Poll / Opinions etc

[MarcMagic]

Perhaps we should think about opening the Hell´s Gate for several cards on the banned list, just to find out how they REALLY influence the format. We can discuss about unbannings all night long but as long as we don´t test them on a tournament level we´ll never now for sure.

These are IMO the candidates for unbannings:
Buried Alive
Entomb
Imperial Seal
Tolarian Academy
Trinisphere
Yawgmoth's Will
and perhaps even:
Dread Return
Skullclamp
Wheel of Fortune

IMO it is clear that Loam (see above), LoA, Jitte and the instant Tutors should stay on the banned list. The same goes for Drain and Demonic, but this is another story   

If we find out that one (or several) of these cards will dictate our format, we can ban them a couple of months later without any bigger problems.

That's exactly what I always say.. Just find out HOW strong they really are in the actual meta. HL is not a format where money prices matters that much and I think it should be possible to reban cards quite fast after a really bad decision. Although I think it's still hard for some people to look objective at some cards. Best example for me would be Oath of Druids.. I did not count but I guess something like 4 copies saw play in the last 2 years top 8 lists and never as a broken card.. but people still wanna see Oath banned so I guess it won't be that different with other cards like Trinisphere, Will etc : )

Nevertheless good point and I definite support it.

[Kassow-Rossing]

I cannot understand how people can call for a Loam unban but do not want to have Intuition/Gifts banned.

Hehe I don't think anybody has ever said that I hope that Gifts gets banned, Life from the Loam gets unbanned and then unfortunately also ban Intuition. Reasons: Life from the Loam is not a powerful card. It's only an extra Crucible of Worlds that costs mana each turn. Gifts Ungiven is really powerful and ban worthy for that reason. Intuition will have to get the hammer unrightfully because otherwise Loam will too good.

[PurlQg]

I don't see why we should ban Gifts/intuition because they are powerfull? There are so many powerful cards in this format there has to be more reasons.
Are they a problem in the current meta? I totaly agree with MMD as long as the format isn't dominated by cards like Gifts and Intuition then keep them of the banned list. The format is really dominated by aggro decks right now.
DCI have been quite good with the Legacy banned list trying to unban cards and failing, then banning them again, I would love to se some cards tested in real tournaments.

[MMD]

I cannot understand how people can call for a Loam unban but do not want to have Intuition/Gifts banned.

Hehe I don't think anybody has ever said that I hope that Gifts gets banned, Life from the Loam gets unbanned and then unfortunately also ban Intuition. Reasons: Life from the Loam is not a powerful card. It's only an extra Crucible of Worlds that costs mana each turn. Gifts Ungiven is really powerful and ban worthy for that reason. Intuition will have to get the hammer unrightfully because otherwise Loam will too good.

Then you should better take a look on the latest survey analysis. The gap between the votes of banning Gifts/Intution and unbanning Loam is huge. One-sided voters have either not pondered about their vote or don´t understand HL competitive play at all. Sorry.

[Kassow-Rossing]

PurlQg and MMD you're most probably right. I did not see the great span between the wantings for unbanning LftL and the bannings of Gifts + Intuition. I'm sorry!

But you don't have to smite me for not agreeing with me It's kind of lame to get a smite this often for saying my opinion a lot. Isn't that the point of the forum?

The thing is I don't find Gifts Ungiven a great problem even though it's almost instant win. I just think Life from the Loam should be unbanned, because having that card on the ban list is really weird to me. However that leaves us with a problem: Wasteland Lockdown. I don't think it's a bad decision to ban LtfL and keep Gifts and Intuition unbanned but I think it's a better decision to ban Gifts and Intuition to unban LftL.

That is my honest opinion. If this happened, random situations like drawing both Wasteland and LftL would happen, but they would not be that fast or neither very often. It would also make players think a little bit more about how to build their mana bases instead of including near only non-basic lands, as people have decided to do since LftL got banned. It's too EDH'ish in my eyes.

[Dreamer]

Wastelock could, interestingly enough, be a decent solution to the multicolor madness in the format atm. Encourages green and/or two-colour for those basics. It may not be desirable even then, but at least it has some other effects on the meta unlike Alexandria that just turns control mirrors into luckfests. Plus it is green, basically reads "draw cards" on it, and doesn't suck, which is reason enough for me to unban it, Wastelock be damned.

[Sephiron]

Wastelock could, interestingly enough, be a decent solution to the multicolor madness in the format atm. Encourages green and/or two-colour for those basics. It may not be desirable even then, but at least it has some other effects on the meta unlike Alexandria that just turns control mirrors into luckfests. Plus it is green, basically reads "draw cards" on it, and doesn't suck, which is reason enough for me to unban it, Wastelock be damned.

