Banned List October 2014 feedback

[Kenshin]

I completely agree. Especially on tonytahiti's trolling skills.

The problem why Mana Drain is unlikely to be banned (or why I think it is not that great of an idea) is that there is no redundancy present on the UU counter target spell slot. There is only Counterspell and the slightly broken Mana Drain. Yet both cards seem absolutely necessary for control. If Mana Drain was just a straight up Counterspell with another name, I would immedeately jam it in every blue list.

I think Mana Drain is necessary to keep critical Mass in the 2cmc hardcounter department. But it's powerlevel really is very high. But to be fair, it is a reactive Card and I think a lot of the hate stems from psychological reasons too (your play getting denied). I was unsure about wether Drain should be banned or not a year ago and I still am now because I do not see the card as that big of a problem but not as unproblematic either.

[Nastaboi]

Also: Stoneforge Mystic needs to be unbanned as soon as possible and the Council needs to admit banning it was a mistake and rushed. In Berlin Highlander Players are playing Tiny Leaders now cause its legal there and it gives us a warm fuzzy feeling playing with it, it just baffles us that stoneforge mystic is banned

You can't play Batterskull in Tiny Leaders to go with SFM. Just sayin'.

[MMD]

i have great faith in the council that they will do the "right" thing (as representers of the community and their needs) and unban stoneforge in april. they will know that having oath, academy and mana drain (three cards that have far higher powerlevel and are banned in legacy until the end of time) NOT BANNED but stonerforge BANNED is ridiculous and make this format look like a joke from the ouside. the banned list is very important for a format to be taken seriously and we need a good banned list, that actually makes sense.the community puts their trust in the council and we are sure you wont disappoint us.

I am sorry to inform you that you are not representing the HL community at all. I can´t help myself but I always read: "Please council, help me to improve my pet deck. The power level of Jeskai creatures needs to be improved in order to compete against the green based good stuffs as they have a superior creature base.

Back to topic. My opinion on the Banned List:

Stoneforge Mystic - It's simply an auto include in all (non-Oath) decks which can pay 1W, also creatureless Esper. I expect that it will weaken aggro strategies even more and they already have a hard time to fight the midrange madness. It's good for me personally as it will feed 100% of my pet decks but bad for the balance of the format. UNBAN WATCHLIST

Tolarian Academy - Cards like Tolarian Academy are always very borderline and should be nailed on the watch list (if not banned) to represent their power level. They burst the single card power level but might be needed to fight good stuff mania. BAN WATCHLIST

Oath of Druids - I do not like these "oops I win" games when the opponent has an early Oath, which is often a no-brainer and does not need a lot of synergy to function while Tolarian Academy needs a better set up. BAN - UNBAN WATCHLIST

Fastbond – Same category as Oath of Druids for me. UNBAN WATCHLIST

Entomb - Same category as Oath of Druids for me. UNBAN WATCHLIST

Natural Order – feeds Goodstuff with a very good Semi-Combo. UNBAN WATCHLIST

Mystical Tutor - At first I thought it must be banned but I currently think that he is some kind of "balancer" and "glue" to help the synergistic decks (like Enlightened Tutor). On the other hand there too many synergistic cards out there, so it will always be hard to keep them under control. In case they get out of control you should think about a ban again. BAN WATCHLIST

Mana Drain – Power level strictly above the format. Has some synergistic requirement to become broken, so I do not think that it must be banned by any means. However, Mana Drain into 5drop is very hard to beat in many cases. BAN WATCHLIST

Demonic Tutor – Power level strictly above the format. Does not only feed synergistic decks but auto include in any black deck. Can be quite "expensive" for good stuff, bonkers in synergetic decks, so it currently helps to keep balance. However, its power level should be reflected somehow. BAN WATCHLIST

Imperial Seal – Banned because of availability and price (council´s explanation exclusive for this card as far as I know) but needs to be unbaned immediately as soon as this changes. UNBAN WATCHLIST


@ Maqi: Thanks for your brilliant post!

[Ball.Lightning]

Maqi's post about evauating strengts of synergistic and goodstuff deck is quite interesting. But what I don't like about it is, that the numbers used in the post are pure fiction, to backup otherwise good points. I found this bending numbers to get them in the form, where it shows what Maqi is claiming, realy uncecessary.

From reading posts in this thread, I got the feeling, that Stoneforge is banned, mainly because of it's possible inclusion in so called goodstuff decks. Because it is the card, that these decks will gladly play. Stoneforge is definetely not banned because of it's power level (even if it is quite good). This line of thinking about banned list is very akward for me. You basicaly deny all players to be able to use card, that would be otherwise widely played, just because THIS? It is realy hard to punish goodstuff players, to accualy discurage them from playing their decks. That is going to happen next? Will HL go with Modern banned list route and start banning creatures that are widely played? When we will see Deathrite banned? or Kniht of Reliquary? or Birds of Paradise???, because theese cards are all very good and also played in goodstuff.

^^This is not the way! Wizards keep printing better and better creatures, so gues what - creature based decks (either you call them goodstuff or not) will get better and better. I think you can't stop the tide by taking few drops from the sea.

So my opinion is clear - UNBAN Stoneforge

[Kenshin]

No, it is banned because it would just go into EVERY deck that plays white and is not pure combo. And on top of that it is actually busted.

