Hello everyone.
Once I read the news in this thread (http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=848.msg7977#new), I immediately thought that these bannings will cause a lot of discussion again (which is not a bad thing).
Things that personally interest me the most:
- Enlightened Tutor unbanned:
Hell yes, I really like this decision! While it opens more possibilities for almost every archetype, the currently 'weaker' ones like heavy control, stax and to a certain degree combo will probably benefit more from it than creature based strategies which in the end should be a very good thing for the format.
I'm not even that worried about pushing Oath based decks with this unbanning since it's 'only' one really strong card and it was not like Oath dominated one Top8 after the other.
- Demonic Tutor on watchlist:
I strongly disagree with this decision. Paired with good old Mana Drain, DT is one of the very few left 'true' control staples
that let the archetype keep up with stronger and stronger creatures.
I'm not saying that he's only run in pure control decks (obviously every deck playing black will probably run him), but from my experience, he is rather used to find answers than getting a threat itself, so all in all a somewhat 'more defensive' spell. I have no problem with 'igniting a discussion' as the council's explanation was given, but I'm seriously worried about a real ban in the upcoming spring.
- Mystical Tutor on watchlist:
A very good, although only logical follow up to the Wordly Tutor watchlist placement and unbanning of E. Tutor. M. Tutor will most likely replace stuff like Mystical Teachings or Intuition in decks that can't abuse the latter to its fullest. However, I don't think it will push Miracle stuff over the top. If people really wanted to abuse Miracle cards, they could have already done it with Personal Tutor that we currently almost never see.
- Tutor policy:
In general, I think the council has done a pretty good job with this october's decisions. It's only kind of 'fair' to unban the other Mirage Tutors when the arguably strongest (Wordly Tutor because of the power creep level) one is legal for years now while the problems its strengths brings are so obvious.
Your thoughts? Kind regards,
Doks
My deck just got placed on the watchlist.
I doubt Pattern would survive if Worldy, Demonic and Order got axed. Something similar might be doable as a grindy recursion toolbox thing,but...
The unbans seem good and reasonable. As mentioned, nearly any white deck can use Enlightened Tutor for some purposes.
On the motivations of the Demonic watchlisting - that is, discussiona bout tutoring in the format - I have to say that playing Pattern has been thoroughly enjoyable precisely because of the tutoring power the deck has access to. It gives a feeling of being in control of your own fate, gives the ability to choose different gameplans and adds a bit of consistency. In general, it makes me feel that my losses are nearly always my own fault for misjudging the game state and tutoring for the wrong thing.
The fact that Pattern mostly deals in creatures probably helps here - it sets a minimum threshold for the prices of most effects (contrast Worldy for Pridemage vs. Mystical for Vandalblast or the like), and the permanent-based nature of the combos gives opponents a bit more room to interact than with spell-based combo. Also gives me a bit of presence on the board, which is nice. I would be sad to see this kind of control over your own gameplan go away.
@Unban: So we're making a step towards more combo... not that I had any problem with that decision. Maybe it's the right thing to do against too many decks without any plan and playing just the good cards (no offense meant @ goodstuff players, just a personal opinion). That in turn might strengthen the control strategies by two reasons: First these decks are able to find their (at times very specific) answers more easily. Secondly because I suspect that a proper control deck could deal more easily with a combo opponent than a deck without a real plan (that beats pure control with a load of "must be handeled"-cards). So I hope for a "metashift" that favors control decks a bit.
Maybe the goodstuff players are forced to build their decks along a certain direction (e.g. tempo) on the long term, what I really would appreciate.
@Mystical Tutor: I have to admit, that I'm a bit afraid of that card. Eot Mystical into crazy stuff is quite a deal. The difference about the tutor targets the mirage tutors search is: Enlightened and Worldly Tutor search for permanents, so you have a chance to deal with the tutor targets later on (the damage might be dealt already, but still...). The target of Mystical Tutor is on the stack once and is gone. If you can not react directly to the spell, the game might be over.
So my feelings about this card are abivalent. On one hand: Might push control / combo further (if need be) on the other hand I'm a bit afraid of a one mana "I win" instant. Hard to tell what would happen... maybe one has to give it a try, though.
That brings me to Demonic Tutor: In general I agree to Doks. Taking up the argument about "splashing black just for Demonic" is a thing to be... worried. But many multicolor lists do the same with two or three colors - just a slight splash for this creature and that spell. Maybe that becomes more complicated when Enlightened Tutor -> Back to Basics is more common? So I'd say: It's okay to keep an eye on that card but the decision has to be made in half a year when we know better if the card is a severe problem.
@Natural Order: Comparing the card to Tinker is what I do the whole time but everybody said: "Noooo, it costs one more mana - and it searches just for a creature. That's by far not as strong."
Maybe that's a bit provoking, but either ban Natural Order or unban Tinker - for the sake of a completely broken format or the opposite. -> Nay, just let's ban Natural Order. That's at least my opinion.
Summa summarum: Thubs up for the bans unbans so far. Good work (as usual, I should add.)
Natural Order is not even close to Tinker. The mana dorks usually used to fuel it are roughly ten million times more vulnerable than using Signets or the like to ensure a Turn 3 Tinker (which you can then even protect with Spell Pierce and friends. Let alone it's blue so Daze works even more easily).
Plus you can get a Turn 3 Tinker unaccelerated in some rare cases. It's true that Natural Order targets are growing in power and versatility, but the spell itself is much, much weaker than Tinker. The card is very strong, no doubt, but Tinker is another deal entirely.
The cost and protection differences are neglectable between Natural Order and Tinker. You can always just play blue and green and protect NO just as easily as Tinker. I also think that Staxx decks do not typically play Daze and Spell Pierce, but UGx aggro control decks do. In fact I believe Counter back for NO would be more likely because of the exisiting deck types.
Both cards are extremely powerful. It feels strange to have one banned and the other not regarding cards such as Primeval Titan and Progenitus as possible creature targets.
I am not a big fan of noncreature permanents that completely wreck certain deck types once resolved like Back to Basics, Blood Moon, Winter Orb, Oath of Druids, Moat, Humility AND Enlightned Tutor in the format at the same time. All these cards can wreck the game by themselves if deployed by turn 4 AND given the opportunity to search for them at the end of turn for cheap.
I do not mind spell combination decks and tutors for those decks because these decks can not afford to also play a game of board control. They are not the most interactive decks but they make life hard for sluggish midrange goodstuff decks but have a harder time against real aggro decks with a quicker clock. They also have to worry more and more about the increasing numbers of hate bear creatures WotC keeps printing which can easily be included in many creature decks if such a spell combination deck would post some strong results. Spell combination decks also have to fight a lack of fast mana in the highlander format which severly diminishes the spell combination deck "goldfish" speed. Tehrefore it is good that LED as fast mana for spell combo decks has been unbanned which has almost no other uses.
Demonic tutor is a powerful card but not overpowered to find haymakers. Many times it is just a fair tutor for an answer card. It should absolutely not be banned, especially after the unbanning of Enlightended Tutor and the possible unban of Mystical tutor which are both far better at finding those game ending cards than demonic tutor because they are both cheaper and have instant speed to boot.
Quick aside:
---------------
If I were to make bannings, I would be inclined to better the format by testing the following changes:
a) either weakening Natural Order by banning Primeval Titan or banning Natural Order
b) weakening Multi color mana bases (limit fetchland number to 3 or 5 or ban them all) AND throw out the stupid non basic hate (Blood moon, BtB)at the same time
c) ban Workshop
d) unban the same stuff which might be unbanned soon/has just been unbanned
Ideally the Oath of druids and 5c Staxx/Control decks would loose power because their mana bases would be a bit slower and 2 color aggro and aggro control decks would be competitive again.
-----------------------------------------------------------
So I kind of like these Ban list changes because of d)
Why would you make control decks worse when they're not viable from a competetive point of view?
Hello everyone,
@ Mystical Tutor / Personal Tutor
Doks is right and we haven't seen Personal Tutor alot, although I really don't know why.
(some people still don't play Gitaxian Probe, so maybe progress just takes time)
Maybe it just wasn't strong enough, but it is now thanks to Supreme Verdict.
Control has gotten stronger lately, especially U/W.
The thought of decks that play Entreat the Angels, Supreme Verdict (maybe even Bonfire of the Damned) and Personal Tutor is not nice.
Personal Tutor now does pretty much everything.
Therefore my prediction is that Mystical Tutor can never be unbanned. Powercreep or not, there is not one
creature in Magic that matches what "Mystical Tutor" would do. I'd rather assume, that Personal Tutor
will have to go on the watchlist.
Ufortunately it's not in my nature to play control, so I'm just stressed out by the Personal-Tutor-Future.
I want Birthing Pod back.
Cheers. HL IS AWESOME!
