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On Demonic Tutor and its potential Ban

Started by Bobz0rd, 25-03-2017, 09:24:19 AM

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Bobz0rd

Hi fellow Highlander Players,

since there likely will be some changes to the banned list soon, I would like to provoke a discussion about potential upcoming changes to Demonic Tutor and share my thoughts on it.
Surveys at MGM and the Highlander Grand Prix have shown that quite some people think Demonic Tutor should be banned. I am not one of them and I am convinced the card needs to stay in our format and I will tell you why. As you can see it is quite a bit of Text but please stay with me. :)



1. How would a potential Demonic Tutor ban affect certain archetypes?

There are basically three archteypes that use Demonic Tutor: Combo, Control and Midrange. Since there is mostly RDW as a viable aggro Deck, besides some fringe options, I do not think a DT ban would affect that archetype too much.

Combo:
I think combo would be the Archetype that would suffer the most from a ban on Demonic Tutor. It would take away consistency from those Decks. In the last couple of tournaments we have had more midrange and aggro decks putting up good results than combo. Besides from Scapeshift and the the 5c Artifact Deck we haven't seen a lot of them. Storm has basically disappeared and we do not see many reanimator decks either.
Although I dislike playing against solitaire decks myself and It does feel miserable to lose against them I want to see combo decks in our Format. Diversity is good and makes Tournament experience interesting. Weakening Combo is not a good option in my opinion.

Control:
Black Control would suffer a little less, but still hard enough. In those Decks Demonic Tutor mostly finds you a win condition or an answer. As a control-player myself I feel that the flexibility DT provides is very much needed. It is difficult to find the right mix of answers, threads, silver bullets and win conditions for your deck. Having cards that can be either is very important. Yes, Control also has mystical Tutor and I think the card is even better than DT for control, because you don't have to "tap out" on your turn to find what you need. Anyways, taking DT away makes it even more difficult to find the right answers in any given matchup. Besides, there haven't been a lot of black control decks or DT-Splashing control Decks in the last top 8s either. Why make it even harder for them?

Midrange:
Black midrange Decks would feel the DT ban the least. Those decks are packed with Goodstuff Creatures and Planeswalkers, have a high thread density and thus high redundancy. They want to present threats and ask for answers. (As well they have Tainted Pact, which cannot be consistently played by the majority of control Decks.) Mostly it does not matter too much whether you slam a Kaya, Thrun or Leovold. If DT was banned – well – I am sure there are enough value PWs or Creatures waiting in the maybeboard to take its place. I might be exaggerating a little bit, but I think most of it is true. Besides, there are Midrange Decks like Jeskai putting up good results consistently without having access to DT.


To Sum it Up, I think Black Control and Combo would get hit the most and those Decks are and have not been overrepresented in recent Top8s. Banning DT would give Midrange decks an even bigger edge against the other Archetypes since creatures are so powerful these days and oftentimes hard to answer. Especially with the potential unbanning of Stoneforge Mystic on the horizon there might be another 2 Mana thread running around which needs you to find an answer right away.

2. What does DT do and is it too good?
Most people in favor of a DT ban argue, that DT is the best Card in the format and thus needs to go. I partly agree with the statement that it is the best Card, because it is basically every Card in your Deck. Plus 2 Mana. But that is the Limit. And having to pay the 2 Mana extra to get your card oftentimes isn't nothing. Especially in the Mid-Game if you have access to 4-5 Mana. Sometimes you don't have the time to get the real optimal card because of mana limitations. Or you have to anticipate what you will need (which can go very wrong). So the playing DT is not a no-brainer and involves some thinking and leads to interesting lines of play.
Of course it is insane in Top-Deck Mode and often leads to a win. And for combo Decks the whole story might be a bit different, because they can look for a key piece of their combo. In those cases it also might let you win instantly. In Control or Midrange this is not the Case though. Don't get me wrong, the card is strong, but not busted or oppressive by any means in my opinion.

Very important in my opinion: What DT (and other tutor effects) also allow you to do, is to play silver bullets against certain bad matchups, which is great. Highlander Decks do not have a Sideboard so it is much harder to gain some percentage points against Bad matchups. You can't beat everything but DT can help you make your Deck a little better against weak spots without having to commit too much and make your other matchups worse.
In general DT decreases variance in our Format which isn't a bad thing for a 100 Card singleton format. I even think it gives you more deckbuilding options and creates diversity instead of taking it away.

