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Banned List October 2014 feedback

Started by MMD, 17-10-2014, 02:21:08 PM

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Tabris

#30
@Maqi: I will post an updated list

@Christoph: I am with you here regarding "the deck x has y% against z" thats why I find it hilarious that someone actually said that. As you already said, HL has a much higher variance and therefore you cant predict the outcome of many matchups (but in some regards we have a pretty good intution what the outcome will be fueled by our experiences)

TA is always involved in the T1/2/3 scenario (except for an oath win) for instance the starting hand of my opponent last week: LED, Wheel of Fortune, City of Traitors, Chromatic Sphere, Frantic Search, Mox Opal, X, which lead to a T2 kill bc he drew Crop Rotation from the top and managed to cast TimeSpiral, Wheel of Fortune in T1 and deployed 5 artifacts with one of them being Candelabra. Dont get me wrong I dont say "omg ban TA bc that happens all the time" but because the deck is designed to function like that and break TA (and maybe you can explain what is so funny about that statement because I didnt say there are only 2 decks in the format who can beat eggs but even IF there were enough even matchups the deck itself will generate a lot of solitaire turns)

Second Sunraise and Faith Reward are most of the time only value cards but can lead to wins with codex shredder so I would say banning them takes some amount of power from the deck but dont solve the problem itself. I try to talk with toffel about the decktech idea.

@Tiggu: When I talked about T1-3 kills I dont meant  Oath, that is just some icing on the cake (the occasionally oops I win draw). I agree the ban of TA would destroy that gem :<

@Vazdru: I would love to see more eggs variants popping up in the community but like OathTPS its not a deck you just pick up and play. It requires A LOT of playtesting and many patient opponents who are willing to give up some of their precious time. I ve won from so many angles with the deck I couldnt even imagine. My very first game with it lead to a T1 kill and at the beginning of the turn I didnt even realize that fact but while I played I came closer and closer to the core of the right path and let my opponent watch me 10 minutes preparing the kill (he was on TPSOath and had the T2 Doomsday kill :) )
Thats why you cant just say "oh if its so dominant why no one plays it?" well because its complicated.

Same is true for TPSoath. No one played this in the last HLCup and I was brewing with Alzheimer to improve his TPS build (sadly he got ill one day earlier) so he could easily bash all the tasty midrange decks and I imagine a lot of people would have voted for a ban of Oath if again a TPSoath deck would have won the Cup (the truth is, oath is not even that strong in the build we came closer to a doomsday/ad nauseam deck but included the occasional "oops I win" draw"). My point is, %appearance of a certain deck doesnt say anything about its powerlevel ( and that works in both ways ;) )

That said I understand the fact that you cant just "trust" us and have to see it for yourself but to get some people in your region to play the deck to its limits will not be easy.

Tabris

That is the current list we are using. I like to include Capsize in my builds as well as claws of gix. Toffel suggested to include Shivan Gorge to have some outs against Gy removal, so if you find a slot for that, test it.

1 Tropical Island
1 Savannah
1 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Scrubland
1 Bayou
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Arid Mesa
1 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Tree of Tales
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Windswept Heath
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Ancient Den
1 Vault of Whispers
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Tolaria West
1 City of Traitors
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Great Furnace
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Deserted Temple
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Volcanic Island
1 Crystal Vein
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Candelabra of Tawnos
1 Jeweled Amulet
1 Mind Stone
1 Mox Diamond
1 Mox Opal
1 Lotus Bloom
1 Lotus Petal
1 Second Sunrise
1 Open the Vaults
1 Faith's Reward
1 Sylvan Scrying
1 Prophetic Prism
1 Kaleidostone
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Conjurer's Bauble
1 Darkwater Egg
1 Mossfire Egg
1 Skycloud Egg
1 Shadowblood Egg
1 Sungrass Egg
1 Chromatic Sphere
1 Chromatic Star
1 Scroll of Avacyn
1 Sunbeam Spellbomb
1 Necrogen Spellbomb
1 Æther Spellbomb
1 Phyrexian Furnace
1 Lifespark Spellbomb
1 Scrabbling Claws
1 Crop Rotation
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Chrome Mox
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Wargate
1 Fabricate
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 Expedition Map
1 Reshape
1 Transmute Artifact
1 Artificer's Intuition
1 Frantic Search
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Oath of Druids
1 Time Spiral
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Memory Jar
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Thopter Foundry
1 Sword of the Meek
1 Auriok Salvagers
1 Rings of Brighthearth
1 Codex Shredder
1 Zuran Orb
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Voltaic Key
1 Mana Drain
1 Defense Grid
1 Brainstorm
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Intuition
1 Glimmervoid
1 Karakas
1 Terrarion
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Regrowth