As much as I like the changes of the Banned List, I dislike the changes of the Watch List. I think Demonic Tutor shouldn't be there, but not because of its "untouchable" status, more because it's not strong enough to be banned. After all this is what's the Watch List is for. To point out cards which might be banned the next time bannings are announced. I've listed some reasons here (http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=850.msg7995#msg7995).
Mystical Tutor needs to be watched extremely closely. In combination with Miracle-Cards it can be devastating. Comparing this to Personal Tutor is not a valid move, as Personal Tutor is a sorcery. Which gives me some time (of course the worst case scenario is: Play Personal Tutor, put Entreat the Angles on top and play something that draws a card in your opponents next turn).
Natural Order shouldn't be on the Watch List, too. It's a quite expensive way to cheat a green creature into play. There are strategies (Reanimator) which are way better, faster and have way more "unfair" creatures.
Enlighted Tutor:
I find this card problematic: It enables strong hoser cards like Back to Basic, Blood Moon and Winter Orb. I think this will made Matches less fun, if such cards appear more often. The other extrem overpowered Card is Oath of Druids on MTG-Pulse it appears 8 times, but not on the Top 8 Decks on the last Grand Prix's. Enlighted Tutor will appear often but I dont know if really Control-Decks would more appear with it. I think the format will suffer more than it brings more diversion.
Lion's Eye Diamond:
A pure Combo card. Now we have several combo cards enabled for TPS: Yawgmoth's Will, Enlighted Tutor and Lion'S Eye Diamond. This will lead that Combo will appear more often, but that will lead to less interactive games. I don't know if it's really the way it should be.
Demonic Tutor:
This card is banned in several formats like Singelton and Legacy. Only here it's allowed, it's drasticly undercosted. I don't have anything against tutoring but you have to pay the price for it and 1B is much too low. This card is mentioned earlier as a joker and especially here in 100 card format the effect is much better than in Legacy where it is banned.
Natural Order:
It would had been banned earlier if it would cost 2G, the double green mana is the only thing which keeps the card seemly balanced. Today it's usually played with Primeval Titan which gives massive card advantage with Wasteland, Maze of Ith and Volrath's Stronghold. Normally the game is almost over when it hit one time. In most cases the adavantage couldn't be equalized.
Stoneforge Mystic:
This card is banned in Singelton and Modern. This creature leads to an huge amount of played Batterskull, Sword of Fire and Ice, and Sword of Feast and Famine. The Stoneforge Mystic gives the right equipment for the right situation for very less mana, it reduces the needed mana for the equipment(drasticly) and it wears the equipment by itself. This combination makes this creature much too good. It would be better for the format if the people need to draw at random the needed euipment, or search for it for more mana cost than 1W. Only because the Stoneforge Mystic exist, Batterskull and the 2 most played Swords are played that much often.
Wordly Tutor:
This card should only be banned because it cost one green? More popular than Worldly Tutor is Eladamri's Call (93/181), Green Sun's Zenith(105/181) and Fauna Shaman(91/181). Worldly Tutor is only played 47 times. So the question is is is too good? With Worldly Tutor you loose one card thats why its played only 47 times. If the Highlander Council want to decrease cheap tutor amount why not ban Eladamris's Call. I think this would be more effective, but sure i wouldn't be sad if Worldly Tutor would be vanished.
Mystical Tutor:
This card is banned in legacy. This card gives acces to an extreme amount of cards(unlike Enlighted Tutor), and with Miracle this would dominate the format very quick. I think the format would suffer much with Mystical Tutor. Personal Tutor on the other hand is also good but not too strong, the opponent is warned one turn before and only Sorcery's could be searched. This makes Personal Tutor much more balanced than Mystical Tutor.
Summary
In General I think it's better for the format to ban more cards than less. This would make the format more diverse and would create more room for deck construction and other cards. If you have so much Highlander staples there isn't much room left for other cards.
Thx piledriver.
Would like to read more feedback of the community, esp. concerning watchlist-cards and if there is any experience with those cards yet. Thx in advance.
Quote from: GoblinPiledriver on 23-10-2012, 07:01:08 PMEnlighted Tutor:
I find this card problematic: It enables strong hoser cards like Back to Basic, Blood Moon and Winter Orb. I think this will made Matches less fun, if such cards appear more often. The other extrem overpowered Card is Oath of Druids on MTG-Pulse it appears 8 times, but not on the Top 8 Decks on the last Grand Prix's. Enlighted Tutor will appear often but I dont know if really Control-Decks would more appear with it. I think the format will suffer more than it brings more diversion.
I wish this would see more Blood Moon and Back to Basics action going and I think they will, but the mana is still way too good and the chances to run against hate is way too slim for it to make a huge difference. And Oath is pretty horrible card. Sure, it looks powerful and the effect is actually very sick, but by playing the card you are giving up on great utility guys the format has to offer. No Sakura-Tribe Elders, no Snapcaster Mages, Vendilion Cliques, Kitchen Finks... etc. Unless you play it just to gain some value in some control deck and the ability is suddenly much less sick. It only becomes a problem if there is a consistent combo-kill with the Oath.
My take on the
E. Tutor? I like this unbanning, I am little bit biased because this basically goes into all of my decks, but the card eats a draw step and it gives control-combo more consistency. I do recognize the power and would keep this in the watchlist for longer than one cycle no matter what the results, but Winter Orb or Blood Moon are just awful arguments. I've lost to the Winter Orb once, and then I learned from my mistake and took it out of my deck.
Quote from: GoblinPiledriver on 23-10-2012, 07:01:08 PMMystical Tutor:
This card is banned in legacy. This card gives acces to an extreme amount of cards(unlike Enlighted Tutor), and with Miracle this would dominate the format very quick. I think the format would suffer much with Mystical Tutor. Personal Tutor on the other hand is also good but not too strong, the opponent is warned one turn before and only Sorcery's could be searched. This makes Personal Tutor much more balanced than Mystical Tutor.
Miracle would dominate? You mean all of the two playable miracle cards for control would immediately warp the whole format into anti-miracle and miracle decks? Have you even played this format?
My take on
Mystical: I feel that this is less powerful than Enlightened in this format. HL revolves more around the battlefield than Legacy, so sacrificing one card to tutor for a spell is much less of a problem. I feel this works beautifully as a reactive control card. You use this to find answers, rather than doing anything broken that Enlightened potentially could allow. Gifts is banned and Fact or Fiction is too slow to be scary. Of course there is a possibility we see the critical mass of good combo cards to make a consistent TPS, but there is no way knowing if that's even possible in todays meta until it happens so worrying about that doesn't seem too productive.
My opinions for the other cards:
Lion's Eye Diamond: I don't see this as a problem right now. If there is some sick combo deck, then at least we get good documentation of the problem rather than just leave it banned "just in case".
Demonic is just the sickest. It's the best card in the format and the only reason not to play it is the fact it's black and black is a horrible color in eternal formats. Granted, that's a pretty compelling argument, but it doesn't make the card any less dumb. Banning this is an interesting proposal. Right now the banned list doesn't make any sense considering the tutors. Vampiric banned, but Demonic legal? Better yet, Mystical banned but Demonic legal? I honestly have no idea what is better for the format, but right now the situation is a mess. Doesn't mean it's bad, but it's kinda hard to explain to an outsider why the things are the way they are.
Stoneforge I have no problem with, but I don't really play decks which automatically fold to it, so my opinion hardly matters here.
Worldly Tutor is perfectly fine. As long as Demonic is in the format, this is more than okay in comparison.
Fast
Natural Order into Titan is beatable, but not easy. It requires removal and you still come up short out of the deal, but you are still in the game. Then again, fast Jace is pretty much the same story. It does not warp the format, it's not automatic inclusion in the green decks and there are some risks in running it. I really don't think we don't need to ban every card that people sometimes lose to.
Quote: 20-04-2011 If at all something must be done, then it is to nerf creature-based aggro.
Nothing else.
About the Watchlist.
Demonic tutor is not as powerfull as any other instant tutor. Instant reacting is much more powerful, demonic is usually at least one turn later. This makes it a slow reactive card. There is no autowin card out there to tutor, but alot of spells on legs to tutor eot to handle anything on the bord with body.
Question about the tutoring: Why is nobody playing sylvan tutor? Because its sorcery speed.
Sorcery Speed tutors are balanced in HL.
You want a healthy format? Stop unbanning combo cards. Stop unbanning broken cards. Not even the most broken cards in the format (oath/workshop/jar/ywill etc) can actually constantly or effective stop the creature dominance. Start BANNING, not UNBANNING.
Ban all instant tutor's (eladamri's call, worldy, enlightened)
Start banning problematic creatures (Stoneforge Mystic - 2 years to late)
To quote goblinpiledriver: It would be better for the format if the people need to draw at random the needed SPELLS, or search for it for more mana cost than 1X at INSTANT speed.