3. The Metagame is quite diverse and not Dominated by DT!
So I took a look at the decklists of the recent 9 bigger HL Tournaments we had back to MGM #6 and Broke down the Archetypes. Out of 72 Top8 Decks there were:
15 Control Decks (4 of which Played Demonic, 11 did not, none splashed for DT)
29 Midrange Decks (17 with DT, 12 without, none splashed for DT)
15 Combo Decks (All of them played DT)
13 Aggro Decks. (12 did not play DT and 1 Deck splashed for it. It was Dion's mono Ub Wizards)

Sidenotes:
- In Total 37 Decks played Demonic Tutor, 35 did not. That's a pretty even distribution. The only Azorious Control Deck was NOT splashing Demonic. The   Only one doing it was Dion's Mono Blue Wizards Aggro Deck.
- 8 of the 15 Combo Decks were Scapeshift variants. I put them into this Category since Scapeshift mostly is the primary wincondition although they play more as a control Deck, so you might put them into this Category.
- I found only 2 non-RDW Aggro Decks.
- The Only Control Decks that Played Demonic were 2 Grixis lists, 1 Mardu and 1 Sultai Control. The Rest was basically UR and very few Mono U and a Jeskai Control deck. (True control, not midrange)

4. Last thoughts:

The arguments against Demonic I recall have been
a.   "The Card is so Good, Decks even splash for only Demonic"
- I think my summary of the Metagame has shown that this is not true (anymore). UWb Decks seem to have fallen out of favor and for the people playing the Deck splashing for DT is not a slam Dunk (anymore).
- The most successful Control Deck (UR) also does not splash for Demonic. I know Payron has tinkered with the Idea but as far as I know, the version he tried was by no means superior to the straight UR version.

b.   "It is the best Card in the Format"
- Well. That does not convince me. Just because it is said to be the best Card, it does not mean it needs to be banned. Brainstorm is the best card in legacy but it stays there. (Although I know some people also suggest for it to be put on the banned list.) Brainstorm defines and warps that format though. I would not say that DT does the same with ours.
- If DT goes, there will be another best Card. And after that another. Those cards might be more difficult to identify but should they be banned as well? I don't think the "best card argument" really is a valid one.

I know it feels miserable to lose against a (top-decked) Demonic. But it also feels miserable to lose against RDW when you resolved a Siege Rhino, equipped it with Sword of light and shadow and connected 3 times (Yes, happened), as well as losing to combo Decks without being able to interact at all. There are feel-bad situations in Magic. We should accept that and move on.

Last but not least Bans and Unbans should be used to make a format better, create diversity, maybe help underrepresented Decks to shine again or get rid of oppressive cards that are so good that you basically can only either play them or try to beat them. I do not see that in our current format at all. And by no means have I ever heard anyone say "I can never beat Demonic Tutor Decks! I guess I need to join them!". We play a high power level format. Some Decks do busted things. But I haven't encountered a truly oppressive Deck lately. People adapted to the 5c Artifact deck or learned to play against it and so will we try to adapt to the RDW menace. I think our format is at a very healthy state at the moment. So I do not think we need to fix a problem that doesn't exist. I am even convinced that taking DT out of our format could decrease diversity and push Decks that are viable or close to being viable out of competition.

Thanks for staying with me through this Wall of Text! Maybe I was able to convince some people that DT isn't too bad, maybe even needed in our format. At least I hope to have provoked some new thoughts on that matter. Feel free to share your thoughts.

Cheers
Max






DarkLight

There is no way that 'Demonic Tutor' will be banned. It effects to many different decktypes in to many different ways. Some decks will be hit hard (especially Combodecks) other decks will not care very much (mostly Midrangedecks like '4cBlood').
The fact that so many different deckstypes have access to this card, shows for me it won't be banned, unless a deck/decktype is totally dominating the format because of cards like 'Demonic Tutor', which is not happening at the moment.
I think there are some other cards which having a much higher potential for discussion:

Quote from: Vazdru on 11-03-2017, 12:44:57 PM
          Facebook Poll                                        Highlander Cup Poll
3.     Mana Drain                   25 votes     2.     Mana Drain                 6     15,38% 
5.     Dig Through Time        12 votes     7.     Dig Through Time      3     7,69%   
6.     Tolarian Academy        10 votes     4.     Tolarian Academy      4     10,26%      
Formerly known as With-FuLL-Force.

derStefan82

As I wrote a lot about this topic in other threads my points again.

I highly agree with the above statements.

Some examples from my experience:

DT allows you to turn 3 Oath of Druids with Turn 4 first activation.
This is super fair as you are already on an edge to die before against RDW or good Curve aggro (you wasted 2 turns playing dt and oath already without interacting much with what the opponent played).

Using some 3 mana Tutor is just a lot of the time not good enough anymore as you do not survive until turn 5.
There was a time where those 3 mana tutors or transmuters where mostly fast enough but this is not anymore the case.

I event don't play Grim Tutor because it is just to late to much damage.


