Banned and Restricted - Jan 9th 2017
General forum
Posted on Jan. 9, 2017, 2:08 p.m. by Bovine073
That's a lot of bannings. What does everyone think about this?
Effective Date: January 20, 2017
Magic Online Effective Date: January 11, 2017
Standard:
Emrakul, the Promised End is banned.
Smuggler's Copter is banned.
Reflector Mage is banned.
Modern:
Gitaxian Probe is banned.
Golgari Grave-Troll is banned.
Next B&R Announcement: March 13, 2017
When was the last time three cards have been banned in Standard? How will these bannings affect standard and modern?
For Standard, bye-bye, Vehicles (maybe it will still be psuedo-playable?)! U/W flash receives a huge hit. GB Delirium and Marvel have suffered huge losses as well.
For Modern, Gitaxian Probe banning affects infect, delver, suicide bloo/zoo, pyro ascension, and more. GGT Ban cripples Dredge (again).
YamishiTheWickedOne says... #2
So guys, opinions on running Street Wraith to more or less maintain the flow of infect? Or do you guys think I'm better off running something along the lines of Serum Visions?
January 14, 2017 1:23 p.m.
StarMonkey says... #3
DevoidMage top doesn't need a ban. Miracles is good, but it's far from being oppressive and has a lot of bad matchups among top tier decks.
January 14, 2017 3:04 p.m.
YamishiTheWickedOne, I would like to point out the wording on Mechanized Production.
"Then, if you control 8 or more artifacts with the same name as one another, you win the game." It does not say they have to have the same name as the thing produced. If I have 8 tokens all named "Thopter", I still win.
Ruling from gatherer, "The eight artifacts with the same name dont have to have the same name as the enchanted artifact. For example, you win the game if you control eight Thopter artifact creature tokens as Mechanized Productions ability resolves, even if Mechanized Production isnt attached to a Thopter."
January 14, 2017 3:56 p.m.
YamishiTheWickedOne says... #5
maddoxmtg ok, point taken, I forgot tokens have names as I've been out of the loop for a bit. But it still really seems slow, at earliest this is generally gonna be start of turn 5 and we still have Engineered Explosives sided in like everything.
January 14, 2017 4:11 p.m.
Honestly, I'm just a little tired of Wizards not banning things until right after they print the hosers. Disallow shuts down fast Marvel decks hard, Shock eats Toolcraft or Thraben and munches several of vehicles contenders for T2, Metallic Rebuke puts blue in the position of having a real one mana counter, Fatal Push has already been mentioned above.
Copter should have gone the way of Skullclamp, a couple events to realize the magnitude of the issue, then they collectively facepalm and emergency ban it.
I honestly don't see how banning one of our big eldrazi friends does anything to stop the problem of cheesing them in. Emrakul is too easy to play and design against. Protection from instants on a big creature doesn't matter in a format with cards like Clip Wings and Stasis Snare, and a well used Ceremonious Rejection can just ruin the play. Ulamog is going to be a bigger issue simply because he more strongly affects the board and both Koz and Winnower are also waiting in the wings.
Reflector was too easy to get massive temp advantage. Block with reflector and draw a card or get some other nice effect.
So, yes, I think the bans in standard will be good for the format.
January 14, 2017 7:33 p.m.
YamishiTheWickedOne says... #8
I'm curious to see how modern evolves, as probe was played in a TON of decks. Until the dust settles I guess I'll go back to chilling with other vampire and rogue players. Peace guys.
January 15, 2017 10:20 a.m.
matty39103 says... #9
Just traded for 3 smugglers copters a week before the ban. FML
January 16, 2017 4:44 p.m.
You can still use them in Frontier matty39103, which seems to be catching on.
January 17, 2017 8:41 a.m.
EpicFreddi says... #11
Listen to what he (she? We never talked about that, actually. We had the pronoun talk, but never clearified how to adress you) said. Frontier will be the new hot shit and I think it has a future. If nothing else it's hella fun.
January 17, 2017 8:46 a.m. Edited.
This is how you do it EpicFreddi.
"Listen to what Argeaux, Supreme Ruler of the Cosmos, said."
January 17, 2017 8:57 a.m.
EpicFreddi says... #13
You don't pay me enough for that. Also it takes way to long.
January 17, 2017 9 a.m.