Who cares to have a long banlist? Rather a longer banlist with deck difference than a short one with 1 archetype dominating each tournament and combo decks around who can explode turn 2 or do nothing. Who has fun playing only mirror's or to face T2-4 combo decks in HL?
Quote from: LasH on 23-10-2012, 09:50:19 PM
Quote: 20-04-2011 If at all something must be done, then it is to nerf creature-based aggro.
Nothing else.
About the Watchlist.
Demonic tutor is not as powerfull as any other instant tutor. Instant reacting is much more powerful, demonic is usually at least one turn later. This makes it a slow reactive card. There is no autowin card out there to tutor, but alot of spells on legs to tutor eot to handle anything on the bord with body.
Question about the tutoring: Why is nobody playing sylvan tutor? Because its sorcery speed.
Sorcery Speed tutors are balanced in HL.
This explains what I was trying to say with the term "defensive tutor" in the opening post, just better. Thank you very much.
On another note, after some further discussions with friends, I'm still of the opinion that Stoneforge Mystic is unhealthy for the format. It's probably not blatantly broken and overpowered like certain other cards, but stupidly strong and especially retarded as a T2 drop on the play. It let's the game completely revolve around it and the threat of the equipment it brings. Either have an answer or die, doesn't matter if you're playing a more aggroish or controlish archetype. In addition, Batterskull is only run because of Stoneforge Mystic which is just dumb.
Regarding Mystical Tutor, I wish for one of two possibilites in the future of which I prefer the first:
1. M. Tutor stays banned and Wordly Tutor gets banned.
2. Wordly Tutor stays unbanned and M. Tutor gets unbanned.
Today's creatures grant the W. Tutor player an incredible toolbox. Grant this to non-creature based decks, too, or permit it for both archetypes.
My cents regarding the changes:
All competitive Tutors in HL – in general -
I dislike the Mirage Tutors, Demonic Tutor and Eldadamri´s Call and would like to see that they get the axe.
The reason behind my request is not the sole power level, which I think is acceptable in comparison to the creature power creep nowadays. I think they are bad for the format because they bypass the 100/1 rule in a very playable and competitive way. All of these tutors lead to an increase of ever recurring play pattern which is IMO boring on the long run in an eternal 100/1 format.
Just take the example of the deck to beat: UGwb Good stuff:
This deck will play all of the above mentioned tutors which will lead to a deck with 2-3 copies of the best situational cards in your deck (or even 3-4 copies of format defining cards like Stoneforge Mystic). The deck will just have place for a handful of pet/test cards with the remaining cards written in stone (manabase + best creatures/spell of each colour + 5 Tutors).
You do not need a strategy beside the rule to play the best cards available in HL. You simply overpower the opponent with cards which are just better then his cards. In case the opponent drops a problematic card you just use one of the several copies of the specific answer and go on with your good-stuff-strategy (e.g. Shriekmaw/Oblivion Ring/StP plus the 5 Tutors against a resolvea d Baneslayer Angel). The argument is not only valid for finding answers put also for questions. If you tutor early you "draw" one of your "four" Stoneforge Mystics. If you tutor late you "draw" one of your "four" Primeval Titans.
I don't think this is the "Soul" of a true Highlander format and would appreciate to let them go - BAN them all!
Lion's Eye Diamond – I am not frightend at the moment. I would like to see a winning deck list with this card. But certainly a powerful card which could be deck defining. - Watchlist
Natural Order – There are several "if´s" which have to apply before this card wins you a game. And with so many "if´s" it is OK for me when a card does win a game in the end. A four mana sorcery speed spell is also not easy to protect/force through. Main target is Primeval Titan and there is a certain chance to win the game against this card when only the CIP trigger resolves - Watchlist
Stoneforge Mystic – This card is format defining and perhaps the best creature in the format but it will not win you the game by itself. I see this card problematic only together with all of the tutors currently available. Alone it is just a very good card like many other cards in this format. - Watchlist
Following cards should also be on the watchlist IMO:
Imperial Seal - based on power level and disregarding price issues (but I am very fine with this card banned, even with having one copy of this card sleeping in my binder)
Umezawa´s Jitte - based on the power level of the card itself - ONLY when the creature tutors get banned
Mana Drain - most powerful card in HL if you can afford UU. A game ending card for 2 Mana should not be allowed.
...finally I would like to stress the Fetchland/Dual Land issue once again
Personally, I think that it is a really bad idea to ban tutors.
because tutors ensure that you get a greater variety of deck types. You will also get more fun and longer games.
If I think about not playing with turtors, I think that the games will be boring and it will be something like. The person who draws the best card first from the top wins or the one who gets the best card on the table first win, because you can`t search for any answers.
it's just my opinion.
@Goblinpiledrivers Post:
I strongly disagree about the Legacy comparison regarding the tutors. In Legacy you can build your deck in such a way that you will immediately win disregarding almost all board states by reaching 5 to 7 mana and Demonic tutor in Hand because of avaiable fast mana as driving power for the storm engines. This is not possible in Highlander because there is very little fast mana. This simply takes away most of Demonic Tutor's power in Highlander Games. I have written a big and long post about tutor's in general in this forum a fe weeks ago directly after the announcement (http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=850.0). It merits reading because your assumption that the card disadvantage of the mirage tutors actually is relevant is faulty. The card disadvantage is only important if the tutored card does not simply win. I do not care about the lost card when i Worldy tutor for Academy Rector; i just win. If I do not win with Rector I tutor primeval titan and win with > 95%. Worldy Tutor is far stronger in Pattern than Demonic because it is only one mana and instant speed and all combo pieces are creatures anyway (and solutions, too). This is the same in HermitDruid.dec where speed and cost far outweighs Demonics lack of card disadvantage.
@Tiggupiru:
Same to you. Are you seriously proposing that demonic is stronger than Vampiric? I would even debate that imperial seal will be stronger in quite a few decks. For example oath. Only demonic does not enable T2 oath in these decks... . And the turn you resolve oath is very important to have more life and the opponent less mana to find and use a solution in one turn. Demonic is the best toolbox tutor to look for answers, but answers are always fair because they can not be more broken than the queston you are trying to answer...
@MMD:
Playing without tutors, card fixing is no option for me. It is important that decks can fallow their game plan. Finishing with pattern combo is not very exiting, but getting there is. And guess what, it is tough to get there very often. Also, Mana Drain is not game ending every time you resolve it. It is game ending if you have it and the opponent slams a big spell and you have some big spell that you can pay for. That is a lot of IFs. But of course Mana Drain is a strong and swingy card. And those cards are okay I think when they sometimes do not work well. I believe Y' Will; Drain and Oath are like this (Oath because you loose so much in all games you do not draw oath). I dislike swingy cards that are ALWAYS so broken like Stoneforge Mystic, Jitte, Natural Order.
@delta_strike:
I strongly agree
@Vazdru:
please also comment on my thread. Thx.
Quote from: ChristophO on 24-10-2012, 04:41:39 PMAre you seriously proposing that demonic is stronger than Vampiric? I would even debate that imperial seal will be stronger in quite a few decks. For example oath. Only demonic does not enable T2 oath in these decks... . And the turn you resolve oath is very important to have more life and the opponent less mana to find and use a solution in one turn. Demonic is the best toolbox tutor to look for answers, but answers are always fair because they can not be more broken than the queston you are trying to answer...
Yes. Demonic is better in most situations and decks. In the perfect draws it's weaker because you can ignore the card disadvantage if you literally or effectively win the game on the spot, but magical christmas land doesn't happen very often in singleton formats. Demonic is far more reliable and the second best late game top deck of any deck. And what's up with the "Demonic can only find solutions" - argument? Demonic can set up the game winning combo or Jace or whatever just as easily as Vampiric does. When the game goes long (and Highlander games do), Demonic gets better and better. It doesn't cost you a draw step, two life and the being instant doesn't matter if you are trying to combo, so you don't really react to opponent's plays as you already know what to get.
You said that there are differences between Legacy and Highlander tutors and that is exactly what this is. In Legacy where one mana and two mana are miles apart, the situation would probably be different. In 60-card formats finding your 4-of is also much more likely and the nut draws are pretty consistent and thus Vampiric gains some serious edge there. But highlander is slower format, turn three "kill you" combos are not permitted (nor they should) and massively increased randomness over the 60-card decks means that even if you pack some serious power in your individual cards, you still get longer games.
In any case, this is pretty meaningless little argument since if they both were in the format there would not be decks that would only play the other and both cards are pretty close to one another in power level. It's not like you don't have room for two of the best cards in your deck and have to decide which one to cut.