Regarding archetypes:

I agree that Combo will loose most out of it and it will have even harder times to compete with Aggro (which should not be the case).
Non UR Control lists will weaken as well as they loose one generic answer.
So you are basically strongen all of the current best decks and weaken the brews / already tier 1.5 decks.


Ban/Unban:

Demonic Tutor: I can understand that is likely one of the best cards in the format but it just feels fair to me (considering the speed of the format)

Tainted Pact: This is a card I stopped playing in combo decks at all, you so often see that you exile important deck pieces and it's incredible difficult to do right in those decks. On the other hand in Goodstuff decks it's like an instant DT.
I think if you want to ban a Tutor for weakening Goodstuff decks only this might be the right one.

Mystical Tutor: This one is really good for both Control and Combo, banning this would potentially weaken UR but Combo pretty hard as well.
My personal feeling is that it's ok to have it.

Imperial Seal: This is a better Personal Tutor where I think Personal Tutor is a card on the edge of being good enough to be playable.
I think the card disadvantage + life loss is huge in our format. My personal feeling is that it would be good having it in the format additional to the other ones as it gives combo another faster tutor to deal with the clock.

Vampiric Tutor: Clearly the strongest Tutor out there, I like the idea of having this instead of DT to have all mirage tutors in the format and to increase the speed of non aggro decks. But I understand people don't want this beast in the format.


Other tutors:

I think there are some blowout green tutor effects as well which you need to consider as well like Eldritch Evolution or Eladamri's Call.
Getting specific answers in goodstuff/aggro decks is easier then ever as you have a lot more of those multi effect creatures and spells (commands for example).
There where times when playing a moat was a pretty pressing thing for an aggro deck because you had to decide if you play more enchantmen/artifact hate and therefore weakening your aggro plan. Nowadays you mostly can have both in one spell and you have tutor effects.


My personal preferences for changes right now would be:
Unban Stoneforge:    all players seem to want it
Unban Imperial Seal: giving Combo decks a way to beat aggro decks easier

Don't ban Demonic tutor

Bobz0rd

#3
I don't know if unbanning imperial Seal would be the right way to go. I catually think the Card is too strong. It is another DT effect and yes it has downsides like card disadvantage and life loss. But the fact it costs only 1 Mana is scary and makes it so much harder to interact with than demonic.
It is a lot faster than Demonic, soft counters like Spell Pierce, Daze, Miscalculation etc. mostly can't hit it. Spell Snare does not hit it! And you can "sneak" it in with your spare mana a lot earlier than DT.


And unbanning Stoneforge. Well, I see the community wants it. But the Card scares me a lot. It is a 2 Drop threat that demands an answer right away. No other Creature does that in my opinion. Sure we have very strong 2 Drops but none that puts you at a very strong disadvantage if you let your opponent untap with it.
In addition I think it might actually pull the metagame towards certain colors: White and Red. White because, well, you can play SFM then and red because red has the most efficient and consistent answers to SFM in the form of burnspells (Also artifact removal). And i feel that Red is already a very present color in our metagame.

If it gets unbanned in might be similar to when Natural Order was unbanned. In Midrange matchups, the one who resolves or untaps with SFM first mostly wins.
It might not be that extreme or I also might be completely wrong though. Maybe it helps keeping RDW in check a little better so I think we could give it a try. As long as the right measures are taken if it ends up being too strong. I wouldn't be mad if if stayed on the Banlist though :)

What about Entomb? I think the Card is totally fine. I don't think it would make reanimator too strong and it actually might have some implications for other Decks that use the Graveyard or Yawgmoth's will.



DarkLight

I can't understand the fear about unbanning 'Stoneforge Mystic', we have a lot more cards to answer it as we had when she was banned, just to name a few cards as example:
- Reclamation Sage
- Kolaghan's Command
- Unexplectedly Absent
- Fatal Push
- Council's Judgement
- Dack Fayden


There are some more problematic cards in the format as I mentioned before and which are also mentioned in the polls.
Formerly known as With-FuLL-Force.

Goblin-Diplomaten

QuoteSo I took a look at the decklists of the recent 9 bigger HL Tournaments we had back to MGM #6 and Broke down the Archetypes. Out of 72 Top8 Decks there were:
15 Control Decks (4 of which Played Demonic, 11 did not, none splashed for DT)
29 Midrange Decks (17 with DT, 12 without, none splashed for DT)
15 Combo Decks (All of them played DT)
13 Aggro Decks. (12 did not play DT and 1 Deck splashed for it. It was Dion's mono Ub Wizards)

I am not alone.

http://mtgpulse.com/event/27256#356721

http://mtgpulse.com/event/27256#356929

http://mtgpulse.com/event/27256#356715

http://mtgpulse.com/event/27177#355894

http://mtgpulse.com/event/26938#353688

http://mtgpulse.com/event/26830#352463

http://mtgpulse.com/event/26614#350340

http://mtgpulse.com/event/26614#350336

http://mtgpulse.com/event/26258#346693

http://mtgpulse.com/event/26004#344084

http://mtgpulse.com/event/25478#339374


ChristophO


Thanks for the discussion here. As a council member I would like to give my input as well. For a long time I have also been convinced the Demonic tutor is good and needed in the format and that the format is fine with Demonmic arguably being the strongest card in it. However my opinion has shifted recently because I actually started thinking about which decks are enabled by Demonic (and Tainted Pact) the most.

