Current bannings 1.April 2016

Ball.Lightning · 01-04-2016, 12:18:40 PM

I know that today it is first april = fools days. But I do not find nothing funny or amusing on today's anouncement. I will not be defending Top, although I think, it is far from neccessary to ban it.

What surprised me was banning of Natural Order. It was clear, that people who are willing to play this card will not be searching Courser of Crupix with it but Primeval Titan, Crafthoof Behemoth or Protean Hulk.

I searched decks which accualy made it to mtgpulse and I found 18 entries (still it is just Berlin meta though). Uses of the card varried - 8x4c piles, 4xRG various builds, just 1xPattern. Which is not that bad or supposed to be used as banning criteria. On several tournaments we had here in Prague, one could see someone resolve Natural Order, but there was no crying about it or no heated discussion.

You released demon from the bottle, people used it and before meta could adapt you stripped the card again. I think it is mistake to ban it so harshly.

Maqi · 01-04-2016, 02:44:38 PM

Is there really anything lost though? Natural Order was just a brainless play. Either you countered it (if you were blue in the first place) and won easily afterwards or you didn't and lost.

In midrange mirrors this is even more random. One player has it and wins. Shuffle for the next game.

The point is, this is just randomly too strong, backfires in stupid ways (bribery => blue NO), doesn't lead to exciting games and creates no archetype on its own.

Furthermore, which deck will miss this? Ramp, green Midrange, Pattern are all perfectly playable without this.

MMD · 01-04-2016, 03:02:20 PM

I hope banning SDT is just another April fool.

The time issue argument is valid but SDT is the glue of UWx control strategies. IMO banning SDT will set back all UW(x) control decks to Tier2 at most. How should they now keep pace with multicolor goodstuff?

I will wait until tomorrow and hope this is just a bad joke. If not there will be another 4C Blood player, even if I never wanted to.
(As WotC don´t stop to print good R drops I will also sleeve up RDW as my second choice)

Long live the AGGROGOODSTUFF vs RDW meta!

Another question: Will the council ever change the way to decide about bannings? I would like to see that the community gets a vote somehow.

Ball.Lightning · 01-04-2016, 05:01:56 PM

Maqi: Including NO is far from brainless. Sure midrange or ramp will love it. Aside from countering it there is reasonable amount of hatecard or ways to play around that - censor, thalia, any mana denial card, gaddock, removal for mana elves, ankh of mishra, POP... I have got an impression, that you hate to play against T3/T4 titan. But killing titan on spot, copying it (metamorf) are also relevant answers. Sure it is better if the first player didn't get those two lands, but it is nowhere to autoconcede.

As for true ramp decks, they are almost nonexistent. Last year I was forced to create new archetype on mtgpulse, because there was no to be found. Pattern was also sort of pushed out of meta. Agresive decks can be so agresive and disruptive at the same time, that comoing off needn't happen.

It is like one 4c player got outgoodstuffed by titan and complains, while other was killed T3 by storm deck and feels realy good about that! If someone hates random factor of mirrors so much, he should play different deck than 4c. No matter what in few years this HL format's metagame will probably turn into standard type metagame, where few potent strategies exists and are strongly represented + few rogue decks. Get ready for more mirrors. Banning of either card can't stop that.

W0lf · 01-04-2016, 06:01:14 PM

Natural Order:
Craddlehoof is one of the more popular and 100% legit archetypes in canadian Highlander. By banning Natural order you basically deny playing a whole archetype in european Highlander. I don`t see how this goes along with your policy of creating a "diverse Meta"

Top:
Top definitly slows down games. Will banning it result in less draws because insecure inexperienced player X doesn`t draw top in every 10th game?
The anser is of course no, however I´m interested how you are going to meassure the impact of this ban on the Format...

Adan · 03-04-2016, 02:09:57 AM

I find the bannings reasonable. Natural Order was just stupid. I even had a mirrormatch during the last HL Cup in Hanau where both my opponent and I fired off a 3rd Turn Natural Order into Titan, and I was even on the draw there and had to take a hit from the Titan. I just happened to win because I randomly had Ajani to keep his Titan tapped. But it was probably one of the most degenerate matches I played.

The problem I see here is that Natural Order does not only give your opponent a large beatstick in form of the Titan that has to be dealt with, but at the same time missing one landdrop means he'll get Wasteland + TecEdge and you'll never be allowed to play a proper game or in a more advanced game, it will also give the opponent even more beatsticks in form of manlands or depending on the deck even fetches Dark Dephts + Stage.
This being said, a resolved Natural Order into Titan is GG most of the times because it creates at least 2 problems for the opposite player that are extremely hard to deal with simultaneously.

So I am 100% pro Natural Order ban. I was wondered why it got unbanned in the first place.

Banning SDT was probably not necessary, but I still find it good. SDT does slow down the pace of a game significantly, either because it's the inexperienced player not knowing what to do with the 3 cards or because of the experienced control players that will take their time to look at cards and inevitably stall the game. I know players that take their time to look at the artwork of the 3 lands they see in their top activation just to maintain a pokerface and draw the game to a certain lenght. During one Highlander Cup (it was the one won by Marcus Freier with UWb Control, don't know how long ago) I scooped 3 games because it took to long and I had to go for the 2-1, in 2 of these games there was a SDT involved. And the other one was Crumbling Sanctuary and other shenanigans iirc.
There are people who'll abuse SDT to stall a game when they are in the leading position, and taking away this grey zone is a good thing imo.