Quote from: ChristophO on 24-10-2012, 04:41:39 PM
@MMD:
Playing without tutors, card fixing is no option for me. It is important that decks can fallow their game plan. Finishing with pattern combo is not very exiting, but getting there is. And guess what, it is tough to get there very often. Also, Mana Drain is not game ending every time you resolve it. It is game ending if you have it and the opponent slams a big spell and you have some big spell that you can pay for. That is a lot of IFs. But of course Mana Drain is a strong and swingy card. And those cards are okay I think when they sometimes do not work well. I believe Y' Will; Drain and Oath are like this (Oath because you loose so much in all games you do not draw oath). I dislike swingy cards that are ALWAYS so broken like Stoneforge Mystic, Jitte, Natural Order.
"Fab 5" tutors: IMO many decks can follow their game plan even without these five tutors. Certainly you will have less chance to beat a certain strategy/card/game state as you have fewer solutions for it in your deck.
So yes, the game will be less predictable and a little more random and single card strategies will be more difficult to set up but it would be another solution to fight these brainless good stuff builds.
Also there are still a lot of Tier2 tutors in the format which could be used to build single card strategy decks. For example: Last tournament I played 4C Scapeshift (without white) which had about 10 Primeval Titan and/or Scapeshift tutors plus 3 Regrowth effects and a handful of library manipulation spells (like SDT) which would be reduced to "just" 8 tutors if the "Fab5" get the axe.
Mana Drain: Is at least a Counterspell so very solid and nearly never a dead card. The only IF for not being at least a very good card is UU. I cannot say this for Yawgmoth´s Will or Oath of Druids.
Stoneforge Mystic: Nearly always a threat for just 2 Mana (similar to Mana Drain), but not capable to win you games on the spot like Mana Drain.
Jitte: Is only ALWAYS broken in "creature mirrors". If you play against Control or Combo, Jitte can be one of the weaker cards in your deck (in comparison to Stoneforge Mystic the Jitte is the weaker card IMO).
Natural Order: I would put this into the Yawgmoth´s Will, Oath of Druids bracket. Many player think that these cards are too powerful because if the IF's come together you win/loose BIG with it which certainly fixes in your mind more than "standard" losses. But people forget that these cards are sometimes weak and at least vulnerable and need a certain setup.
The new dominating Archetype: GW+XIn earlier times we had UG+x as a solid deck, but now we have the dominating Multicolored Archetype GW+X:
In this Archetype we have cheap Manaacceleration, the best and cheapest creatures and many tutor-effects. In combination with the Zendikar-Fetchlands we have the dominating multicolored-Deck with strategy-variance from aggro till control.
Most Played Decks:Bant: 19 GW with Blue 40%green; 40%blue; 20% white (Mannheim-Style, Thomas Stier)
Naya: 14 GW with Red 44%green; 39% white; 17% red (own Build)
Pattern Rector: 12 GW with Black 34%green; 34%white; 31%black (own Build, influenced by Tabris)
4C-Blood: 10 GW with red and black support 42%green;28%white; 16%red; 14%black (Mannheim-Stlye, Christian Hauck)
5C-Aggro:18 GW with 3 support colors 36%green;34%white;14%red;11%black;5%blue (Karlsruhe-Style, Jochen Korbel)
5C-Goodstuff: 19 GW with 3 support colors 29%white; 24%green; 17%blue; 17%red; 10% black (Berlin-Style, Tobias Rössler)
Total Numbers of GW+x.Decks: 92/181 =50,8%
Average->: Green: 220%/6= 36,7%
White: 184%/6= 30,7%
Red: 64%/6= 10,7%
Blue: 62%/6= 10,4%
Black: 66%/6= 11%
Quote from: LasH on 23-10-2012, 09:50:19 PM
You want a healthy format? Stop unbanning combo cards. Stop unbanning broken cards. Not even the most broken cards in the format (oath/workshop/jar/ywill etc) can actually constantly or effective stop the creature dominance. Start BANNING, not UNBANNING.
Ban all instant tutor's (eladamri's call, worldy, enlightened)
Start banning problematic creatures (Stoneforge Mystic - 2 years to late)
+1!
Problematic Creatures:Stoneforge Mystic obvious reasons.
Knight of the Reliquary no other creature gets so big for only three mana and searches all utility lands needed.
Tarmogoyf drasticly undercostet, no other creature is 4/5 or 5/6 for 1G
Against such creatures all other creatures look small and unworthy playing.
Problematic Tutors:Worldly Tutor: Simply to cheap
Mystical Tutor: ""
Enlighted Tutor: ""
Eladamri's Call: ""
Demonic Tutor: ""
This cheap Tutors leads not to a vial variety of decks, this tutors lead to the same creatures played again and again. This contradicts the Highlander Principles. As I said before Tutoring yes but for a fair mana cost 1-2 is just too low, especially when they are instant-tutors.
Quote from: Tiggupiru on 24-10-2012, 06:21:37 PM
In any case, this is pretty meaningless little argument since if they both were in the format there would not be decks that would only play the other and both cards are pretty close to one another in power level. It's not like you don't have room for two of the best cards in your deck and have to decide which one to cut.
It is the singlehandedly most important argument of all. The banning list and watch list changes were made to ignite talk about tutors. Obviously some line has to be drawn somewhere regarding card power level. It is not meaningless to discuss whether Vampiric or Demonic is stronger because it will have direct impact on format credibility. The difference between one and two mana is huge in highlander, too. Every single additional mana diminishes your potential tutor targets that you can play in the same round, when you know the board state and often can bypass the opponents interaction because he just happened to tap out.
My examples are not magical christmasland. They consist of having oath in your deck, black and green mana and the tutor in your starting hand and your opponent playing with creature spells... . I would instantly trade demonic for vampiric in my UBg Oath list because it would make my deck stronger. You also completely fail to talk about instant vs. sorcery speed. That Demonic tutor is an insane late game card is true for every tutor, when mana does not matter anymore even diabolic tutor is insane. Power level shows under mana constrains. Playing a one mana tutor on t2 AND putting down a strong two drop with a mana elf is a play you can not do with demonic.
Also this is sentence is just wrong on so many levels it makes me really sad:
Quote from: Tiggupiru on 24-10-2012, 06:21:37 PM
It doesn't cost you a draw step, two life and the being instant doesn't matter if you are trying to combo, so you don't really react to opponent's plays as you already know what to get.
1):
Instant speed is insane. Just compare Sylvan tutor and worldy tutor. One is played many many times, the is almost never played. Of course instant speed is important.
Opp. taps out? Go get awesome card with vampiric. opp. will not counter, because he had no clue what was going to happen! With vampiric/mystical you trade one hand card against the ability to force the opponent to keep up mana for an addiotional counter if he wants to stop both the counter and your following main phase.
Opp. plays thoughtseize? Demonic gets stripped or if it was already played for a card and you had to pass because you lacked the mana it is even worse!
2):
On the other hand the two life really only matter if you are at two life (virtually) or less. Remember only the last life point is important. Life points 20 to 2 are absolutely spendable...
3):
But most importantly: You do not react to your opponents plays when playing combo? Are you kidding me? You do not care about their hand size, open mana, played cards, their clock, their deck type etc. and as a logical consequence Demonic is better because you always go for
the "combo" piece. I frequently play around aven mindcensor, instant spot removal, counterspells, etc. in all my highlander decks that use tutors. In fact, if you do not play around stuff like that you are playing much worse than you could!
Quote from: GoblinPiledriver on 24-10-2012, 07:10:17 PM
The new dominating Archetype: GW+X
Thanks for the compiled data but I am sorry to say that this is the "old dominating Archetype" for a long time already...but again, thanks for your statistics.
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. People who want to see the tutors banned argue that it is boring to see the same creatures every game. They are right in that banning the tutors would decrease the chance of repeating game plays again and again. A widespread tutor effect ban would definitely weaken those decks and prevent them from having the right uber strong creature at the right time more often than not. However, do they really care? The answer is probably no.
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.
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.
Quote from: Doks on 24-10-2012, 08:08:44 PM
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.
Tutor's are the reason decks like stax can never build up a lock. Tutor's are the reason that many decks can't be as competive.
The toolbox strategy is enabled via tutor's. (Kitchen finks vs RDW, Harmonic Sliver vs any artifact based, Thrun vs counter, stoneforge - if u dont know what u play against, OOze vs Graveyard based decks or simply mana acc everything u need).
These decks just need to run silverbullets and thats because of the flexibilty based on Tutors.
Believe me, the mentioned decks WILL care about the tutor's and it will enable other archetypes to raise up again.
And the banning of Survival/birthing pod was the absolut right decision. Take the next step here and ban the rest finally.
