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April 1st, 2018 - Banned List Changes

Started by Dr. Opossum, 01-04-2018, 01:01:40 AM

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Dr. Opossum

Changes to the present banned list, effective 04/15/2018:

Banned:                                                      
-

Unbanned:                                                    
-
                                               

Current watchlists:

Ban watchlist:                                                    
• Blood Moon
• Back to Basics
• Bring to Light *new*
• Demonic Tutor
• Dig Through Time
• Entomb
• Imperial Seal
• Mana Drain
• Oath of Druids
• Tainted Pact
• Tolarian Academy
• Treasure Cruise
• True-Name Nemesis *new*
Yawgmoth's Will *new*

                                             
Unban watchlist:                                                      
• Mystical Tutor
• Gifts Ungiven
• Skullclamp *new*


Single cards explanations:

Ban-Watchlist:

Bring to Light

Based on recent available tournament data Scapeshift is one of the best combo decks currently - maybe even the best one. It isn't just a local meta phenomenon as Scapeshift decks has quite decent results on some bigger tournaments in quite different areas during the last months (e. g. in Finnland, Berlin, Mannheim, Erfurt, Frankfurt, online). It seems quite robust to any meta-changing and keeps that high level performance for already quite a while. As we don't want to ban combo-decks in total basically, but weaken it if necessary we decided not to put Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle or Scapeshift itself on watchlist but a specific tutor which shines most in Scapeshift-shells. Bring to Light do not see much play outside Scapeshift-combo so we suppose this could be the right tool to weaken the combo to adjust meta if outstanding performance will last on during the next months.
 
Same is true for uprising Reanimator as Entomb stays under special monitoring too.


True-Name Nemesis

First off, we get that True-Name Nemesis is ,,only" a creature and creatures tend to not get banned. The usual argument is, a creature is rather easily handled, therefore making a ban unreasonable.
True-Name Nemesis however is different in this regard because it isn't answered easily at all. Most common solutions for problematic creatures are useless against True-Name Nemesis.
This alone would not be a problem if True-Name Nemesis wouldn't also be unblockable (making it a formidable tool to keep opposing Planeswalkers off the table) and wouldn't be almost impossible to destroy in combat (thus often times being a full-stop to opposing aggressive strategies).
Furthermore, True-Name Nemesis is blue. As it happens, Blue is the dominant color in our format at the moment. The fact that Blue also gets to get the arguably best midrange creature is unfortunate – to say the least – for the purposes of balancing the power level among colors for our format.
Current top performing decks do not care all that much about True-Name Nemesis. Scapeshift, Reanimator and Blue-based Control all have reasonable tools against the pesky merfolk.
It is rather the decks we don't see as often at the moment, which have a harder time dealing with it. It could be the right call to reduce the obstacles for those decks in order to shift the metagame to a point where they can more easily flourish.


Yawgmoth's Will

Yawgmoth's Will has been on watch for a long time now and all that can really be said about the card is, that it is a non-issue.
It only really becomes broken when used in conjunction with Dark Ritual-like cards. However, the nature of a singleton format makes this combination rather complicated to execute.
If one succeeds at going off with Yawgmoth's Will, congratulations to the person because they really pulled off a feat.
Consequently, Yawgmoth's Will leaves the watchlist for the time being.


Unban-Watchlist:

Skullclamp

Skullclamp is on banned list for ages now and this for some good reasons. The clamp looks quite grim on paper and would be absolutly dominating in a few scenarios. Nevertheless Skullclamp has been already picked up by the community for some discussions lately. Why? In fact not many tier 1 decks would play Skullclamp currently, powerlevel has been increased quite a lot since this card has entered the banned-list and it could be a nice tool for decks which are on the decline at the moment maybe. Card like Treasure Cruise gives "instant" 1:3 card-advantage while Skullclamp needs a special setting to reach this and is more often just a dead card from the top without any impact on the game. Maybe this cards grants new strategic aspects in deck-building (cards like Bitterblossom seem almost vanished, Bloodghast would have a new friend) and game-play (when is the right time/turn to "cycle" your Mana-Elf for 2 cards? when do card-advantage outclass tempo-loss?).

In other singleton-formats where Skullclamp is unbanned, this card does not have an overwhelming influence too. In Canadian Highlander for example this card hasn't even an entry on the point-list.