Now for the unban watchlist, I am not certain about Gifts Ungiven. It was banned during a time where controldecks (5color Oath stands out here, and I've been crushing tournaments with it pretty regularily) did not rely on planeswalkers, or lets better say planeswalkers were non-existent.
However, I can see it being almost as degenerate as Natural Order due to Loam-Engines (that can also enable Academy Ruins + EE), Unburial Rites, double Tutor with Noxious Revival and/or Snapcaster which can create another "oops, i (still) win" card.
However, this is a card that would definitely strenghten underplayed archetypes and probably create some more diversity in terms of control- and combodecks. Unbanning it would be interesting.

However, I would not ever think about Stoneforge Mystic, no matter how much the community wished to play that card again. It will be stuffed into any deck playing white. Controldecks gain access to Batterskull and have another Tutor to piece the super lame Thopter-Swords combo together, and midrange decks such as 4C Blood would play him to fetch the appropriate swiss army knife and break their matchup. It allows fetching up Sword of Fire and Ice to race that super annoying True-Name Nemesis or Sword of War and Piece to completely fcuk over RDW, making SFM in midrange decks somewhat a versatile "color-hoser".

Kenshin · 03-04-2016, 02:57:32 AM

I agree with Adan. Natural Order into Titan usually creates two to three threats at a way too early time. Since lands are generally not easy to handle in our format it is even worse. I think I know why it was unbanned, but to me it was a pipe dream.

SFM is very similar, as it will not generate any diversity but instead just get crammed into every existing deck and generate degenerate blowouts. I just can not get behind the arguments that try to paint it as a balanced card.

While I hate to say goodbye to SDT, I also love to see it go. In control mirrors he very likely just wins the game over the long run while being close to uncounterable because either he comes too early or you have to pay more mana than it costs and leave your opponent free to push something actually threatening through. In other matchups it is solid but often underwhelming because you do not have the time to make up for the invested card and constant mana investment.

Gifts is problematic in the usual fashion. While it may slightly boost control archetypes it will just open up the doors for a few degenerate interactions, instant combo tutoring or lock assembly.

Most of the argumentation towards reintroducing those dangerous cards into the metagame look like arguments to introduce an invasive species to a healthy ecosystem in the hopes of diversifying it. We all know what usually happens in that case.

carte_blanche · 03-04-2016, 01:54:28 PM

@Natural Order: I always considered it to be some kind of a green Tinker, so I didn't understand the unban in the first place. However, the council had the balls to give it a try and, even more importantly, the balls to admit it was a mistake. -> OK.

@Top: I completely disagree with the ban and do not think that many arguments brought up for the ban are entirely valid. However, I will not go into details here. We had this discussion a couple of times - no need to repeat it here. (And no point of doing so.) It got the axe, so that's that.

What I really find curious is the watchlist update. Half the storm deck is on the watchlist... why? Looking at recent results, I don't see that the deck is oppressive at all. Yawgmoth's Will on the watchlist? Sure, the card's effect is ridiculous, however in most decks it's just a bad Regrowth and therefore almost only Storm uses this card. All that + considering that Storm just lost a very important card with Sensei's Divining Top.

QuoteMost of the argumentation towards reintroducing those dangerous cards into the metagame look like arguments to introduce an invasive species to a healthy ecosystem in the hopes of diversifying it. We all know what usually happens in that case.

I do not completely agree here. If we do not test cards in an evolved metagame (to kinda stick to your metaphor), we would never see cards in the format again once they got banned. Remember the unbanning Life from the Loam? The impact was not too large... in fact, did it have any impact at all? But ppl were still remembering Loam-wars and were kinda 'afraid' when the unbanning was announced iirc. Why not test cards for a season and gather some data like it was just done with Natural Order? Trial and error. That's fine with me as long as the council has the guts to admit it didn't work out as expected. But considering the latest decision on Natural Order... they did a good job.

(Disclaimer: I don't mean to test everything, obviously. Sol Ring and such stuff are so broken, we don't have to test it to know that such cards are bad for the format.)

Dreamer · 09-06-2016, 03:01:12 PM

I still don't get the NO ban, just like I didn't get it the previous time. If NO=>Prime Time is a problem in midrange mirrors, ban the Titan! It's not like ramp decks are lacking in bombs to play, and it's not like midrange decks are going to go all in on clunky targets like Hulk and Progenitus with the dearth of cantrips in the format. NO=>Titan is played because it's backbreaking and Titan is hardcastable. If you remove the pure X-for-1 value play, NO will be profiled more as a combo card that you play because you have a plan, as it should be, instead of an extra cheapo copy of a goodstuff creature.

Maqi · 09-06-2016, 05:22:51 PM

That logic leads down a slippery slope. Just mere months ago I found myself using NO to get Titania OVER Titan pretty often. So thats a replacement which is already there. What if a new maindeckable green beast gets released? Ban that? And what about the next one?

Dreamer · 09-06-2016, 05:44:28 PM

I think in that case you switch. At some point keeping NO in the playable pool will be holding more playable cards out of the format than the weight of the strategies it enables and you ban it. Not hard. I just don't like the take on automatically banning the strategies when atm the main big problem is Titan, not the petdeck combo lines for which the card is critical.