I agree with piledriver - Tutor's yes but not at instant speed for 2 mana or less. There would still be many balanced tutor's out there (green zenith, idyllic tutor, fabricate etc, which support different game strategys BALANCED)
Quote from: Doks on 24-10-2012, 08:08:44 PM
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. People who want to see the tutors banned argue that it is boring to see the same creatures every game. They are right in that banning the tutors would decrease the chance of repeating game plays again and again. A widespread tutor effect ban would definitely weaken those decks and prevent them from having the right uber strong creature at the right time more often than not. However, do they really care? The answer is probably no.
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.
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.
Just had to quote this awesome post so that everybody reads it once again. Great job explaining the very thought I have always had about tutors and goodstuff decks.
Quote from: Doks on 24-10-2012, 08:08:44 PM
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. People who want to see the tutors banned argue that it is boring to see the same creatures every game. They are right in that banning the tutors would decrease the chance of repeating game plays again and again. A widespread tutor effect ban would definitely weaken those decks and prevent them from having the right uber strong creature at the right time more often than not. However, do they really care? The answer is probably no.
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.
Quote from: Doks on 24-10-2012, 08:08:44 PM
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...
Quote from: Doks on 24-10-2012, 08:08:44 PM
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.
At last I want to post a general complaint to the HL community: There are always a lot of comments and discussions with every new banned list but nearly nobody actively cares about promoting and tournament playing the game itself. I cannot understand how people could write several comments to a single card banning/unbanning but on the other hand do not care about attending a tournament or creating other content than whining about the banned list.
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.
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.
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.
So my proposal is to ban/ or putting on the Watchlist: Stoneforge Mystic, Tarmogoyf, Knight of the Reliquary, Worldly Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Enlighted Tutor, Green Sun's Zenith, Eladamri's Call, Demonic Tutor and Natural order.
To finally weaken the dominating creature decks, (Green Sun's Zenith is also dominating the Format and is so part of the problem). All creatures and Tutors can be replaced by weaker and fairer cards.
Replacement:
Stoneforge Mystic --> Steelshaper's Gift
Tarmogoyf --> Scavenging Ooze
Knight of the Reliquary --> Loxodon Smitter
Worldly Tutor: --> Sylvan Tutor
Mystical Tutor:
Enlighted Tutor: --> Idylic Tutor, Fabricate
Green Sun's Zenith: --> Summoner's Pact
Eladamri's Call: --> Altar of Bone
Demonic Tutor: --> Tainted Pact, Diabolic Intent
Natural order --> Chord of Calling
Mystical Teachings:
There are many extrem good Miracle Cards which would massive influence the Format(negatively). The disadvantage of being put on the top is an advantage with Miracle Cards. As Wizards printed Mystical Tutor there were only (non-Miracle)normal cards, but now Teachings and Miracle Cards couldn't be in a healthy format at the same time.
Perfect Miracle Cards:
aggro: Thunderous Wrath This Card makes 5 damage for 1 mana.
aggro: Temporal Mastery This Card is a Time Walk.
Midrange: Bonfire of the Damned This Card makes a one-sided Rolling Earthquake
Control: Terminus This Card is a better Wrath of God for only one mana.
Control: Entreat the Angels This Card flood the board with 4/4 Angels.
But even whitout miracle, in a normal deck there are 15-30 sorcery and instant spells. So it's like Worldly Tutor there are 20-40 creatures. Both cards holds nearly infinite possibiltys for 1 mana, which surprises the opponent instantly.
Quote from: ChristophO on 24-10-2012, 07:21:04 PM
Quote from: Tiggupiru on 24-10-2012, 06:21:37 PM
In any case, this is pretty meaningless little argument since if they both were in the format there would not be decks that would only play the other and both cards are pretty close to one another in power level. It's not like you don't have room for two of the best cards in your deck and have to decide which one to cut.
It is the singlehandedly most important argument of all.
Don't really think it is. Both cards are super strong and close enough in powerlevel that I feel both should either be banned or unbanned. If you think that other one is fine, but other is clearly out of bounds, I'd love to hear your reasonings.
@Doks: Your arguments seem pretty sound. I can get behind that. Goodstuff is always the deck type with less to lose whenever cards get banned (unless you go after their lands).
Quote from: GoblinPiledriver on 25-10-2012, 05:10:37 PM
There are many extrem good Miracle Cards which would massive influence the Format(negatively). The disadvantage of being put on the top is an advantage with Miracle Cards. As Wizards printed Mystical Tutor there were only (non-Miracle)normal cards, but now Teachings and Miracle Cards couldn't be in a healthy format at the same time.
Oh dear god.
Quote from: GoblinPiledriver on 25-10-2012, 05:10:37 PMaggro: Thunderous Wrath This Card makes 5 damage for 1 mana.
With the Mystical, this is 5 damage with two cards and two mana. Gogo Sonic Burst.
Quote from: GoblinPiledriver on 25-10-2012, 05:10:37 PMaggro: Temporal Mastery This Card is a Time Walk.
Have you tested this garbage? This was supposed to destroy Legacy with their Brainstorms, Ponders and Jaces. Didn't quite get there, actually is pretty close to unplayable right now. And if you have to use two cards to get this effect, it's just god-awful. Any number of cards you get with Mystical is going to be better than this 99% of the cases.
Quote from: GoblinPiledriver on 25-10-2012, 05:10:37 PMMidrange: Bonfire of the Damned This Card makes a one-sided Rolling Earthquake
This card is fine, it's pretty much restricted to Midrange and is the only card that archetype wants from this list. All in all, pretty sweet combo in the mirror, but lackluster everywhere else.
Quote from: GoblinPiledriver on 25-10-2012, 05:10:37 PMControl: Terminus This Card is a better Wrath of God for only one mana.
This is finally a card I would actually consider running in a deck with Mystical. I admit it, it's pretty sweet, but it still costs two cards and two mana, so that's totally balanced. Nothing even remotely broken happening here.
Quote from: GoblinPiledriver on 25-10-2012, 05:10:37 PMControl: Entreat the Angels This Card flood the board with 4/4 Angels.
Make 3 Angels makes a very good turn six play, but there are tons of other good six drops that don't need to be tutored with Mystical to work. It's a very good card and pretty sweet play, but I really don't see how would two-card finisher going to make the format unplayable. Resolving this puts opposing Midrange and Control into problems, but Control has answers in counters and sweepers. They can also just drop a huge flier and then all of them just stare at each other. To aggro this is just another board stabilizing big play.
All of these come with a pretty sever play restriction attached. Pretty big problem with the X-spells which don't get the extra mileage of playing a land before casting this. Entreat is still pretty good, but with Bonfire that can often be crucial. Simple Watchwolf needs four mana to kill (turn five) and if you are casting this combo on turn one hundred, there are plenty of other options that would have also won you the game. This also means all of them have effectively +1 mana on their miracle cost, unless you have another play.
Quote from: MMD on 25-10-2012, 12:42:47 PM
Quote from: Doks on 24-10-2012, 08:08:44 PM
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.
Quote from: MMD on 25-10-2012, 12:42:47 PM
Quote from: Doks on 24-10-2012, 08:08:44 PM
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.
Quote from: MMD on 25-10-2012, 12:42:47 PM
Quote from: Doks on 24-10-2012, 08:08:44 PM
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.
Quote from: GoblinPiledriver on 25-10-2012, 05:10:37 PM
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.
Quote from: GoblinPiledriver on 25-10-2012, 05:10:37 PM
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.
Quote from: GoblinPiledriver on 25-10-2012, 05:10:37 PM
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.
Quote from: Dreamer on 25-10-2012, 09:09:54 PM@ 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.
Entreat and Terminus are playable even without the Mystical and I've tested both good amount to have a grasp about what's going on there. They are good cards in a slow UW-control, which is an archetype I don't mind seeing more of at all. Control is just very weak in comparison right now and even the tuned lists tend to be pretty close to goodstuffs, so I wouldn't mind actually seeing another deck to emerge. Don't know if Mystical is enough to actually get there, but hopefully that would happen.
If any of those cards causes problems, it's going to be Entreat. Cheap sweepers are good (Bonfire is actually far from cheap), but they hardly make format unplayable. Terminus is just an answer the control decks have. It's not going to combo people out, it's just a tool for control to actually be respectable archetype. If Terminus-control is everywhere, the format will evolve into aggrodecks that have more emphasis on burn and haste creatures. It might change the meta, but it's not going to destroy it. Besides, it's two card wrath, so the tempo gain is pretty much all the control deck actually get, I imagine Terminus being 2 for 2 most of the time. Whereas Entreat is really good in the format and unlike Terminus, it's also a respectable win-con as well as a card able to stabilize any board situation. It might be the best tool for control to actually win the game, but it still is just a finisher, so I am unsure if that ever can become a huge problem.
Dreamer raises very valid points.
The problems are never the tutors, they are the problem-cards by themselves.
