The Game, The Etiquette, The Fun, and you #3

General forum

Posted on March 15, 2016, 10:54 a.m. by Titilanious

Greetings all,I am coming to you all again with another entry in The Game, The Etiquette, The Fun, And You.Today I would like (as before) to talk about so things/matters in the game of magic today. A lot goes on with in the MtG community and its tough to find it all, so if anyone has any thoughts or topics that they would want to be discussed let me know in the comments or however you want really.

I want to say that once again these are just some thoughts of a simple Johnny that has played magic for a long time and I am not here to irritate anyone, I am just here to perk some thought.

So without any delay lets get started!

Power Creep and its effects

Power creep is the thought that with any game with continuous expansions the new will overtake the old in terms of power or usefulness (I know someone one will nitpick this but I am just giving a broad and quick explanation). This is defiantly present in the worlds premiere card game MtG. For example, Serra Angel used to be a constructed all-star and now it isnt even thought of being put into any if the big completive constructed formats. Now this tends not to be a huge problem but it sometimes feels as though some of the newer players dont get to enjoy playing with some of the older cards that have been outclassed or thats interactions just arent as powerful anymore. With no end in sight this game will continue for years to come and it makes me wonder where a vanilla creature will be in a few years.

Constructed Formats

Constructed has always been a place where players could show their building talents and their playing skills in a competitive environment, or just a place to have fun. My question or thought is, is there enough formats to appease the majority of people, obviously there are the three major ones (Standard, Modern, and Legacy) that have regular scheduled tournaments of all sizes. Should there be more scheduled tournaments of different formats for example; Pauper, Two Headed Giant, Block, or of course EDH. I think that with the addition of more formats having more scheduled tournaments would lead to a more diverse and fun community at the local level and eventually with a few formats could be opened up to the GP level.

Unbanning of cards in formats

Last time I talked about banning of cards and how it ousted some decks, so it seemed only fair that I talk about the opposite with cards being unban. So as we know there are some cards that really should stay ban in some formats or they would warp them to a point of no return (hypergenisis, Jace, the Mind Sculptor for modern, any Power basically in legacy). But what about the ones that are only marginally strong now or have been ban when the format couldnt handle it; Bloodbraid Elf, Umezawa's Jitte or Green Sun's Zenith for modern, and Mind Twist for legacy (its tough to pick cards to unban for legacy) I think that most of these pick would be a pretty safe unban in the formats that they are in. Do any of you have card that you think should be unban?

Finally, I really enjoyed my time at GP Washington this past weekend and it never fails to amaze me with the interesting people I meet whenever I go to events. I love the magic community and I look forward for the new sets new people and more fun to come in my time with magic.

If anyone also has any topics that they would like me to discuss let me know I will see if I could add them to my next post.

Thanks for reading!

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Interesting thoughts!

I think that there are plenty of flavor a for players to find a format, or multiple, that they can enjoy. As far as power creep, it's evident (and Maro may have even stated) that creatures are getting more potent, whereas spells are not. You won't ever see Lightning Bolt, Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Sylvan Library, etc. ever printed again in a Standard set. Likewise, Shivan Dragon and Serra Angel are outclassed by things like Butcher of the Horde, Siege Rhino, etc.

I'd like to see some unbannings in Modern, but it's unlikely. Even more so in Legacy.

March 15, 2016 12:02 p.m.

kengiczar says... #3

I think we should unban this 1 card
Show

March 15, 2016 2:10 p.m.

Titilanious says... #4

@aeonstoremyliver thanks for the input.

@kengiczar i really do like her, but she is indeed powerful, I am not sure she would be balanced in the meta or not.

March 15, 2016 3:27 p.m.

buildingadeck says... #5

In a format dominated by the Eldrazi, having Stoneforge Mystic wouldn't be that busted. Reality Smasher still eats Batterskull for breakfast, and an unban of SFM without the unbanning of Umezawa's Jitte would certainly not make the card OP. SFM essentially would represent a T3 4/4 Vigilance, Lifelinker, which is basically a better Loxodon Smiter, but it seems okay in comparison, to T2 Reality Smashers.

My point is that unbanning certain cards like SFM could make the Eldrazi beatable and increase the power level of Modern while also eliminating the need to ban anything that could ever be construed as powerful.

March 15, 2016 6:49 p.m.

JA14732 says... #6

SFM is NEVER getting unbanned. Maro said so himself. Eldrazi is getting a ban next month (likely Eye of Ugin, essentially neutering those explosive starts), but unbanning SFM makes designing equipment miserable for R&D, because they have to tone down the power level for modern by a significant margin. In fact, it's already hard for them to make good equipment simply because she exists in Legacy, so every equipment they print is watered down to begin with.

A more logical unban would be Ancestral Vision OR Splinter Twin with a ban of Deceiver Exarch in its stead. However, if Visions is unbanned, then Twin has to remain banned, and vice versa. Post twin ban, blue has struggled in modern. Giving it some solid card draw would bring the color more in line with the rest of its siblings.

March 15, 2016 7:30 p.m.

TMBRLZ says... #7

I feel like Ancestral Vision would be fair at this point. I can't think of anything necessarily broken about it. It would however give Grixis Control a lot more edge to the edge it already has in this highly aggressive meta.

March 15, 2016 9:29 p.m.