EpicFreddi says... #15
Aight, I can settle for that. I still don't get why this whole thing is so important, but I guess I don't need to understand everything, I just have to accept it.
January 17, 2017 9:10 a.m.
Hamster2558 says... #17
I do not really mind the bans because I had never used the cards.
January 17, 2017 3:07 p.m.
I am actually kind of upset with frontier. That concept to me means people are ok with Wizards god awful reprint policies and just like to watch people buy into a format only to see it fall out of favor because it gets too expensive. For pete sake, some decks in modern are on par cost-wise with legacy decks if you want to play the competitive versions. Also, why would people be ok with a format where coco will rule and have no real answers?
January 17, 2017 3:48 p.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #19
maddoxmtg While I too am not completely sold on the format myself and I agree with the fact that Modern needs more reprints, I have to ask, have you played Frontier? Have you attempted to look into it? Because, even in my limited experience I have found no reason to believe that Coco is a dominant force within the format. Good, of course, but it does not have a stranglehold on the format.
January 17, 2017 5:49 p.m.
I have seen quite a bit at my local shop. We have a guy who basically built bant coco and has lost 2 games and no matches out of 3 matches every week for the last 3. i have seen games against every archetype and it seems like it is just an easy windmill slam of a deck. I don't know, COCO, fetches, its all just reminiscent of recent standard.
January 17, 2017 9:14 p.m.
maddoxmtg there are definitely some things I do not like about Fontier.
Fetches, Abzan dominance, and CoCo, to name a few.
What I do like about it is the chance to play some of my old Standard decks, with a few tweaks.
Burn wrecks a lot of CoCo decks.
I've got two decks that work well, with burn.
I think there will be a lot of cheap Tammy/Tommy builds early on that are quite effective.
What concerns me more is that, over time, the format will be dominated by certain builds in the way that Modern has been.
Then it will get much more expensive to buy into, and we're back to where we started.
January 18, 2017 1:33 a.m.
Argeaux The stores pushing Frontier don't care about that, it's just a way for them to sell cards that nobody wants right now. Like you said, if the format takes off it won't stay affordable (or balanced) for long.
January 18, 2017 11:18 a.m.
AwezomePozzum says... #23
UNLESS they decide to have a banlist. Fetches would be priority.
January 18, 2017 11:23 a.m.
Where do you stop, though?
January 18, 2017 2:56 p.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #26
Argeaux isn't that the question we find outselves with currently? Especially since there will now be more ban announcements and that WotC has admitted they pushed creatures too far?
January 18, 2017 3:23 p.m.
MagicalHacker says... #27
Woah, not at all what I inferred from the bannings.
Someone on tappedout (either this forum or another, it's a shame I don't remember who) astutely noted that the bannings are most likely WotC's attempt to make sure standard changes its top decks are changing even with the recent change to make rotation occur less frequently.
January 18, 2017 3:34 p.m.
Yup, all of those need to go for it to be well rounded in my opinion. Those plus fetches, and everything that gets banned in standard becomes auto-banned in Frontier. There isn't as large of a card pool like there is in Modern. Much less answers means a much less healthy format.
January 18, 2017 3:45 p.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #30
maddoxmtg But then you run into the problem of having a format that doesn't get to develop organically. And again, where would you draw the line? Do you then ban Dig and Cruise if they rise to prominence? Or, the next big deck and so on and so forth? Such precedents are dangerous. Does the format need a ban list? Almost certainly, but I would argue we need to see where for format goes first. Frontier is in the very early stages right now. For all we know Frontier will be another Tiny Leaders, fun for a while, but ultimately abandoned. Should Frontier become a sanctioned format (or large enough) then I would say we need to discuss the format with greater scrutiny.
MagicalHacker That sort of imposition can be troublesome for players though. There will always be top decks. So long as a top deck, or one card, is not prevalent within the format to an unreasonable degree, then Wizards should not interfere with the format. This new system of banning can be abused. I am not saying it will, but we must keep in mind that WotC does have a tendency to overreact to player feedback and to simply enforce change. Look at Modern and what happened there. Twin is my primary example of course. Because, with the past bans implemented by WotC, Modern has become almost degenerately fast. Of course there are other factors to consider. But, hopefully with the most recent Modern bans the format will slow down somewhat. Though, while they have stated they are trying to get at least some form of Control to be viable, I see that as very unlikely.
January 18, 2017 5:15 p.m.