If you ban the tutors you end up in an EVEN MORE goodstuff or linear oriented meta, and by definition, its predators. Why? Because you take away tools to reduce variance. If you do the better single cards, or a critical mass of blowout cards are going to define decks. An example could be some form of Wildfire U/R/w control.
Imho there should be a clear decision of the council to embrace the formats inherit variance and unban accordingly, I wouldn't be even shy of unbanning sacred cows like mystical or vampiric. Everything is worth testing except for Power 9 + fast mana with negligible drawbacks.
There are problems if you start to ban cards which are "just-too-good".
a) Has the meta really adjusted to the offenders (playing U/R/x control vs. goodstuff?)
b) Facing a hateful meta the deck still thrives, so ban all the tutors (pod, survival, demonic, worldly, enlight. etc.) variance will rise due to not being able to tutor as efficiently, so blowouts will happen even more, some decks will cease to exist (pattern)
c) Ban the blowout cards (drain, btb, tabernacle etc.) you end up with the next set of too-good cards (too efficient creatures, next set of tutors).
This is , of course, not very accurate but imho in a nutshell you cannot balance a singleton format, except very clear "broken" cards (lotus, ancestral, time walk).
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...
All in all I think that the current single card banned list is quite OK (just Mana Drain, Eladamri´s Call and Umezawa's Jitte should be on the Watchlist IMO), so I am quite satisfied with the banning policy of the council in general. Banning Tier 1 tutors may or may not hurt Goodstuff more than other decks – may or may not increase/reduce deck diversity. To be honest I am not 100% sure but this is also not the main issue in HL. I think I have subconsciously abused this discussion as the Council seems uninterested to take actions regarding 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.
I will not stop promoting the discussion about a modification of the mana base in Highlander. As long as HL allows 10 duals + 10 fetchies (+ Spoils mulligan) all decks will be inferior to the Goodstuff strategy.
Here's the discussion about this topic: http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=583.30, just for those which are lost in the bad structure of this forum.
I would even go further and say that even the mana base is still not the biggest problem. HL has not a card based problem it is the activity of the community itself but this does not belong to this topic as there is already a topic for this here: http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=819.0 as well.
Quote from: MMD on 26-10-2012, 01:29:59 PM
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.
Quote from: MMD on 26-10-2012, 01:29:59 PM
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.
Quote from: coldcrow on 25-10-2012, 11:23:26 PM
The problems are never the tutors, they are the problem-cards by themselves.
Not 100% true exspecially not in a singleton. Tutors can make "innocent" cards to a problem (for example mystical would pump the miracle theme). If you have the ability to abuse tutor's in a standard format you get a silverbullet decklist: Examples: https://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=20264 or http://www.mercadia.de/home/page.php?site=magic/deck2/deck&id=185
Tutor's alow to ONLY play the best cards at 1 off. If you dont have tutor's you are forced to play specific cards more often (in highlander it means u have to play more artifact hate instead of just harmonic sliver).
Cutting ONLY the cheap tutor's will result in diversity as MMD alrdy pointed out pretty well. Thats the right direction.
Quote from: Dreamer on 26-10-2012, 04:07:25 PM
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".
There is goodstuff hate. Alot to be honest. But these cards are hard to bring into game or you have to build around them which makes your deck weak (b2b, humility, PoP for example). Futhermore these cards are real 1 off's while goodstuff has many options in each slot (o-ring, vindicate, maelstrom pulse, detention sphere). Would be a different story if you could play 4 copies of b2b or if you would have 3 cheap tutor's to cheat b2b into play.
Quote from: MMDI think I have subconsciously abused this discussion as the Council seems uninterested to take actions regarding the main issue in HL.
//Offtopic:
Just wanted to jump in and say: not true. (We're just exceptionally patient, just look at long time watchlist queen Stoneforge Mystic) ;)
And rest assured: I follow every comment through RSS and make notes to form pros and cons of future scenarios. There's actually so much material that probably no additional banning/unbanning clauses need to be thrown in as you guys have pretty much provided it all already.
\\Offtopic
Now, if we just could get data to mtgpulse to see how dominant combo just is currently...
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.
Banned Cards:
Black Lotus -- 3 too less (compared to Pentad Prism)
Time Walk -- 2U too less (compared to Time Warp)
Ancestral Vision -- 2U too less (compared to Concentrate)
All 5 Mox'es -- 2 too less (compared to Signets)
Sol Ring -- 3 too less (compared to Everflowing Chalice/ Ur-Golem's Eye)
Balance -- 1W too less (compared to Cataclysm)
Mana Crypt -- 2-3 too less (compared to Everflowing Chalice/ Ur-Golem's Eye)
Mind Twist -- B too less (compared to Mind Shatter)
Tinker -- xU too less (compared to Reshape)
GW+X-Staples:
Stoneforge Mystic --> 2 too less (compared to Taj-Nar Swordsmith/ Godo, Bandit Warlord)
Tarmogoyf --> G too less (as it was primary planned by Wizards)
Knight of the Reliquary --> 2 too less (compared to Wolfir Silverheart)
Worldly Tutor: --> 2 too less (compared to Summoner's Pact)
Mystical Tutor: --> 2 too less (compared to Long-Term Plans)
Enlighted Tutor: --> 2 too less (compared to Idyllic Tutor)
Green Sun's Zenith: --> G too less (compared to Chord of Calling)
Eladamri's Call: --> 2 too less (compared to Summoner's Pact)
Demonic Tutor: --> 1B too less (compared to Diablic Tutor)
Natural order --> 1 too less (compared to Dramatic Entrance/ 0,5 Tooth and Nail)
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.
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. 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.
Knight of the Reliquary:
The Knight starts usually as a 4/4, can grow easily +2/+2 every turn. often he is the biggest creature on the board. It's quick 8/8 like Wolfir Silverheart which cost 3GG. By the way it searches Wasteland, Maze of Ith, Volrath's Stronghold, Karakas and every needed Manland. Knight is a combination of Terravore/Splinterfright(which doesn't start as 0/0) and makes every turn a Crop Rotation(just like Jace TMS makes every turn a Brainstorm). The Knight fixes perfect all needed mana. And all this for 3 Mana. That's what I call an overpowered card.
Natural Order:
You only not loose against Natural Order when you shot Primeval Titan (or Progenitus) immediatly, if you couldn't handle Primeval Titan when you face a maximum amount of utility-lands and man-lands. Primeval Titan is a very good card for 6 mana, but for 4 mana he is just too strong. Natural Order and Primeval Titan get even played in decks where Primeval Titan alone wouldn't get played and where he is the most expensive card. This shows how overpowered Natural Order is.(Just like Stoneforge Mystic and Batterskull)
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.
This is the best post so far in this thread. GW Piledriver. Thats exactly the problem of these cards and the format.
Quote from: GoblinPiledriver on 26-10-2012, 07:04:01 PM
Snipped for simplicity.
I pretty much agree with all of it. However, one point that could be raised is that just because Wizards deem a mana cost "fair" for an effect, does not make it so. Besides, cards are balanced to other formats, not german highlander.
Furthermore, even though GWx would lose alot of tutors provided all cards listed there was banned, it's not certain that it would help. The bannings would also hurt other decks and it might be costing them more competitiveness and thus the goodstuff/aggro decks could benefit from it. I played several of the cards listed in control shells in order to acquire some of the consistency I saw in the aggro decks.
Ignoring the fear that I sound like a broken record, I much rather see the fetchlands go than these ~10 non-land cards. If the fetches are gone, you need to run these cards in a GW deck with a very slight splash possibly and that is a pretty big incentive to switch colors completely. They would still remain to be good cards, but running them would expose you to the inherited weaknesses green and white cards have. Most notable Achilles' heel to GW are blue cards and blue control decks are big winners if fetches go.
I totally agree with Piledriver when he say it's not good for the format if everyone runs the same cards given they are on the color, but that will happen eventually again if these cards are banned. People will eventually figure out what's good after the bans and after a while the hive mind settles for what the optimal build is. It might not be GWx, but that really doesn't matter as the underlying problem is still well and truly alive. Then we are faced with the same situation and are forced to ban more cards to keep the same cards appearing in all of the decks and the loop continues. The only way this can be prevented in the long term is to make decks to stick to an archetype. I think this happens with the fetchland ban. You can still run the best cards your two colors offer as the new manabase will allow that, but two-colored goodstuff is considerably less scary than four-colored one.
Quote from: GoblinPiledriver on 26-10-2012, 07:04:01 PM
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.
Quote from: GoblinPiledriver on 26-10-2012, 07:04:01 PM
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.
Quote from: GoblinPiledriver on 26-10-2012, 07:04:01 PM
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.
Quote from: GoblinPiledriver on 26-10-2012, 07:04:01 PM
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.
Quote from: GoblinPiledriver on 26-10-2012, 07:04:01 PM
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.
