1st. of April 2010 - New HL bans

[pyyhttu]

The new HL bannnings/unbannings have been published to the index page of magicplayer.org (automated Google Translate version here) by Sturmgott a short while ago.

In a nutshell the changes are:

Banned:

• Entomb
• Grindstone
• Mind Twist
• Survival of the Fittest

Unbanned:

• Painter's Servant
• Power Artifact

Unban-Watchlist:

• Flash
• Protean Hulk
• Worldgorger Dragon

Ban-Watchlist

• Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
• Survival of the Fittest
• Life from the Loam
• Sneak Attack

Other game specific changes:

The recommended minimum round time will be 60 minutes.

Edit: Forgot the Ban-Watchlist changes. Added.

[Tiggupiru]

I think this is a major step in the right direction. All the banned cards were clearly problematic and unfun to play against. It is great to see things shaken up a bit with the unbannings as well. I am anxious to see what the players will come up with in this environment.

[so_not]

Whoa, my reanimator just died, but on the other hand I think the council made decent job here. Interesting to see how the format will react to this. Thanks for banning Mind Twist! (if this is not an april fools joke...)


(I'll start complaining about Library, Gifts, Loam and other stuff later again )

[Tabris]

So we have to wait until the weekend to get the motivations for the bannings. But I appreciate the banning of Survival and the unbanning of painter.

Dont know about Entomb. Since Reanimator got nerfed with the banning of buried alive (yea yea nobody was playing it...) and dread return (CC4 reanimatore spell are rare to find) and now Survival (for the lists which had green) I see this kind of deck "dying".

About Mind Twist: Seems ok. Nothing to complain. Sometimes a random win vs control (like Rude Awakening ) or a dead card vs aggro.

Power Artifact: Dont see if its imba to get infinite mana with Monolith...we´ll see.

Watchlist:

Protean Hulk: Well its a fun creature and to see it again in the decks would be nice. But it can be rly broken with any recurring engine..dont know.

Sneak Attack: I assume its there bc of the new eldrazi?

Just first impressions; I wait with my complains about LoA until the weekend

btw. I forbid any shenanigans with 1st of April!

[Tiggupiru]

Dont know about Entomb. Since Reanimator got nerfed with the banning of buried alive (yea yea nobody was playing it...) and dread return (CC4 reanimatore spell are rare to find) and now Survival (for the lists which had green) I see this kind of deck "dying".

I have hard time imagining its complete demise, as Entomb was clearly nuts, but the deck never relied on finding it anyway. I think it still is one of the most powerful archetypes around and it keeps getting potetial goodies from pratically every new set released. I am really glad it got hit, as before the bans, it was a monster (stupid Iona).

[Dreamer]

The changes are, for the most part, good. I'm happy about the Painter-Stone change, Mind Twist being gone, neutral about Entomb and, as a Survival player, a bit sad to see the green thing go. Still, especially now with Iona's printing, Survival and Entomb were pretty much necessary bans.

What I'm somewhat mystified by is that Library of Alexandria wasn't banned, as the card is quite ridiculous and luck-based.

[GoblinPiledriver]

I think the bannings are good, but the Fact that today is 1.April make me think that the Banning of Survival is 90% fake and Mind Twist 20%.

In my oppinion every overpowered card  should be banned:

Oath of Driuds(I know Control is not dominating, but this card is totally overpowerde though,just think of the new Eldrazi

Library of Alexandria (Do you really think that it's normal for a land to draw cards just by tapping and it prdouzes mana)

Survival of the Fittest ( Maybe now you have realized that this card is dominating the format)

DemonicTutor  ( Every other Tutor for every thing cost 4(This card is the favorite of Sturmgott)

Bazzar of Bagdad   ( This card belongs to P9)

[meteora]

In my oppinion every overpowered card  should be banned:

Oath of Driuds(I know Control is not dominating, but this card is totally overpowerde though,just think of the new Eldrazi

Library of Alexandria (Do you really think that it's normal for a land to draw cards just by tapping and it prdouzes mana)

Survival of the Fittest ( Maybe now you have realized that this card is dominating the format)

DemonicTutor  ( Every other Tutor for every thing cost 4(This card is the favorite of Sturmgott)

Bazzar of Bagdad   ( This card belongs to P9)

He is completely right nothing more to say...

Except from Winterorb ( Aggro is dominating the meta anyway and this one is only 2 colorless mana! )

[kmzandrew]

I think the bannings are good, but the Fact that today is 1.April make me think that the Banning of Survival is 90% fake and Mind Twist 20%.

In my oppinion every overpowered card  should be banned:

Oath of Driuds(I know Control is not dominating, but this card is totally overpowerde though,just think of the new Eldrazi

Library of Alexandria (Do you really think that it's normal for a land to draw cards just by tapping and it prdouzes mana)

Survival of the Fittest ( Maybe now you have realized that this card is dominating the format)

DemonicTutor  ( Every other Tutor for every thing cost 4(This card is the favorite of Sturmgott)

Bazzar of Bagdad   ( This card belongs to P9)

Besides survival and library none of those cards seem all that problematic to me.

Oath is a monster, but control is extremely weak as is and with enlightened tutor gone it isn't that easy to land an early oath. Oath is also one of the few ways control can end games quickly which is important if you ask me.