MagicalHacker says... #31
Yeah exactly, I think these bans have less to do with the cards being too powerful and more to do with them trying to shake up the format after declaring that standard won't be drastically changing as often.
January 18, 2017 5:30 p.m.
CanadianShinobi - Control isn't viable in modern? Jund(and to a lesser extent Junk) are some of the most powerful decks in the format.
The times where they haven't been was when there were format warping things in play, like Eldrazi Winter, and Cathardic Reunion.
I think what you mean is blue forms of control aren't modern viable, and even then, Jeskai Nahiri, Grixis Control have done quite well for themselves lately.
I'd argue that the only reason infect got so out of hand, was because it was the only deck capable of being as fast as dredge, which just made it a dumb meta of:do you want to beat dredge? [play infect] want to beat infect, but lose to dredge unless you pack 8 pieces of dredge hate? [play lightning bolt]
January 18, 2017 5:46 p.m. Edited.
AwezomePozzum says... #33
Argeaux, If fetches are banned Siege Rhino will be much harder to pull off (not dominating), but CoCo and Jace definitely should be considered.
2 of those can be stopped by a Disdainful Stroke, as well as other, less powerful decks. DS is a very powerful counterspell in Frontier.
January 18, 2017 6:12 p.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #34
Jhed1 Jund is not a Control deck. It is a Midrange deck. There are distinctions to be made between the two types of decks here. And yes, Nahiri Jeskai did quite well for the short term, but it quickly folded. Grixis is a little more resilient and certainly viable.
Your argument about Infect overlooks a great deal about the deck. Between Dredge and Infect, Modern has essentially become a Turn 3 format. What's even more concerning is that Dredge may not even be dead, there are other cards that can be slotted in to replace Golgari Grave-Troll and while, perhaps not as effective, the variance is small enough to perhaps not matter a great deal, but we will see.
January 18, 2017 7:13 p.m.
I feel like the banning of DDT will push dredge out of tier 1 with ease. I will agree that Jund is not a control deck, but it very well could be with the inclusion of Yahenni's Expertise and Fatal Push. With push, they have 8 1 drop removal spells, and they can expertise for a board wipe into a Lili for a discard or to make them sac anything that survived. Also, most often, expertise won't kill goyfs which makes it a good board wipe that jund can run. And I would like to point out that Fatal Push Can be used to kill a 4 drop if you fetch, edge, or quarter someone.
January 18, 2017 7:29 p.m.
CanadianShinobiWell I think we could get into a rather lengthy discussion about Jund (or really any Discard / Tarmogoyf deck) about being a "control" deck, because it begs the question of what do you constitute as your archtypes.
If you rock paper scissor it to Agro/Combo/Mid-Range as your archtypes, then any form of control deck would be mid-range, the variance comes into play when you dictate how you want to control. Lantern, Sun/Moon Prison, Counter Spell, Discard - All of which have viability in controlling what your opponent does, and then presenting a clock, weather it be goyf, nahiri, tassigur, colonnades, creeping tar pits, lingering souls, snapcaster, etc, etc, etc. All of which lose to tron. Feelsbadman.JPG. Control doesn't equal counter magic exclusively.
Infect has been around for at least as long as i've been playing modern, and the recent lists with the new Blossoming Defense in place of the more underwhelming Apostle's Blessing have just been very good, but also, still beatable. I think that the ability to have such a quick count to 10 with perfect information eliminating any chance of a bluff makes it an uninteresting game of magic of do you have more bolts than i have hexproofs.
I think the same could be said however about any kind of mid-range deck playing against tron - Do you have the turn 3 karn, curve into 4 ulamog? Welp you got it.
The point wasn't to really go in depth about how effective a deck infect was, it was more to point out how utterly broken dredge was. You have a good point however that the deck most certainly isn't dead, just drag and drop a golgari thug into the 60 and it's the same concept, however, turn one draw 7 into discard dredge 18 gives you a look at a third of your deck. Cut that down from 25(triple troll dredge + initial 7) to 19 (triple thug dredge + initial 7) you have the variance of a mulligan. When you're playing a 100% variance based deck like dredge, the decisions get a lot harder for a lot less statistical reward.
January 18, 2017 8:22 p.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #37
Jhed1 I differentiate between Midrange and Control. The distinction comes from how the decks function and what tools they use to get their wins.
