Banlist for the 3rd quarter?

[Topas]

Hello together,

is it just me, who is missing the newest update to the banlist?
I couldn't find any message on the topic whatsoever, so what's the status?

Thanks.

[malz77]

...will be released shortly

[Tiggupiru]

Banned:

Library of Alexandria
Life from the Loam

Unbanned:

Protean Hulk

Gotta say, mighty fine job with the LoA. I was starting get really frustrated about that particular card. I also like the unbanning of the Hulk, as I see no effective way to abuse it without Flash. It still probably show up here and there as the effect is powerful.

I am bit puzzled about the banning of the Loam, though. I've begun to think it's nothing too spectacular of a card, even when giftsed into, and it is not very powerful without Gifts or Intuition. Sure, recurring wastelands are a bit pain, but those who have shady or otherwise plain greedy manabase deserve to get punished.

Blue can make devastating Gifts piles against control without Loam anyways, so I've started to cut it from most of my decks. I must mention though, that my valuation of the Loam has been changed quite dramatically since I started playing this format.

All in all, I like these decisions, even though I hope Loam gets another shot eventually.

[Mythrandir]

Glad LoA got banned and even more glad i didn't buy one.

As for LFTL i'm looking forward to read the reasons, cause IMO i don't think it breaks anything.(don't really want to start a war on pro vs con on LFTL....) this was more of a surprise since i've been a bit more away from Highlander tha usual, and i didn't see anything posted..

Well, now at least i have no reason to play cycle lands anymore.

[Kristian]

I like loam being banned, I think my meta will be more fun without.

[Kassow-Rossing]

Obviously since you lose to Loam so often

Hulk and Library: Good decision! Hulk should def. stay far away from the ban list. Library has been tested for some time now and calling it back to exile is a fair decision. There must, however, be some good reasoning behind the decision since we all know that aggro still dominates.

Loam: Bad decision. Doesn't break anything and maybe it is "boring" to play against but that is not an argument. Loam is never a win against any type of deck (If you take out land-destruction decks) unless you get another piece of combo, which often must be tutored. Now aggro will once again be far the best in the format!

Time to bring out the 2/1's again cause control doesn't stand a chance after Survival, Loam and Library all got banned. All in all some terrible banning decisions even though there's reason behind all the decisions. Putting them all together makes little sense though.

Edit: Maybe I should add Mind Twist to the "control doesn't stand a chance after Survival.."

[Payron]

Obviously since you lose to Loam so often

Hulk and Library: Good decision! Hulk should def. stay far away from the ban list. Library has been tested for some time now and calling it back to exile is a fair decision. There must, however, be some good reasoning behind the decision since we all know that aggro still dominates.

Loam: Bad decision. Doesn't break anything and maybe it is "boring" to play against but that is not an argument. Loam is never a win against any type of deck (If you take out land-destruction decks) unless you get another piece of combo, which often must be tutored. Now aggro will once again be far the best in the format!

Time to bring out the 2/1's again cause control doesn't stand a chance after Survival, Loam and Library all got banned. All in all some terrible banning decisions even though there's reason behind all the decisions. Putting them all together makes little sense though.

Edit: Maybe I should add Mind Twist to the "control doesn't stand a chance after Survival.."

I can't realy see you point. I mean all cards that are banned just influenced the control mirrow, but had no influence on the aggro vs contril MU ... I just see better Gifts pils vs aggro then a Loam energy ...
Can you explain to me why aggro gets soooo much stronger now? I just think the bannings did some interesting chances in the control MU, but not such a huge chance in the aggro vs control MU!

[Kassow-Rossing]

Well that's an easy one. Obviously if you weaken most control decks and not a single aggro deck, you force more players to play aggro since it is now slightly better than before. No other arguments are needed.

[Sturmgott]

Now that's just plain silly.

The opposite is true! Banning LftL makes playing control decks much more viable, because now you can afford to play non-green control decks, which simply lost to LftL before... This will imho have the effect of more control decks being played!

[derStefan82]

Frank is absolutely right there in my opinion, I have several control decks and in most of
them you have to splash green to be competitive, even if it's the only green card you really need, and even
if you do it only to have this hard intuition/gifts/loam/landtoolbox minicombo in the deck.
I think the banning of loam will give more control decks the option to be playable and decrease the number
of bant decks (control ones).

[Mythrandir]

I don't know if they (control) will be better or worse, but there will certainly be more variation of control decks.
Without LFTL you probably won't splash for G. As for splashing for U with or without LFTL intuition and gifts are still great cards.

[Dreamer]

I don't know if they (control) will be better or worse, but there will certainly be more variation of control decks.
Without LFTL you probably won't splash for G. As for splashing for U with or without LFTL intuition and gifts are still great cards.

Gifts, certainly, but the Loam ban hurts Intuition a lot. Not that I care much atm since I don't currently run blue, but whatever. Still annoys me. Green should be the #2 card draw colour, and banning one of the few good legitimately awesome green draw spells doesn't help much, IMHO.

[coldcrow]

That is quite wrong. Black was always the 2nd strongest colour for library manipulation and some cards are even better than anything blue has to offer (considering drawing cards).

[Kristian]

I don't know if they (control) will be better or worse, but there will certainly be more variation of control decks.
Without LFTL you probably won't splash for G. As for splashing for U with or without LFTL intuition and gifts are still great cards.

I've gone back to my old 5cc without loam. All suns' dawn is simply too fun not to play. Along with stuff like Naya Charm, Regrowth, Bant Charm, Violent Ultimatum, Garruk and a few other goodies.

[Mythrandir]

I don't know if they (control) will be better or worse, but there will certainly be more variation of control decks.
Without LFTL you probably won't splash for G. As for splashing for U with or without LFTL intuition and gifts are still great cards.

I've gone back to my old 5cc without loam. All suns' dawn is simply too fun not to play. Along with stuff like Naya Charm, Regrowth, Bant Charm, Violent Ultimatum, Garruk and a few other goodies.

All suns dawn was an awesome card, but a bit high on CMC, so i dropped, but i quite fancy it. Violent ultimatum seems a bit colored intensive for a 5c.. even then i'd prefer cruel ultimatum.

@Dreamer: intuition is still very powerful card, even without LFTL. Now, IMO, it just makes card piles more differently than just LFTL + lands.