HL as a format is typically full of goodstuff decks because of the singleton nature of the format playing 4 or even all 5 colors. For those decks Demonic tutor and Tainted pact together triple the amount of silver bullets (with Eladamri's call often helping as well) while having a low enough cmc to not turn the tutoring into too much trouble (a state ment which would not be true for Diabolic tutor). However in many games there will be no possibilites to lock up the game with a silver bullet and Demonic T./T. pact is just cashed in for a 'fair' answer. This is why tutors in good stuff decks most of the time do not cause card disadvantage or other downsides. For combo decks such decisions play a very minor role. They mostly care about assembling  thier winning combo and are willing to pay the price.

This is why I am convinced that banning Tainted Pact and Demonic Tutor both would be the right choice. It will remove silver bullet tutoring from greedy 4c midrange decks. Lowering the power of those decks significantly and making 3color midrange/goodstuff decks more apealing in comparision. It will also force players to a bigger extent to make hard card choices while constructing their deck and make an activve decision at the deck list level about which kind of deck archetypes they are expecting the most or need the most help against.

Combo would also lose Demonic tutor but that could be fixed by adding Imperial seal. A card that hopefully has enough of a downside to not attract play in goodstuff decks (though I am not 100% sure about that statement). Being sorcery speed and costing a card (as well as 2 life points) would hopefully be enough to make it a rather unusual choice in a deck like 4c Blood. Reflecting about the latest council discussions in March I think it is a very real possiblity that there will be an Imperial Seal unban sometime in the future. However nothing has been decided and yet and discussions are very open ended. So it is the perfect time to be part of the discussion either here or locally to help make up your own mind (and ours) and let us know about it. 

       

Remi

#7
Banning Demonic Tutor is a bad idea, Because:

Banning DT would weaken "decks with a plan", and strenghten goodstuff-value decks. Goodstuff decks (that have already been very presented in HL meta) have tons of cards waiting to fill the hole that DT would leave. Combo decks don't really have any good alternatives. Banning DT would lead to less diverse meta.




If you are Looking to ban a tutor that would weaken 3-5c goodstuff-value decks, it would be Tainted Pact:

-Tainted Pact can't really be played by "decks with a plan" because you end up exiling you winning cards with the exile effect. Therefore, it is mostly played only by goodstuff decks.

-Tainted Pact is an instant, which makes it really powerful compared to sorcery speed DT

-Tainted pact bypasses many cards that are used to prevent searching library, like Shadow of Doubt, Aven mindcensor or Leonin Arbiter just to give few examples.

Maqi

#8
Let me try to make this sound not too know-it-all (a little bit at least): Everyone who still considers banning a black tutor to be correct, hasn't played much highlander lately. If there has ever been a problem  (which I doubt) it's a moot point by now.

The metagame has shifted radically. To those who still think they are banworthy, I suggest getting back in touch with what's actually going on right now.

Goblin-Diplomaten

QuoteThe metagame has shifted radically. To those who still think they are banworthy, I suggest getting back in touch with what's actually going on right now.


Please tell me "what's actually going on right now"

I played 3 FNM's with the new unbannings and can't see a radical shift in our metagame.

Maqi

Age of Aquarius is what's going on. Afaik this is also true for Berlin.

TwoFinGaZ

QuoteAge of Aquarius is what's going on
Wat?

DarkLight

Blue decks controling the meta in Highlander at the moment, mostly UR and Jeskai
Formerly known as With-FuLL-Force.

Goblin-Diplomaten

But that's nothing new... UR/RDW is dominating for half a year now.

I thought you were talking about a radical shift since the unban of Stoneforge.

It may be irrelevant for you to discuss the overall power level of DT but some of us think it is still too powerful for HL even though it may not be in the strongest deck at the moment. If you want to discuss other cards/decks feel free to open up a new thread.

Bobz0rd

The point of bannings however is to create a better or more diverse Metagame. Keeping Decks in Check that regularly crush tournaments, that are too hard to counter if you don't join them and warp a format.

Just banning DT for being "too strong for HL" despite it not showing up in the most dominant Decks at the moment will not help the format. It should be about Decks you need to weaken or opening up new Deck building spaces. Not about a personal Vendetta you have with a card.