Midrange decks, like Jund tend to be proactive. They play efficient creatures and spells whilst building their own board state and denying resources to an opponent. Their game of attrition can be won quickly or slowly if need be. Midrange decks, especially Jund, are incredibly flexible, which Jund can attest to since it has been a top deck in Modern for a number of years now, despite bans afflicting it.
Control decks, while also playing a game of attrition are almost always reactive. A Control deck doesn't care what threats are on the board, or in hand, so long as the deck can react to beat those threats. The Control deck aims for a long drawn out game to exhaust the opponent of their resources, while using draw spells to maintain a healthy stock of answers. These decks don't necessarily have to be Blue, but since Blue is often the best option for reactive plays due to counter magic, its usually brought up.
The reason I'm making these distinctions and getting into this entire conversation is because of how WotC partially explained their banning of Gitaxian Probe: "This hurt the ability of reactive decks to effectively bluff or for the aggressive deck to miss-sequence their turn. Ultimately, the card did too much for too little cost." WotC has wanted some form of reactive deck in Modern since it became apparent one was needed. And it became apparent after the banning of Splinter Twin. One of the reasons why Splinter Twin was so divisive when it was banned, is because it removed the only good Control deck from Modern. Furthermore, it opened Pandora's Box on the format, because Twin acted very much like a gatekeeper. It kept aggressive and non-interactive decks in check. But, it was never unfair, it could lose and never dominated the format to the extent like Birthing Pod decks did.
And I'm in the camp that argues Infect needs to be nerfed as a deck. I feel the deck is too fast for Modern. It has shorter clock than any other deck in the format. Yes, that clock isn't necessarily guaranteed, but the deck is fast. As a pointed out and as WotC pointed out, Infect has the potential to consistently win on Turn 3. I would not be surprised if the hammer falls on that deck next for breaking the Turn 4 rule in Modern. There is also that it is boring to watch and play against, but I'm someone who cares more about whether or not a format is healthy and the decks abide by the intentions of the format.
January 18, 2017 9:32 p.m.
GeminiSpartanX says... #38
CanadianShinobi- Splinter Twin really wasn't a control deck. It's a straight up combo deck that aims to live just long enough to combo off safely, or punish any deck that taps out after turn 3 by winning the game on the spot. If you look at the old Twin lists, they're not running more or different answers than many other modern decks run now, they just had the instant-win button. Look at their 'controlling' cards: Lightning Bolt, Remand, Spell Snare, 1-2 Cryptic Command, Serum Visions, Electrolyze, with Snapcaster Mage buying them all back. Absolutely none of those cards have left the format, and are still heavily played. What part of the 10 cards that made up the Twin combo made it a control deck? (4 exarch, 2 pestermite, 4 Twins). There are Grixis lists today that are twice as controlling as Twin ever was, but they don't see play because people perpetuate the idea that control is bad in Modern so they don't play those lists in the first place. The easy and free wins against decks that had little removal was what really made Twin oppressive, and I am very glad that I don't need to play 1-2 turns behind every game of magic to bluff removal in Modern today.
January 19, 2017 6:50 a.m. Edited.
JerichoDarkstar says... #39
Hey CanadianShinobi and Jhed1, I have to give you both a round of applause.
Your discussion/ debate is very insightful, and you're both bringing up excellent points. On top of that... you're not at each other's throats. It's nice to see a healthy discussion on the inter-webs instead of the poo-flinging that usually rears its ugly heads.
Once again, loving your input.
January 19, 2017 11:46 a.m.
CanadianShinobi I'm failing to see the difference in concept of Jund to other "reactive control decks"
Turn 1--> Discard | Turn 2 --> Terminate Threat | Turn 3 --> Deploy Lily to kill another creature and present a threat. A very common Jund curve. That step where they go from reactive to proactive of having the active threat of a planeswalker with an ultimate that can often times decide the game forces their opponent to deal with the threat.
Now if you compare that to a grixis opening of Turn 1 Discard, Turn 2, Spell snare their threat and thought scour yourself, Turn 3 Tassigur, It's the exact same conceptually.
I agree with the reasoning as to why they banned probe in modern, but where you're losing me is every deck in the format is reactive when it's playing a deck that's faster than it, except for other combo decks, which are just trying to win faster than they lose.
Overall I'm in the camp that prefers to see answers get printed or unbanned as opposed to banning the questions themselves.