I agree on you on all the points. Although I'm not sure you actually need to ban both intuition AND gifts to unban loam. I think banning gifts should be sufficient enough, since intuition is good mainly because of loam and it isn't such a gamebreaker. Personally I dont care either way: playing gifts is fun, but with loam in the format some graveyard centered strategies might be interesting to play.
But I think what really should be noted is that whatever happened with regards to gifts, it doesn't actually make bant/other aggro decks any weaker while making control decks worse. For example I think banning stoneforge mystic would be much more productive, since every aggro/midrange deck wants to play white, and while mystic isn't always the biggest reason, it is easily splashable and if it resolves on turn 2 it gives too much of an advantage to that player (actually it currently feels pretty much like jitte). 

[LasH]

but with loam in the format some graveyard centered strategies might be interesting to play.

I dont think anything else will see play than lands with Lftl. We had it alrdy in the format and it was just totally boring. It was kinda the slowest format we ever had with highlander, since all decks just tryed to get the draw engine online. No matter which decktype you went for, Lofl had always the perfect answer in form of lands. Futhermore it delayed the games so long, i played grand prix 2 years ago, where it was still allowed to play and went with an aggressive deck in each game to the timeout, mainly because of lftl (+ top + fetch).

For example I think banning stoneforge mystic would be much more productive, since every aggro/midrange deck wants to play white, and while mystic isn't always the biggest reason, it is easily splashable and if it resolves on turn 2 it gives too much of an advantage to that player (actually it currently feels pretty much like jitte). 

I totally agree. SM and Quasali pridemage are to low costed for their abilitys in this format. Compare these creatures to the other "versions": Steelshaper Apprentice, Stonehewer Giant, Taj-Nar Swordsmith or Wickerborn Elder, Indrik Stomphowler, wich are perfectly balanced for their abilitys.

Once again, the abilitys are fine and good for the format. The cc of these cards is not. Exspecially with all CHEAP creature tutor's you are much to flexible, because of the ridiculous low mana costs of these cards. You kinda can play tutor and you can use them in the same turn alrdy, because they are so cheap to cast. And these guys DO change the bord or they control the bord, which is actually simply to strong in that cc slot for the format in my eyes.

[Sephiron]

I dont think anything else will see play than lands with Lftl. We had it alrdy in the format and it was just totally boring. It was kinda the slowest format we ever had with highlander, since all decks just tryed to get the draw engine online. No matter which decktype you went for, Lofl had always the perfect answer in form of lands. Futhermore it delayed the games so long, i played grand prix 2 years ago, where it was still allowed to play and went with an aggressive deck in each game to the timeout, mainly because of lftl (+ top + fetch).

I know what you mean, but then again the format had LoA (the card is just retarded, i don't want to see it unbanned ever) and gifts (to lesser extent intuition) which slowed it much more. What i mean is with loam in the format people will play more controlling strategies: looters will become better, and genesis with worm harvest will finally be viable options to play again. This in turn will slow format down. Its not like aggros will stop being good. It will just slow down the format, getting control more time to stabilize.

But then again it is just my opinion and i will be fine either way, as long as either gifts or loam is in the format.
 

I totally agree. SM and Quasali pridemage are to low costed for their abilitys in this format. Compare these creatures to the other "versions": Steelshaper Apprentice, Stonehewer Giant, Taj-Nar Swordsmith or Wickerborn Elder, Indrik Stomphowler, wich are perfectly balanced for their abilitys.

Once again, the abilitys are fine and good for the format. The cc of these cards is not. Exspecially with all CHEAP creature tutor's you are much to flexible, because of the ridiculous low mana costs of these cards. You kinda can play tutor and you can use them in the same turn alrdy, because they are so cheap to cast. And these guys DO change the bord or they control the bord, which is actually simply to strong in that cc slot for the format in my eyes.

While I agree on your arguments i don't think pridemage is that bad, since it has drawbacks: It's 2 colored so it means you have to be playing those colors already and secondly it doesn't provide card advantage (there are other creatures with similar effect in white pridemage is just a bit better than the rest ), so you cant exactly compare it to 4-5 drops that kill artifacts/enchantments when they come into play.

[Kassow-Rossing]

I dont think anything else will see play than lands with Lftl. We had it alrdy in the format and it was just totally boring. It was kinda the slowest format we ever had with highlander, since all decks just tryed to get the draw engine online. No matter which decktype you went for, Lofl had always the perfect answer in form of lands. Futhermore it delayed the games so long, i played grand prix 2 years ago, where it was still allowed to play and went with an aggressive deck in each game to the timeout, mainly because of lftl (+ top + fetch).

