Messages

Some testing agmes later, the Hulk-less version wins well enough, but is goddamn boring. Gotta be able to pull the trigger, otherwise it just isn't proper. Trying out random funchantments, currently Debtors' Knell again. The general idea is to havebackup plan after backup plan, and to be able to win on resource-starved boards. This generally means bomby non-Pattern enchantments for Rector. Stoneforge & The Swords continues to impress as the best board presence band in the biz, pulling off awesome jigs like "Turning the Bird into a Killer" and other such alltime greats.

Naya mirror seems like just about the last matchup where Stoneforge could be considered an autowin.

Some notes here:

@aggro-control-combo triangle, it has never actually been true. It's a very oversimplistic thing and expecting it to hold true in the world of modern Magic is daydreaming. For a model that is simple but still has some analytical and predictive qualities, I'd look to Chingsung Chang's Circle of Predation articles:
http://www.gatheringmagic.com/sculpting-formats-circle-predation/
http://www.gatheringmagic.com/circle-predation-part-2-indepth/

@The Spoils Mulligan
I think the Spoils mulligan is great. It means less flooding, and the lesser land counts likewise. Less flooding, more spells. That's amazing.

@Banning cards

First: Please, pleasepleaseplease concentrate more on the common case than the outlier. That is to say, it's okay that a deck can kill on T2. It is not okay if that deck's actual fundamental turn is 2. The first implies a god hand, the second implies common consistency. Pattern can kill T3. An old version could kill on T2. Yet T4-5 or much, much later is usually more common.

Stoneforge, Natural Order and Drain? Uh, wut. Let alone with all the Tinker comparisons for Natural Order. A quick Order is crushing (esp. in Pattern where you basically get a Titan that never dies), yes, but it still needs a bit of setup. The T3 Order is possible but far from the most common case.

Suggesting Storm bans after an accomplished Doomsday pilot wins a single goddamn tournament with it? People. GET REAL.

If there is one card I'd like to ban, it's Black Vise. Not for power, it's not actually a problem in that regard. But what it does is essentially turn "keep sketchy hand because you won't get better anymore either" into sheer torture and near autoloss. It may be my utility critter filled pet deck for which that is uniquely a problem, but it's zero fun. The card is a random burn spell otherwise, and you can't play around it (with those clunky keeps) anywhere near to the extent you can with Ankh of Mishra and the like.

Shahrazad's entire purpose is making games time out.

Monored becoming stronger is not a problem. What is a problem is that currently 3 colour manabases are more stable than 2 colour ones, and also more resilient to hate. Furthermore, fetches lead to more shuffling. A fetch ban does solve the shuffling issue to an extent but it doesn't fix the most grievous issue - 3 colour manabases are apparently still not disadvantaged compared to 2-colour ones. Which is a problem.

It's less of an issue for control - if you don't have fetch-dual-stuff you just can't do the for the hell of it splashes that are optimal, but 2 colour control is still quite stable. With more and more new dual lands being printed 2 colour aggro might eventually become nearly as stable as 3 colour aggro (which has little use for the new lands), but still very vulnerable to hate.

No, I do not. That the discussion/testing doesn't change the status quo doesn't mean it was useless. We now know more than we did before, which is good.

~100% of my Magic playtime for the last several years. Lack of experience, yessir...

Observations on the traits of mana bases != I can't beat some mana base. (mana base, forgodssake!)
There are incentives, the fetchban was/is being tested because it was thought to help with some of these problems. Turns out, it doesn't solve the most pressing issues thus far. That's all there is to it. And even if you assume I am bad, testing the ban has been supported by people that ARE certainly good players. So, yeah. STFU.

Where did I say anything about two-colour control? Two-colour control is the best two-colour archetype in the format. They can also afford to play many more basic lands than a fast aggro can, and so are about equal, if not a smidge better, than a fetch-dual 3 colour deck manabase consistency/resiliency wise. But fast aggro still suffers a lot, which is the point. It's a thing that shouldn't really be, is anyway, apparently isn't fixed by a fetchland ban, and probably slowly improves over time to a point where allied colour aggro is nearly as stable as 3c fetch decks and 2c control, but more susceptible to hate.

And wtf is that attack on my level of play, seriously?

It's drastic, but hardly unreasonable. One illogical effect of the fetch-dual manabase, for example, is that 3 colour decks are actually more stable mana-wise than two-colour decks. An even more odd thing is that a 2-coloured aggro deck is more susceptible to nonbasic hate than a 3-coloured one. These things make no sense. The fetch-dual manabase also makes it very hard to punish any but the most outrageously greedy decks for that greed in constructing a mana base.