Ancestral Vision can be Cascaded into, in fact a Legacy Shardless Agent deck [runs it] (http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/legacy-type-1-5/established-legacy/midrange/631169-deck-shardless-bug). That being the case then Grixis using Demonic Dread and hell even Jund with Violent Outburst, Ancestral Vision would be nuts in Modern.

March 15, 2016 10:29 p.m.

Sorry, couldn't properly link that...

March 15, 2016 10:29 p.m.

Titilanious says... #10

buildingadeck Another reason SFM is ban is because of her almost toolbox ability to search for something that can help out in the current situation, while yes Batterskull is a great target, it may not be the best target for the situation, with all of the swords being available in modern searching one of them to make a protected creature with some strong abilities makes her almost too abusive. Plus eldrazi will likely not be in modern much longer.

JA14732 I see this a lot with blue, its definitely not that it is under-powered by any means, blue is the strongest color by far. I really doubt they will ever unban a something that is so close to power in modern especially when they ban out Treasure Cruise as well. Plus the power of blue is in a fine if not a too strong place, they have a ton of really strong cards in modern Snapcaster Mage, Delver of Secrets  Flip, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  Flip and soon thing in the ice.

March 16, 2016 9:24 a.m.

buildingadeck says... #11

Titilanious: While I see your point on utility for Stoneforge Mystic, I disagree that the Swords really break the format. Decks like Affinity will already have you close to dead by about that turn. GB/x variants also have Abrupt Decay and instant speed removal to kill something in response to the equip ability. I still think it's something that's testable in the format, personally.

As for the Eldrazi, I think it will still be a deck; it will just be a much slower deck after whatever is banned gets banned.

March 16, 2016 12:07 p.m.

TMBRLZ says... #12

March 16, 2016 12:37 p.m.

Titilanious says... #13

buildingadeck well put, but i never said it would break the format. to me i would have to take a step back and look at what unbanning that card would do to the rest of the format, while yes there are things out there to stop her, it will almost force decks that do not have something to have something. I am having a hard time conveying what i mean, but i guess the overall point would be that with her unban it would force some decks out and possibly warp the format (not break it) or force a major change.

March 16, 2016 1:07 p.m.

buildingadeck says... #14

That's very true as well. I think it would hurt burn the most, but in the sideboard they have Destructive Revelry, so I dunno.

March 16, 2016 6:27 p.m.

kengiczar says... #15

The deck I think would have the hardest time if they unbanned SFM is mono . Everything else I could think of already main-baords or side-boards answers for Affinity:

: Abrupt Decay
: Ancient Grudge / Destructive Revelry
: Kolaghan's Command
: Qasali Pridemage
: Tons of cards, albeit not optimal ones, and counters.
: Nothing great here but Reclamation Sage + Counters is decent. : Wear / Tear
: See minus the .
: See Reclamation Sage
: Bouncey bounce? Counters?
: Disenchant, Divine Offering (Soul Sisters)

So it's not really an issue of answers, it's an issue of speed. Let us remember then that T3 Batterskull not only dies to most of what's above but is shut down by all the affinity hate such as Stony Silence.

If I am on the draw vs SFM then I will either dsicard it, Spell Snare it, kill it and swing through, or blow up their artifact. The value is still very good, but I don't think it's game-ending anymore.

March 16, 2016 6:43 p.m.

JA14732 says... #16

As I said, we're looking at SFM in the current meta. She's too hard on R&D for creating equipment. If she's unbanned, we will NEVER see another equipment on the power level of Batterskull ever printed. It's too risky. We will NEVER see the allied color swords. We will never get anything decent again.

Would she not harm the meta? Potentially. Would she reduce design space? Yes. And that's bad.

March 16, 2016 8:08 p.m.

kengiczar says... #17

We already aren't ever going to see another equipment near the same power-level as Batterskull, Sword of Feast and Famine, Sword of Light and Shadow, Sword of Fire and Ice, Sword of Body and Mind, Umezawa's Jitte, Lightning Greaves, Darksteel Plate, Skullclamp or anything else that people love to quote when talking about why they won't unban SFM. The truth is none of those equipments above matter when it comes to "SFM limiting Equipment Design" anymore because WotC is only going to print comparatively weak equipment with or without SFM.

March 16, 2016 8:39 p.m.

JA14732 says... #18

Here's the problem though-that's the EXPLICIT reason given by WOTC about why they won't unban SFM. Anything that limits design space, even by a bit, is never going to get unbanned. What happens if they want to return to New Phyrexia and create ally-colored swords? If SFM is unbanned in Modern, the power level of these swords has to be so low as to cause disappointment among older fans. If she remains banned, while they will never be quite as strong it's possible for them to bump up the power level to a more usable state.

I'll dig up where Maro stated the whole SFM thing. Here it is (basically). He states that SFM will remain unbanned because she does too much, and then touches on the whole preemptive banning when discussing Pod: Maro Mailbag May 2015. And then here's something from Aaron Forsythe, where he considers SFM a mistake (around 2 minutes in, and yes, while it's from 2011, I doubt his opinion has changed much): Aaron Forsythe discussion.

I think it's safe to say that if Aaron and Maro don't want her around, she's NOT coming back. She harms R&D to an irreconcilable extent.

March 16, 2016 10:53 p.m.

This discussion has been closed