Tiggupiru

Dedicated win-cons are the worst. You guys realize that you can win through GY hate as is?

tonytahiti

TonyTahiti: "There is too much 4cBlood glorification."
Vazdru: "I would love to play vs Eggs with The "dominator" 4cBlood".

You remind me of my littly nephew, he gets the most of my attention when doing exactly the opposite of what i say. Only difference: he is cute when he does it. If you think Rock with redsplash (4cBlood is just that, since red does nothing vs eggs, Rock has even better matchup because of that) has a shot in hell vs Eggs you need to come to earth or i need to buy toffel or jonny a ticket to mannheim and let them give you a reality check.

Also: Stoneforge Mystic needs to be unbanned as soon as possible and the Council needs to admit banning it was a mistake and rushed. In Berlin Highlander Players are playing Tiny Leaders now cause its legal there and it gives us a warm fuzzy feeling playing with it, it just baffles us that stoneforge mystic is banned
Winner - Pro HL Cup, Prague 2002
Winner - Highlander Regional Masters, Phuket 2006
Winner - Sunrise Trophy Run, Hawaii 2006
Winner - North Dakota HL Championships 2007
Winner - Tahiti "One And Only"-Cup #3, 2009
Winner - Gio di Gio Seria, Florenz, 2016
Winner - Jail or be Jailed, Berlin, 2017

ZeSword

For what it's worth, I would like to say that in French Duel Commander, there was the same issue of "it's not a powerful deck, nobody plays it" with Zur, the enchanter. This commander is now banned, because it's too much powerful (in the three possible decklists : Reanimator, Control or General-focused). The deck was not played at the beginning (or played with bad decklists), until someone took it to a major event with a good list, won, and everybody started to copy the decklist (nobody took the Reanimator decklist, though, because nobody could netdeck it, so when it was showed, everybody started to go for Oloro Reanimator... guess what happened). Then everybody figured out that it was that powerful.

So maybe the argument "it's not played" is not a good one, especially when talking about a format where a big event has only 100/150 people ! In French Duel Commander we have one pro player (Guillaume Wafo-Tapa) who designed 3 decklists, every decklist was original, and every decklist was in top8 when he (or one of his friends) played it. Well. If there was enough people like him, we could really look at top8s and say "this is too much powerful" or "this is ok". But since this doesn't happen (well, I've read that some HL players also have results in other formats, but still they are not the majority and I don't think they are top pro players), you have to admit that maybe there is a best decklist out there, which haven't been in top8 yet because nobody figured it out (or nobody has the money to buy te deck, or it's too hard to play, as you wrote), but still, which has to be stopped with the banhammer.

So I don't know about Tolarian Academy, but keep in mind that with only 100/150 people, that's not enough to see fast what is really too much powerful !

As for other cards, I posted before, but apparently it has gone unnoticed :)

Vazdru

Quote from: tonytahiti on 21-02-2015, 08:34:08 PM
TonyTahiti: "There is too much 4cBlood glorification."
Vazdru: "I would love to play vs Eggs with The "dominator" 4cBlood".