I don't think the issue of 3c resilience vs. 2c can be reasonably solved, but I'd imagine the 2c stability inching closer and closer to 3c with every new dual land printing, especially for allied colour pairs. I just hope the retarded bombs don't kill any gameplay we have before that.

I played with a fetchless Pattern-Rector for some time (sadly didn't manage to attend the test tournaments, but they inspired me to try). It was ok, though more haphazard-feeling and in some nebulous way a small bit less fun. More colour screw as expected. If the evidence points to 3c mana bases still being better than 2c ones, bleh, leave the fetches be. That was the main motivation for me, anyway, in addition to deterring for-the-hell-of-it splashing some.

Body Snatcher is better for a Melira style kill, though? I mean, it isn't loopable like Karmic Guide is.

Here's what I am playing atm:

//Creatures:

Carrion Feeder
Viscera Seer

Birds of Paradise
Noble Hierarch
Llanowar Elves
Fyndhorn Elves
Arbor Elf
Avacyn's Pilgrim
Elves of Deep Shadow

Sakura-Tribe Elder
Viridian Emissary
Wall of Roots
Sylvan Ranger

Bloodthrone Vampire
Saffi Eriksdotter
Melira, Sylvok Outcast
Stoneforge Mystic
Qasali Pridemage
Tidehollow Sculler
Wall of Blossoms
Fauna Shaman
Scavenging Ooze

Phyrexian Ghoul
Knight of the Reliquary
Yavimaya Dryad
Kitchen Finks
Eternal Witness
Bone Shredder

Academy Rector
Dimir House Guard
Thrun, the Last Troll
Loxodon Hierarch
Phyrexian Metamorph

Reveillark
Karmic Guide
Thragtusk
Shriekmaw

Primeval Titan
Wurmcoil Engine

Protean Hulk

//Other spells:

Chord of Calling
Green Sun's Zenith

Worldly Tutor
Sylvan Tutor
Enlightened Tutor
Crop Rotation
Sensei's Divining Top

Inquisition of Kozilek
Duress
Thoughtseize


Sylvan Library
Eladamri's Call
Demonic Tutor
Diabolic Intent
Go for the Throat

Recurring Nightmare
Phyrexian Arena
Oblivion Ring
Maelstrom Pulse
Vindicate
Sword of Feast and Famine
Sword of Fire and Ice

Natural Order
Pattern of Rebirth
Faith's Fetters
Garruk Relentless

Garruk, Primal Hunter
Primal Command
Batterskull

//Lands:
2 Forest
2 Swamp
2 Plains

Savannah
Scrubland
Temple Garden
Godless Shrine
Overgrown Tomb

Dryad Arbor

Verdant Catacombs
Windswept Heath
Misty Rainforest
Wooded Foothills
Marsh Flats
Polluted Delta
Arid Mesa
Flooded Strand

Sunpetal Grove
Woodland Cemetery
Isolated Chapel
Razorverge Thicket

Stirring Wildwood
Treetop Village

Volrath's Stronghold
Phyrexian Tower
Homeward Path

Bojuka Bog
Gaea's Cradle
Horizon Canopy
Wasteland
Maze of Ith


A very grind-oriented list, pretty much. Titan+towers+homeward path is amazing against control, as is the general dispersal of power brought by Stoneforge+Thrun. Both Garruks are great, though Relentless especially is just insane. Been thinking about a version that cuts some of the combo fluff (Hulk, Saffi, Melira, perhaps Lark and KGuide) and just put in Conscription and more beaters/Planeswalkers. Leaves the toolboxy things and the option to pull the trigger with Conscription or Invulnerable Titan, but gives the deck some more board position-oriented slots to use. Might be bad, might not be, I guess testing will tell ^^

What makes the Power 9 and other cards banworthy? It's the fact that they are undercosted, in comparison to other cards. Why are the cards which I want to be banned so strong and omnipresent, because they are undercosted.

The banned cards are banned because they are ludicrously powerful. Ancestral Recall would be banned even if other card draw did not exist simply because it is retardedly strong.

GW+X-Staples:
Stoneforge Mystic        -->  2 too less (compared to Taj-Nar Swordsmith/ Godo, Bandit Warlord)
Examples from before the rise in creature power
Tarmogoyf                -->  G too less (as it was primary planned by Wizards)
Would probably be ok at 1GG. Still just a dumb beater that isn't anything truly special

Knight of the Reliquary  -->  2 too less (compared to Wolfir Silverheart)
Worldly Tutor:           -->  2 too less (compared to Summoner's Pact)
Completely different cards with completely different purposes. Examples invalid.