It probably could be unbanned but the reason it had to go in the first place was its omnipresence (which is not enough to warrant a ban on its own) and that it led to really stupid blowouts (the classic "oops, I win!" situation) as early as turn three. Other cards that can deliver those blowouts require a specific deck build (e.g. Oath) and thus can never be an auto include. The control decks already play a Batterskull and would put Mystic in there even if they played a low creature strategy. The aggressive or midrange decks play swords of... already and would probably include the odd batterskull too. It just is a stupid card that is good without any prior setup or deck building challenge and is backbreaking early and still brutal later.
Is there any other legal card that fits this description? Mana Drain comes close but it is a purely reactive card, a horrible topdeck when behind and requires you to have the ridiculous follow up in your hand come next main phase in decks that are chronically horrible at having those. I think there is nothing close to it and unbanning it would lead to a similar stupid meta where this girl was legal. I remember. I played her and played against her. And I played her in Esper and she was the stone cold nuts. Maybe she could be unbanned if Batterskull goes in her stead but that would not be a beneficial trade for the metagame as a whole, I think.

Of course maqi made those numbers up but despite looking odd it is actually a very simple and clear way to bring his point across. If he explained it in words alone it would be a lengthy post. He condensed his arguments into the very essence.

[Ball.Lightning]

Kenshin: In my vocabulary is the word 'blowout' defined in completely different way. Blowout is in my opinion very punishing situation for me, the situation that should go from 'I win' scenario to 'I lost'. There is definetely lots of cards that make this possible - usualy instants - Cryptic Command, POP, timely removal, Mindcensor, Vialed creature...

I don't see a single scenario with Stoneforge (not involving vialed Stoneforge) that can turn to blowout for me.

As for it's strengs - lets asume, that oponent is on play and we do not have early removal. I would definetely hate more to see him play mana dork on his T1 than Stoneforge on T2. Stoneforge is great when the bord state is somewhat even, since it brings Sword with itself. When behind it is squire which solves nothing.

I would like to point out, that nowadays we have quite lot of good removal for swords of all kind, that was not available at the time when stoneforge was at large. Destructive Revelry, Reclamation Sage, Council of Judgment, Decay.. Moreover people are more willing to bring these cards to the table, because of Tolaria Academy is a thing.

Sure enough: batterskull + SFM can be anoying. But this is least of my worries in current metagame.

[tonytahiti]

to the guy, who said i want my "jeskai-tool" stoneforge back: you amuse me ("amusing" in the way bad guys in movies are amused when they hear something ridiculous from somebody they dont know and never heard about, they chuckle while sipping their drink). stop stalking my decks, stop following my every step like a fan, stop thinking i need stoneforge to beat green based decks, its the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard. i wanted to spark a discussion, maybe in a "trolling" way but at least something is happening. you take stuff a little serious, i am affecting you too much considering i dont know who you are.

[Dalibor]

Hello - in order to explain my point about the banlist, I have to say some background first:
I play german HL for some time, even organize/help organizing tournaments in Slovakia as much as possible cca. last 3 years.
I am not the first one to start playing it here on Slovakia, but I believe that after I joined, we started to travel more to Hanau
and also try to update decks to be as competitive as possible due to your big tournaments also, which I am very thankful for of course
At first, I looked at banlist very negatively, mainly because my deck was loosing tools almost every time, there was a banning time.
Natural Order, Birthing pod, etc. All cards that I really loved to play.
BUT
I started to look at it the other way later and I still didn't see this point here - in the postings:
What about banning/unbanning cards as a tool, to make players more satisfied? Maybe it is very easy to say and pretty hard to do,
since everybody has its own point on every powerful card.

What I am saying is - lets at least try to look at it this way! Lets look on those cads on banlist/watchlist also from the motivation point!
If we unban some card, or ban it - would it make more people start playing the format again? If yes, lets do it! The worst thing,
that can happen is that we would have a shift in the metagame - I believe it is not that bad of a thing and you?

[Vazdru]

BUT
I started to look at it the other way later and I still didn't see this point here - in the postings:
What about banning/unbanning cards as a tool, to make players more satisfied? Maybe it is very easy to say and pretty hard to do,
since everybody has its own point on every powerful card.

What I am saying is - lets at least try to look at it this way! Lets look on those cads on banlist/watchlist also from the motivation point!
If we unban some card, or ban it - would it make more people start playing the format again? If yes, lets do it! The worst thing,
that can happen is that we would have a shift in the metagame - I believe it is not that bad of a thing and you?

personally i guess the diversity of the meta is one of the most important points for a banning decision...and unbanning strong cards always involve the risk that the meta shifts in a wrong and unhealthy way (same can be true by banning cards obviously) ... the latest tournament results show a more or less healthy meta imo, what do you think? (http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=1120.0 / http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=1111.0)

if I understand your point correctly you would like to have more democratical ban/unban-decisions out of the community itself?! we try to involve the community-will as good as we can, from time to time we make some surveys (http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=584.120) and we always try to receive the community feedback to upcoming (and recent) ban/unban decisions ... therefore we e. g. developed the watch-list system so we can collect different views on cards before the council makes a decision for the watch-listed cards

there are quite a few different approaches for ban-list-design in the community, there are also players who wanna have a definite longer list to make the game less random and more calculable (no ..."ups Scapeshift from the top you are dead", thank you for "Mana Drain-ing" into CC5-Drop T3, have fun watching my Solitaire-Mode with Tolarian Academy while playing Eggs ...just to mention a few "random" and for the players sometimes less satisfying sceanrios), some guys wanna have a short banned-list as possible, again some bring forward arguments like "randomness", "fun", "motivation and satisfication" always on the background of their own experience and evaluation...we try to respect as much of this feedback as possible still aware that our desicions will always be dssappointing for a part of the community

concerning that motivation-point:
cards like Survival, Birthing Pod, Library of Alexandria, Gift Ungiven etc have either the pontential to make players more motivated playing highlander like the opposite way
each decision has up- and downsides

[Dreamer]

I personally quit around the time of the NO ban. Just didn't have the interest when the fun cards were getting banned left and right. It was harder and harder to justify playing Nantuko Husks over goodstuff anyway, let alone when the supporting engines got banned one after another.