Banned List Changes Season III - 2011

[Vazdru]

Valid during July 15th, 2011 0:00 CET until October 14th, 2011 24:00 CET.

Changes to the present list, effective 7/15/2011:

Banned:

   * -

Unbanned:

   * Buried Alive

Watchlist:

   * Sensei's Divining Top
   * Gifts Ungiven

Unban-Watchlist:

   * Wheel of Fortune
   * Trinisphere
   * Life from the Loam


Single card Explanations:

Buried Alive

Buried Alive came under closer scrutiny three months ago when it was placed on the unban watchlist. For those unfamiliar with the combo, Buried Alive revolved around finding Pestermite/Karmic Guide and Kiki Jiki, the Mirror Breaker, then targeting Karmic Guide with a random reanimate spell. This resulted in the end attacking with infinite copies of Pestermites.
Hypothesis was that in todays meta, Buried Alive based combo decks may not be such a force to be reckoned with, that it couldn't be handled with disruption from aggro, or reactive answers from control. Also, we wanted to challenge whether this 4 or 5 mana mono black combo would be too resilient or fast to deploy. Fundamental turn for this sort of a deck varies, and it can take an opponent by surprise few times. But when the combo gradually gets known and potentially played in tournament environment, only then can we really meter and see the results. But that means that the card has to break the tournament barrier first, and to this date Buried Alive has not made a serious entrance. So with the second chance, we hope to introduce, if not a new seriously taken archetype, then one card shorter banned list.


Sensei's Divining Top

Sensei's Divining Top stays on the watch list, and mainly because of the two reasons which haven't changed from the last time: Being an auto include in almost every deck, the card makes this format more like of 99 than 100 cards. Secondly, the artifact makes drawn out games while giving significant advantage to the player who has it first active. There aren't enough good tools that punishes directly from playing the card (à la Burning-Tree Shaman), so we are a little bit at crossroads here. While we strive to keep the banned list as short as possible, we must ask whether the format would be more enjoyable without the card, and for this we'd need more community input from the next 3 months. So keep posting those deck lists and tournament results.
On the other hand, the ban of Sensei's Divining Top does not fall clearly into any of the five banning reasons being an unprecedented exception to the established policy, and we don't know what waits at the end of that road. Also, the card is skill rewarding with many options it offers when activated. Lastly, we don't have enough information how the card is perceived by a larger community and the current assumption is, that the card isn't necessarily that big of a problem.


Gifts Ungiven

Gifts Ungiven has been the card that has probably generated more discussion than any other card in the recent history of this format. We feel that the time is ripe enough to seriously investigate what the ban of this card would mean. There's a lot of material to go through, so the process might take time before the end resolution has been reached. At the same time, we do have much experience playing with and against this card. One thing is clear, that as the cornerstone of the current ban list, Gifts would introduce other cards to the format, so we are nevertheless talking about a format defining card here.
The power level of Gifts has become familiar to those who play the Online League regularly, and people know by now how to construct piles that either win right after on the next turn, or then through the gained advantage in the coming turns. Gifts is no doubt one of the most skill intensive tools in the format, so it truly rewards those who know the four best cards in their library at a given situation.


Wheel of Fortune

Wheel of Fortune visited briefly on the watch list back in early 2009, but that time it didn't quite make it, because it was perceived to be too strong an asset for red based aggro decks. Now two years later, we see the situation from a little bit different angle. We estimate that the combo potential of the card is greater, especially in draw7 based combo, but so far it has failed to be a serious deck. The closest comparable card is Timetwister which has seen some play, and this indicates there's definitely some usage for Wheel too. Also we asked that if Timetwister is in the format, but from functionality standpoint similar Wheel of Fortune is not, it's little incoherent in our opinion. So the call for unban watch list for Wheel was made in order to test it more closely.


Trinisphere

So let's take the boogey man out of the closet first: Crop Rotation, Workshop, Trinisphere, go. GG? Often so, but luck has always been an inseparate part of the game, and now with the advent of various good equipments (and to some extent Stoneforge Mystic), we are seeing more artifact hate. Wasteland from the opponent is not the only option anymore either. The issue with Trinisphere is its randomness. It's only devastating when played on the very first turns of the game. By fifth turn, aggro decks have already played their hands out and have 3 lands to play any spell they draw. Thus, we do not consider Trinisphere because of the card's "anti-aggro-qualities" or "staxx not being tier one", but because the randomness of the card. Right now we don't know for sure how much of an impact the card would have, but we intend to find out.
Also, Trinisphere is as much of a call made by player base, because we can't ever fully recognize the unfun factor without trying cards first. We are quite good at valuing cards' power levels and studying decklists, but what we can't ever factor completely in, are the reactions of player base.


Life from the Loam

Life from the Loam has been on the watch list probably longer than any other card in the past, until it finally got the axe on the third quarter of 2010. So why reintroduce the card again after such a short period?
The card gives no direct board presence (unless opponent's mana base is really greedy), but it does generate card advantage, although slowly. This has been regarded by portion of the players as monotonous as the setting tends to win control mirror match ups for the player who resolves Gifts or Intuition first. And there's really the culprit. If we are to watchlist Gifts, we'd be entitled to also investigate Loam's impact again, as this has never the been the setting before. We anticipate this would strengthen the graveyard recursion based decks marginally, and graveyard hate would find it's way back in the control archetypes again, but it's little bit too early to anticipate that.


Other changes:

Biannual announcements and watchlist policy

From October 1st. 2011 onward, the potential ban list changes will be published only every six months (1.4 & 1.10), instead of the currently used quarter year announcements. However, the watchlists are still being scrutinized in smaller scale quarterly, and we have set up a guideline to do bannings/unbannings only through watchlists from now on.

The aforementioned changes to the announcement cycle and watchlist policy will serve two purposes:  

1.  We believe to the transparency and flexibility via watchlist changes, because we've learned that the predictability of the council is something that players do approve.
2.  We do not want to subject the format to too many and sudden changes (stabilization), thus the biannual announcements, but quarterly watch lists.


Commander set legality

Cards from Commander reprint set including its featured new 51 cards from preconstructed decks have been tournament legal in highlander from the set's release date onward (June 17, 2011).


German translation is in progress. If someone wanna help, plz send me a PM. I have already started but haven't managed it to do it in time. Furthermore i'm not absolutely satisfied with my results yet (esp. grammar, style).

[Vazdru]

German translation has been completed and will be published soon.
Thx @ Thule who delivered the translation.