Community Poll - Sensei's Divining Top

[ChristophO]

I am still somewhat undecided on how I will vote regarding Sensei's Divining Top. While I believe the card is troublesome because of time consumption (especially with the many shuffle effects that are being played in our format) I am not convinced yet that is has to be banned as soon as possible. I also really hate how this card (and Jace2.0) play online. It just takes forever clicking around and rearranging cards but that it is certainly no reason for a banning.

I would like to know from you guys playing Highlander on a store level with real cards:
How many draws are happening? How involved is the Top in those draws? I rarely see games go to a draw with two fast players even with both playing slow decks in Hamburg where I am playing. With Top it certainly is a different story....

[cron]

Sensei's Divining Top is a strong card, but the card doesn't win games alone.
I think this type of card (you have decisions to make) helps highlander.
It is only a supporter-card which helps Combo, Control & Midrange.
Combo & Control need this kind of cards.

If this is a vote, I vote for "NO BAN".

[MMD]

SDT never felt too powerful nor time consuming for me. NO ban

[phyrexianblackmetal]

Don't ban Sensei's Divinig Top!

I've honestly never understood the "time consuming" argument. Yes, a slow player might take a bit to rearrange his cards with the Top, but that's the same as with other library-manipulation cards like Sylvan Library, Mirri's Guile, Brainstorm, Preordain etc. A slow player has a higher chance of timing out regardless of whether or not he uses the Top, and most players I know don't play slow enough to make using the Top an issue. It's a good card, but not totally oppressive. Certainly not powerful enough to be banned. It also provides a bit of library manipulation to decks that usually wouldn't have access to it (aka decks that don't play blue and/or green), and taking it away from these decks might further limit their viability, shift the color distribution of the decks played further towards Blue and Green and limit deck diversity. It would also make combo decks a bit less consistent. Sensei's Divining Top is an important part of the format and banning it would be a bad idea.

[Ball.Lightning]

UNBAN

If you want to have format where there are also non agro decks, Top cant get banned. What would go next? Branstorm? Top gives nice ulitity to control decks, to combodecks and to ramp too. It is powerful card indeed, but nothing too broken. Agro can ignore opponents top calmly. In control mirrors it is pretty good card (but there is lots of cards that are way too good in control mirrors - Crucible, Mana drain, PW's, Loam, ...)

[K0d013e4st]

Sure, its a autoinclude in some decks and a strong card,but i think its not to powerfull. So i vote for NO BAN

[Vazdru]

imo powerlevel isn't the point to argue about as SDT isn't overpowered in any kind

a question which cross my mind:

as Sensei's Divining Top is colorless every deck can run it - that is the main difference to mentioned Brainstorm, Sylvan Library and that kind - that's also the reason why every combo and control deck must run it, like a lot of midrange too - that limits the deckbuilding of combo- and control-decks to 99 in fact  
you find 311 copies of SDT at mtg-pulse
in comparision: Brainstorm 260 / Sylvan Library 218
so SDT is no color-staple but an archetype-staple which makes it somehow different to any other cards as it is probably the only one of its kind (except Wasteland maybe)

time-factor has been mentioned already...
fun-factor is quite subjective, but that's why we have this thread

there must be good reasons for banning as SDT is banned in Modern and Singleton too  
i can live with SDT quite good but wouldn't miss it much if I'm honest  

[Kenshin]

Because of its colorless nature it goes in almost every Deck. And since it repays its investment over a few rounds it is a card most control and midrange decks want. I have, from time to time, experienced that it leads to longer games but only when it is used by players that take forever anyway and/or do not know how to use it properly. A good player that knows his deck does not take much time with this little artifact and if the game happens to go into the extra rounds it usually is not the tops fault. Games are bound to go in overtime on big tournaments. Since there is only one big Highlander tournament big enough, the time factor is neglible. In Modern it is understandable, since a huge GP features many unexpierenced players and thus guarantees extraturns every round but I still think it should not be banned in those other formats. This might be a reason but most highlander players are experienced with the format and know their decks in and out, so I doubt it is a real factor. I went in overtime on the hl gp 3 times this year. And it happened because games were going back and forth so much once, nothing happening for rounds on end the second time and vazdru playing with glacial pace (which he usually does not) the third time. Top unsurprisingly had nothing to do with it. Maybe he might have kept me in the games longer or won them earlier. Has anybody even considered that you actually might win games faster by finding what you search with the top? I think the time factor is overrated.

Top is an imensely powerful card if used correctly and that for the meagre cost of one colorless mana. But other more degenerate cards are legal, so the powerlevel argument is invalid in my opinion. It initially costs you a card without providing any immedeate value. It only gets good over time, when you can get the right spell at the right time, save a good spell from discard or smooth out your curve. But that all costs Mana and you are -1 card for as long as you have it on the board. It can only generate quality advantage and then you will still have to draw those bad spells piling up unless you find a fetch land.

As a player whose top has been played in his esper deck from its printing in Kamigawa and has spun several thousand times I would hate to see him go, although he does not warrant the inclusion of trinket mage for his and needles sake alone. So his powerlevel is not that insane at all. If it gets the axe, so be it, but I vote NO BAN.

[Thaddeus]

No need to ban SDT.

[RS]

SDT is mustplay in ALL highlanders, even in mono red. Who doesnt play it, well, it is his mistake. Usually those players want to ban SDT, because they dont know how/dont want to, make full profit of its power. It is skill intensive card, which is avalaible to all decks, so do not punish players, who know how to play it correctly, just because for others it is simply "stupid".

I vote for NO BAN.

[jardach85]

UNBAN

if you think it is time demanding, what will we ban next? fetchlands? it is skill testing card, it should stay in format..

[coav]

UNBAN

[orca-]

Can someone explain me why it is a skill testing card? Because you can improve your draws, what almost every player can do?

The reason it is banned in modern is mostly the time factor(I assume, for example a Protour in the Kamigawa block had 55 Minutes time limit because of this card).
Since we are already searching like a mad men the whole time and then people use the top again it's a real waste of time.

I vote for a ban.

[BroccoliDog]

No ban

[Doks]

No Ban.