Friday, November 30th
We made our regular friday tournament a test session for 3 of the 4 unban candidates: Jitte, Skullclamp and Gifts Ungiven.
- Leopold was not prepared for the test session (no Facebook, etc.). We informed him and gave him time for including them as a proxy/ play test card, but he decided not to.
- only 2 players included all of the 3 cards
- we decided to play 4 rounds instead of 3 to have more room for testing
Mentional situations:Round 1:- dmg race between Jitte and Cranial Plating
- Jitte got countered - Felix cried
- Nils drew Gifts Ungiven -> was not able/ did not want to cast it because it costs 4
- Felix won Game 1 after 5 minutes with Jitte on board, but opponent was stuck on 1 land anyway (kept 1-land-hand)
- Marvin complains about a very strong 4/1 creature with a Skullclamp on Steffen's board (makes blocking awkward -> afraid of direct dmg spells, which could be drawn by Skullclamp after block)
Round 2:- Dion G1 vs. Florian with an insane start with Fastbond into Intuition turn 1
- Florian stole Dion's jitte with Dack Fayden -> equip on True-Name Nemesis -> Florian won G1
- Skullclamp hinder a meaningful attack against Steffen + draws him 2 cards -> won him this game
- Skullclamp draws Felix 6 cards, but he lost against Blood Moon
- Gifts Ungiven (Counterspell, Mana Drain, Dig through Time, treasure Cruise) wins Dion G2
- Benjamin finally finds a Skullclamp in his deck -> was completely irrelevant for the game
- Nils drew Gifts ungiven again -> was not able/ did not want to cast it because it costs 4
Round 3:- Marvin won G1 with of Jitte and Gaea's Cradle (opponent: Crade start was insane, but the Jitte made him concede; he would not have given up against a sword)
- Dion won with Jitte, but describes it as a "speed-up" for the outcome and not the reason for the win
Round 4:- Dion wins again because of Gifts Ungiven (Crucible of Worlds, Zuran Orb, Memory's Peace, Fastbond)
- Felix lose with Jitte and Skullclamp - more crying
- Nils' Jitte kills Felix' Fauna Shaman and with it his chance to come back into the game
- Dion still winning with insane Gifts ungiven piles (True-Name Nemesis, Eternal Witness, Regrowth, Crush of Tentacles)
- Dion vs. Marvin play 2:1 but announced ID
Marvin:
- won him games
- all 3 cards felt unfair (especially Jitte and Gifts Ungiven)
Nils:
- Gifts was, because of its costs, barely castable for him
Benjamin:
- no interactions with Gifts Ungiven
- barely drew Jitte and Skullclamp and barely played against them
- felt irrelevant for him
Dion:
- could live with a Skullclamp unban
- strongest card by far: Gifts Ungiven (won him several games)
- Jitte mostly only speeded games up (already good board state -> Jitte = win-more card)
Felix:
- saddest day of his life
- would burn Jitte
Steffen:
- Skullclamp was a nice add-on for him
- no interactions with Gifts Ungiven
- all 3 cards felt ok for RDW, but could feel not ok for his other decks
- would like to test them more
Overall:- described the test session as refreshing/ funny
- even if Jitte was not described as win relevant, it felt for all interviewed participents unbalanced
- after resolving Jitte players often feels focussed on it, even if Jitte is not necessarely relevant
- Gifts Ungiven was described as totally insane and unfair in decks, which could abuse it (mostly Combo) and totally irrelevant and nearly dead in Midrange
- Skullclamp got the most unban votings at the end of the day
- samplesize (especially for Gifts Ungiven) way too small -> min 5/8 would like to test again
- participents of test session would not need more test sessions for Jitte, but definitely for Skullclamp and Gifts Ungiven (+ Birthing Pod)
- some players also prepared with solutions on artifacts
- partially people said, 2 relevant equipments led to distortions that only one tested equipment would not have caused (e.g. only Skullclamp would have caused less adjustment)
- Leopold left because he had a Bye in the last round -> no interview
- Florian dropped from the tournament after round 3 -> no interview