You remind me of my littly nephew, he gets the most of my attention when doing exactly the opposite of what i say. Only difference: he is cute when he does it. If you think Rock with redsplash (4cBlood is just that, since red does nothing vs eggs, Rock has even better matchup because of that) has a shot in hell vs Eggs you need to come to earth or i need to buy toffel or jonny a ticket to mannheim and let them give you a reality check.


omg ;D you are cute!
but maybe to can turn down your aggro-mode a bit and try to read posts twice before you make any silly comments?
I've never written I would believe i could win with Blood vs Eggs but I would like to play against it - maybe you'll find the small difference in both statements?
furthermore u've missed the quotation-marks or you tried to ignore it because you can't find any reasons for...
however, I said to myself i should better try to ignore your posts but sometimes I'm weak...me culpa...I will try to be focussed a bit more next time
Far below the earth
Where the demons hunt the souls of those that sleep
In the city of the Vazdru and the Drin
Where the black flame burns inside the palace fountain.

tonytahiti

#36
so we can summarize that you think i am cute and i dont think you are cute, yes? i figured.

then: this 4cblood obsession seems very naive and results obsessed. also 4 blood decks in this online semifinal: where is the innovation, where is the urge/drive to build something different and unique? i am disappointed. and 4c blood sounds fresh and wild, but sometimes i get the feeling some people dont realize its rock with redsplash? haha, i mean this obsession ist almost satirical, like people are proud of playing a simple goodstuff deck that everybody plays. we all know you top8 for the first time with 4cblood, but that doesnt mean you have to give all credit to the deck and no credit to yourself. maybe it was you who top8 and not the deck, give yourself more credit as a player, it might be helpful.
Winner - Pro HL Cup, Prague 2002
Winner - Highlander Regional Masters, Phuket 2006
Winner - Sunrise Trophy Run, Hawaii 2006
Winner - North Dakota HL Championships 2007
Winner - Tahiti "One And Only"-Cup #3, 2009
Winner - Gio di Gio Seria, Florenz, 2016
Winner - Jail or be Jailed, Berlin, 2017

ChristophO

Quote from: ZeSword on 11-12-2014, 07:50:55 PM
Just a few thoughts from a Duel Commander player

1. Fastbond is legal in Duel Commander since a lot of time now. Fastbond is really better when you have 30 life and a high-casting cost commander to cast (Maelstrom Wanderer for example). But even with that, it's not broken. Sure it wins games on turn 1 (Land, Fastbond, Land, Land, Lotus Cobra, Bounceland, Cast Commander, gg) but this can't be done in Highlander (no commander !). And if you really fear Zuran Orb + Fastbond + Crucible, just add some Naturalize-like effects to your deck, it's a 3 card combo with only enchantments / artifacts !

So I really think you should unban it (but maybe I miss something)


2. Natural Order : no, don't unban it ! Winning T3 just because you sac'ed an elf to get Titan or Terastodon isn't really interesting... (plus you could fetch Protean Hulk too and get this combo deck a really powerful outlet)


3. Entomb : we have it legal in Duel Commander, and yes sometimes it wins too early... but wait, we have that "spoils mulligan" rule which allows to keep "land + entomb" and see 4 other cards to get a reanimate-like. So with the normal mulligan you have, maybe it's worth testing. I really don't know, you should test a reanimator build with Entomb. Even with a spoils mulligan, it's under 10% of having Entomb + Reanimator on turn 2/3. So yes, it will make some free wins, but Back to Basics or Wasteland + Sinkhole too, and it's not easy to have it early with normal mulligan :)


4. Mystical Tutor : I don't see why you would ban it :
* if you lose to Price of Progress and don't want to see two copies of it in your opponent's deck it's your problem, not the banlist's one
* if you fear Miracles, ban Sensei's Divining Top instead ! :p [ok, I'm a bit exaggerating, but not that much]


5. On Stoneforge Mystic I really don't know. But a similar question that comes to my mind is : why do you have Skullclamp banned ? As far as I understand your format :
* Weenie White would be very much improved. Well, the weakest deck being improved, not a problem
* Other aggro deck usually don't play many elves, they prefer having many 4-mana silver bullets
* Combo and Control don't care.

So I don't know but maybe at least one of those two cards could be unbanned in my opinion, unless I miss something.