Quote from: GoblinPiledriver on 26-10-2012, 07:04:01 PM
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
(http://altepeter.com/stuff/imgs/applause.gif)
Quote from: Dreamer on 27-10-2012, 11:03:06 AM
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.
Not true. There will be enough competitive cards in black left. The problem black has is that most of the cards are either removal, disruption or tutors, so nothing to build a deck around. Black is and will be an important secondary/splash colour with or without Demonic Tutor. But yes, you will take away the strongest card from probably the weakest colour.
By the way, I can accept a discussion about "Stoneforge Tutor" but I think discussing about a ban of the other creatures mentioned is nonsense.
Where can I pay for the Fetchland ban?
To ban fetch lands is crazy talk. I think it will ruin the format completely. I dont see the big problem whit goodstuff. But i will certainly play a different format if fetch lands should get the hammer.
And all the talk about goodstuff being the one to beat I dont really see it. Because the last 5 tournament i have been to it has been in the top 8 but it didten win any tournaments.
but that's just my opinion
Quote from: delta_strike on 27-10-2012, 03:36:54 PM
To ban fetch lands is crazy talk. I think it will ruin the format completely. I dont see the big problem whit goodstuff. But i will certainly play a different format if fetch lands should get the hammer.
And all the talk about goodstuff being the one to beat I dont really see it.
??? I really hoped for a more qualified and discussable input than that...
Quote from: MMDWhere can I pay for the Fetchland ban?
We threw together a 5€ test tournament at Helsinki on 17.11. where fetches are banned, another on 1.12 or 2.12. Just to get grasp if the idea is worth pursuing. We'll report back how it was.
Quote from: pyyhttu on 27-10-2012, 04:08:47 PM
Quote from: MMDWhere can I pay for the Fetchland ban?
We threw together a 5€ test tournament at Helsinki on 17.11. where fetches are banned, another on 1.12 or 2.12. Just to get grasp if the idea is worth pursuing. We'll report back how it was.
+10
2-3 colour mana bases are no problem even without fetchlands but I really see Back to Basics & friends becoming too strong and fun killing. Perhaps they have to go, then...
Quote from: Björn
2-3 colour mana bases are no problem even without fetchlands but I really see Back to Basics & friends becoming too strong and fun killing. Perhaps they have to go, then...
That's an interesting hypothesis... but do play basics lands. Basics are good™.
My prediction is that without fetches Back to Basics becomes efficient enough of a hoser it deserves to do its job (punish greedy mana bases), compared to the trend we've seen now, i.e.: The card is currently too slow to make impact (opponent's board presence already established), or if played too early, greedy player can then play around it by fetching his few basics instead.
So I pretty much sign what you say, but am hesitant at this point to say if it would become too strong.
But one step at the time. After all, we're talking about things that aren't even watchlisted yet, and a major one at that!
Quote from: pyyhttu on 27-10-2012, 06:30:56 PM
That's an interesting hypothesis... but do play basics lands. Basics are good™.
But one step at the time. After all, we're talking about things that aren't even watchlisted yet, and a major one at that!
I am really in love with basic lands...but fetchless Highlander will already lose 5C (most probably also 4C non-control decks) and even 3C will have a hard time not losing to those hoser cards. You´ll probably see a lot of UR decks in this test tournament. Thank god that Wizards has not printed a critical mass on Tier1 creatures in this colour combination.
Quote from: MMD on 27-10-2012, 07:28:51 PMYou´ll probably see a lot of UR decks in this test tournament.
Well, I don't know. That sounds something that loses to monored pretty hard and burn is pretty much the only top tier deck that loses nothing when the fetches leave.
@nonbasic hate bans
I don't think nonbasic hosers ever need to be banned. Hosers make greedy strategies vulnerable, but do not make anything broken themselves. If Blood Moons become too good, then non-greedy decks get better as they naturally dodge the hate and if that happens often enough, people will stop playing their dead hosers. After that there is always a possibility of greedy manabases coming back as there is no hate around to punish them and the loop starts over again. This is a very good thing. Constantly evolving metagame is why Legacy is such a big hit despite it being studied constantly by good players; the balance of power is constanly in motion. Whenever that motion stops, they ban the offending cards (like the time when they removed the powerlevel errata from Flash). We need to get that motion going again in HL.
Quote from: Tiggupiru on 27-10-2012, 11:12:34 PM
@nonbasic hate bans
I don't think nonbasic hosers ever need to be banned. Hosers make greedy strategies vulnerable, but do not make anything broken themselves. If Blood Moons become too good, then non-greedy decks get better as they naturally dodge the hate and if that happens often enough, people will stop playing their dead hosers. After that there is always a possibility of greedy manabases coming back as there is no hate around to punish them and the loop starts over again. This is a very good thing. Constantly evolving metagame is why Legacy is such a big hit despite it being studied constantly by good players; the balance of power is constanly in motion. Whenever that motion stops, they ban the offending cards (like the time when they removed the powerlevel errata from Flash). We need to get that motion going again in HL.
Personally Agreed. But I question if this is also the opinion of the HL-community as most of them play HL as kitchen table format and like it colourfull. I am already frightenend about the reaction of many unexperienced HL players in case the council anounces fetchlands to be on the watchlist...
Many HL-players love their 4-5C piles and will have a hard time to reduce it to 3C (which is in the fireline of non-basic hate) or even 2C. I already hear them whining when they constantly lose to non-basic hate. We already have the first example that some of them will better leave the format before they ask themselves how to prevent that.
IMO a 3-4C manabase itself plus land destruction will already challenging enough to reduce the power of goodstuff.
I really don´t know what we should do with people like delta_strike (sorry, but this is a perfect example) which threaten to turn their back to HL if the council touches the mana base. ??? I mean they are also a big part of the current HL community.
In any case, IF the council finally puts Fetchies on the watchlist they should better hire a damn good ghostwriter for official statement ;D
Hi,
interesting discussion on the last page. I would like to chime in on the fetchland issue especially. Please have a look at Maqui's greart guide to Highlander Mana bases:
http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=829.0
2 color Decks
Needs of mana base for a two colored deck:
Depending on double costs, cantrips, and cmc in deck a typical two mana colored deck needs 15 to 17 sources for an important color (even color split or main color). 2nd color splashes work starting at 12 to 13 sources. But typically, say a RG beats Highlander deck will need to play both colors pretty even to keep up card quality in Highlander I believe. If we calculate with 34 lands for an aggro deck with lets say 2 colorless lands (waste, Edge) this leaves 32 lands for fixing the mana. So how many untapped immediate mana sources are there to make both R and G on turn 1? Looking at Maqis guide I think he missed the Future Sight Land cycle and City of Brass as a great 1 of in his Exploring Mana Bases post but otherwise listed all the playable cycles. Lands that come into play untapped on T1 and make 2 different sorts of mana are acutally far and few in between for two color decks:
Avaiable singleton of the cycle for all of the 10 2 color pairings:
1) City of Brass
2) Dual Land
3) Shock Land
4) Pain Land
Avaible for some color pairings:
5) Scars of Mirrodin cycle (allied pairings only)
6) Future sight cycle (G/W pairing; G/R pairing)
There are some more cycles that enter play untapped but do not fix on T1:
7) M10 Dual
8) Filter land
This means there are at most 8 etb untapped lands left for a two color deck. Our GR beats deck would now play 2 colorless lands, 8 duals and would have in total space for 20 additional lands. Assuming you would also play Raging Ravine there are 19 slots left for basics or etb tapped special lands that also make a colored mana (e.g. Urzas saga lands). This means the deck will have a really tough time to sport 20 immediate mana sources in both green and red. The deck will most likely have mana troubles from time to time. Depending on how aggro this deck would play it might be looking for some additional Enter the battlefield tapped fixing lands.
3 color Decks
The calculation is very comparable to the one for a 2 colored deck, but there are 3 avaiable lands from each cycle. Just multiplying this results in 24 lands so only space for 10 basics at most (assuming 2 colorless lands and lets say 36 lands here because we are planning a more controling deck...). Since there are 3 duals and 3 shock duals in the deck the 6 m10 duals will etb untapped more than half of our games but not even close to every game. Such a deck would have 16 mana sources or a bit less (maybe a few of the less strong duals for the third color would be cut to increase necessary immediate mana source count on T1 for the main color/s). The three color deck would also have problems assembling a really reliable mana base but would not be worse of than a 2 color deck. But such a deck would have less acess to basic lands than 4 color decks now that play 10 fetchlands and 4 singelton basics or so. 3 color decks would be really easy to hose with Back to Basics and Blood Moon.
4+ color Decks
I can not see a working mana base for such a deck without Artifact mana fixing (Signets, Talismans etc.) as well as using ETB. tapped lands. One should however note that there is a great fetchland uncommon cycle in Mirage that works just like the normal fetchlands with the exception that the fetchland enters the battlefield tapped (e.g. Bad River). This cycle has only been printed for the allied color pairings.