Mystical Tutor:          -->  2 too less (compared to Long-Term Plans)
Enlighted Tutor:         -->  2 too less (compared to Idyllic Tutor)
Comparisons to a ludicrously unplayable card and another that is completely different on top of being on the worse side of the border of playability.

Green Sun's Zenith:      -->  G too less (compared to Chord of Calling)
Chord of Calling is an instant and has Convoke, both of which are huge. GSZ is quite appropriately costed.
Eladamri's Call:         -->  2 too less (compared to Summoner's Pact)
Different cards with completely different purposes. Eladamri is a great defensive card, decent for combo. Pact is pretty strictly a combo card where the cost is rarely paid at all.
Demonic Tutor:           --> 1B too less (compared to Diablic Tutor)
Comparison to an unplayable.
Natural order            -->  1 too less (compared to Dramatic Entrance/ 0,5 Tooth and Nail)
Comparisons to an unplayable and a card with different function that is barely played, if at all.

Of course you will think nobody plays Dramatic Entrance, Long-Term Plans or Taj-Nar Swordsmith. But that is the mana cost Wizards think is a fair one.

What Wizards thinks is a "fair" cost is irrelevant. Their "fair" cost for unrestricted search-to-hand is unplayable. They think Mana Leak is too strong of a card (and not the totally out-of-pie blue atrocities that were in the format simultaneously). That is to say, they are not anywhere near inerrant and grossly wrong on many points. Furthermore, they print cards with Standard in mind, not a 100 card singleton format played according to the normal rules for the game.

What matters is the cards' impact on the format.

I ask again, is it good for a format when every deck plays the same cards, if they are on color? In my Grixis-Staxx I didn't played Lightning Bolt and Brainstorm, because I thought they would not fit in the deck. Maybe this was wrong.
Nearly every deck plays this GW staples, and very much decks are GW+x. So they are playing with these cards against these cards. So they are dominating the format.

Colour staples are a perfectly fine thing. Lightning Bolt exists. Birds of Paradise and Noble Hierarch exist. Preordain exists. There cards allow a certain baseline to form, which in turn allows for a metagame in the first place.

This is the new diversity(2 years old,but I didn't see it before) between Naya, Bant, Pattern-Rector and 4-5C.decks. Other decks appear seldom, because they get beaten by such cards with overprower and high consistency. When you say Tutors can be replaced by hate cards such as Oblivion Ring or Vindicate, when I say it's fine. At least they couldn't attack or build up the final combo.
If the GW+X decks get weaker all the underplayed decks with other strategy's and other colors and cards will appear more often. And that is what I call diversity.

Pattern isn't a top deck at the moment. It is playable, but that is it. There are better cards than some others. Problem is you can play them all in the same deck. Ban some, Goodstuff just picks up the next best cards and the hilarity continues, only you don't have Pattern and some other decks anymore. For example, the Goyf ban hurts GWx Goodstuff the least. They shrug and play something else. RUG aggro, UG/UGb Tempo? Much less choice on what to play. Those already underplayed archetypes would suffer far more than GWx Goodstuff.

Banning Demonic would kill Black in the format. The only other card that is sufficiently interesting for non-Pattern strategies (which play black for Nantuko Husks) is Volrath's Stringhold, and that card alone does not carry a colour.

Tarmogoyf:
You say it's only a good Vannila creature. Yeah sure it doesn't have a true ability. But does he need a ability if he is just too big and destroys other creatures on his own, and kills the opponent quick. Because of creatures like Tarmogoyf green is played so much and creature in other colors are played so less .Even in Legacy this creature is played far too often, and Legacy would be more diverse if he would get banned.

There used to be a time when you unconditionally splashed for Goyf, and woe if you played green without it. That time is long gone. Legacy has a bunch of green creature-heavy decks that don't play Goyf because he just doesn't cut it for their plans. The only decks that still play Goyf are blue-based disruption decks that need efficient, easy to cast beaters. Goyf fits the bill so it gets used, like any card ever.


@Tiggupiru

So, we have two different format evaluations regarding the role of the Tier 1 tutors and understanding how to play (against) a Goodstuff deck. I think both side have good arguments and none of us is totally wrong or right.

YES, I agree that Goodstuff's basic/main strategy is playing the best cards available and overpower the opponent's cards BUT without the Tier 1 tutors Goodstuff will loose more often to a hate or combo card which bypasses the higher powerlevel of the goodstuff deck. Without the tutors, Goodstuff needs to decide about a new strategy not to loose against this by adding either speed or control cards OR just accepts the increased risk loosing on the spot if the opponent manages to drop the "anti goodstuff" or combo card. Just replacing the tutors with Vindicate like effects is just one part of the tutor application and will not solve the problem for Goodstuff as they will not help him against a lot of (semi-) combo cards (e.g. Scapeshift, Natural Order...) and even more important, they cannot be used to "ask questions". Just think about an empty board/hand in the mid/late game...