Since you asked for feedback:
1) Fastbond - For me this card has no safe mode. i will either be a dead card or completely break the game. I personally do not see a "safe" value gained by unbanning the card.
2) The card was legal for a long time together with Titan and Progenitus. People hated T3 Natural orders and the council was frequently asked to finally ban it. Fetching Hulk is fine and I did it sometimes but even in my Abzan Pattern Rector Deck NO Titan was used more often because it also was a win >80% of the time and much more robust in a LOT of circumstances.
The only way I will vote for this card to come back is without Titan in the format. Then Progenitus is still a problem.... so for me the chances for this are pretty slim...
3) There are enough Reanimate spells for 1 or 2 mana that I feel the card makes Reanimator - a perfectly viable deck (competitive in almost any meta - but not played much). I also dislike that you could alwasy pick the "best" fatty instead of having to choose between those that you can loot into the yard.
4) Agree
5) I do not like that the card is so strong against aggro. Nevertheless I am tending towards voting for an unban
6) Skullclamp makes combat impossible besides really boosting toughness one decks. I would be fine if the equipped creature could not attack and not block as a combo engine for creature decks like elves. In reality the card would be abused in goodstuff decks. 

Georg B

#38
@tonytahiti: I think this is the right place for my answer.

Quote from: tonytahiti on 28-02-2015, 03:05:40 PM
when replying to a post and talking about "legit arguments" one should make sure to actually check at least the two last pages of results. eggs won 2 times (you overlooked one) and conceded once in the finals to a friend (you couldnt know that). toffel i think played 5 tournaments with eggs and effectively won 2/3. and those are not small tournaments. people have been frustrated with academy for awhile here, its not just my sentiment. i would like to know who you are (i am sure you are from berlin, otherwise you wouldnt dare/claim to have an actual mattering opinion on this), we can have a discussion in private then.

You know, I did not want to say that the deck is not broken or that Academy should not be banned. I do not have a valid knowledge about that. I am not from berlin and I just tested the deck some time on cockatrice now. The problem I have with your arguments are (well besides that your way of arguing in this forum seems a bit harsh to me) that they are based on the results of just one player. And this player is a realy good player. Since highlander-tournaments tend to be not that competetive its no wonder to me that good players can earn good results quite often. Patrick Richter is the best example for that. But the difference could be ("could" be, this is just a theory) that his decks look more "fair" to the average player because it does not win out of nothing. I can understand that many players get annoyed if they are looking forward to their next turn to play their final burnspell or nice planeswalker or whatever, and then suddenly realize this turn will never happen...

Then again your argument, Eggs is making people stay at home instead of playing the tournament looks weird to me. I would expect the good players, which are confidant to make a good place at the tournament, to prepare for the metagame. There are definately good ways to fight Eggs... But then, the tournament before there were so few players, there was no Eggs-Deck.

I agree with you, it is a strong deck! And it is on the borderline to be broken, maybe it is. I try to figure that out by playing it at the online league. I think we need more results in different environments to see the truth.

I would risk to wait till the Metagame Masters... After that, maybe we know! I just hope some players bring their eggs to the tournament! ;)

btw. if Toffel played 5 tournaments with eggs and won 2... how do you come to the conclusion he won 2/3?

tonytahiti

i meant 2-3 (won 2, condeced once in the finals, another match he would have won very easily). i didnt mean 2 out of 3, i wasnt precise with my words there and i apologize. lets see what the metagame masters 2 brings (such a great tournament series btw, compliments to the creators).
Winner - Pro HL Cup, Prague 2002
Winner - Highlander Regional Masters, Phuket 2006
Winner - Sunrise Trophy Run, Hawaii 2006
Winner - North Dakota HL Championships 2007
Winner - Tahiti "One And Only"-Cup #3, 2009
Winner - Gio di Gio Seria, Florenz, 2016
Winner - Jail or be Jailed, Berlin, 2017

tonytahiti

i have great faith in the council that they will do the "right" thing (as representers of the community and their needs) and unban stoneforge in april. they will know that having oath, academy and mana drain (three cards that have far higher powerlevel and are banned in legacy until the end of time) NOT BANNED but stonerforge BANNED is ridiculous and make this format look like a joke from the ouside. the banned list is very important for a format to be taken seriously and we need a good banned list, that actually makes sense.the community puts their trust in the council and we are sure you wont disappoint us.
Winner - Pro HL Cup, Prague 2002
Winner - Highlander Regional Masters, Phuket 2006
Winner - Sunrise Trophy Run, Hawaii 2006
Winner - North Dakota HL Championships 2007
Winner - Tahiti "One And Only"-Cup #3, 2009
Winner - Gio di Gio Seria, Florenz, 2016
Winner - Jail or be Jailed, Berlin, 2017

Kenshin

That is your opinion. Stoneforge does not require a tailor made deck to function, if it comes down early it is always gamebreaking and being not banned in a format with 4 forces per deck is the worst argument ever. You are not the community. And you are even mostly wrong when looking at past debates. Always quick on the judgment, usually bad at reasoning and rude to the others. But thanks for your input anyway.

