" generals are banned. Instead of bannings to take them away unban generals like Marath, Tasigur, oloro and Yisan. Don't take tools away from the player base. It would be interesting to see a metagame with these juggernauts going against each other.
who cares if the others aren't playable?? All commanders don't need to be playable. Vial without partner is quite reasonable in 20 life format
That sounds pretty fair
And yeah, Breya needs a ban too.
Cockatrice: akaiser47
Time zone: GMT -4:00
This seems silly to me because humility isn't even banned in multiplayer which I would think "spirit of the format" would hold more weight.
I edited my post to clarify before seeing yours but how many non creature enchantment removals do you see green decks running? Karn, Ugin, Ulamog?? And with humility banned they didn't have to. My point was that Humility was a card that could have helped balance the format in some ways but instead it was allowed to spiral into degeneracy.
Aggro was never a thing at 30 life with or without humility/tabernacle so that point is moot. The change to 20 life evens up the playing field drastically. Those cards are no longer "GG" against the best aggro decks. I have a feeling most people advocating for the bans of hum/tab have never played against these cards. I saw one person in this thread call tabernacle a "wrath" for 0 mana. Tabernacle is not a wrath. Are we going to ban glacial chasm too? Maze of ith?
Correct but it slows them since they don't get to use all of the extra mana.
Whats the reason for it being banned? In my humble opinion the fact that both humility and tabernacle were both banned was the reason the format went to hell in the first place. Those were some of the best cards at slowing down elf decks but with them gone those decks ran amok and basically force the RC to think about banned green cards until things evened out. That's just my opinion though.
In a 20 life meta, 1/1's can still kill you and mono red has the reach to still win and white weenie decks play disenchants so the card isn't as strong as before when all green had was reclamation sage. Which was strange because green (along with white) is the best at killing enchantments but since people who play this format don't like to make deck building adjustments to cards they lose to their mindset is to have everything banned instead of playing around cards.
Most green decks only play creature removal (reclamation sage, harmonic sliver etc.), but that's a choice not any rule you have to only play those cards.
If you play a 3 color deck and you know price of progress is a card you could lose to, play more basics. Same goes for B2B. There's no need to ban these cards when you can build your deck to compensate. This is how competitive formats work.
When people see a format where humility is banned but survival and to a lesser extent Sylvan library are banned then something is really wrong.
This guy absolutely gets it. The same reason why price of progress shouldnt be banned. No one is forcing anyone to play a ton of non basics, that's a choice. You play a bunch on non basics and have perfect mana to cast your spells but the cost is losing to cards like b2b/blood moon etc.
I am also a HUGE advocate for humility to be unbanned as well.
To add to the tabernacle discussion. Tabernacle is fine to come off. it's not even good against red decks who have lots of haste creatures and can finish with burn and against most aggro decks with huge threats they just keep the relevant ones. Tabernacle is excellent against weenie/token decks but its not even close to a format warping card.
Regarding Oloro: I would keep it banned for diversity reasons. If oloro is legal that would become the default control deck and imo thats not a good thing.
I'm all for unbanning of Cruise, dig, tabernacle, Tomb, B2B, Humility, Entomb, Food Chain, Grindstone, Loyal Retainers (stupidest ban imo), top, Serra Ascendant, ooze.
As for commanders: Yisan, Marath and Erayo could be freed. I very much agree Derevi is the most broken commander the format had ever seen.
I'm actually fine with price of progress being legal. Make playing 3 colors a hard choice to make. Or play more basic lands. 20 life is a new thing but lets not go crazy with senseless bans.