How to compromise on the fetchland topic
I believe the requested "ban all fetchlands" would result in more playable archetypes for our format as it would force people to decide on 3 or 2 color pairs by weakening the mana bases. However especially for 3 color mana bases this will make those decks very vulnerable to Blood Moon and Back to Basics. If all fetchlands were to go I would at least throw the community a bone and take Back to Basics and Blood Moon along; there will still be Magus of the Moon and Price of Progres to punish 3 color decks with that are not as severe. What I dislike about a full 10 fetchland ban is that 2 color mana bases are not stronger than 3 color bases. Therefore I would acutally prefer a severe limit on the fetchlands: I would propose a hard limit of 3. This will push 2 colored decks above 20 IMS for both colors without enabling crazy 4 color enter the battlefield untapped mana bases. It is fare better to punish 4 color with enter the battlefield lands so that they have to pay with a turn for their 4th color and have to pay almost every swingle game instead of playing in the back to Basics/Blood Moon lottery. You will loose that lottery maybe once or twice in ~15 to 20 games (7-8 Rounds) over a big Highlander tournament which simply is not punishing enough to stop anybody from playing such a 4 color deck. Such a change would be much better to sell to players than just going and banning all fetchlands and forcing everybody to go 2 color again.
I don't think the "You can play only three fetches" is a solution. Mainly because it's very confusing. There is nothing similar in any of the other formats, combined with the weird mulligan rule (which comes as a hugely confusing to new players sometimes), this would create a pretty weird set of format specific rules. It's also close to impossible to control without deckchecks. Other than that it's a fine idea, but I really don't see the advantages outweighing the confusion.
It sucks that two colored decks wouldn't still be strictly easier to build what comes to the manabases, but if the hosers would not be banned, we would at least have clearly good reasons to not go overboard with lands. Besides, it would still be the same lottery, but unlike right now when Back to Basics might just be 3 mana enchantment that does pretty much nothing, here it would actually win games. I think three colored controls are viable as they can use artifact mana to smooth the colors. Base green also allows you to play more colors than normal. Three colored aggro might not be worth it, but I feel it can work if the manabase is done perfectly. This is something we probably know more of after we play couple of these dummy tournaments with the fetchbans.
Quote from: pyyhttu on 27-10-2012, 04:08:47 PM
We threw together a 5€ test tournament at Helsinki on 17.11. where fetches are banned, another on 1.12 or 2.12. Just to get grasp if the idea is worth pursuing. We'll report back how it was.
And we played out the first of the tournaments, results posted to http://mtgsuomi.fi/keskustelu/index.php/topic,67075.msg317943.html#msg317943
Decklists posted to: http://mtgpulse.com/event/11331#157548
At this point feedback is mixed, but we'll test some more on 2.12 (and regular fetchlands allowed next Sunday to get reference).
First of all: thanks a lot for sharing the results of your experiment with us, pyyhttu. -> +1
If banning fetchlands is such a problem for so many people, let's approach the problem from the opposite side: not from the tutor side (as ChristophO described it) but from the target side: Duals. Such a notional ban seems to fit into the banning policy since we saw some tutors being unbaned (we sould keep the tutors - fetchlands - in the format).
For the time being it's just an idea... I admit that I've not thought too long about it, but here is what I came up with:
- We got still an alternative to the old duals: the shock-dual manabase that enables multicolr decks as well but to a slightly higher price (play-wise). Therefore very colorful decks are still playable (in theory). Three color lists will still be playable for sure.
- It will reduce the financial barrier for new players a lot. The shock duals will be reprinted if their price rises too high and I'm quite optimistic that the fetchlands will see a reprint in the upcoming two or three blocks. (Resulting in more highlander players? - That question I cannot answer straight away.)
- It will make a 5c manabase very costy in matchups against aggro decks, therefore giving the goodstuff decks at least one (don't want to say "bad") worse matchup in comparison to the situation right now.
- Will it make control decks less playable? First I thought it will, but I'm not so sure about that anymore... it seems like the most played classical control decks are UBx and UWx nowadays - often without a third color as a splash. These decks already play quite a lot basics and are fine with that. They will loose one (important card) but still their manabase will change far less than the bases in other decks. Therefore, I assume that these decks will not suffer so much by a ban of the old duals.
- What I'm a little concerned about are the die hard combo decks that need fast access to different colored mana...
- The bad point about a ban: HL will feel less an eternal format without the old duals.
I would be happy to read some oppinions about that... maybe I just missed some important points.
At first +1 for Finland for testing this and +1 to you for the upload!
Interesting
- that RDW has not Top3'd
- absence of non-basic hate in the Top 3
- that somebody chooses lftl in the moment where fetchlands are gone
- to see a BRW deck in the Top 3 (I was not aware that BRW is a deck at all ;))
Regarding Fetch vs Dual:
I see the main differences in time consuming fetchlands and non-basic hate foiling the dual land fun. I have no testing results, so no vote for me here. At first I wanted the fetchland ban because I am lazy but it is possible that non-basic hoser would be too mighty then...I don´t know.
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.
You should not forget that Highlander is a non-official Format, Fetchlands cannot be banned such a drastic move would lead to people making their own local rules which would then make your banned list and this Forum obsolete.
and let me add this:
Fetchlands are fun to play with, the strategic deep they provide add alot of thrill to a game of Highlander.
There are alot of decisions to make when fetching for a land, the right time to dodge stifle/search deny effects, opponents non-basic hate etc. Fetching for a wrong land in one of the early turns can always cost you the game in the long run. This is what makes Highlander so interesting, limited resources and perfect timing.
You are taking the heart from this game should you really decide to ban these cards.
I`m really suprised there are people who claim to like Highlander that want to see these cards banned.
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 feel like this might be the case on lower level play, not in competetive tournaments.
UW-Control is 2 coloured, extremly stable and can beat everything if played well.
same goes for decks like boros or any counter-burn archetype.
You improve your game dude and everything will be fine :)
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?
don`t be mad i just wanted to give you a useful tip,invest more time in playing the game and you will find ways how to deal with various cards.
Bannings cannot be the solution for a lack of experience, thats´s the whole point.
~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.
ah so you agree this whole banning discussion was pointless? thank you sir ;D
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.
I like the idea of attacking the mana base with bannings, but I feel like it pushes mono red and mono white over the top. Of course you can still run UW Control, which is a really strong deck and is not hurt much with such bannings. In fact most 2 color control decks are not hurt much (this is what Deeamer stated previously I think). Those Fetchland banned tournaments are a quite interesting approach and I really like to see some more results before I am convinced about those bans.
The option, banning the old duals is also an interesting idea, but being dealt even more damage for mana fixing will only benefit mono red as well. Especially when the opponent is forced to play untapped lands to make a move against a deck this aggressive.
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.
Can we just go back to the tutordiscussion?
I give you a quick summary of tutors i saw being played (noticed):
NATURAL ORDER
needs to go
OATH OF DRUIDS
needs to go - yeah i know we guys from würzburg play it ourselves and we love it but it´s really to strong
STONEFORGE MYSTIC
MIRAGE
DEMONIC
TAINTED PACT
ELADAMRIS CALL
GREEN SUNS ZENITH
do we really want al those cards in our format...
discuss!
Natural Order is a really strong card, that can win out of nowhere, but I think Tabris has quite a point in his statement (Thoughts about the Current HL-situation thread). It is not always autowin (of course Primeval Titan is a strong card and it is searched in about 90% of the cases) and it is conditional. A turn three sac mana-dude NO into titan or something else IS strong, but even with spoiler mulligan you have this in one of 10 games. I myself am quite neutral about this card. I don't mind if it stays and I'm not unhappy if it goes.
Oath on the other hand deserves a ban. The conditions are just too easy to achieve.
SFM: Again quite neutral, annoying creature, finds strong equipments, enables batterskull if not handled.
The Mirage Tutors are really strong, all but worldly tutor should stay or be banned (the enlightened tutor unban was a mistake imo)
Worldly mostly finds an answer or if played early SFM. Dont think he is too strong, because creatures are the type of cards that are handled the easiest.
Call is again a creature tutor, but one that cantrips. It is stronger than Worldly, but again, "only" finds a creature and most often an answer and not an additional threat.
Green Suns Zenith is fair imo, cause you have to pay quite a lot for stronger creatures. Again, mostly finds answers.
Demonic is quite often the only real argument to play black. Sorcery speed, but again cantrips. Finds combo pieces as well as answers and threats. Combo pieces here includes also a missing spell in a reanimator, not only something for "pure" combo decks. Not quite sure about this one, think the sorcery speed renders him fair.
Tainted Pact: Too situational, many decks that could play him don't it. Again fair imo.