Those combo decks are a lot slower than any viable current ones. Not really combo ones in the first place. The questions may be harder to answer, but they'll also be asked far more rarely if the tutors end up being bad. Yeah, there may be a random loss here and there to "Didn't have a tutor for answer in hand", but there will be far more of "Was just outclassed and outsped because I didn't have any tutors to ask questions with".

Also, there is no such thing as "Goodstuff hate". Goodstuff decks are just that - piles of cards that are really really good on their own, no synergy requirements or hoops to jump through required. There is typically a very loose plan consisting of "aggro or midrange?" and that is it. There is no vector other than the mana base to attack them at to "hate them out".
Trouble is, the current mana base hate is strewn out every which way, generally a ridiculously crappy draw - especially without fast tutors to get them in time. Furthermore, the current manabases largely laugh at hate. They just don't care. Again, banning the tutors just results in Goodstuff getting better and the anti-goodstuff things becoming even more miserable. At least nowadays you can fight them with synergy and having a plan - it's not better, but it's competitive.

To be honest I am not 100% sure but this is also not the main issue in HL. My complaint is neither the tutors nor the creatures, it's the mana base! The current rock solid 3-4 coloured mana base is what pushes Goodstuff over the edge. It really surprises me that so many people are eager to discuss single cards but do not see the mana base as the bigger problem of the format.

There has been a consistent message throughout this thread by me and others that Goodstuff derives it's power not from the tutors (the very notion itself is somewhat absurd because goodstuff typically runs Worldy, Eladamri, Natural Order and, if on black, Demonic. Not anywhere near enough to base a strategy on) but from the extreme consistency and hate-resiliency of the mana base. It is the thing that allows the goodstuff decks to pick and choose the best of the best from four colours while remaining ridiculously good at curving out smoothly.

Why are in the meta so less control decks? Because there are so much tutors, especially for creatures which defeat the control stratgies.
This lead to nearly omnipresent Goodstuff.creature decks, especially in the colors GW+X.

Eh, wut. Some specific kinds of control like artifact heavy prison decks or something, perhaps. Maybe. I could see that. But your every day run off the mill UW/UB-based control deck? Hardly. They're done in by the greater consistency of the opponent. Tutors help with that, sure, but their effect is minor, and they sure as hell are not the root cause. There's enough stupid creatures out there for goodstuff to shrug, play something else and resume with the winning.

Would decks like Pattern-Rector or Cephalid-Breakfast stop existing if the amount of tutors would decrease? Probably no, but they would be played less. This would make space for other decks to be played again competitivly.

Eh, yes? Pattern-Rector is literally a search engine in the form of a deck of cards. It is the Google of Magic. It's threats are not Geist or Thrun. It's threats are literally every single goddamn tutor you listed as a potential ban target. Every. Single. Freaking. One. And every alternative you listed is either already played in the deck or is just too weak to see play. So, yeah. The deck is built on search and recursion. It would just plain die in it's current combo-oriented form. You might see some durdly thing without the combo win afterwards but at that point you might as well play straight Ramp. The ludicrous fatties and Karn will just win anyway.

Banning Policy:
I know the highlander council doesn't want to ban creatures but it's neccesary, if they dominate the Format. Stoneforge Mystic, Tarmogoyf and Knight of the Reliquary are truly dominating the Format. This lead to that all other colored creatures are drasticly played less.
It's time to weaken the dominating Tier 1 decks, to allow the Tier 2 decks to be played again. This would truly increase the diversity of the highlander meta.

Let's ban Birds, Swords to Plowshares and Brainstorm while we are at it? Lightning Bolt too, I guess?
Goyf is not dominating the format. It's just one more dumb beater in aggro decks. Whoop de doo. It's strong, but that is all. Likewise, KotR is just strong, not banworthy. Stoneforge is the only critter there that you'd actually have a case for.

@ Tiggupiru, I think you're probably underestimating EoT Mystical for board wipe (Bonfire, Terminus) and perhaps Mystical for Entreat a bit. Highlander's tempo is more variable than that of normal Constructed and it's more board-based too. A wholesale board reset or sudden strong board presence are not anything to scoff at. Banworthy? I'd like to see it first. But I think concern is definitely warranted.