Bazaar of Baghdad has never impressed me. It is nowhere near as powerful as LoA or even workshop. I think workshop and bazaar are fine as is.

Demonic is powerful, but I like having tutors. I also don't see it doing anything inherently stupid. Gifts is much more of an I win card that demonic, but I dislike banning tutors anyway. I would like to see enlightened and mystical unbanned tbh.

[Nastaboi]

I do appreciate the changes, all of them. I was browsing Highlandermagic.info yesterday, seeing Power Artifact banned and thinking "WTF is this card doing here?" and then it was instantly removed. These changes will do good to the format. Entomb was maybe most broken card in the list, and banning it is just in line with all other good 1cc instant tutors being banned. I admit that I have been rather frustrated when the council seemed to deny problems in certain cards, but this move proves the opposite. I apologize my harsh words. Still, let the debate on some cards continue after the dust settles on these bannings.

[Mythrandir]

Well, but of mixed feelings in that new list.

Mind twist banned but no LoA? Weird...
Survival --- didn't played with it, but liked playing vs it. I'd prefer to see a ban on squee first, since it's the big engine behind SOFT and see how SOFT would be played after that..
Entomb... yeah, probaly a good choice, random fatty on turn two is just too powerful in our format...

As for bazaar (someone mentioned it...) i think it's too much specific to be of any serious threat IMO. Unless it starts to dominate, i think it's ok, (just like workshop)

Sneak attack? hmmm.. either there's some super scret tech deck out there, or probably it's because of eldrazi (entomb too?)

I really wish they started watching "balance"... nice good card to wreak super fast aggro plays Would love to run it, even if for a brief period.

[kmzandrew]

I really wish they started watching "balance"... nice good card to wreak super fast aggro plays Would love to run it, even if for a brief period.

Balance is way too easy to abuse. I think its easily one of the most powerful cards on the banned list and should stay there. It would fit great into my stax deck, but it is really broken. Some friends and I played points singleton in the past and you can easily build a deck that spits out a ton of artifact mana while digging for balance and then just wins. In that format if you did run balance you were at least very restricted on what other tutors and draw 7's you could run because of the points list, but here you can run balance in stax along with things like timetwister and windfall to refuel your hand. I personally think trinisphere is a much fairer card and it really only dominates against aggro. Most midrange and control decks can at least answer it or function to a certain extent. Its also a dead topdeck lategame while balance is just insane at all times. Sorry to beat the same drum again, but I just really miss playing with trinisphere 

[imppu]

Nice to see the good direction the council is heading. Finally something healthy for the format happening. Only three more cards to go (Demonic, Library and Gifts or Loam). Would give me 3 more slots in every deck. Keep it up.

Survival --- didn't played with it, but liked playing vs it. I'd prefer to see a ban on squee first, since it's the big engine behind SOFT and see how SOFT would be played after

Squee wouldn't hurt survival at all. Nice to see you commenting on cards you haven't played with. Maybe it's not auto win against your deck, but sure is against many others.

I really wish they started watching "balance"... nice good card to wreak super fast aggro plays Would love to run it, even if for a brief period.

Once again you prove how much you know about the format or MTG in general. I can see why the council has hard time listening to the crowd when people are asking for cards like Balance to be unbanned. No one is stopping you from running it if you want to play casual with your pals. It's just a card that will never even get a glimpse of the unban hammer.

[coldcrow]

There are certainly misconceptions about balance. To really abuse it, you have to build your deck around it. That means very likely some kind of artifact accel deck = Stax. Now i don't actually see stax being competetive right now, so Balance would help it.

You can't just fit in Balance in any control deck and expect it to work.

[Mythrandir]

Squee wouldn't hurt survival at all. Nice to see you commenting on cards you haven't played with. Maybe it's not auto win against your deck, but sure is against many others.

Survial decks are, better, were. Really hard to beat because could easily fetch anything to solve every problem, but squee was the big engine behind, it enable every turn a free (for G, obviously) creature tutor. Without squee, you could have genesis, krovikan horror, etc, etc, but these are suboptimal. Without squee you would change your draw (if you happened to draw a creature for another creature) That's quality draw. With squee not only are you getting quality draw, but you're getting card advantage. You'r not trading 1:1 as survival was (probably) designed for.
As for the fact of commenting on cards i've never played... let's just say that phrase is narrow minded to say the least.

Once again you prove how much you know about the format or MTG in general. I can see why the council has hard time listening to the crowd when people are asking for cards like Balance to be unbanned. No one is stopping you from running it if you want to play casual with your pals. It's just a card that will never even get a glimpse of the unban hammer.

Balance, in vaccum, well, is balanced (sorry for the pun..) The only deck, that really could abuse it, would be stax, where it would be LD, mindtwist and WOG, just for 2 CMC. In any other deck, it would balance out the game, yes a lot of times it could turn the tables, but so do other cards. If you expect your deck to find everytime balance FTW, well good luck with that.

I for one, would like for my maches to pass turn 5 or 6.. and not to end in 10 minutes, vs aggro. And, yes i prefer playing an 1h match vs a survival deck and losing, that winning in 10 minutes with a linear aggro deck. So, if my comments really upset you so much, you can always not read them.