1. I didn't find the format boring, so please speak for yourself.
2. Yeah a format with Life from the Loam, Gifts Ungiven and Intuition is slow and dangerously troublesome. Any format with Gifts actually is troublesome. We've had so very many discussions in here how over-the-top Gifts was back when Loam was unbanned but Loam was not near the only argument for Gifts Ungiven being too good. I know my fight for Life from the Loam is going to be difficult because it involves three changes to get it unbanned, but I really think it was a mistake to ban Loam before banning Gifts. The format won't be slow with Loam if there are no tutors bringing a whole combo package to the graveyard.
3. Yes Sensei's Divining Top and Fetch lands are really slow in the format. I don't know what the solution is because I really don't think such cards should get the hammer. I have tried suggestion a rule change for the mulligan where cards are being put on the bottom of the library instead of being shuffled in, which will save at least a minute each game. That didn't go so well. I have tried suggestion having dual lands on the outside of the game and putting them to the battlefield when fetching (While keeping the main deck dual land in the library) thus removing the main deck dual land from the game when drawing it thus replacing the two cards and saving 100% of the fetch'ing time. That is also somehow against the rules because it's possible to cheat if you are not being careful.

[Nastaboi]

Loam would make dredge deck almost playable, which is good as the deck needs skill and tight play (as opposed in other formats). For the record, I'd like to see Gifts banned and Loam unbanned, but for me those wishes are not strongly related as I'd be happy if I got either one.

Do people who want Stoneforge Mystic banned think Demonic Tutor is still an OK card to have in comparision?

[LasH]

1. I didn't find the format boring, so please speak for yourself.

I kinda did only speak for myself. I dont see me speaking for others.

Do people who want Stoneforge Mystic banned think Demonic Tutor is still an OK card to have in comparision?

I dont know why u compare stoneforge mystic to demonic tutor.

Compared to demonic tutor, stoneforge has a free 1/2 body + a sick ability vs counter. I dont see any of this comparable to demonic tutor.

If the "search sword" part of the card would be the dangerous factor, ppl would play steelshaper's gift or Steelshaper Apprentice, Stonehewer Giant or Taj-Nar Swordsmith, but its mostly the very powerful ability which wins most of the games early on (combined with the ridiculous manacost's). It fit's so well in any aggro-control. Turn 1 manacritter turn 2 sm turn 3 use ability + equip critter. Not a rare scenario and pretty game exspecially if the bant/4c player started.

I don't see many games won by a 2nd turn demonic tutor. Demonic tutor get's pretty strong in the lategame, but then you had enough time yourself to put things on the table or react in a proper way. Stoneforge mystic wins the early game in nearly every matchup. Some alrdy said, its compareable to jitte and i join this step. Thats the difference for me, demonic is a lategamecard or a fast solution finder, while sm is a early game winner which creates sick card advantage for 2 mana. I can only compare it to trinket mage or boneshredder. (Do i miss any other ETB card advantage creatures in the 2cc slot?)


So yes, demonic tutor is still an OK card while stoneforge is not.

[Sephiron]

the thing about demonic tutor is that it finds best card for the situation but it costs 2 mana and a card for you + you still need to resolve that spell. With mystic things are different: it costs you 2 mana but provides a body so it actually is card advantage, and if it isn't killed you don't need to cast the equipment since mystic conviniently can cheat it into play around conunters and equipment removal EOT, while at the same time providing body to equip sword to. And if they kill mystic you still get to keep the card you found (maybe even cheat it into play if opponent takes too long to answer mystic).
So to sum it up I think that mystic isn't quite comparable with Demonic Tutor, but if it is compared to mystic it's actually fair card.

p.s. I should note that I sometimes find myself demonic tutoring for stoneforge mystic, since it is such a good threat.

[so_not]

If people can get their hands on Batterskulls before our HL-champs (which will be held during the release weekend), I could see the top8 having at least 5-6 (even more) Stoneforge Mystics in the top8. I don't know if other people have tested with New Phyrexia so far but FYI Mystic+Skull is a totally busted pair of cards (at least that is what has happened so far in testing with Sephiron). Also recently I have been using Demonic Tutor mainly not as reactive card but as a second Jace or Mystic (followed by Mana Drain and Gifts Ungiven).

I don't really have an opinion whether Mystic should be banned or not. It definitely is good enough to get hammered but I'd like the banned list to be as short as possible. Hopefully our champs give some more information about the state of the format.

[Lightstorm]

I understand issues with Stoneforge Mystic but somehow this makes me feel bad since Gifts Ungiven is still legal.

I`ve been playing Stonforge in every creature based deck after it came out and it´s never been too big problem to opponent or opponents Mystic to me. Decks have creature and artifact removals.