January 19, 2017 12:10 p.m.
GeminiSpartanX - You bring up really good points about Twin and just Control in general in modern.
I think a lot of the reason that general interactive control gets a bad rap in modern is because you're such an underdog in Tron, and granted after the Eye of Ugin ban it's a bit more reasonable to try and fight against it, but cast triggers and exiling lands while presenting huge threats is very hard to deal with.
I admit I'm one of 'those guys' who is in the camp that control, or more specifically, blue control isn't the greatest option, because the counter magic available isn't the greatest, and Cavern of Souls and Voice of Resurgence are hard to win through, and when playing a more control orientated build, the more threats you can't answer, the less effective you become.
January 19, 2017 12:32 p.m.
zyphermage says... #42
I kinda agree with last few posts and here comes the but. But now in modern instead of bluffing removals 1-2 turns you are just dead to decks faster than twin. And control in modern while you mentioned some decks, is little played as you mentioned and hailed because they are bad. The problem is the removal spells don't line up properly enough for the range of decks, dredge/tron/infect while at the same time lacking deck manipulation like brainstorm to find the right one while getting rid of the wrong one. The options you do have while pretty good, aren't good enough. Even if they are, in the case of infect they are able to fight those removals at lower cost and more effectively with protection spell than the removal card itself.
January 19, 2017 10:16 p.m.
Control's issue has never been the Infects or Affinitys the format. Almost every control deck in the format has a good matchup against something like Infect, it's one of Control's better matchups.
Control's issue remains the variety of Modern decks. Most control decks people build lack the universal answers it needs to be viable against a wide meta. You're just always more likely to hit a bad matchup with control, because you cannot build a control deck that's good against everything in older formats. The range of good decks is too high. In order to do well with control you need to both meta game correctly and get lucky, more lucky than you do with other styles of deck due to the nature of Control.
The only way you can consistently do well against he majority of the field in older formats is if you've got some form of lock that's good against the majority of the format (think Ensnaring Bridge or Counter-Top in Legacy). Otherwise, you need to call the meta correctly and not hit the matchups that you haven't meta gamed for. Whereas something like Jund can get games by virtue of playing an almost tempo-style game where you go something like T1: Discard, T2: Goyf, T3: Lili, and just beat down with goyf for a couple turns.
January 20, 2017 3:46 a.m.
EpicFreddi says... #45
For storm you could still play Peek or Surgical Extraction. You'd be much slower of course and not cantriping the free spell is bad, but well, it wouldn't be unplayable. Maybe the the new Baral guy would enable something again with his looting?
January 25, 2017 4:41 a.m.
GeminiSpartanX says... #46
Cheerios is the new storm deck of Modern. Unless you're playing against removal.dec or counterspell.dec, you can combo off by turn 3-4 every game fairly consistently.
January 25, 2017 6:11 a.m.
EpicFreddi says... #47
Do you have a good cherios list at hand? I'be been brewing a bit with "mentor storm" and stuff, but everything was a little bit clunky.
January 25, 2017 7:13 a.m.
GeminiSpartanX says... #48
I've had some pretty good success with the list that Ohthenoises posted on this site. Here's my take on it:
The Honey Nuts
Modern
1 COMMENT | 32 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER
As long as you're not facing a deck with heavy removal/counterspells, you can often stick a guy and go off pretty consistently.
January 25, 2017 8:19 a.m.
I paid $150 to finish up a deck that had Emmy as a key piece; and I played that deck exactly one night prior to the ban. While I still have a standard viable deck, it plays too slow for the "must rush FMN to get home" mentality at my local game store.
I have set down twice since the banning to theorycraft another deck, but just keep thinking "Why throw more money at this when I can't trust rotation schedules or the market?" This is my first banning since returning to MtG maybe two years ago, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.
I recognize that Wizards can have some hindsight 20/20 going on, but to need to ban the card that practically 4 of the current 6 sets has been thematically built around seems like someone really dropped the ball somewhere down the line to me.
January 28, 2017 5:22 a.m.
In fairness, Emrakul can, in most decks he's in, be replaced, or have the deck reshuffled to use other pieces. And while the deck won't be as good, it'll still be entirely playable. It might take a bit of work, but it's certainly possible.
Argy says... #1
Good to see you back, Simon_Williamson.
January 14, 2017 5:39 a.m.