To all of you that want to see all the good tutors getting the axe, here comes a random question thrown in: what deck doesn't really care if all the good tutors get banned? Right, it's the Goodstuff archetype.

On the one hand, everybody is criticizing the dominance of creature based Goodstuff strategies because the average draw is so much better compared to other archetypes...

I strongly disagree here. A Goodstuff cannot replace Demonic Tutor, Worldly Tutor, Eladamri´s Call (and now also Enlightened Tutor) without changing their strategy. How would you replace these cards without completely giving up the silver bullet strategy (Ooze, Pridemage, Archmage...) which IS definitely the key to success of a Good stuff deck today? If you have no access to the Tier1 tutors, Goodstuff has to choose one of the known core strategies - either the control or the aggro route or loose to a certain card (combination) like Oath of Druids, Reanimator etc. way too often. Without the silver bullet strategy some old and new decks concentrating on single card strategies becoming a viable option (again).

Yes, there will be a good stuff archetype even without the Tier1 tutors – and most probably it will still be a Tier 1 deck - but it will be either Bant Aggrocontrol with a lot of counters or Naya aggro (with a lot of small creatures and burn) or any kind of similar 4-5C builds. But they all will have something in common:  They need to have a new and clear game plan without relying on their silver bullets.

Ooze, Pridemage and Archmage are not silver bullets, at least not in the traditional sense of the term. They can serve as ones, yes, but it's far from their only purpose - this especially applies to Ooze and Pridemage, which are just good beaters anyway. Archmage isn't very good against aggro, but hey, still a good all around card. The thing that makes goodstuff strong is not the tutors - nearly any deck has access to a good amount of tutors, card selection and/or redundancy. What makes goodstuff decks strong is that they just play the best cards, whether in an aggro or midrange orientation. The average strength of their plays and the smoothness of the mana and the resultant power of the curve-out is what is crushing. Being able to play about three tutors and a semi-risky I Win button on top of that is really just that - spice. It helps with consistency and gives a bit of extra ability to crush some decks. But goodstuff decks don't play a silver bullet strategy, not by a long shot. Their strategy especially does not revolve around those tutors. It revolves around piles and then piles of the good stuff.

Because on the other hand, all the other decks will be hit harder than the dominating archetype. Take away Wordly and Demonic Tutor from Goodstuff and it will still be perfectly playable. Take away Wordly and Demonic from Pattern Rector and it is significantly weaker than before.

I strongly disagree here as well. Take away the Tier1 tutors from a Goodstuff deck and it will loose to certain cards way more often.

SOME decks will be hit much harder (e.g. fast combo like Cephalid Breakfast) but many others not so much. All kind of "slower combo decks" like Oath, Reanimator, Scapeshift etc. will be able to use Tier 2 tutors or other library manipulation spells to pursue their strategy (see my Scapeshift example above). Certainly, setting up a combo strategy (especially creature combo) will be more difficult, but also the opponent will have less answers to the "question" of such combo deck.
Many people complain control is dead, especially without the Tier 1 tutors. My last (winning) Control builds where UWg, UB and UBg. Without the Tier1 tutors I have to remove one tutor per deck...

Yay, the opponent is less likely to have an answer... except he has more slots to devote to answers supposedly, or just more threats. And the answers can be universal ones like O Ring, Pulse, Vindicate and the like because I won't have the pieces as fast. The end result is probably just more control decks with combo wincons, not anything that would actually play like an actual combo deck. Except Ramp of course, but goddamnit it's boring. Also, being at the mercy of your topdecks is just annoying. Its worth noting most of the best tutors in the format are not in blue. That is to say, other colours have amazing library manipulation and thus the foundational colors of the format are green and blue, not blue alone as it would be after a tutor ban.

Tutors are a nice bonus for Goodstuff decks, but that's it. For other decks however, they are essential. And this is what matters. Tutors guarantee deck diversity in the format. Can't emphasize this enough.

Yes and no. Banning the Tier1 tutors will weaken (or even kill?) a couple of decks but will also help Tier 2-3 decks to become playable (again). I don't think that the deck diversity will change very much. But it will definitely fight the ever recurring play pattern issue and the good stuff silver bullet strategy which I don't think are good for our format.

Those "couple" of decks that will be hit hard are precisely the Tier 1.5/2 archetypes we want to encourage. A tutor ban would least hurt Goodstuff decks of various persuasions and UWx control, I'd imagine. Dunno what it would do to help currently underrepped archetypes like Stax when they just die to the superpowerful curve-outs 5c aggro and Naya style decks can muster. 4-5c midrange Goodstuff probably shrugs and plays more universal removal.

Bump. Just because. Don't post random jumbles people.