Maqi

You have to give tonytahiti props for his trolling skills, which over the past couple of years he has brought to an expert level! :)

Also, there is some truth in what he says. Tolarian Academy, Oath of Druids (and to a lesser extent Mana Drain) are far more powerful than Stoneforge Mystic in a vacuum, if something like a "power in the abstract" even exists. But I guess that is a question better left for metaphysical Magic discussions (which there should be more of ;) ).

There are two main reasons why Academy and Oath are unbanned whereas SM is not:

1. Both cards require building around them, which is significantly harder to do in a singleton format than for example in Legacy where the best and most relevant tools are available in quadruples.

2. The true brokenness of the cards only unfolds in a dedicated strategy (see point 1) which in return doesn't function without the card itself.

Basically we could sum up in a more abstract way with A(n) being abstract powerlevel values of cards and Syn(n,m) being power created through synergy between card n and card m:

Synergistic deck:
A1=1, A2=1, A3=1
Syn1,2=5, Syn1,3=5, Syn2,3=5

Struggling state: average powerlevel of card = 1
In full swing: total powerlevel with all relevant pieces enabled = 18

Goodstuff deck:
A1=4, A2=4, A3=4
Syn1,2=1, Syn1,3=1, Syn2,3=1

Struggling state: average powerlevel of card = 4
In full swing: total powerlevel with all relevant pieces enabled = 15


The crucial point now is this: In HL, you won't as easily be able to achieve "full swing" mode because it is harder to enable all your pieces. Therefore cards that shine in highly synergistic decks are relatively weaker here than compared to a format like Legacy.

Most often decks will find themselves in a "struggling state", and this is where Stoneforge Mystic shines, since she needs no synergies. She has it all built into herself.

Actually, Mana Drain is a lot closer to SM in comparison. It really doesn't need much to be very strong (synergistic requirements not 0 but relatively low). Consequently, you see Mana Drain in almost any blue deck just like you saw SM in almost any white deck. This is specifically not the case with TA and Oath of Druids, which are only to be found in very few archetypes.

That being said, I would argue to ban Mana Drain because it is as omnipresent as SM and too strong relative to the rest of the cardpool, constantly deciding games in an almost non-interactive and random fashion.

Cards like TA, Oath, Workshop etc. have to be considered for banning when "full swing" mode is achieved often enough so the average powerlevel of a given synergistic deck is high enough that is has to be considered better than other decks and therefore gets played by the majority.

Let p be the probability of achieving "full swing" for any given deck. With the values from above and p=40%:

Synergistic deck:
p = 0.4
Average powerlevel = 0.4 * 18 + 0.6 * 1 = 7.8

Goodstuff deck:
p = 0.4
Average powerlevel = 0.4 * 15 + 0.6 * 4 = 8.4

This kind of represents the current state of the HL metagame (and an arbitrary 6:4 matchup between goodstuff decks and synergy decks). Goodstuff decks will on average be better than synergistic decks. But you can see that if p(full swing) becomes higher (>0.5), the average powerlevel of the synergistic deck will surpass the goodstuff deck. This is where it becomes the best deck.

The art of banning, if you will, lies in the delicate balance of the numbers above and should optimally lead to a flat average powerlevel for every deck archetype.

derStefan82

@Maqi: Brilliant post, agree with everything.

In addition if you ban this "strategy" cards I assume we will end up with tournaments full of U(w|r) and Goodstuff decks and no big variance.

Those cards are a big reason for people playing different strategies which otherwise would not be possible.

From the tournament reports we are far away having from mostly Survival lists in the top 8's, at this time there was really a card which broke the format and you could see it (everywhere).

Maqi

#44
Thank you!

Survival of the Fittest is an excellent example by the way because it was a card that synergized with goodstuff. And that was far too good obviously. Similar case with Natural Order and Birthing Pod.